The Rich Roll Podcast - Jason Wachob: CEO & Co-Founder of MindBodyGreen.com

Episode Date: May 29, 2013

Today on the podcast I sit down with Jason Wachob, co-founder and CEO of MindBodyGreen.com- the internet's primary destination for all things wellness. I first crossed Jason's path back in 2009 and we have been fast friends with him and his wife Colleen ever since. I love his vision and am so excited to share his story — and that of MindBodyGreen — with you. Not only has Jason placed an indelible mark on the new media scene with his Dumbo, Brooklyn based startup, eclipsing expectations of what a web-based health-oriented content provider can and should be, his personal journey from overstressed Wall Street Trader — his face forever memorialized on the wall at The Palm – one of NYC's most famous steak houses! — to Wellness Warrior / yoga & meditation evangelist is noteworthy in it's own right and eminently relatable. Enjoy the show! Rich

Welcome to episode 32 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Jason Wachup. The Rich Roll Podcast. What's up plant eaters, plant curious, low carbers, paleo people, fitness fre freaks triathletes runners cyclists mma fighters couch potatoes yogis meditators whoever you are all comers welcome thanks for checking in this is the rich roll podcast and i am rich roll if you're new to the show who am i and what are we doing here well i'm an ultra endurance triathlete uh that means i like to do really long races or i'm a glutton for punishment i'm an author i wrote a book called finding ultra i am a dad father of four happily married guy

wellness advocate public speaker uh lifestyle entrepreneur i I suppose and if you have checked out the show and you're returning thanks for coming by again we appreciate it it's a big day over here today why is it a big day well we just passed half a million downloads. Insane. It's insane. Started this podcast back in December. So I guess it's about six months ago when my family and I were living in yurts on the North shore of Kauai in an organic farm. And I was looking for a creative outlet and I love podcasts. I'd always been interested in possibly doing one and finally took the time to figure out how you do it and just did it on a flyer really as a hobby as a an additional way to kind of uh i don't know find a creative outlet like i said without any expectations and i'm so amazed that it's found the audience that it has and that people seem to be responding to it in a positive way. I've been getting tons of great emails, Facebook posts, tweets, and it means the world to me. I don't have time to get back to

everybody on email, but please know that I read all the emails and it, like I said, is very meaningful to me that you would take the time to write down a few words, jot them down, and send them my way. So thank you. Thank you for being there. Thank you for being a great audience. What do we do here? Well, my goal is to bring to you the best and the brightest in fitness and wellness. the usual cast of characters, but some of the new faces, the paradigm busting personalities,

people that are thinking outside the box, the outliers. I've had world-class athletes on the show, triathletes, MMA fighters, all different kinds of athletes. I've had everymans. I've had nutritionists. I've had doctors. I've had chefs. Who else have I had? Oh, entrepreneurs. I like having creative people on. I like to explore the link between creativity and athletic performance or creativity and as an expression of overall wellness because I think wellness just isn't just fitness or what you eat. It's how balanced you are in mind, body, and spirit. And that's what we like to delve into here. We like to go deep. We like to go long. I like to take the conversations into new and unpredictable directions. And hopefully I succeeded in that regard. What's up? Well, I just got back from New York City. I had a whirlwind seven days there. I was there to speak at the seed experience in Soho,

which was awesome. I was able to connect and reconnect with a bunch of friends that I've been lucky enough to meet along this path. People like Brendan Brazier, it was good to see him. And also it was crazy awesome to meet this dude, John Joseph, who I've been sort of following for a while. John is a legendary punk rocker. He was in the band, The Cro-Mags, or he's still in the band, The Cro-Mags, and kind of grew up on the mean streets of the Lower East Side in the 70s and 80s.

He's led an unbelievably colorful life with crazy ups and downs and has kind of found himself now as an advocate, ironically, as an advocate for plant-based nutrition. He's a maniac triathlete, Ironman, and loves to just talk about eating clean, eating well, taking care of the body, being sober. And he's got a huge personality like the size of Texas and a great outlook on life. And I'm definitely getting him on the podcast next time he's out in LA.

I wanted to get him when I was in New York, but things just got too busy. He's written a couple books. He wrote a book you might've seen called Meat is for Pussies, which is sort of the kind of book about plant-based nutrition that only a hardcore punk guy could write. And I believe his life story is being made into a movie and it's

currently being developed. I know that for sure. Anyway, he's bigger than life. Can't wait to have him on. I'm going to have Brendan on too, of course. We've just had scheduling issues trying to figure out when we could sit down together, but it's going to happen. It's going to happen. I did record some awesome interviews when I was in New York today., we have Jason Walkup, founder of MindBodyGreen. I'll tell you a little bit more about him in a second. But also interviewed Ronnie Selig, who's the director of the health, wellness, and medical unit at CNN. She's got a huge job there. She's basically overlords over the entire health department.

