The Rich Roll Podcast - Alexis Fox & Micah Risk Are Igniting A Social Movement To Help The World Eat Better

Episode Date: August 29, 2016

Today finds us mired in an unprecedented health and environmental crisis of cataclysmic proportions. Heart disease, America's #1 killer, currently claims one out of every three lives. 70% of Americans are obese or overweight. By 2030, experts indicate that 30% of Americans will be diabetic or pre-diabetic. The heartbreaking culprit? SAD. But the Standard American Diet isn't just killing people, it's annihilating the planet. In fact, our system of industrialized animal agriculture is the #1 culprit when it comes to almost every single man made environmental ill on the planet. From mass species extinction to disappearing rainforests to giant algal ocean blooms, it's an indefensible and unsustainable modality wrecking unrivaled havoc on our oceans, rivers, streams, soil and animals. Meet Alexis Fox and Micah Risk — two entrepreneurs leveraging cutting edge technology to turn our epidemic of SAD into an outbreak of happy, healthy and sustainable for people and the planet alike. Their solution has a name. It's called Lighter. A powerful new online platform fueled by the latest in modern machine learning, Lighter aims to help the world eat better by leveraging the collective wisdom and experience of leading health gurus, athletes, super parents, and awe-inspiring world changers to provide everyday consumers across the globe with customized, convenient and insanely useful grocery lists, flexible weekly menus and soon even grocery delivery. It's an ambitious goal. But not only are Alexis and Micah are up to the task, they just might be badass enough to pull it off. An accomplished athlete and mom rocking some pretty awesome tattoos, Micah is a graduate of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts with a background working with the World Health Organization. When she isn't training with The November Project in Boston, kicking ass in marathons and ultras, or gracing the cover of Runners World magazine (she actually appeared on the RW cover an unprecedented two times in one year), she's helping everyday people adopt sustainable healthy lifestyle solutions. Alexis is the yin to Micah’s yang. A former debate champion, improv comedian, attorney and college professor, Alexis is the former Massachusetts state director for the Humane Society. After losing 45 pounds incident to adopting a plant-based diet, she was inspired to start Lighter by her life partner Josh Balk, the co-founder of Hampton Creek — the company behind Just Mayo that is taking healthy plant-based foods to the masses. The history between this dynamic duo is fascinating. Although both of them have dedicated their entire lives to helping fix our broken food system, neither of them ever imagined that they would be running a tech company. And yet here they are — two powerful women leaders kicking ass and taking names. This is an enlightening and informative conversation about food policy and politics. It's a comprehensive redress of our broken food system and a positive, solution-based discourse on how we can fix it. It’s a conversation about what commonly holds people back. And the vital importance of building consensus with a focus on fostering community-based support systems in the interest of helping people eat and live better. It's conversation about female empowerment. And it’s a master class on how to ignite a social movement. Enjoy! Rich

You don't have to be a CEO of a tech company to change the world. You can be an average person and have a huge impact on the world. As a consumer, we vote with our forks three times a day, essentially. Three times a day, we decide to participate in a system that is aligned with our values. We can choose to act on our empathic values and choices. And we have that opportunity as consumers and citizens to participate and support systems that are aligned with those or not. So not everyone has to be a CEO of a tech company to make the world a better place. That's Micah Risk, who joins Alexis Fox this week on the Rich Roll Podcast.

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. What's going on? What's happening? How are you? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host, host of the podcast where I have the great privilege, the great honor of going long form, deep and wide with some of the most interesting, thought-provoking, and inspiring thought leaders and positive change makers all across the globe.

And the primary idea behind these conversations is to curate a sort of multidisciplinary masterclass in personal and professional development that's all designed, all oriented around helping you and me, of course, unlock and unleash our best, most authentic selves. So thank you so much for tuning in today, for sharing the show with your friends and on social media, for reviewing the show, and for subscribing to the show on iTunes, and of course, for always using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. If you're inspired to support the mission even further, now you can do that.

We set up a Patreon account and you can find that at patreon.com forward slash richroll. All right, this week's conversation is just great. It's a super fun, dynamic, and informative discussion with my friends Alexis Fox and Micah Risk, who are two amazing entrepreneurs on this laudable mission to challenge the standard American diet. And they're doing that through some rather brilliant new technology that, for lack of a better phrase, simply helps the world eat better. Together, they co-founded this new company called Lighter, which is a really

interesting, powerful new online platform that offers insanely useful grocery lists and flexible weekly menus and soon even grocery delivery. And it's all based on the recommendations from leading health gurus, athletes, super parents, and badass world changers. I've even got a profile on Lighter. So if you want to follow

my eating recommendations, all customized for you and packed with performance enhancing foods, you can do that by going to lighter.world. And I'll put a link up to the specific URL for my profile in the show notes. In any event, Micah is this badass endurance athlete. She's an accomplished runner, marathoner, ultra runner, and mom with a background working with the World Health Organization. She's got a graduate degree from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts.

And she rocks some pretty awesome tattoos. You might've even seen her on the cover of Runner's World. She actually appeared twice in one year, which is amazing. She was the one styling compression socks with the word vegan on them, which is pretty bold for a publication like Runner's World. In any event, Alexis is like the ying to Micah's yang. She's a former debate champion, an improv comedian. She is an attorney, a former

Massachusetts state director for the Humane Society, and a college professor who lost 45 pounds after going plant-based and was inspired to start Leer by her life partner, Josh Balk, who is the co-founder of Hampton Creek Foods. The history between these two, this dynamic duo, is really fascinating. Although both of them have dedicated their entire lives to helping fix our broken food system, neither of them ever imagined that they would be running a tech company, and yet here they are. And I'm glad they did because what they're building is really impressive and powerful. Micah and Alexis are two of my favorite people, just powerful women leaders working hard to bring about positive change. And I just love this

conversation. It's a conversation about food policy and politics. It's about our broken food system and how we can fix it. It's a conversation about what commonly holds people back and the importance of community building, support, and accountability in the interest of promoting and sustaining healthy life changes. It's a conversation about female empowerment, team building, and the underrated power of the individual to galvanize positive global change. So with all that said, please enjoy this conversation with Alexis Fox and Micah Risk. We have on lighter, essentially, so many people that you've interviewed it's really funny kaylee sent me a list i was like oh yeah that's yeah i know when i look on lighter i see i'm like oh yeah all those people have been on the podcast and even at plant stock this last weekend i was like oh it's like a roundup of all these people that i've already had and the people

that i haven't had are obviously people on the list to get soon, you know, and same with, you know, Neil's conference and all the documentaries that are coming out. It's kind of cool to see a documentary and go, oh, these are all the people that I've had on the show. Like I have a curated library of long form conversations with all these amazing people. We're all growing together. That's how I feel. And I also think it is amazing to think about the history of this movement and how we were all very different from the mainstream. But as mainstream, as our ideas become more and more mainstream, we were there first and we are the experts in this and we know each other. And so everyone's kind of coming up and finding their voice and being listened to now. And it's very cool to see it. Yeah, it's cool.

And I should point out for the listener that that was Alexis speaking. So we're going to, it's always tricky when you have three people. It's like, who is that talking? And then Micah, say hi. Hi. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Thanks.

How are you? I'm so happy to have you guys on the podcast. is great it's been a long time coming and I'm really excited about your collaboration and everything that you guys are building it's really cool and you guys are definitely you know powerful female leaders in this movement and it's much needed and it's a privilege to give you guys a microphone and help share your very cool message. Well, we are absolutely honored to be here. Yeah, cool. So it's been a cool month because I hung out with you guys in D.C. at Neil Bernard's conference.

And then you guys were at Plantstock, or Alexis was at Plantstock. And that was fun, too. And now here we are together. So I feel like we've been hanging out a lot lately. I think so. And so the time is good. Hopefully we're not too talked out and we can find things to talk about on the podcast. I think we'll find something.

Yeah. I mean, in kind of canvassing these conferences, whether it's Neal's in Washington or PlantStock last weekend, I mean, what are you taking away from those experiences that are helping inform what you guys are building? Well, for me specifically, for the Physicians Committee Conference and Plant Stock, they are both conferences that are associated with food as medicine. And that's new for me. Micah is a nutritionist. Micah has been in this for a long time. I've seen it from my own life, but I haven't necessarily had formal training in it. And to meet people who are trying to save lives, so the doctors who are coming to these conferences are on the front lines of chronic disease. This is not statistics for them. This is somebody who has sat in their office and

learned that they might die soon. And the sense of urgency that they bring to trying to help people switch to a plant-based diet, I think it's removed from maybe some of the other people in the movement who are doing it more generally to save the world or generally to solve a problem, it feels much more acute to them. And I think what I've taken away is the need to, the deep sense of urgency, the time is of the essence for us to figure out ways to actually help people switch to a plant-based diet because there are people dying because of the standard American diet. And the sooner we create solutions, the sooner we can save their lives. Yeah. And I think,

you know, those two events sort of are in contrast to each other to the extent that Neil's event was really, the audience for that was healthcare and medical professionals, and Plantstock was, you know, consumers like citizens and and I don't know if you noticed this but a lot of the people that were at plant stock are people that have are in the process of recovering from some pretty serious health conditions like a lot of people that are either you know obese or are suffering from diabetes or on the backside of that and in the curative you know kind of era of that and amazing stories but that the acuteness of it really was palpable at that event because you see these people who are

like their lives are literally on the line you know and they're turning it around yeah i mean i sat next to i sat across from um at dinner on saturday two guys guys who are coming up from Long Island, they both have diabetes and they have neuropathy, which means that they are starting to lose feeling in their limbs. And that's a clear sign that they may lose limbs soon. They drove, I don't know how many hours, probably five hours to be there. They spent a lot of money to be there to learn how to save their lives and um they're so lost and they both work at a jail and one of the things they said because the jail feeds them uh it's hard to bring food into the jail but they're so sick like so sick and yet the jail is feeding them this food that now they're

learning they kill them. They kill them. And one of them said, which was heartbreaking, I just don't think they care if we live much past retirement. Right. Because then they don't have to pay out on their... Because they have to pay. Yeah. Oh, that's so horrible and awful.