Essentially, I guess you could say she's Sanjay Gupta's boss. She produces the entire health department. Um, essentially, I guess you could say she's Sanjay Gupta's boss. Uh, she produces the entire unit and, uh, she's also crazy avid triathlete. And we talked about how she balances this super intense job with being a wife, being a mother, uh, being, uh, you know, a professional person and being an athlete. And also her passion for CNN Fit Nation and kind of what they've done in terms of helping transform lives. So that was really cool. I went out to PS244 in Queens,

the first public school in the country to institute a vegetarian school lunch. And that was amazing. I'm gonna upload that later this week and what i learned is that you know sort of the headline that grabbed national attention at the beginning of the month was all about the vegetarian school lunch but really what's going on at this amazing school is so much more uh literally they have wellness woven into the the fabric the dna of the school's constitution and And I got to see it

up close and personal with the kids. So I can't wait to share that with you. Coming up, I'm going to be in Utah on June 3rd for the Utah Valley Marathon, which is going to be pretty cool. I think I'm speaking the day before the marathon in the afternoon. I don't have exact details on when or where that is, but I will either put it in the show notes or make an announcement on the next podcast. Also, on the weekend of July 4th, I'm going to be in Pittsburgh at the Vegetarian Summerfest there. I'm not sure exactly what day I'm speaking, but I will be in attendance and I'll let you know further details on that as we get closer. So if you're in Pittsburgh or you're in the Park City or I'm sorry, the Salt Lake area,

those are two events where you can come and say hi. And please do if you're around. I would love that. That would be great. What else? Finding Ultra just came out in paperback. That was the other reason I was in New York, kind of to do stuff around the launch. Um, I really appreciate all the tweets and Facebook posts, uh, helping me get the word out. I don't have a publicist, uh, and I'm pretty much flying solo on trying to get the word out on this. Uh, I realized like paperback launches aren't as big a deal as they once were now with Kindle and audio book and ebook and all that kind of stuff. But for me, it's a big deal and Father's Day is coming up and hey, you got to get dad something, right? Well, this is a pretty cheap and easy way to fulfill that life requirement. So how do you get it? Well, you can go to Barnes and Noble and pick it up or you can go to one of

the online retailers. But if I had my preference, I would have you click on the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. It's not on the homepage. You got to go to the podcast page or the blog page on richroll.com, but you'll see it. It's right there on the right-hand side, little black rectangle. Amazon, click through there, then pick up the paperback or pick up whatever it else is it is you're going to buy on Amazon it won't cost you any extra and it'll throw some loose change our way help keep the lights on and keep us rocking so what else? That's it, man. Podcast is free. It's always going to be free. It will never be, I'll never charge you anything for it, but we do need a little support to cover our costs here.

I do have some exciting news coming up about the podcast. Kind of try to take it to the next professional level and I'll fill you in more when that stuff gets ironed out. In the meantime, if you're feeling extra charitable, we have a donate page or a donate button on the site as well at richroll.com. And you can throw a few bucks our way if you've been enjoying what's going on. But hey, you know what?

You don't have to. Just listen and tell a friend. That would be great. That would be actually the best thing you could do. Tell a friend in person or online or whatever if you've been enjoying the content. So I got some backed up episodes here. We're going to be bringing them your way quickly.

I'm going to get more regular with my releases and take this whole thing to a new level. Today, Jason Walkup. Who is Jason? Today, Jason Walkup. Who is Jason? Jason is the co-founder and CEO of MindBodyGreen.com. What is MindBodyGreen? Well, it's kind of your one-stop shop for curated wellness articles. The site is comprised of user-generated yet curated by an editorial staff at MindBodyGreen of all sorts of articles that kind of run the gamut from yoga to meditation to diet to exercise to kind of everything that you'd be interested in relating to wellness. And I first met Jason several years ago, maybe back in 2008 or so, and had the good fortune of

him allowing me to post a blog article on his site. And then more recently, I've become a more regular contributor, although I haven't posted there for a long time. I need to get them a new post soon. And it's absolutely my favorite website to post my content on other than my own website because they get insane traffic on this website. I get, you know, just basically crazy multiples of eyeballs whenever I post on mind body green compared to other sites and I'm always amazed at how they've been able to kind of capture people's attention and fascination and it's just a testament to people's interest in wellness and kind of taking their health to a new level and I wanted to find out more about why Jason founded

MindBodyGreen and his personal story and kind of what's going on there and what's in the future for this site, which is playing a more and more interesting and integral role in the wellness sector online. And they got big plans and I have no doubt knowing Jason that they will all be actualized. And Jason has a really interesting personal story as well. It's kind of a Wall Street to wellness story. And he'll get into telling you a little bit about that. And I think you'll find it compelling.

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That's it. Enough prefatory nonsense. Let's just get into the interview. All right, everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Walker. Dumbo's the place to be. I'll say Brooklyn is the place to be. It definitely is. I mean, in my years of coming to new york i i found myself spending increasingly more and more time in brooklyn for sure and uh it's it's the place to be i mean this neighborhood is awesome i mean it's just oozing

with creativity and startups and artists and new businesses and cool restaurants and coffee shops it's definitely hip man let's not forget the food trucks yeah actually i didn't see any that well i usually come over here in the morning so do they come i haven't been around at lunchtime but i'm sure there's a lot yeah they line up here in the summer it's pretty awesome really you get the cinnamon snail they do come here every time i want to eat at this the cinnamon snail for the listeners is probably the most popular uh vegan hot truck that cruises around the city. The food is incredible.

But every time I want to eat there, the line is so unbelievably long that I end up bailing out. When I was here a month ago, I went to go have lunch with my editor at the Random House headquarters, which is right in Midtown. And the Cinnamon Snail truck was parked right out in front of the building. Wow, in Midtown, too? Yeah, in Midtown. In Midtown, like, you know, right, I don't know what it is, like 53rd and 7th

or something like that, or Broadway. And there was a line that, there must have been at least 80, if not a hundred people to eat there. Hey, if, if, if someone's not thinking change is happening,

it's if it happens in Midtown, that that's saying a lot. I know it's crazy, but of course my editor walked right by it. He didn't even notice it. And I was like, dude, we could have eaten there.

He's like, I'm not waiting. He's not plant based either. So still working on him. So, so yeah, change is afoot. It is. It is, especially here in Brooklyn.

MindBodyGreen is playing no small part in that change. I'll take it, yes. But thanks for taking time out of your busy day. It's the middle of a weekday here, and you're going to carve a little slice of heaven out here for the podcast, right? Of course. Well, thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. We love you and love what you're doing and love that you're a part of MindBodyGreen and anything for Rich. Hey, well, anything for you guys. I mean, it's been an amazing skyrocketing evolution for the company.

I think the last time I posted, I keep telling you I'm going to give you a new post. We keep on waiting. My paperback comes out today, and my plan was I got to have a post for MindBodyGreen to come out today, the day of my paperback coming out. And I just couldn't even get it together to do that. I might stay up all night tonight. Well, maybe this is a strategy because the longer you wait, we just keep on growing. That's good. Right?

Well, what's been interesting recently is that I get requests, will you write an article for this blog or blog here or blog there? And I used to do a lot of that. And now I'm like, if I'm going to write a blog that's not on my website, I'm just going to do it on My Body Green because the traffic is ridiculous. I mean, I wrote a post. We joke about this all the time, but I wrote a post called my favorite plant-based proteins or something like that it was just a little simple laundry list of like five plant-based foods high in protein not a day goes by where i don't see that get retweeted and i think i posted that like

a year and a half ago or something like two two years ago. And you look at the number of Facebook likes and the extent to which your content gets shared virally across the internet, and it's insane. It is, and social is only a fraction of our traffic too. So it's great. We just have really great content that's quote-unquote evergreen content that lasts forever so your piece that you wrote almost two years ago is just as relevant as it is today right which is

great yeah yeah yeah so i've written a few but i gotta write more for you and julie wrote a post on relationships that was really great that's still one of my favorite posts on relationships she'll be happy to hear that it is we need more from her too we do i know i've got to like focus my energies a little bit more i know you've got you're working on a few things i know but there's always time for mind body green i like it that's a good uh that's a good tagline you like that all right i expect royalty checks on that one we're're working on that. All right, good. So you're a Wall Street guy, which I think makes this whole thing kind of even more interesting. You know, you come from a pretty traditional educational background, kind of on that, you know, track that a lot of guys get

on and I was certainly on it. So I want to hear, you know, a little bit about your background and, you know, we'll get into kind of how you arrived at founding MindBodyGreen. Sure. So you can't really tell this because this is a podcast, but I'm six foot seven. Yeah, I was going to preface it by saying you were six foot a billion. Jason's very tall. So I'm six foot seven. And yes, I did play basketball. I played college basketball, Columbia here in New York. And like most people who go to Columbia, they become attorneys or doctors or they work on wall street.

And for me, I wanted to be a trader, a good Jewish boy. Yeah. I might've been Jewish, but I, but I, I quickly,

uh, I didn't come from money, had a mountain of debt and I quickly, I didn't come from money, had a mountain of debt, and it was something I wanted. I wanted to make money and to mean money on freedom, so I became an equities trader. I always say I was a trader, not a banker. There's a very big distinction.

One has intuition and the other takes from people. We're not going to even get into that. That's a whole other conversation. So I became an equities trader, and this was in 1999. And I traded for five years, had a couple really good years. 9-11 happened.

Changed a lot of things for a lot of people. And for me, one of the things that changed, and I had done well enough at that point to pay off that mountain of Columbia debt that I accrued, I became interested in other things. Before we get into that, walk me through a typical day in the life of what it's like to be a trader. Sure. Get in very early.

I would get in around 7.30. That's only considered early in New York. I know. That's only considered early in New York. I know. Do all my homework, read the journal, and look at charts and research and any news that happened overnight. There's an equity straight to the market,

it opens at 9.30. And it's pretty fast and furious. There were definitely days I did not leave my seat. Is it like what you see in Wall Street where you're in this kind of trading floor environment with a terminal, a monitor, and a cubicle kind of thing? Yeah, long stacks of desks. There was no personal space. It's one seat right next to each other. You've got a couple monitors and you're literally glued to the monitor.

From market open to market close. You're not going out for a long lunch. No, there's none of that. Later I did more of that stuff as I started to wind down my career and stop caring as much. But you're glued. I actually really love trading. I loved competing.

I loved basketball. It was a transition. It was like I wasn't leaving. I left basketball, but there was a lot of that. You take that competitive nature. Exactly, you're playing a game of that. You take that competitive nature. Exactly, you're playing a game every day. You're there to win and there was this great camaraderie. It's now defunct.

But a lot of great, really smart guys. It was fun. Were you trading securities or commodities? NASDAQ and then a little listed as well. Back in the dot com from 99 to 2004. I saw the NASDAQ go all the way up running from 2 to 5,000 and come back down.

I saw a lot of people make and lose fortunes very quickly. Right. And then 9-11 happened. Were you downtown? Yeah Street when it happened? Yeah, I was a couple blocks away. I was at 50 Broad.