It's so horrible. Not to mention how difficult it must be to work in that kind of an environment every single day and the kind of toll on your mental and emotional body that must take. Yeah, it's very, it's, I don't know if we always think about those acute cases where someone is literally, and you can reverse it so quickly, you know, the ability to change could happen very quickly for him. He's right on the edge. ability to change could happen very quickly for him. He's right on the edge. And we, of course, gave him all of our contact info. And I was with Kaylee, our RD, and she commented, she said, I just want to take him home and cook for him for the next month or two. So you feel it much more acutely at these events. Yeah. And they also have the opportunity to meet and rub elbows with

success stories, you know, like the Josh Lajon's and the adam soods and all these people that have like experienced you know health turnarounds as a result of the lifestyle right and one of the things that we talk about a lot at lighter uh one of our our original website was lighter culture and now it's just uh lighter.world but one of the reasons we use the word culture is when you're asking people to reject standard American diet, you're essentially asking them to reject standard American culture. And you can't ask people to reject our dominant culture and then be alone. Humans don't do that. We're tribal creatures. We want to be with people. And so we need to give them an alternative community to belong to. And I think that's what's so important about plant stock and

other community events like this. We're not just giving a one-way message. You should change your behavior and reject everything you've ever known and all the people you've ever known and all the traditions you've ever known and be alone. We're saying, if you want to save your life, you probably should not be eating that way. But guess what? Now you get to join this incredible other culture, this joyful culture, this community of people that is healing themselves and is changing the world. And it feels much more like you're a part of something bigger than yourself. And I think people who get there,

who get to connect with the success stories, that get to connect with leaders in the movement, that get to meet other people who are on this journey, that's when you really can ensure that they will be able to make the change. Yeah, you can't do it alone. I mean, community is absolutely essential if you want to take an insurance policy out on long-term success you just you can't you can't go it alone I think you know the paleo community has done an amazing job of cultivating community around you know their lifestyle and you know CrossFit is a great example of that like bringing people in and and creating support systems and I think that you know the plant-based community is traditionally or historically a little bit more fractured and has struggled with trying to get their message aligned to the extent that it will resonate with the mainstream audience and create that.

So I think the aspiration in that regard is a great investment. that we can do as a community to consciously build and be open to bringing people in and to nurturing those relationships and to building connections to people who are new the more we can do that I think the more successful will be in our efforts it's not just about providing information that's that's necessary but not sufficient. All right. So how is Lighter going to solve this problem, Micah? Well, we've done what we can. We've started to create this community that welcomes people in. We've been celebrating and trying to spread this celebratory message of what it means

to or how it feels to live a cleaner life and eat better. We've built tools to help people make that transition a little bit easier. We have over, I think, 1400 recipes. So in the thousands of recipes tailored to different kinds of preferences, food allergies, cooking time, cooking skill, all of those different elements. And we try to match up these tools, the set of tools to people who are struggling with this transition or at the beginning of this transition and are kind of overwhelmed by all of the options out there, trying to make that transition easier and in a way in a way that is much, I don't know, much cleaner, more fluid. I think one thing that paleo community has done really well is they've branded what

they're doing and what their message is in a really clear way. And like you said, we're kind of fractured, the plant based community is kind of fractured and how we're communicating what we are, what we believe in who we are. And, and the kind of effect we want to have on the world and our motivations for that and whatnot. So being the next step in that and creating a tool that fits really everyone, anyone and everyone, to make that transition a little bit easier, trying to address where those fractures are and give a complete toolbox or package for people is, I think, what we've really been focusing on building the last couple of years. So, so if I'm a, let's say I'm a consumer, let's say I just went to plant stock, right? And like,

I'm overweight or, you know, I'm ready for that change. And I, and I, and I met you and I was like, okay, I'm ready. Like I'm going to light or like, how does it work? Like, how does it, and I was like, okay, I'm ready. I'm going to light or how does it work? How does somebody begin this process? So we have profiled some of the heroes of our movement on the site. And so when you first come onto the landing page, a person who's ready for change can see people who um people who might inspire them so they're we lead with people we don't lead with the information about why someone should adopt you're not going to

shame somebody immediately no no we're going to kind of say who are your people so you can look for athletes or you can look for health gurus or you can look for uh super parents if you're a parent and uh what most people are doing is they're going and they're finding a person who resonates with them. So let's say I'm a mom. I might follow Micah, for instance, who is a mom. And then you can read her story and see what her general food style is. And this normalizes our way of eating, right?

So you can see her food style, see her nutrition guidelines, and then they can follow her general nutrition guidelines, but customized for them. So we take into consideration things like, and this is how we're creating this toolbox that really addresses people's needs, what allergies are in their home, what kind of kitchen equipment they have, how much time they have to cook, if there's any foods that they don't like. And then we are customizing a menu for the actual person. And then we give them a grocery list and soon that's grocery delivery. And I think it's exciting for someone who's just coming in just to learn more or to start their journey. We see it being particularly exciting for plant-based doctors and healthcare

providers, which is the group of people that we've been working with most closely recently, because the world that we are about to build is a world in which someone can go to their doctor, is a world in which someone can go to their doctor, say it's a mom, she goes to her doctor, she finds out she's at risk for heart disease. But instead of being sent to, let's say Walmart, to pick up a prescription, she's sent to Walmart to pick up a bag of heart healthy groceries. We're in this incredible moment in time where two trends are colliding. The first is that grocery is finally becoming digital. This means that the databases of all the inventory of a grocery store is finally coming online. And grocery stores are now connecting with delivery services. So for instance, Walmart is now doing grocery delivery and grocery pickup.

So you can drive into a Walmart and pick up, it almost looks like a gas station. You drive your car up and you put in what you had ordered and then they come out and they deliver your groceries. Instacart is delivering off out of grocery stores like Whole Foods and other local stores. You have Amazon that's starting to do Amazon Fresh and deliver groceries. And Google's getting into it too. So those databases are digital. And then we have doctors who want to be able to prescribe nutrition, but they don't have access to the food or the supply and they don't deliver groceries. And it's not quite as easy as writing a prescription for a pill. And so lighter fills that gap where the doctor can send somebody to their lighter

profile. Neil Barnard, for instance, Dr. Barnard has different profiles for different disease states like heart health, diabetes care, weight control, send them there. We customize that menu for them. We give them, then they choose what they want to eat and then the groceries are delivered. That's amazing. So definitely not one size fits all, which has kind of been the way it's always been, right? Like, Oh, this is what you want to do.

Like, here's your 30 day plan. Like, it doesn't matter where you live or who you are, what your constraints are financially or geographically. Does it take into account, like, where you live? Like, oh, I live in a urban food desert, or I live in the middle of a, you know, cornfield in Iowa. And I can't, there's no market or whatever. Does it like account for what's available? It will. It will. Right now, the way that you can adjust that is if you're following a whole food plant-based diet, then usually the food is everywhere.

If you're following somebody like, let's say, David Carter, who's been on the show and is a good friend of ours, he uses some whole foods, and then he also uses some transitional foods. So he'll have Gardein in there, he'll have Tofurky or some of those other products. So those are not widely available everywhere. But when someone has limited access to those kinds of foods, and honestly, we've been using 126 countries already. So it's not just for the United States. And obviously those products are not available in all of those countries. So we just direct them to a whole food plant-based diet. And then the beans are available and the lentils are available and we can direct them to those basic foods. So this is a pretty crazy, like backend tech algorithm heavy, like sort of thing that

you're trying to build, right? Like, Oh yeah. So we, I mean, it's not just like, here's your menu. Oh, no, have a good life. You know? No, I mean, here's, here's the thing. We have seen software radically change, uh, Goliath industries that were entrenched very quickly. So we've seen Airbnb just change the game in hospitality and in hotels. We've seen Uber totally upend the cab industry, right? Software has an amazing power to change, and we're in 2016. So we don't necessarily need to use static meal plans anymore. We can use dynamic platforms that take into consideration all of the needs of someone

and essentially serve in the same way that someone who could just sit next to a person and actually share that with them. And so Micah and I, neither of us are technical. We have, we never, neither of us ever expected to be running a tech company but we very much are and um we're we're have uh four engineers that are you know with us um we have a data scientist we've got a whole team of technical people who are all the code monkeys yeah well they're amazing but they're they're putting their amazing superpowers to work to help uh transform the way we eat and

i think it's a deeply powerful effort um because it really can just uh the possibilities are endless. And it's so scalable, right? So 100, I mean, we launched this new platform five months ago. And it's been in 126 countries. That's amazing, right? We're kind of popular in Australia. Are you really?

I'm not surprised. This podcast is really popular there too. I think the community of people that are into this stuff in Australia is really robust. Well, Australia, we love you too. But the grocery delivery aspect of it is not quite live, right? Like that's coming soon. Right, so we're secretly testing it right now. I see.

Which is not so secretly. I just said that. You just said it, right? Don't worry, no one's listening. I don't think that we, I mean, there's lots of think pieces about this. It's certainly no secret. But I still think with everything being said we still don't fully appreciate just how extraordinary this moment in

time is where we're on the precipice of things changing so dramatically with the self-driving cars and the drones and the and everything going to digital and the big data that comes with that and what can be mined from that, good and bad. But it's quite remarkable when you kind of play it through. And the possibilities for, you know, business and improving our lives, you know, if we don't destroy ourselves first, you know, are really amazing. So it's pretty cool. I mean, how did you first come up with this idea? Like, what is the genesis of Light the genesis you want to tell our our

meetings yeah honestly um well it came it came about through some trial and error um but to take it all the way back alexis and i have been in the same kind of social space um around the same activists and uh for i don't know probably since we were teenagers i was probably 18 or 19 but we met three years ago but there's a photo of us when we were really young in the same we're we're it's two different photos but we're in the same room in dc when i was 18 in dc but did you guys both grow up in Boston? No, I'm from New York. Oh, you are? I'm from North Carolina.

So very different. So you were like animal rights activists or what was going on? We definitely cared about ending factory farming. Gotcha. Okay. So you were like, you were like doing your thing in Washington. That young, that's crazy. Yeah.

But you didn't, you didn't know each other, but you were in the same kind of circles. No, we met three years ago. I was just out of grad school looking for some job opportunities. And Alexis was the state director for HSUS in Massachusetts. And I was really interested in the Meatless Mondays campaign that HSUS was doing. So we met for coffee to talk about that. At least that's what I thought we were talking about It's not what I thought we were talking about and during that cup of coffee Alexis proposed business to me And and then we started lighter like at that coffee shop at that initial meeting And for the next year we did a lot of listening We were doing a lot of different kinds of nutrition services, more traditional, traditional style nutrition services. So the core like kind of message at that moment, like what was the mission statement at the inception of lighter? Well, we didn't have

one. So, uh, I, um, I had been inspired to go into business as opposed to keep staying with a nonprofit because of the experience of my partner, romantic partner, not business partner, who co-founded Hampton Creek Foods and just saw this incredible intersection of entrepreneurship, venture capital, and mission. And I saw how much faster it was than the work I was doing in the political sphere. So I had heard about Micah. Micah is kind of a celebrity in Boston. Everyone knows about Micah in Boston.