So I'll never forget. So with trading, you have the futures. And the futures are an indicator of how the market is opening. And they're usually pretty consistent. Whether the futures are up 20 or down 20 or pick a number, they kind of stay there unless news happens. I remember the futures just took a dive. kind of stay there unless news happens i remember the futures just took a dive something happened it was news and then i'm sure enough on cnbc they started reporting

that there was a fire in the world trade center uh but you but being downtown you didn't hear like some well i opened the window we had unbelievably loud we were just far away enough where we didn't hear it but i opened the window and then you started to see debris it seems weird that you wouldn't hear it though we didn't like an airplane making an impact with a huge building that is in your neighborhood yeah it seems like it would be loud i have a feeling it was we were let me see so we're we're about 10 blocks away so maybe far enough where we didn't hear it but uh i saw debris flying right so first one hit no one knew what happened then the second one hit and then i just got the hell out of there what floor were you i was on the 15th floor so there were still people deciding at that point it was

very unclear like what was going on but as soon as the second one hit i instinctively said something's wrong i'm getting out of here and i just called my mom and said this is what's going on i'm leaving so ran down 15 flights and ran like started walking and running fast like towards the lower east side the williamsburg bridge and then ran and i would towards the Lower East Side, the Williamsburg Bridge. And you couldn't use your phone. And just stopped at a pay phone and let my mom know, hey, my mother lives on Long Island. I figured I'd take it.

At that point, the Lower East Side was a little sketchy. And if something was happening, that would probably be the last area that people would go after. So literally walked across the Williamsburg Bridge and then got in a cab and just gave the guy money and just said, drive to my mom's house. So I was home. All this, I was listening on the radio in the cab

as this was playing out. So I got home before the first tower fell. I just knew something instinctively was very wrong and I'm getting the hell out of Dodge. And so how did that color or impact kind of how you thought about your career and what happened next? I mean, I can't imagine enduring something like that and not sort of doing an inventory. Right. Well, Wall Street is all about and trading. You're in the business of money. Your self-worth is measured every day by your

pnl that's your profit and loss how much you're you're making or losing uh which is great for someone who was looking to make money and pay off college debt and have a little freedom like it was great uh but there's obviously more to life so after that i think a lot of people revisited you know what am i really doing here you know how much is enough what am i what does it really mean uh i was not rich by any means i'd made enough where i could pay off my debt and i had a little in the bank as i like to say like the handcuffs had come off where i could i had the freedom to do something else so i started to explore other things right and this led you into the world of entrepreneurship. Yes. So I got involved with startups.

And first was one from healthcare to consumer products. And then the last company before My Buddy Green was an organic cookie company. And that was when everything began to come full circle. It was over the course of seven years. So sometimes the path is... What was your experience being in the food world? I loved it and hated it. Not the business for me. I learned a lot about that business,

which it just required a lot of travel, which I'll touch on later and what that did to my body. But I loved the organic world and I loved really learning about that and opened my eyes up to what was going on with food and how important it was and the healing process. And it kind of led me to MindBodyGreen. So it was very instrumental. So the course of of kind of growing this cookie company uh you know let's tell the story i mean you you you know started to have to endure quite a bit of air travel right and uh let's get into kind of you know what that was like and where that led you and get to where we are now sure so the cookies were organic chocolate chip cookies they were in

every whole foods in the country. So I've been to probably 200 Whole Foods. This was years ago. And it meant insane travel. So I flew over 150,000 miles domestic. And six foot seven body in a little coach seat. My body was not having fun. And it turned out I had two extruded discs in my lower back pressing on my sciatic nerve.

It was probably an injury that I endured playing in college, but I'd been exacerbated by all this travel and compression and not exercising like I had used to. And these discs were causing excruciating pain. So I had excruciating pain running down my right leg all the way to my toes there were days i could barely walk it was awful and when how long ago is this this was in 2000 started in 2008 2009 not fun no so who do you seek out to address this sure so i went to i went to a doctor a specialist i had i got the mri and they confirmed

what i had and the the doctor essentially said you need surgery and i wasn't too keen on being cut open and i asked are there any anything else i can do here and he said no need surgery so i kind of stormed out of there and i'm like i'm gonna get a second opinion so i go to another doctor he says the same thing he, doctor number one is right. And then kind of as an afterthought, he mentioned something like therapy or yoga could help a little. It was a total afterthought. It may help, but you still need surgery. So I kind of ran with it and started practicing yoga and completely healed my back.

So had you ever done yoga before or this is a completely new? A little bit here and there, a little bit in the gym, a little bit like in some yoga studios, but not really, not really. It dabbled with it, but this, this was kind of a last resort and I just completely got into it. And what kind of, so what kind of yoga were you doing and how long did it take

before you started to experience relief? So essentially there were like four to five restorative poses that I swore by. It was my routine. Every morning and every night I would probably do 20 minutes of light restorative yoga, these four to five poses, like a sequence I went through.

Did it every day, morning and night. After a couple weeks the the pain started to come back up they always say like the further south the pain goes that's not good the pain starts to come back up towards your butt it's going the right way so i started to notice that and then eventually it just got better and better and within a couple months it was gone really only a couple months yeah and it was literally doing 20 minutes of yoga twice a day. Yeah. And you're not going to some fancy class with a...

This was just at home. This was just at home. And then I started to do class, and I started to do class with Tara Stiles here in New York. I was afraid of class for a while to go back in. I had something that was working. I don't want to ruin that. Well, and also, I want to get into that a little

because I think there's a lot of other issues that get involved with that, with men and yoga and that kind of thing. So this is 2008? 2009. 2009. And you've maintained this practice ever since? Yeah, for the most part.

And now where are you at with the pain? I don't have it. I can feel every once in a while things going. The great thing about yoga, and I will say this, why I think it's the absolute best practice, is you become more in tune with your body. You just feel things when things don't feel right. And I can feel when my back isn't,

it's going to that place I don't want it to go. So there's no pain yet or anything, but I just feel like, hey, I need to pay attention to this. I need to maybe practice a little more yoga or I need to watch my posture and just pay attention to what's going on. So I've built in this system where my body's become very aware. And so now what does your yoga practice look like on a weekly basis?

I mean, are you doing it every day or every other day? Not as much as I'd like to. Well, you're running a startup. Now it's probably two to three days a week. You got to have mandatory yoga in your office, man. Believe me. You got to walk the walk that you're talking.

Actually, everyone, most people in our, I'd say half of our office does yoga. Some of the other people are into spinning. Everyone does something. That's the great thing about our office. Everyone is passionate about something we're doing and they incorporate it into our life. For me personally, I probably do two to three days a week now

and it's evolved more into a home practice. But it's something. I feel that's what's the great thing about yoga. All you need is, you don't even need a mat. You just need a little space. There's this whole industry cropping up around it. You've got to have the $100 mat and this special towel

and these little things to put on your feet. Every week it seems like there's a new product to monetize something that you essentially need nothing for. That's the nature of our beautiful economy. I'm a capitalist. yeah hey if it makes you feel good and you can afford it then right go for it after so well i think it goes it it's germane to issues of identity and it's you know it becomes like a thing for people like this this is what i do and right you know they want to be perceived as such i suppose there's nothing wrong with that. You know, it's a, it's an amazing pursuit. And I think, uh, you know, we're finally at this time where, uh, you know, yoga has passed

the tipping point. You know, I remember in the early two thousands when, um, you know, I first started kind of exploring it a little bit and, uh, and you, you know, I was new to Los Angeles and it certainly had its foothold there with its rock star teachers and all of that but it wasn't something that was really kind of a thing that guys did right tons of girls tons of hot girls right yoga classes i always say like if you're a single guy you know that's that's where you should be showing up right not the single bar or the the bars but the yoga classes. I agree.

But we're seeing that changing, but I think that there's still a lot of fear or resistance and kind of mixed identity issues around masculinity that play into yoga. And you're a very interesting test case you know nice long island boy columbia you know equities trader basket you know college basketball player an unlikely candidate for somebody who's going to show up in a yoga class and yet like taking health in your own hands and healing your back when you know when doctors said you were going to have to get cut open. I mean, that's a very powerful story. And I think it's important for men in particular to kind of hear this stuff.

Like, what do you think it is that's preventing men from exploring yoga or kind of being more willing to, you know, see what it's, see what it's all about. Right. Well, I think it's a couple of things. One, one is I think time commitment. A lot of people are, you know, especially here in New York and in LA, you have so many type A people, they're overachievers. They're not working nine 9 to 5 they're working more like 8 to 8 so when they hear yoga classes an hour and a half like jeez how the hell am I going to fit that in so I do think I push back on yoga

I think there needs to be more classes that are a little shorter and geared around people who can't necessarily make yoga every day and cut out time for it. But I think there are more tools and online tools where people are allowed to do that. I also think that specifically with men, yoga is a woman's game, so to speak.

That's what my wife does. You know what I mean? That's my wife's thing. I'm going to go play pickup basketball or touch football or what have you. Right. And I would say most men probably don't love that they're getting into something where women are probably going to be better than them. And there's a bit of a learning curve. And men don't love to be not embarrassed, but they don't want to jump into something where they're not going to be good.

And with yoga, it may take a while. but they don't want to jump into something where they're not going to be good. And with yoga, it may take a while. And there may be a woman who's 5'2 and weighs 100 pounds and she's doing these crazy inversions that you would love to do because men are also very competitive. And that's not necessarily a good thing with yoga. Yoga is not about being competitive. Unless you're Bikram.

Unless you're Bikram and that's a whole other podcast. And so men like to measure things Unless you're Bikram. Unless you're Bikram, and that's a whole other podcast. And so men like to measure things, and yoga is not really about measuring. Yoga is about being in tune with your body and making your life better inside and out. It's not like you're going to the gym and say, well, I benched 300 pounds today. That's up from 280 two weeks ago.

benched 300 pounds today that's up from 280 two weeks ago right it's this uh it this internal um kind of um conflict between our human nature you show up at a yoga class there's 30 40 people there or whatever and you're looking around and it's it's in our nature to compare like well he what he's doing or what she's doing looks better than what i'm doing and you know is my gut hanging out and what is that going to look like and you know all of that which is the antithesis of what yoga is really and it still happens every day and every course of course it's uh that's not what it's about but but it's just you know i think the biggest that's a very interesting point about not wanting to look vulnerable, which plays into issues of masculinity and identity for men. It's still perceived as a woman's thing and not a masculine thing to do. And since I've sort of developed a practice, not a day goes by where I'm not like, God, I wish I discovered this when I was a swimmer. I mean, my God, I think it would have really improved my athletic performance, you know,

when I was in college. I mean, you know, what, you know, what would you say to an athlete, you know, having been a basketball player, like what are the, what are the kind of benefits that you've realized or how have you seen, you you know your sense of self or your your feelings about your body change right oh absolutely i would say i think i do think we're seeing more athletes and embracing yoga at a professional level and i would absolutely say yoga is like one of the absolute best things you can do if you're serious about competing if you're an athlete i think it's i think it's mental toughness for one I think it's being in tune with your body. I think it's about flexibility,

which you're not going to get injured as quickly and you're going to be able to recover faster. I just think it's the absolute best complement to whatever you're doing. So without a doubt, if I were practicing yoga, probably doing a lot of other things too, when I played basketball, I would have absolutely been better. I think it's an incredible, incredible tool.