I had heard a lot about her. And so I thought, oh, she'd be a great person maybe to work together in a company. But the first book that we read was called Lean Startup, which is if anyone is interested in starting a company, especially if it has to do with tech, it's a great book. And they suggest that you don't just walk in and say, this is what we're doing. You do micro experiments. It's like running a science experiment. You have a hypothesis of what your company is going to be and how you'll solve the problem, but you test it and see if it works and then quickly, and you kind of have to learn as fast as possible. You want quick learning cycles. Um, and so generally speaking, we thought

we were going to use the power of technology to help people eat better but we did not know what that would look like right so the problem that you're trying to solve has never changed which is trying to trying to educate and empower people to eat healthier well and that hasn't changed for us since we were we're 18 so and we're older much older than we've just evolved not much like i said we've grown up together this community has grown up together and my background is in food policy and nutrition science and so i was doing a lot of research and my hope for myself was to do research and influence policy and change the way that the food system works and the way that consumers are involved in the food system or the choices they make and the health outcomes that come after

that but I had found the same thing that it was very slow it took years to do one experiment and and here we are and were able to rapidly evolve we've evolved so much over the last three years and who who we are now, what Lighter is now, is so different than what it was before. We were doing grocery delivery last year with this customized meal plan service, but the software wasn't quite as sophisticated as it is now. And we were limited then with how many people we could serve. But now we've pivoted about a year ago and we started rebuilding. And now, you know, like we're in over a hundred different countries and endless infinite user base potential, but before we were quite limited, but by expanding the software and making it more

sophisticated, we're able to help, you know, hundreds of thousands of more people. And like I said, our growth is infinite. Like there's no cap on how, who we can serve across the world. It's great. And yeah, that's cool. I mean, I want to get, you know, I kind of get more granular on both of your backgrounds and more detail because it's so interesting, but the pivot is interesting also. Like you've had this kind of dramatic story around this pivot that took place like on the eve of a big investor meeting. This pivot that took place like on the eve of a big investor meeting. I'm happy to share. Bootstrapped it together to like.

Yeah, we have a really good pivot story. So last year, let's say at the beginning of July, Lighter was creating customized meal plans and having the groceries delivered. That's what we were doing. And we were serving people in 22 different cities in the U.S. But we were facing this problem. And actually, this story actually relates now to this podcast. It's really funny. Okay.

This is part of the story I don't know about. Yeah, you don't know it. It's really, okay. So one of the problems that we were having is because we are part of this community and we wanted to be able to give the power of this technology to all of the amazing people who are spending their time, talent, and treasure to help people eat more plant-based, we are having a hard time figuring out how we could work with everyone. Micah and I don't necessarily aspire to always be the ones who are motivating people to eat a plant-based diet. In fact, I don't really think that's our job.

There's so many incredible people, including you, who provide that motivation for their communities. And what we really want to do is help everybody be 10x more effective, right? So not everyone can hire a team of engineers and work on APIs with grocery delivery services, but we can do that part of the equation and then let everybody else do their great work of inspiring and motivating people. So we were trying to figure out how to fit. And one of the people who came to us was David Carter, who is a good friend. And he said, he had just been in men's health and GQ. And he said, you know, all these people are asking me what I eat. He's the 300 pound vegan NFL linebacker, but I don't have time to like meal plan for them or help them.

Can we work together? Can we figure out a way to give people an example of how I eat so they can eat like me? And we said, of course. We would love to help. Micah, by the way, is the brain behind Lighter when it comes to all the food and nutrition. I know nothing. So she built this incredible meal plan with him, um, based on what he eats and page too. And page was amazing in it.

And we jokingly were like, well, what do we call this partnership? You're the 300 pound vegan. We're called lighter. And we jokingly called it heavier. So, so as we're like collaborating, we keep calling it heavier. And then he gets invited onto this podcast and he said, well, what should I call it? And he said, don't call it heavier. Um, let's call it stronger. We'll call the partnership stronger. So he gets on this podcast and he of course is in the middle of speaking and calls it heavier. And you can hear Paige in the background. Oh, I didn't even know that. No, no, no, stronger.

Right? But it just shows our brand and his brand don't necessarily go together. And we hadn't built a platform and a system to integrate those two things. So it was like we were trying. We wanted to work together. But it was hard to do. So that was a problem we were trying to solve. Okay. So, um, we hadn't figured out the solution, um, but we were doing really well. And, uh, I am in the car in late July. This is how the pivot happens. And, um, one I'm in the

car, I'm in a cab racing to the airport because I'm headed to London to pitch investors in London. And our consultant at the time, whose name is Ron, calls me. And when Ron gets excited, he gets so excited. He's like, I have an amazing idea. I know how we can solve this problem of trying to work with people. We can turn lighter into a platform, into a market network is what it's called, so that they can have the profiles, they can put out their nutrition recommendations, but then our software can customize it for people and we can help get the groceries delivered. And so this is the idea that now we have, right? It's not us. It's these amazing leaders in the movement who can offer their

recommendations, but then we'll customize it. And of course, that's so much better than what we were doing. So I said, that's so much better than what we're doing. I'm going to meet with investors. I've been working on this deck, but I'd rather pitch your idea than what we're currently doing. Can you make a deck? I'm getting on an airplane to head to London. And he said, yes. So he worked all throughout while I didn't have internet on the flight. So I was just in the dark for this time.

So excited. And I land and I get to my hotel and I open my computer and he's made a functional deck that does not look very pretty at all. It's very techie. Um, and so, but it was brilliant and he really is brilliant. Um, and so we, I cleaned it up as best I could. I'm not a designer, but I did my best and I went in and I pitched it and that's, uh, and we raised a bunch of money and And it worked like he bought it. And they agreed that it was great. And then we took off on this big pivot. And Ron, who always said he would just be a consultant, he worked for Huffington Post Live. He won awards for his work there.

He worked for Verizon. He said he was done working for a company, wanted to be a consultant forever. But he's vegan and he cares very much about our movement. He quit his consultancy and is now our CTO. And we're very, very lucky to have him. And I was probably on the phone with him for an hour today and we're close collaborators. I love that story. That's fantastic. And it is a great idea because I think at its core, what it does is it allows you guys to bring this wide diversity of voices and perspectives into one under one umbrella, which allows the greater population at whole to tap into the people that resonate with them. Right. So as opposed to, you know, this is the cult of so and so.

And this is the way we do it. And this is the only way to do it. And you're either with us or you're not. People can sort of now, you know, gravitate towards the people that they, you know, seem to relate to the most and kind of follow that thread. Right. And I also think it's when sometimes I call us an energy company, an energy conservation company, because, um, if you think of everything as having energy or everything being energy, we have all of these amazing people putting their energy out there to inspire and motivate people to eat plant-based. If every single, I do believe that, and, and we're seeing this right now. So 8% of people, we had 8% penetration in grocery delivery in 2015, it's gone up to 26%. I believe the future of grocery is delivery

and that grocery stores will fundamentally change over the next 10 years. And I think that software has a real role to play in customizing our advice for people. But not everybody in the movement needs to go out and hire an engineering team to figure out how to do that work. And it would be such a drain of energy if everyone went out and, you know, we've learned so much running a tech company.

It's very, it's a whole different world, you know. So why would we, A we keep it to ourselves? And why would we expect everybody else who's doing this work to go out and have to learn all the lessons that we've learned? It's far better if we just give it away. And, and that's the part that we can play and that's the end where we can put our energy and then everyone else can do all of their amazing work. Wow. That's really cool. So beyond that, like my sense is, and correct me if this is wrong, but there's almost like a, maybe AI is the wrong word, but like this learning kind of capability that it starts to understand like what you like or what you should be doing and it anticipates your needs,

right? Yeah. So, um, it's called machine learning, which at its heart is actually pretty easy to understand. It's the way that Netflix knows what movies they should recommend or shows they should recommend for you. I mean, it's essentially that, but it can get more and more customized over time. So right now, the way machine learning works is the more data you have, the better you can predict what someone is going to like. That can be more data about you, or that can be more data about people who are like you. But that enables us to, for instance, we don't do this yet, but there will be a we when that first menu that comes up will just hit exactly if you want you know peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and easy mac and cheese and things

that seem super all-american and you just want it to be plant-based uh we'll know that. Or if, you know, you are an elaborate chef and you want to use turmeric more, uh, we'll, we'll be able to know that. Right. Or if you're on the super like low fat, no oil, like really hardcore whole food plant based, it will anticipate. Actually that we know now that, that, that we can do. Um, so you're right to kind of correct that a little bit. If somebody is on a no oil, low fat regimen, then we can do that now. Low sodium. Yeah. So right now we do some of that. If you'd rather eat low processed, we can customize for that.

Whole food plant based. Low sodium is another one. And we also do it by appetite size so if you're kind of average adult with average physical activity there's an appetite size or portion control for that it goes up to large and extra-large and that's the one that was inspired by stronger and David Carter Carter so if you aspire to be 300 pounds linebacker or you know you have a really big appetite I definitely know know, you have a really big appetite, I definitely know some athletes that have very high metabolism and work out a lot and

the extra large appetite that satisfies their their needs. So there are all kinds of ways that we customize already right now. And I think that's so essential, because while there are some truths that we know of, in terms of correlation between diet and health outcomes, nutrition is also very individual. And our relationship with food is so different person to person, family to family, region to region, et cetera. information we know about disease and health outcomes and those patterns and refine it to fit into people's individual lifestyles or everything. All the different ways that you can break it down. The more that we can do that, the more that we can customize and predict and anticipate what they want and what they might want next week or when they need their groceries, what

their child wants in their lunch, how do we make that school safe, et cetera, the better off we'll all be, I think. Yeah. And one of the lessons that I'm learning, and we're still really in building the product, but the way that you build a technology company and the focus that you put on paying attention to how everything you do impacts the people who are coming to your site are lessons that I hope that we bring back out into the broader movement. We have something like an 80% churn rate in veganism, right? So a lot of people go back. And I think part of that's because of the lack of community. But I think it's also because they haven't necessarily found

their space. When you're a tech company, you're focused on a lot of strategies to bring people back into the platform that you've built or the world that you've built. And there are very clear lessons on how to do that. So if we can also bring some of those lessons to the movement of how to keep people engaged, I think that's another area that we hope to contribute. Yeah, so how does the community aspect of it work? Like how are you fostering know, fostering that, you know, sense of participation and connectivity that's so important in keeping people invested in, you know, whatever, whether it's whatever path it can be a plant-based diet or could be fit and whatever your goal is, right?