Yeah, I mean, it's easy to look at it and go, well, is it a workout? And it is. It's an incredible core body strength workout, functional body movement strength and flexibility. But also, all of the asanas are all kind of oriented around calming your mind and getting you into this place where you can be present and let go and kind of deal with negative mental impulses and kind of emotional things that come up.

And as you start to develop your practice, you start to develop a mastery over the way that your brain works and you gain greater control over the thoughts that you're having and how much power you're going to put into those thoughts. And as an athlete, that is incredibly powerful because even at the highest levels of sport, you're dealing with incredibly talented athletes. They're gifted genetically. They all train incredibly hard. So what's left? Well, the guy who's dialed in mentally and emotionally is going to be the guy who's on top of the podium

or the guy who's going to score the three-pointer at the buzzer or what have you. And I think that that gets overlooked in athletics. You're still a freak if you go see a shrink to deal with your mental game right you know but there's so much that can be explored there it's untapped i think yeah no absolutely in the professional level especially like you see it i remember in college like when we would play big time teams like athletically there was just a difference like the the quickness and and how fast they moved and the explosiveness but you go past that level on the pro level everyone has that the playing field is equal

so what separates you know the michael jordan from the average nba like sure there's work ethic and talent but a certain level it's it's the the mental toughness of course like why is there that one guy who's always the closer who you know who's going to get it done in a pinch right you know and that's because it's up in the noggin yep check out yoga do you guys i'm telling you man it'll take your game to a whole new level i mean mean, and even if you're, you know, not just in athletics, but in your professional life and your ability to focus. And, you know, I say this all the time, you know, we have this idea that we're, that, you know, our thoughts are at one with who we are. But, you know, the more I kind of walk this path, the more i realize that there's a distinction

between your consciousness or your higher self and your thinking brain which is almost you know not reptilian but can kind of you know is something separate from who you are and and you can develop tools to have control over that so when these thoughts come up like you know whatever it is like you know people that are professional victims or always negative and they're just looping like negative thought patterns well what if you had tools to control that reel that in and change that conversation and you know it doesn't have to stay that way like you can change that and yoga is a very powerful tool to doing so and if you can do that then you know a world of opportunities opens up to you in every facet of your life absolutely and the great thing about

yoga is it's your practice you can take it at any level you you don't have to be great you don't have to be doing hands it's not about being great it's not about how well you do a pose it has nothing to do with that exactly it's about to me i always say yoga is about tuning in and slowing down which are the two things that most people can't do like especially you know new york and la type a's we're all good we're all so good about going fast and squeezing more out of the day and like catching that subway and just powering through and in fact i think the one area we suck at is slowing down and tuning in which is so important you know if you look at a spiritual level everything you read read all these spiritual books you know books like the secret maybe not

the best example the mick secret but it gets a lot of flack where exactly or but so many books and religions and spirituality everyone says that life should be easy life should be everything when you're in flow everything is easy and life life should be easy it shouldn't be hard when you're when you're tuned in when you're in flow and yoga is the only practice that really helps you practice that. Every other physical practice isn't really practicing easy and slow and being in tune. It's practicing other things. So metaphorically, the practice of yoga, translating to life,

should make your life easier and better. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just speaking from my own personal experience it's that thing where i go i don't have time for this today whether it's meditation or yoga or anything that doesn't seem to be moving the ball forward in my sort of limited self-will oriented perspective of my life in the world i can't do that i gotta call that guy i gotta go here i can't it's not gonna happen but when i do take the time and i go no you know actually i'm gonna i'm gonna make the time to do this to exercise this self-care it's important in the greater scheme of things

when i do that and i stop and i slow down uh and invest in that there's this bizarre reverse spiritual jujitsu kung fu that occurs where all those things that i thought i didn't have time to do somehow get done and they get done more efficiently more effectively and in a more focused way right and i can't explain it it doesn't make a logical sense but my experience has been uh that has happened so many times in my life that i can't deny it you know so it helps remind me like make the time to do this it's actually like when you protract your life out forward you're kind of laying pavement for a smoother ride through your life and when it's like what you're talking about flow and you know when you know everybody has those moments in their

life where where everything's gelling you know and it feels easy and that thing you know when you know everybody has those moments in their life where where everything's gelling you know and it feels easy and that thing you know it's versus like when you're trying to self-will something you're pushing hard and it's not working out you're meeting these obstacles and nothing's going your way at by contrast those times where it's like you know oh you know i was just thinking about you and now i run into you and now we have that conversation and that thing that i thought was going to take up all this time just suddenly got done. Things like that start happening.

One of my favorite lines to my old coach at Columbia, Armand Till, who's now with the Celtics, he's got a ring. He upgraded from Columbia. He used to always tell us in practice, if you don't practice hard, you're not going to play hard in the game. You can't just turn it on and off. He always said that applies you don't practice hard you're not going to play hard in the game you know you can't just turn it on and off and then he always said that would that that

applies to life too if you're not practicing hard you're not going to work hard like you got it it carries over everywhere and i actually think that you know talking about yoga yoga you're practicing easy and if you want life to be easy and you want to be in flow you got to practice that yoga is like the ultimate practice for practicing that flow and practicing easy. Hopefully that does transcend to life. That's awesome. I've never heard it articulated that way.

That's beautiful. Yeah. So there are a couple of our people in our office who love spinning, which is not my thing. We have this running joke where they always say they go to spinning and they know that I don't like spinning and I just say it's a metaphor for life. Do you want to be spinning through life?

Or they're just looping. Exactly. Whatever works for you, that's great. But I definitely feel strongly about yoga in that way. Yeah, that's great. So have you ever gone back to those doctors and said, hey, check it out? No.

I'm not much of a focusing on the past type of guy. But hey, it all worked out. If I didn't have that journey, I wouldn't be here sitting with you today. And I wouldn't have my body green and so forth. And it's also an interesting lesson in kind of not reserving judgment on the trajectory of your life like you could at the time when you're having these problems with your back you thought i'm sure you thought

this is the worst thing ever to happen to me and and yet you know your journey through trying to heal yourself put you on a trajectory to be doing what you're doing right now in some weird way so i get you know you could flip that switch and look at it and say, well, maybe that was the best thing that ever happened. Oh, yeah, absolutely. What's the great Steve Jobs line from your famous Alba Mater commencement speech? You can only connect the dots looking backward, not forward. Right. I mean, we have, again, it's just human nature.

You endure a certain situation and you immediately label it and judge it. This is bad. This is good. This is not part of my plan i don't like this right and we don't have the information to make that judgment call and it's hard especially when you think of something i've gone through other things in my life i know you have it's very hard when you're in the moment to take a step back and say everything's gonna work out yeah i know well you just sound like an airy fairy you know so but it is important to when you feel that coming on like this is horrible i can't believe this to go hey i don't know what this means you know that doesn't mean you're going to overcome that emotion in that moment but to just be able to kind of sort of objectively step back and and and maybe reflect on it in a different

way right can be powerful right so all right so your back's healed and uh and and the the cookie company what's going on like we're how do we let's get the mind body green here so the cookie company this was in 2009 and so with the cookie company i really started to pay attention to eating organic and the importance of plants and also all the crap we were putting into our homes and bodies and i also happened to meet my now wife around that time and started to revisit spirituality another stanford grad yeah another stanford choice they're everywhere yeah uh so with the healing of my back it became really apparent where i had these series of moments where i was like wow having having a spiritual practice incorporating mindful movement preferably yoga eating more

organic and closer to nature and ridding our homes and bodies and environment of all these toxins this is a solution to health everyone else has it wrong it's not about weight loss or disease management this is it it's this lifestyle it and no one was really talking about this everything out there native print was essentially about weight loss which is not health and the web native prints native print magazine so your big print magazine i got you essentially all about weight loss you know flat bellies quick and like all that stuff's great but that's not health and the web was dominated by disease management people searching for i've got this wrong with my arm what do i do and and you know information is power but information can be really that's a recipe to

go down the rabbit hole of despair and darkness exactly diagnosing yourself online and the only area the only sites out there that were really talking about wellness in this way were you know a little too new agey and weird and angry and if i were to show to a friend i played basketball with in college they would say jason you've lost your mind are you serious so the idea with mind body green was to create a platform and a place to make this lifestyle holistic wellness approachable and accessible to the to the masses you know in a way that that talked about it from the perspective of health. This is all about health.

There's a global health problem. And I think we've got it wrong. It's all about preventative health. 90% of disease, I think, for the most part, is preventable with this lifestyle. Right, and we give lip service to preventive medicine. The pundits do and the politicians do. But there really just isn't any significant movement Madison, you know, the pundits do and the politicians do, but there's absolutely,

there really just isn't any significant movement in that direction, really, in terms of, uh, healthcare and the way doctors function for the most part, of course, there's, there's exceptions and it's incredibly frustrating, but it's almost like our systemically we're set up to make that very difficult to happen because of just the way the money works. Yeah, absolutely. It's from every level. The government has it wrong. The system has it wrong. Healthcare companies have it wrong.

Doctors have it. So I think we're at this really interesting point in time where people are starting to wake up and they're getting fed up. And you have things like the healthcare crisis here and people talking about obesity and people taking things into their own hands and exploring this lifestyle.

And then you also have culturally celebrities speaking out about their yoga practice or acupuncture or going vegan or eating organic so you have this whole kind of this this huge wave i think that's occurring right now within health that's happening and and we're happy to be a part of it and hopefully leading the way there we think that this lifestyle is for everyone. It's not just for people who live in Venice, Boulder, and parts of New York City. This is beyond the bubble. Right.

And you definitely have made a huge imprint on this discussion just based on the numbers that you're getting alone in terms of your traffic. Can you speak to that? Sure. So we're in May, so we are at 3 million unique visitors a month. And that's up from this time last year, we were, I think, around 800,000.

So we've grown quite a bit. It's astronomical growth. And it does speak to what you were saying this need and this desire for a real uh sustainable solution that isn't you know a transparent easy fix or some kind of fad diet or anything that everybody knows you know doesn't work and it's just the flavor of the month yeah this is this is all we're all about empowerment and finding what works for you if finding what works for you if going vegan works for you that's great you know that's not for everyone if going paleo works for

you that's great whatever works for you if you like yoga that's that's incredible i think it's one of the best things in the world but if you like running um go for it i'll add that i think you know within this community people can easily go down the rabbit hole of creating stress around the very activity that is supposed to be making them healthy. Right, we were talking about that earlier today, right? Yeah, and we were talking about grocery shopping and how confusing it could be. Soy, is it good or bad? Is it GMO versus non-GMO?