Like, so how does lighter. So right now there's the answer to immediately right now and then future. So right now, I think the way that we do it is by enabling people to connect and see that they're following the nutrition guidelines of someone that they've already been connected to. And then we communicate with them on that. But we are building a platform that is two sides of a platform, right? So when you do that, it takes time to build in those features. But a lot of people right now, for instance, take a photo of their food and they tweet at us about it, or they email us about it. And we want to create those community forums within the platform so that you can be talking to people on the platform, much like a Facebook

or a LinkedIn. That's the heart of a market network is it's a hybrid between a social network and an online marketplace and then software as a service. And so we want to enable people to be able to talk to each other on the site. And that will keep growing as we build. What about the person that comes to you and says, this is all great, but I just want you to deliver my meal? Like my brother. Yeah. I don't want to cook. I don't have time. I don't even have time for that. Just send me my prepared meal that

I just have to warm up. Right. So luckily, we have some amazing companies that are creating those kinds of products like Engine 2 is a great example. So I think when you look at more and more food companies that are coming out that are plant-based, they're seeing how important convenience is. So Engine 2 has kind of just bags, saute bags that you can just open from the freezer section and throw into a frying pan. You have Amy's Burritos are, you know, plant-based. Some of them are all vegan. And so we are finding out who those people are and trying to deliver those kinds of convenience products that you can find in the grocery store. grocery store. One of the things that I would be really excited to see is more prepared meals in grocery stores that are all plant-based. So I think that there's room in the market for that.

I also think there are some interesting meal kit delivery services, but we don't necessarily integrate with them right now. But marco borges has that um 22 days and then there's purple carrot so they're they're able to do a little bit more of just the prepared meals um and i would love to see those kinds of things also in grocery stores so that we can pick them up put them in the bags and send them to people for the three days a week when they just want to open something up but you know we also take care of their breakfast, their lunch, and other meals. Well, in addition to, you know, health, I think a big kind of draw or an allure of this movement for a lot of people is, you know, the environmental concerns and sustainability and things like that.

And one of the problems that you run into with a lot of delivery stuff is there's a lot of waste. Like you end up with all these boxes and the cooling packets and the styrofoam and all of this kind of thing that becomes tricky. It's like, I want to do the right thing. I want to do what's right for the planet. I want to eat right. But I also want it to be convenient and easy.

So how do you, like, how does that work? And like, how do you grapple with and, you know, kind of, you know, resolve that problem? That is, I mean, on some level it seems inescapable to me, but I suppose when you're buying at a grocery store, you don't see all that stuff. Like it's all behind the wall in the back. Like you're participating it. You just don't, you're not observing it in the way, like it's very tangible when you're getting all this stuff delivered to your house all the time. Yeah, I mean, we just, our groceries just come in a bag, like a grocery bag.

So they're coming straight from. So it's like a local, yeah, it's not. So if we're, yeah. If there's Amazon, there's going to be some of that, I think, right? Yeah, but I think it's much less than a individual meal kit service. And I do hope they figure it out because I do think that's a huge challenge for meal kit delivery services. But we, we solve that problem by, for instance, Instacart. It really does just come in a reusable bag to your door. And that's kind of like a plug-in relationship that you have with them to

sort of like as the distribution arm of what you're doing there yeah there's several there's several different companies that do that kind of work and um gotcha okay um so uh so how you know like how does this like you guys are an interesting partnership it's very much like a yin and yang like micah i first came like across you when you started showing up on the cover of magazines you know that iconic uh runner's world cover where you're wearing the vegan socks that everybody saw and that was like a big moment i remember when that happened like everyone's email micah's mate you got to get her on the podcast and all this kind of stuff like that made like quite a splash so and i know like in boston you're you know you know you have in Boston, you're, you know, you know, you have, you know, you're

well known for, you know, being an athlete in that community and participating in November project and all of that. So in addition to all of your nutrition expertise, you bring that kind of like athlete sensibility. And then on the other hand, we have Alexis, who's, you know, you are a professor at Emerson. What did you profess? I taught leadership for three years at Emerson college. Wow. So what is the curriculum for leadership? What do you like? What do you give people to read? That's a good question. I'll, I'll say this before I before I talk about my books that I would recommend. Teaching a class on leadership is like teaching a class on love or happiness. Leadership is a very nebulous concept and people's leadership stories are deeply personal. personal. So, um, teaching leadership to different people is kind of asking them to grow in different ways. So for some people, it might be becoming a better listener for other people. It might be

listening to their inner voice. Uh, it really depends on the person, but, um, I liked to, as much as I taught leadership to everyone in my class, and there were both men and women in my class, I, I focused a lot on the women, I think we have to pay special attention to women's leadership and so some of the books that I would teach one is I'll lean in by Sheryl Sandberg I thought that both the men and women would greatly benefit from that book another was the seven habits of highly effective people. And then how to win friends and influence. Yeah. But I have a blog post and I'm happy to share it with my leadership crash course, which is something like 10 Ted talks and nine books that you shouldn't miss. So I'm happy to

share that with you. Yeah. I can put that in the show notes. That would be cool. Cool. So, all right. So leadership professor and then also, you know, former nonprofit, you know, sort of mired in the bureaucracy of what that world is like and into the fast and loose, you know, world of startups and venture capital and all of this. And having to actually walk your talk in terms of leadership, right? Yeah. I don't know if later would exist if I hadn't taught leadership first. I think that I stood in, that class totally changed my life. I started the class my first semester, married, living in the suburbs, kind of getting ready for a very predictable life. And I ended that first semester no longer married, ready to kind of try new things. And then I taught for three more years, so then I kept going from there. very much a journey for me in finding my power and truly understanding how incredibly powerful each of us are to fundamentally change the course of history. And I very much believe that every

person has a unique intersection of life experience, of interests, of passion. And if that can be channeled, you have something unique to bring to the world. And I think so many of us don't get to the first step of becoming a leader, which is believing that you have the power to shape the future. That's the first step that you need to get to. And I think most people don't get there. And so it's hard to cross.

Not only that, I mean, most people feel so disenfranchised. I mean, you know, Donald Trump exists for a reason. And a big reason of that is people's frustration and feeling like, you know, they can't, you know, their voice is not heard. Right. So forget about leadership. Just actually being a citizen who has a vote that counts is probably step one in that. But the idea that you can actually, you know, create something that has a lasting impact on culture like that's that's a leap. Right. It's true. But trying to convince people that they are capable of that, like that's, you know, it's hard, but it's, I'll, I'll share a way that you can start to at least catch your thoughts on this, which is, uh, there's a difference between having reactive thoughts and proactive thoughts.

So reactive thoughts are about the world is, uh, acting upon me. Um, and proactive thoughts are, is acting upon me. And proactive thoughts are I act upon the world. So you can say it's raining outside, so then I feel kind of bummed out. Or it's raining outside, so I have the opportunity to cuddle up with a book and I don't have to go on a run. You two would be sad about that.

Oh no, I would just run through it. But I think... Micah would just go running. Well, yes, both of you. But I think that's also like the key to happiness, right? Like just knowing that you have power over your future, your day, your perspective. Your emotional response. So there is a space between what happened outside of myself. Somebody honked the

horn at me. My partner got mad. There's a space between that and your emotional reaction. You can have someone honk the horn, but that doesn't mean it has to impact you. You can have someone get mad at you, but it doesn't mean that you have to be upset. You have control over that. And I think that just knowing that about our own lives is the first step, but then understanding that, uh, we can then start to, uh, take whatever we believe the world should be and start to push it out onto the world. I think that is the next step, but we, we so often get caught up in, well, I can't because they won't let me. And one of the things that I think is why I want to focus so much on women's leadership is I think school lies to girls in a very dangerous way in that we have been told throughout our schooling that if we sit quietly

in class and we take the information that the teacher has given us and we memorize that information and then regurgitate it back, that that is what success looks like. And we should be quiet and wait to be given permission to speak. That is not how the world works. No one is ever going to call on you once you're out of school and say, okay, now it's your time to speak. And if you want power and if you want influence, you have to take it. And I think guys who are in sports get to get that, those lessons,

maybe a little bit more than the women. Now, Micah played soccer, so she knows how to take what she wants to happen and kind of move it. But a lot, I didn't play sports. I did debate, but it's kind of a sport, but not really. But a lot of, you know, a lot of guys did learn this to a certain extent that if you want something, you have to go get it while they were in school. And so they counteracted that lie that school teaches us. And I don't know if all the women got it. The other problem is that we often are told to be perfect before we start. So if you compare football players and cheerleaders, the guys get on the field and they can be sweaty. I just started watching a lot of football because of Josh.

They're sweaty and they mess up all the time. I mean, you take the ball and you throw it to the receiver and then the receiver drops it. So then you have to go try again and take the ball and you throw it to the receiver. Maybe this time he catches it and gets five yards and then he's knocked down. But inch by inch, yard by yard, you make progress and it's not pretty. You sweat a lot and they yell and show their emotion, you know, on their sleeve, but they make progress. Whereas the women, if they come out as cheerleaders and they kick their leg two feet lower than everybody else who's kicking their leg, then they've totally messed up

and they have to be perfect. Or even if, you know, Mike is playing soccer and her hair isn't right, even if she kicked the game winning goal, the conversation will be about that. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I see that completely, you know, and I, you know, I was an athlete through formative years and in high school and in college, but even so I still was somebody who fell under the spell of, you know, study hard and raise your hand and answer the question perfectly. And that's how you become a successful person. At no moment, and I would, you know, look, I had the best education money could buy, but at no moment was I told, you know,

was I sort of like, I wish I had taken your class. You know what I mean? Nobody told me how to be a leader. Like how you become successful is you, you know, is you work hard in school and you do what you're told, you know, and that doesn't make're told. And that might make you functional and maybe you can have an interesting conversation with somebody about ideas,

but it doesn't necessarily ensure you of anything, let alone success specifically in an entrepreneurial or business context. And if that was my experience, then I can only imagine what it is for most women. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in no way an expert on child rearing

and like development and whatnot. But I do think about this a lot with my daughter. And I was talking with my friend, Emily, who is an expert on this. And I was expressing some frustration with my daughter being a little bit too rigid with rules because I'm the complete opposite. I see a rule, I want to break it or at least push it a little bit and see what happens. And rules are very important for her. And my friend Emily told me that for young children, learning boundaries and norms helps them feel safe in a space and helps them grow and learn

how to own their own space and break boundaries in their own way, but first they kind of have to learn them. And then they need the system that teaches them that they are powerful and they do have control over their future, et cetera, et cetera. And you can probably relate to this with your own children. I think that's the thing I talk about with my daughter the most every day. She comes home, my friend said this, she looked at me like this, the teacher didn't notice me, blah, blah, blah. And the thing I try to teach or impart on her, and I don't know exactly the

best way to do it, but teaching her, if there's one lesson she can grow up with is that she has control over her future. And I'm sure you go through the same with your children, but it is probably the most important skill we can have as humans. To instill your child with a strong sense of self and that they have a voice that has import and meaning and to be convicted about what they want and to feel good about themselves. I mean, you know, the word self-esteem gets thrown around very cavalierly, but it is super important. But it's also about reconciling that with this culture where everybody gets a blue ribbon, you know, no matter what you do, which I don't think is serving anybody either. It's about like, you know, honesty with that, that,

you know, look, if you didn't win, we can still talk about how you can be better. And we're not like, you know, you're not going to wither, you know, like some, you know, flower that can't withstand, you know, the pressure. So it's about, it's about like cultivating a sense of, of, of self that can be strong in the face of adversity as well. Resilience. Yeah, resilience. Exactly. I was running, I was training for the Boston Marathon last year and my daughter asked me if I was going to win. And I said, no, definitely not, not even close. And she said, well,

why would you, why would you do it then? If you're going to lose, why run? And I was like, well, it's the Boston marathon running. There are all these great benefits of running, but really it's just getting out there and running the hills and being with my community, um, experiencing this incredible tradition and, and crossing the finish line is a huge win, no matter what your time is or your place is. But yeah, I know that's very true for people who actually grow up in competitive sports and we're kind of taught to wait for our coach

or for the win or for the scholarship or whatever. And unlearning that as an adult is so key, is so key. And I think I learned that through running the most because running is such an individual. Well, it'll humble you. Yes. You know, it'll humble you to your core. But I think, you know, as I sit here in the presence of two strong, successful, beautiful women, and as a father of two young girls, like, I think about, you know, one of the things I think about all the time is you know what are the influences on my daughters and you know you look around like most of pop culture's influence on young women is not

so great right and as a parent you know how do you you know I don't know if shield is the right word but you know sort of guide them in the right direction to you know be exposed to, you know, strong, powerful, smart, intelligent women who are aspirational in a different way. Like I always say, you know, you look around like, oh, there's no female role models. Well, there's a million of them, right? It's just that the spotlight isn't on them to the extent that it should be. And so how do we shift that spotlight and put it on the people that you know deserve that recognition so that we can empower the next generation of girls yeah i think i actually

think about that a lot and i think about it for uh myself the i know the music that i listened to when i was young and a teenager was actually from some really strong women like annie defranco and indigo girl i was a hippie and um and when i listened back on those songs they i one of the lines is uh one of the songs is something like i am she's talking about how she's not a kitten in a tree lost somewhere and no one needs to come rescue her she's gonna get down by her damn self uh and i had a lot of that music actually growing up and i i'm so much more grateful for it than i um think i would have even been five years ago and i do hope that there are artists out there who sing about that for women but i also think we as a community need to do a better job

of recognizing the contributions of women. So often, you know, women get points off for tooting their own horns. And so we need to just be more cognizant of women's contributions and then recognize them publicly. Because you're right, there are so many incredible women doing groundbreaking work. And they don't always go and run to the spotlight to share it with the world.

And I hope that one of the things that I do with my life is like push them into the spotlight and say, go tell people what you're doing because it's freaking awesome and you'll inspire a lot of other people. Well, you know, Micah, you're a phenomenal example of this. I mean, you're a startup entrepreneur, you're a single mom, you're a kick-ass athlete. I mean, you're just, you're like, like you like placing super high and these ultras and these marathons like what what are you training for now like what's going on and how do you balance all of these things to you know show up for your you know for your daughter and you know be the mom that you want to be and also be the business partner and all it's like that thing

where you know women are expect like if you are gonna be you know a business woman you're expected to kick ass like the bar is set very high for you, right? Like, you have to live up to all these social expectations that you have to be great at all these things. So how do you shoulder all that? I mean, you seem to be doing a good job. Thank you. I'd say that the first thing is that I can't take all the credit. I mean, our team is amazing. So I have surrounded myself with some pretty amazing people. Like probably the best day of my life is the day I met Alexis.

I mean, everything's changed with her. And my life is totally different in all of the best ways. So I have great role models and great teams around me. It definitely takes a village. And some phenomenal friends. And, uh, I, you know, I, like, like you said, I run with November project and that community has been so important for me, uh, going, going through so many transitions in my life and,

um, knowing that I have a community that is always there Monday, Wednesday, Friday, like no matter what the weather is like they're always there uh that has been really important the worst weather the better yeah absolutely um and and i'm doing things that make me happy you know i'm i'm doing work that i feel like i was born to do i'm helping other people eat better and And, um, uh, yeah, I don't know. What is, uh, uh, what is the typical day in the life for you of training work and parenting? Uh, it, it varies day to day, but usually I, uh, wake up early and run with November project, uh, five 30. Lately I've been doing this challenge. It's five minutes of burpees as soon as I get out of bed.

I saw that on Instagram. That's better than coffee. It wakes you up very quickly. So you said your record was like 61 burpees? 61, yeah. But I'm on day six, so I'm hoping to go higher. But I'm doing that with one of our engineers, Alex, who I mentioned earlier. So, you know, surrounding yourself with people that encourage and support the things that

make you happy and, and keep you healthy and excited about life. I think that's, that's so important. Uh, the more we distance ourselves and close ourselves off and, um, you know, the harder it is to get through all those challenges or, you know, the day-to-day, like day-to-day is hard. So I think community is so important and perspective is so important. And knowing that whatever I'm doing and however, how I'm responding to the world is modeled for my daughter. You know, there's, that is probably the most important motivator in my life knowing that whatever i do she's seeing it she's watching it she's learning from it

yeah it's invaluable so what do you do after the burpees after the burpees so we're we're through the burpees in the day in the life barely through them. So either I'm getting my daughter to school and then running to work. Like literally running to work. Sometimes I literally run to work. Yeah. But yeah, so it's kind of different day to day. But running or some kind of strength training at some point during the day, whether it's in the morning or the night, depending on my schedule with my daughter. Um, and then I'm usually at the office for,

for most of the day. Um, yeah. And then do you do an evening workout as well? Sometimes, sometimes I do double days, but I don't recommend that for everyone. It's kind of intense. And then you've got to pick up your daughter from school, I would imagine, right? Go home, make dinner. Yeah. And we're usually doing something outside gardening or going to a yeah that's right and uh and in bed by when uh the one thing i really need to work on is sleep so prue my daughter she's in bed by eight and I'm usually working or doing laundry or something at that point. Yeah, I'm usually working.

Well, I mean, I'm asking these questions for a reason. Like, you know, I think that there's a lot of people out there that say, well, you know, it's easy for you. But like I do this and I do that. And here's all the reasons why I can't eat healthy or I can't find the time. And, you know, single mom, startup, you know single mom startup you know like all the training all the things that you're doing like you're you're finding a way to make all those pieces fit together so I guess what I'm driving at is it is possible if you're making choices that prioritize those things if they're

important to you yeah I had a mentor and during my undergraduate studies at VCU and he said that everybody has 24 hours in the day. It's just how you choose to use them. You know, but everybody has the same 24 hours. But I, you know, I've been doing a lot of this for a long time. I've been an athlete my whole life. I have been eating plant-based since I was 16 and in all kinds of different situations,

some more challenging than others. So I think I've, I've fallen into a routine and figured out what works for me. And so that simplified it quite a bit. But what I've found is that I can take everything that I've learned and impart it on others. And that's been a big piece of lighter, I think, is figuring out how to inform this software and build this software in a way that helps others using some of the things that I've learned along the way. What was your original impetus for going plant-based? I saw undercover footage of factory farms, and I was appalled, of course. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And so I started studying it a little

bit more and learned about all the health impacts of eating animal products, the environmental impact. And I, when I learned the relationship about the relationship between disease and food, and next to factory farming and suffering, and, you know, those two things together. I couldn't believe that we were choosing to live this way, that we were choosing to eat in a way that is not only killing us, but causes an incredible amount of suffering for other beings. It made no sense to me. It was totally irrational um not only for myself but for my family and and all the others that are affected by it and and so i knew right away like once you make that connection it's so rational you can't ignore it it's there uh and when i learned that there was

food there out there that i could choose to eat that did it had didn't have a negative impact on either one of those things then why why wouldn't i do it of course i would well yeah but but there's a there's a gap between awareness and and action you know what i mean like a lot of people come into that information and they're like doesn't impact how they behave right so there was obviously there's something some button in you that was pushed some level of sensitivity or whatever that motivated you to act. For me as an individual, I grew up in the South and I was early on very made very aware of some big social justice issues, poverty, racism, sexism. And I think I was a little bit more primed and motivated to change. I knew I wanted to change the world in some way, make it a better place.

I knew that I wanted to, I did not want to participate in a system that disenfranchised people, um, and, and animals and et cetera. Uh, and, and I found this was one way that I could make an impact relatively simple, like just based on what I eat in a day, I could have a pretty profound impact on the world. And I could separate myself from a system that is so harmful and hurtful to the world. I could separate myself from that system just by making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right essentially but as a 16 year old in north carolina we're in north carolina at the time it couldn't have been a super popular decision right like how did this go over with yeah family and in high school and all of that my family was super supportive so i was pretty lucky there but high school it was pretty

odd um were you playing soccer yeah Yeah, I was playing soccer. But I would make vegan chili and bring chocolate silk soy milk to school and to foodie cuties and hand them out in the cafeteria. And I would bring them to the cafeteria workers and just show people how good and tasty it can be. Like I bought it at the store down the street. Like, oh, here comes Mike. She's going to make us eat these things. like show people how good and tasty it can be. And like, I bought it at the store down the street. Like, Oh, here comes Mike. She's going to make us eat these things.

Oh, if you ever have anything that Micah has made, you will be very excited. Cool. And so did people say to you, well, how are you going to play soccer and do this? Like,

was it vegan completely or did you go vegetarian initially? Or I was vegetarian for about six months. And then when I learned more about the dairy industry, I took the next step. So, yeah, I think, yeah, people had all the same questions. Where do you get your protein? So you began weathering those questions at a very early age. Yeah. So what is the answer to that like how when

when people come up to you and say you know where do you get your protein or you know how are you able to be an athlete on a plant-based diet like how do you handle that honestly i point them to people like you and scott jurick david carter you can just point at your own results yeah well thank you that's true i do i mean i yeah, I've been vegan for 15 years and I played college soccer and I've been a runner for many years and had a child who's super healthy. So I always been a plant-based pro. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. She's always been plant-based. She's seven now and tall and fast she's an athlete she is i think the other thing we can do now is you can just say go to my lighter profile and you can see what i eat and

then you can follow it and that was actually one of the reasons we built it the way we did is so that when you get a question oh you're plant-based what do you eat you can just say go to my profile and you can see what i eat and then you can follow along and then the software can take it from there and customize it right what a beautiful thing who would have thought yeah and you can see on the recipe how how much protein is in it yep so all that information's all there yeah right so tell me the story about when you were in like Russia and trying to be black-faced. This is my favorite Micah story of all time. I don't know which part you like.

Okay. I like the way that you had to go to the market. Oh, okay. So I lived in Russia for about a year kind of first of all why did you what was it what was going on what is that about i was there with my ex-husband he's russian so we lived there for a while and we lived kind of on the outskirts of of moscow and um so it was in the city but our closest store was pretty small like not much bigger than a bodega style market and i would go to the grocery store alone and I would come home like no joke and cry because I didn't know how to I didn't know how to communicate with people very well. The tone of voice was so different.

And, you know, it was like it was a big culture shock. And I was trying to figure out how to eat. And I was kind of thrown out. I was before that I was living in richmond virginia which has a ton of vegan restaurants and so i was going from like delicious tofu and seitan food to the basics so i had to learn how to cook when you when you would go and do a like one of these bodegas outside of moscow what what was available like what does it look like? Oh, uh, a lot of canned food. Um, a lot of white flour kind of processed bread, bread products. Um, the pickled food is amazing

though. I don't know if you've ever been, and if you, but if you do go, the pickled vegetables are delicious. That was probably my favorite part. Um otherwise, it was pretty slim pickings. And you were pregnant with Prue at the time. Yeah, I was pregnant. This heightens the importance of eating healthy at that time because you were so concerned with making sure Prue got everything she needed to grow. So that's where I learned to cook lentils and love lentils and vegetables and kind of the basics. Uh, but I would actually go to this, it was like an illegal market outside of Moscow where they, they had turned on Olympic training facility into this.

It felt like a city. Um, it felt like a third world kind of country, but it was a market. And I would go to like the inside of the market like deep inside of it to find the tofu it was like the only place to get tofu um but hold on i'm still back on like you know olympic village black market like how does this even like i'm trying to understand so who was who are the who is the intended customer for this black market supermarket or whatever it was? It was mostly immigrants in Russia, but from Asia mainly. Why were there products there that you couldn't get elsewhere?

How does that... Yeah, it was like fur coats to the ceiling, illegally traded from China. Yeah, everything. Lots of fake soccer jerseys and home products, all kinds of things. But they had been traded illegally. At least that was the story that I was given. So imported under the radar somehow. So you could get food products at this place too.

Yeah. So I would get tofu in little Ziploc bags. But next to the tofu guy, they were beheading a chicken on on the on the dirt floor on the ground essentially so um it was to like navigate that as this like very obvious american white girl with sneakers on pregnant it was yeah they're like looking at what are they thinking when they see you coming into the market like yeah narc Yeah. Narc. That's commitment though, you know? How long did you have to do that for?

How long were you living there? I was there for a year. Yeah. That's very intense. And it actually translated into being very helpful for Lighter because a lot of our recipes, when you do whole food plant-based, you you know we want to make sure we're affordable as you pointed out kind of in the beginning we're in 126 countries if we want to serve communities can you tell people where the black market is outside of moscow is that part of lighter but if you want to chat into our chat feature and ask my right i'm sure

she'd be happy or somebody's like listen you know i there's no whole foods where i live damn it i had to go to the black market don't tell me you can't get healthy food right yeah there really aren't but it definitely translated to a lot of our recipes being you know these dishes dishes where you can find the ingredients everywhere, where the recipes are very simple, but she also cares. I've never met somebody who has a more discerning palate, too, so they're also really good. We benefit from that. I just love the image of you going through that platform.

I know. It's great. And when you were studying nutrition, of you going through that. I know it's great. And when you were studying nutrition, how did the whole plant-based thing go over with the teachers, the professors and all, it's not like really kind of a widely accepted program in those institutions. Is it like, what, what is it? Well, I, so I went to grad school to study nutrition, to really challenge that and figure that out. Like where, where are we in the research? Where do we fit in? Where do we need to improve and to really challenge that and figure that out. Like where, where are we in the research? Where do we fit in? Where do we need to improve and like really add to the research to help our, help our case. But I actually found, I was pleasantly surprised. I found no pushback at

all. Uh, and I went to Tufts, the Friedman school of nutrition science and policy. And, and they're, they work a lot with the USDA. Um, and it's very research oriented, but I found that there was no pushback at all. There's no tension at all. Uh, and in fact, I found the opposite. The message was very clear. As long as you do it responsibly and eat a diverse diet, plant-based diet is actually healthier and beneficial in terms of any kind of chronic disease, longevity, etc. So I was really surprised by that. Because I always hear these stories about people who go to study nutrition. And when they want to explore the plant-based sort of universe, it's not exactly welcomed. And I would say it was a pretty progressive program because we were also talking about the future and the environment and how diet impacts the environment and the health

of the public in the future, not just today, but tomorrow and 10 years from now. And you can't have that conversation without talking about plant-based diet and animal products. Right. And beyond the kind of community accountability aspect that we already kind of talked a little bit about, in your experience of working with people individually on their nutrition, what do you think are the biggest limiters or what are the things that people struggle with the most in terms of making this switch and making it stick?

That's a good question. I think it varies person to person. From my experience, I think it is really finding the foods that you really like, that you really enjoy, Finding the foods that you really like, that you really enjoy, that meet your expectations of what a satiating meal looks like and feels like. And figuring out how to plan responsibly to make sure you have, you know, where you're going to get lunch. Where's dinner coming from? I think there's nothing worse than being hungry and not knowing what to eat. I think that's probably like the biggest way that we fail.

I don't know. What do you think, Alexis? Or if you're hungry and you don't have a healthy option in front of you, you're more likely to make the bad choice, right? Absolutely. You know, do what's convenient. That's probably not the healthiest thing. Yeah. I think, uh, we all are on autopilot a lot. So we've, we've created neural pathways where we don't have to think, we don't overthink necessarily a lot of our choices day to day. If we overthought, if we thought about every choice we make we you know our brains would be fatigued

very quickly so a lot of us are an autopilot for making decisions throughout the day you take the same route to work every day you um you know order the same coffee every day you're not overthinking these decisions but when you've uh faced a life experience where all of a sudden you feel like you need to change. So these two guys we met who worked for the jail have said, you know, to save my life, I need to change the way I eat. They have to go create new neural pathways. They can't be on autopilot. They need to go change their habits. And I think doing that without a plan or some kind of guidance at the beginning is tough. So I hope that we serve that purpose. Then you can go back into autopilot a little bit. So once you've added new plant-based meals to your rotation, once you've found your

new favorite restaurant and what your favorite dish is on that restaurant, then you can kind of go back into just being in a habit. But I think that taking the time, which is probably about three weeks, you learn it takes about 21 days to change a habit. Taking those 21 days to maybe have to think a little bit harder about your choices. Mark, I would say 22 days. Mark, I would say on the 22nd day you, you, you've made it, um, uh, which is why his company's called 22 days. But, um, you know, though for those three weeks, getting, getting motivated enough to me to be making choices, uh, in situations where you maybe would have been on autopilot before is, I think,

one of the other biggest hurdles. But I don't want us to ever underestimate social influence. And I actually, in hearing Micah's story, I mean, I love, Micah is one of the most incredible people I know. And she handles all of the different things she's doing with grace. And it seems effortless. And one of the reasons way too humble and understated for the things that she's accomplished. So I'll let you, yeah, I can, but what I, one of the things that, uh, she said that I, I think bears repeating is that she's having fun. And the reason she's having fun and the reason it feels like less work is because when she goes into November project, she's with her friends and they're working out together. And

when she's running the marathon, she's not talking about, you know, being fast and fighting everyone. She's like, I'm going to be with my community, you know? Um, and then when we come into work, we're with our friends, like we built an amazing team. We laugh together. We have this energy in the office that just is, it's on fire. And so the key I think is finding your people. And if there's one thing that I hope everyone who wants to make a journey into whatever it is, being an ultra marathoner or just eating, you know, plant-based diet more often. It's finding your people because that social influence, the way that we impact each other and the way that we're connected to each other,

I think goes a lot deeper than we realize. And we need each other a lot more than we admit. But it's a beautiful thing when we allow each other, us to need each other, and we then go find our community and let them kind of carry us in those harder moments. And what a beautiful thing that the internet is this incredibly powerful tool that allows us to facilitate community irrespective of geographic locations. Really amazing and powerful. You know, I think there's always going to be like those two guys that work in the jail who just you know they reach a moment they're in enough pain or whatever it is that they're like ready you know like I'll do whatever I need to do to change but short of having that

kind of experience of you know getting to that point where it's bad enough and you're in enough pain that you almost feel like you have to change. Uh, you know, someone like Dan Butner or the blue zones guy would say the way you're going to win the hearts and minds of, of, of the average person is when you make the healthy choice, the most convenient choice. Like it has to be within arm's reach at all moments, instead of the, you know, vending machine with the chips and the soda soda in it, it has to be something healthy. Or the bike path has to be right outside your front door. Whatever it is, everything from the proximity of markets to city planning, all of these big decisions that go into

what is in our immediate environment has to change. And so, um, you know, my hope is that lighter, you know, the role that lighter plays is making something, making these choices really convenient and easy and, and, and taking all of that kind of, you know, removing the decision fatigue that often leads to burnout and choices that don't serve us. Yeah. I think, um, hearts and minds is, is very important to win. Um, and we see so many incredible people doing that work. Uh, we're here to make it easy. You know, we, we are here for that purpose. And I think it is very exciting to see our movement generally starting to see if we can just help people find their people and make the right choice the easy choice we're going to change lives and in a

sustainable way not in a short-term way but in a long-term sustainable way beautifully said i want to get back to this idea of leadership since that's your expertise. And I think it's such a cool thing to talk about. And something that I think is really needed in this movement. And I was really impressed by what you guys created in Washington by having that dinner after the event. I've never experienced anything like that. Like we're at this conference. Usually I go to these conferences, you speak and everyone like disperses and that's it. And you're like, we're going to have a dinner, you know, and we're going to take, you know, a bunch of the speakers or some of the people that are influential in this movement. We're going to all get together and we're just going to chat,

you know, and talk about like how we can, you collaborate how we can help each other and that was new for me and it's so needed like one of the things that we we kind of touched on it earlier is the fractured nature of this movement when you look at you know other social movements one of the things that you notice in in in sort of studying their success is how aligned they are in purpose in you know, in vision, in talking points. And when you look at the plant-based community, there's a lot of subcultures within it that don't necessarily get along or see things the same way. Meanwhile, mainstream Americans, you know, are lining up at McDonald's, you know, as much as ever, right? So it's a dire

situation that needs redress. And, you know, leadership is, you know, the path, the first, you know, step towards reversing that, right? And I think that act that you guys took, it was emblematic of the kind of culture that you're trying to create. And it was very cool. So how do we continue to do that? Like, how do you, you know, how do you see, you know, how we can move forward positively? Yeah. So, um, I'm, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I, I loved it. So a couple of things, one is, uh, I've always been upset, obsessed with studying social movements, um, a, because I, we're very much in one and I've also just been interesting, interested in this idea of how do

we create change? And I think one of the lies that history has given down, and not to rail on school too much, but that we also learn in school, is that we have these great men who led a movement. So you have Gandhi or you have Martin Luther King. We put everything on this one or two people who represent an entire movement of people. you know, this one or two people who represent an entire movement of people. When in truth, from my experience watching change happen, and as much as it feels like we have a long road ahead, especially in the last five years, things have changed so quickly. One of the key pieces that I see to a successful movement is the role of friendship. We are a social movement, which means our social connections to each other are what gives us our strength. And when you can enable

people to become friends, you break down major barriers in communication and communication's everything, right? So we're more open with each other. We are able to share what's really worrying us. I think a lot of us who are, um, who are leading the way in one way or another, um, bear heavy responsibility and that that's not easy and we shouldn't always have to do it on our own. And we need our peers to kind of lean on sometimes, or we need to be able to say to each other, I'm working on this. What did you do when you, when you confronted it so that we don't again, you know, conserving energy so we don't have to go reinvent the wheel. Um, I also think that when you're friends with somebody, they can keep it real with you. So they can let you know that there's a pothole up ahead

or that you're headed down the wrong path and you can speak frankly and honestly with each other. hole up ahead or that you're headed down the wrong path and you can speak frankly and honestly with each other. Exactly. And you know, we all, we all make mistakes and, um, friends are, are, uh, the people in our lives who can call us out on it. Um, and I think that's one of the beautiful parts of Mike and I's relationship. Like we're very close, but we are not afraid to call each other out. Um, and, and we, we, I think are much stronger as individuals and collectively because we do it. So I've had the experience of being in some of these curated spaces with people who are not in the movement, um, and saw how powerful it was to bring together, uh, thought leaders or people who are, um, working, working on the, these things day in and day out. And just saw how, if you can create the right environment.

So we were at shook, which is a great, uh, restaurant in DC and you can, um, kind of let everybody, uh, loosen their tie. I don't think any of us were wearing, so to speak. If Neil was there, he would have been wearing a tie, but he might've been the only one. But if you create the right atmosphere, uh, you can enable people to really open up. And I think that often we look at the, um, the, the hard skills that are needed to change the world. So in medicine, it's, you know, looking at the science and being able to read the science, for instance, but we don't necessarily look at the softer skills of what it really takes to change the world. And I do think that bonds between people, enabling people to be vulnerable and open with each other, just gets us so much further.

And honestly, in business, you learn a lot of this. So when you, a lot of the leadership books that exist in the world are for business leaders. And one of the things that astounds me is, um, I had a very, I had a brilliant person this weekend. I won't name names, but, um, I mean, a brilliant doctor say to me, Oh, I couldn't do business. And I said to him, you, you, God, you went to medical school. That is very hard. I went to law school, which is like kind of hard going, no offense to the MBAs, but learning business is intuitive because we interact with business all day. And most of it is about just dealing with people and enabling people to do their best work and creating situations where they can do great work. It's very, very human. And so in business, we talk a

lot about how to facilitate communication. We talk a lot about how to get people to bond and create the right culture and the right work culture. We should be doing that collectively as a movement as well. Tell me about this trip in Italy that you guys did, because that's, you know, an example of this in action. So about three months ago, Micah and I found ourselves in a 15th century villa in Tuscany. You just found yourselves there. With, other than us, five incredibly powerful, compassionate women who are leading the way in the movement to help people eat a plant-based diet. And we were there for a couple of reasons. One was to strategize. One was to say, you know what, sometimes we need to step back,

take a look at the big picture, and we need to figure out how we are going to work together to bring about change. And then the second reason was to just recharge our batteries, to give ourselves time and space to really connect with each other. So often, you know, we see each other in passing at a conference or we see each other for coffee and you don't really get time as adults to spend a lot of time together. And we wanted to give these incredible women space to do that. And it was life-changing for all of us um as i think retreats to italy sometimes are as i'm sure you know as well yeah um it's cool you know and i think that that's an extension of your you know desire to empower people around you to do their best work right

when i was in dc uh i had the opportunity to sit down and do a podcast with Steve Case, founder of AOL. And, you know, he's written this new book that's all about kind of what entrepreneurs are going to have to know in order to successfully weather what he calls the third wave of the Internet, which is much like the first wave when he built AOL. And in other words, a big part of that is going to be not just building apps on top of this information superhighway, but also learning how to form successful partnerships. And that also involves dealing with regulatory agencies and government at the highest level. And as somebody who is in the food space, for lack of a better word you know in some respects I think you could make that argument you know you're gonna have to be dealing with food companies at the highest level and that becomes very quickly politicized and highly regulated right so you know something that just happened was it yesterday was this big cheese bailout have you read about this you know about

this so the government um is issuing a 20 million dollar bailout to the dairy industry they're they're buying 20 million dollars worth of cheese because there is a surplus of cheese right because consumer demand is moving away from dairy which is is an amazing thing. And I think it's a reflection of the success of this movement, galvanizing. And what does the government do? Well, it bails out these dairy farmers by buying this. And the press release specifically said, you know, we're doing this, but this is really to, you know, a big part of this is to provide for families in need, right? So they're going to give this cheese to families in need, right? So they can like check a box of like being, you know, good citizens or something like that by doing this, this, you know, seemingly laudable thing, but it's really about enabling an industry that's crumbling under declining consumer demand. And so I guess what I'm getting at really is,

you know, we're going to have to, you know, as your, you know, your efforts to win the hearts and minds of the average, you know, the soccer mom and the average consumer, you also have to have your eyes keenly, you know, placed on, you know, what's going on at the, you know, federal and state level that is, uh, that implicates, you know, these choices in your day-to-day business. Absolutely. And I think all of us, and Good Food Institute is doing some interesting work on this, our government is structured in a way, and I'm not revealing any big secrets, but in a way to protect big ag. And I think that as much as a lot of the

people who are advocates of that are Republican and say, get government out of our lives. Ironically, I think the government will intervene on behalf of big ag in a way that interestingly, a lot of us who traditionally might not think, you know, we don't like, we are not railing against big government. Ironically, I think it is those people who rail against big government who will try and bail out big ag as we make a shift. of the things that makes me really excited is we are in America, we still get really excited about innovation. And I think there is an American spirit that we celebrate on a regular basis that celebrates innovation. And I think that if we can continue to tap into the energy behind change in that way, I think it is our story as companies that are trying to change the way people eat and save the planet and save humanity from chronic disease through business. I mean, that's a very

American story, right? And I think we need to make sure that we're shouting that proudly because we are doing exactly what we should in terms of using the system that currently exists to make the world better. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a, there's a golden age happening right now in terms of technological innovation and not just food systems in general, but, you know, plant-based, plant-based, you know, companies that are coming up all over the place. I mean, your partner, Josh, being a co-founder of Hampton Creek and everything that has happened there, it's so extraordinary to Beyond Meat, to impossible foods and the craziness that's happening with Memphis meats and, you know, and veggie grill. It goes on and on and on to the extent that there are actually

several venture capital funds that are oriented specifically around investing in companies that are in the plant-based space, which is like crazy, right? Absolutely. I talked to one VC and it's not just some, I mean, it's the leading VCs in the world who are seeing massive opportunity in this space. When you see an industry that is so dysfunctional, one VC said to me, when you see something that's so dysfunctional in this way, you look for to me, when you see something that's so dysfunctional in this way, you look, look for entrepreneurs to solve the problem. And that is America. I mean, that is the, at the heart of our American story. And I think we should, um, really get excited about

that. And I, and I hope that more people join us. I hope that people see founders like Micah and I, if you had asked me three, well, I guess five years ago. So when I was, you know, 31, what are the three areas of work that you would never go into? I was working for a nonprofit as a lawyer, essentially. What are the three things that you feel like are too hard or you would never get into? It would be tech. I knew nothing about software and tech. It would be medicine. And then probably getting into finance. Those are the three things that I would probably never have thought that I would do. And now I am the CEO of a tech company that's doing health care.

And I think we all have to watch out for imposter syndrome, but I'm so hyper aware of that, that I own it. I'm that I am the CEO of a tech company that's doing healthcare work. And if I can do it, you know, I think anyone can do it. It's, these are very learnable systems. And, um, I hope that others join us because there is so much work to do and business can go so much faster than anything else. And there are venture capitalists out there who see how dysfunctional our current food system is. They know that it's ripe for disruption and change and they're ready and willing and excited to make investments because you know what they know?

And this is what makes a good venture capitalist. They better get in early. If they don't get in early, they're not going to make those 10x returns. So this is their moment of opportunity to get in before the mainstream has hit. And I think a lot of us who have been in this movement for a long time, we see it.

We know when we were kind of on the fringes and we can tell that we're moving into the mainstream. We're not quite there yet, but this is where investors want to be right ahead of an emerging trend. And so I think we've barely gotten started in terms of the amount of investment that's going to come into this space. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, everyone from Chris Saka to, you know, Biz Stone, the Twitter guys are, you know, backing a lot of companies, Bill Gates, you know, you name it, Google Ventures, Kleiner, you know, Juicero has some really interesting, you know, investors in them, like all kinds of amazing things are happening right now. And it's true, even if it hasn't quite caught on in the mainstream, these are the people who have become billionaires by being able to see into the future and anticipate what is going to be big and understanding that our food system, irrespective of your dietary preference or

proclivities, understanding that it is fundamentally broken and unsustainable, and the idea that innovation and technology can make significant changes for the betterment of humanity is very exciting and certainly incredibly profitable if done right. Right. And I want to add that you don't have to be a CEO of a tech company to change the world. This is very inspirational. This, and this story is very inspirational, um, and important, but you can be an average person with, you know, regular kind of nine to five doing your thing, uh, and have a huge impact on the world. You know, as a consumer, we vote with our forks. We, uh, three day, essentially, three times a day, we decide to participate in a system that is aligned with our values. We can choose to be, to act on our

empathic kind of idealist ideals or values and choices. And we have that opportunity as consumers and citizens to participate and support systems that are aligned with those or not. So not everyone has to be a CEO of a tech company to make the world a better place. So I just kind of wanted to bring that back to like every day, every person can have a huge impact on the world. Yeah, it's a really important point. And that is actually how the world changes. Right.

So, you know, we're doing our work day in and day out, but it's we, without, you know, the people who interact with later, without the people who have gotten us to our movement to where we are today, those are people who just make conscious decisions. to where we are today those are people who just make conscious decisions you know those are the people by Hampton Creek who buy Beyond Meat and all of those other products they they without them voting for those products you know we wouldn't we there wouldn't be big companies yeah well it's that that old adage of you know like well one person can't make a difference but that's the only way any any changes ever happened, right?

Like, I don't know exactly what the quote is, but it's something like that. And it's true. And it goes back to that idea of people feeling disenfranchised. And yet here's the thing, and I talk about it all the time, like this one thing that you can do that you have absolute control over that actually has a very profound and tangible, you know, difference, you know, depending upon what you choose. And it can be intimidating or scary anytime you want to opt out of whatever everybody else is doing. But if you really check yourself and are clear on what your fundamental values are and what you stand for, and when you start to bring your actions into alignment with them, that is an incredibly, you know, enriching feeling that,

that gives you a sense of, um, not just self-esteem, but empowerment really, you know, and it's, it's, and then that just sort of starts to lead you into a new trajectory for your life. And it seems simple and kind of nutty to say that, but it's, it's very true. Like I've experienced it and I've seen it in other people. So. Absolutely. And I, and I think then you get to go find your, your people. So it's not the, those first few steps often lead to, you know, you and I both had life changing experiences eating plant-based. Yeah. And you lost, we didn't even get into like your backstory too. I mean, you lost like 45 pounds, right? Yeah.

So making those small changes, you know, sometimes, and I actually think Mike is making a deeply important point. It's not like you go from zero to 60. It's small choices day to day that lead you down a path where all of a sudden you look back and you say, wow, I never thought I would get here, but here I am. And I think sometimes you can't necessarily even imagine what you're capable of. There is no way I could have imagined this for myself. And had I told myself that's the goal, I think maybe I wouldn't have done it. But it was just decision by decision and taking this step and then seeing, oh, this is working.

Okay, now take this step and then seeing, oh, this is working. Okay. Now take this step that I got here. But yeah, I, I was, uh, you know, I come from a family of people who didn't eat that great and, um, and, um, ate the standard American diet and was graduated high school about, you know, 45 pounds plus overweight and, um, uh, made decisions to change the way i was eating for environmental reasons that's when i my aha uh but very quickly learned about health and animals and um it wasn't even necessarily that i tried it just kind of started to come off and um there's that that kind of shedding of your old self in a way is uh gives you space to then create a new self which is really exciting yeah you could tell a whole new story and as crazy

and wild as it you know may seem to you to be doing what you're doing right now both of you if you look backwards like it all makes sense right yeah of course i did these things because that led to this that led to this that led to this and it looks like a a perfectly contrived narrative right you know what i mean right well as you say it's not a linear path but it i i do think that um i i know micah and i and say and also many people on our team, believe they were born to do this work. And that their stories, and Steve Jobs had this great speech that he gave at Stanford, which is one of the videos I share in my blog post, but where he says, looking back, all the dots make perfect sense perfect sense oh like i was an improv comedy which

i think teaches you how to kind of get into a place where you don't know what you're gonna say but you're like you know what i'm gonna get up there anyway and i'll figure it out when you're wait you you did improv comedy i did improv that so my my at what point in the timeline was this happening okay so um i in high school i started my high school's debate team um and uh i we so in our first tournament uh we took first second third and fifth we had a really kick-ass team but again we were friends and we were having so much fun. This was here in New York. This was in New York.

And then I got, and I went to college, I think in part, I got in for debate. And I got there and the people who were on the debate team did not seem like my friends back at high school. You know, we had talked about throwing keg parties, stories money to get to the tournament. And I just didn't resonate with them. And so I very quickly decided I didn't want to do debate. And someone just said, oh, you should try out for the, you're kind of funny, you should try out for improv. And I had no idea what improv was, but I made it into this very select group of people at school. And for four years, I laughed my butt off. And it was an amazing education and just going for it.

And, you know, to stand on stage and have to be funny is a skill to learn. And I actually think it's more important than my law degree in terms of setting me up for success. It's got to be one of the most difficult things, you know, because you have to be funny, but you also have to be completely present, right? And you have to have the confidence that, you know, the words will come or the inspirational, you know, the inspiration for what you're going to say next is going to happen. And I would imagine that, you know, I'm sitting here as you're telling us thinking about that story of going to London and having to sit with that investor and deal with this deck that you're not rehearsed for and having the confidence to go,

you know what, I'm going to get up and just, you know, I can improv this, you know, with my background or whatever, and it's going to work. Yeah. Right. That's a, that's actually a perfect connection to just feeling like something's right and just going for it the other lesson that comes out of improv and it actually improv is something that entrepreneurs are told to go try and and I think one of the reasons is there's a rule in improv called yes and so when you get to a scene where you're with with whoever you're performing with, um, a sure way to kill a scene and not make it funny is to not agree with the person. So for instance,

you walk into a room and you say, the aliens have arrived. We have to get in the tub boat. Right. And somebody just, if they say, say uh what are you talking about steve it's tuesday and you just got home from work like the scene just dies right so the way that you create it is you say the aliens have arrived and we have to get in the tongue boat and then you say yes and i brought the beyond meat nachos let's go know, and you just think of something that you, to add to that. And so always looking at the world to see what you can add and how you can heighten the situation is a great training. That's cool. For the rest of life.

All right. Well, we got to wrap it up here, you guys. This was awesome. Yeah. I'm so inspired by what you guys are building. Um, it's really a beautiful thing. And I think, you know, one of the other things I wanted to mention that, that didn't come up earlier is just the attention to like detail and aesthetics that, that kind of infuses

all of the things, you know, all the work that you're doing. Like if you look at the site, it's, it has this like incredibly modern, you know, it feels, it feels current, you know, it's like of the moment. It doesn't feel like it's at all associated or tethered to perhaps, you know, some of the stereotypes that come with what it means to be vegan or plant-based. Like you put this sort of modern, um, you know, spotlight on it. That's really, uh, you know, spotlight on it that's really, you know, attractive and aspirational? Well, I think a lot of the people who we've profiled on this site are going to be, they are authors of history. There will be history books written about them. And I think

before we get too far along, while everyone still looks great and is in the moment of their work, we want to portray them as the heroes that they are. And so that was our hope, was to really show them in the noble light and in a way that people can relate to and see that this is the future. And many of us are the ones who are bringing it to life. Beautiful. And if somebody's listening and they're struggling, maybe they're rubber banding in and out of eating healthy

and taking care of themselves, or they just haven't found a way to make this lifestyle stick, what is some wisdom or advice that you guys can impart? I think patience is important. Being very forgiving of yourself as you move through a journey is really important. Trying lots of different new foods and making it a really fun adventure

I think is really important. Yeah. And I would say find your people. And if you can't find your people on your own, reach out to us and we'll help you find your people. Yeah. I was going to say, go to lighter.world, right? Yes. Lighter.world. And really, we have a chat feature you can chat in and we will take that question of, I'm not sure where to find my people and help you get there. If that's the question that you have. But any food questions you have, we also answer.

Right. And so you guys are optimistic about the future. So I truly am optimistic about the future. I think that technology can take us so far so fast. uh, technology can take us so far so fast and, um, we're, we're on that road. Good. I think we did it. You guys, how do you feel? I think this is amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. No, I'm, I'm just so impressed and inspired by your work. Like I said earlier, and, uh, I just can't wait to see how this journey unfolds for you guys. And along the way, so many lives positively impacted.

So if there's anything I can ever do for you guys, please reach out and let me know. Well, we've been really inspired by you and your work. So having you on the site is amazing. Yeah. It's so exciting for us. I'm honored. I'm honored to be there.

So cool. Your story is, I'm sure. I'm honored to be there. So cool. You really, your story is, I'm sure I've heard this a million times, but it's really inspiring. And like, since I heard it again this weekend, so I hurt my toe and, and I was walking, I was walking somewhere. I was like, Oh, I can't really work out because I hurt my toe. And then I thought about your story of falling. Oh, my God. But, you know, just I think what both of you do is show kind of the limits of what a human is capable of. And for those of us who are not necessarily pushing ourselves physically but are pushing ourselves in other ways, it's just really nice to know that you show us, you know, how far we can go.

That's sweet. Well, you have somebody sitting right to your left right now who can do that for you on a daily basis. She does that for me on a daily basis. So, Micah, what are you training for right now? Do you have any races coming up? Yeah, I'm doing a few half marathons coming up this fall. It's hard to find time to train for marathons and ultras right now so scaling it back and just doing some fast 13.1s cool yeah awesome all right you guys so uh for

all of you out there in podcast land uh immediately stop what you're doing and go to lighter.world to learn more right and where else should people go You guys are all over social media, but you have like a crazy avatar on Twitter, right? It's not your name. Oh, I think my Twitter handle is my name. It's Micah underscore risk. Oh, Instagram is something different, right? It's complicated. It's three underscores Lightfoot,

which is a family name and also lends itself, Welder Running. All right, cool. And Alexis? Wherever you find Lighter is usually where I am. I will someday. I have a Medium account, so I'm starting to blog. Oh, you're doing a Medium.

Oh, cool. Right. And Lighter has its own social media pages. Yeah, and then we have social media where lighter culture, I think on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Yeah. All right.

Lighter culture. So we're building a new culture. Awesome. And everybody's reading list will be in the show notes from your blog. I'm happy to share it. All right, you guys. Cool.

Come back and do it again. Absolutely. Anytime. Peace. Plants. come back and do it again. Absolutely. Anytime. Peace. Those women are amazing. I really think they're changing the world. And I hope that you enjoyed our conversation. Definitely go to lighter.world to learn more. And while you're there, visit my profile for customized eating recommendations for you. As always, make a point of visiting the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com for this episode. Tons of stuff to learn more about Micah and Alexis and Lighter.

And don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. In addition to weekly podcast updates, you'll get exclusive access to something I call Roll Call, which is just a really short email every Thursday with some instructive recommendations and resources, just a couple things I've discovered, enjoyed, and found helpful. I'm not going to spam you, so if it sounds like something you might be into, you can sign up for it at richroll.com. Of course, for all your Plant Power merch and swag needs, go to richroll.com. I've got signed copies of Finding Ultra and the Plant Power Way. We've got cool t-shirts, tech tees, all kinds of cool stuff. I want to thank everybody who helped put

on the show today. Jason Camiolo for all his audio engineering and production wizardry. Thank you so much, Jason. Sean Patterson for help on graphics. Chris Swan for additional production assistance and for help compiling the show notes and theme music by Analema. Thanks for all the support, you guys. And I'm going to leave you with one final thought. If there is one theme to this episode, it's that we're all more powerful

than we allow ourselves to believe. That one person indeed holds the power to change the world. So what is the one thing you can look at, that you can identify, that you can take action on that holds the potential to shift your consciousness and impact those around you to create a positive ripple effect of higher consciousness? Give me a shout on Twitter or Facebook and let me know,

and I'll see you guys back here next week make it great peace plants Thank you. Svartkorn Thank you.