And all of a sudden you have someone who is living a healthy life and they're freaking out about grocery shopping because there's yeah they're getting conflicting messages and it's easy to just throw your arms up in the air and say well forget that you know it's like you know even they can't figure it out so you know they don't know what they're talking about so and then grab the cheetos exactly and so you know with food i always we were talking about this earlier it comes down to you know the great michael pollan line eat food not too much mostly plants

it's about finding what works for you you have to enjoy what you're doing because if you're if you're not you're creating stress around the very thing you're doing which is negating the positive effect of it right exactly trying to reduce the stress and repair and heal our bodies with food and with lifestyle. And then to create stress around that, yeah, it becomes this vicious cycle, self-defeating. Which many people do.

Yeah, and I sympathize. There is a lot of information out there and there's camps and teams of people that are all fighting amongst each other about this way or that way and and you know some of the science is spot on and some of the science is conflicting with other studies it's very easy to get lost in in the morass of it and forget you know the michael pollan quote which is you know page one of the diet book first page and last page, done with book,

right? Tell that story. You told me a story a while ago about, you know, just being an entrepreneur and kind of being in this wellness space and seeing the growth and kind of dealing with the economics of it and the bankers and all that kind of thing. And being told that there was a glass ceiling on how many unique visitors you could likely expect for what you were doing. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. Well, a lot of people in this,

when going on this path, we've been in this for four years, we've always kind of grown it organically and have been very careful about how we grow and have kind of been methodical about it, which has paid off. There have definitely been times when I've talked to people in the space, whether it be investors or bankers, and you hear a lot of, well, it's not big enough, or there's a ceiling. Your ceiling's probably around four million uniques or it doesn't scale.

million uniques or it doesn't scale and you know i see it with the interest now in our site with it with the growth and the comments and the engagement and i really think there is no ceiling now i used to think the ceiling was around five to six million uniques but heck we're at three now and we're still not i feel like we're not even scratching the surface so yeah it seems like every other week or maybe even every other day you send a tweet out like we just broke a new record for site traffic. This is constantly happening. Yeah, and I just think it's representative of what's going on globally.

And I really think we're amid this huge change that's taking and we're still early. I definitely think we're still early. So this starts out i i presume like just in your apartment and you alone yeah i'm trying to figure out this website i mean what's this what's this sort of garage story behind how you got this going i got it started off i got very lucky i have two incredible co-founders, Tim and Carver, our CTO and COO, who I met through a friend years ago. And I gave them the pitch and they really liked the idea and liked the space and took this as a side project. So they worked nights and weekends. They kept their full-time jobs.

And so it was just me. I started doing one post a day this was in september of 09 and met a lot of people started with one did no idea what i was doing so i had done startups before but nothing in digital so in retrospect i was way naive going into this one so started one post a day in september of 09 didn't get to 100,000 uniques in a month until January of 2011. So during this time I had a very understanding wife who let me work from home and not earn any money.

I blew through every dollar that I had saved just in supporting myself back from Wall Street. It lasted for a while. Around that time, I had started to become friends with a lot of people who were influential in the space. People like you and Tara Stiles and Chris Carr. I could go on and on with names. Frank Lipman.

I became friends with these people. They'd been to our house for dinner. A couple of them had asked, can I i can i do a post can i do a guest post and i said sure and so things kind of steamrolled from there right then you you sort of shifted i mean was the original model you were going to be i mean what was the original plan in terms of how you were going to have content i mean because you now you're this user-generated... I mean, your model really is user-generated content, right? Curated, yeah.

So you have this sort of panel of experts that contribute posts, but then you... I don't know if you solicit, but you entertain the prospect of posting other user content that you curate and review, right? Right. So there really was no grand master plan

in the beginning. The only thing that I will say is I really wanted to make this inclusive and approachable. That was my mission, but I had no idea how we were going to do that or what worked in terms of a business model. Let's talk about that for a minute because I think that's a huge thing.

Whether it's plant-based nutrition or meditation or yoga or all these things, they've kind of been the purview of the hippie community for lack of a better, I don't mean to be pejorative about that, but just sort of a more marginalized community of people that was not accessible or relatable for a mass mainstream audience. And I think the biggest shift that we've seen in what you're doing, what you seem to fully

grasp and understand, and it's something that I'm always thinking about, is how can I take these principles that have been so transformative in my life right and make them accessible to people that might be you know maybe not intimidated but it just doesn't seem like something that would be in their wheelhouse you know like how do you communicate this incredibly powerful helpful information in a way that's digestible for like the average guy right and and you figure that out for sure i mean you have a very mainstream audience and and uh and i think that's that's really that's the the ticket to transforming people right i think so and it's also it's who i am i always consider i'm a normal guy in a lot of respects and i I always say, be authentic.

So if I were trying to do a website that was super preachy and exclusive, that's not me. And that's not what I'm about. Well, you might have to cut your dreadlocks off. I'm just kidding. It's a very clean cut boy. So I think that's, I'm very on mission. Like this is who I am.

Right. I live, breathe and eat this. I want that authenticity. I think, and I think authenticity is the other thing. Like you've got to be authentic in this day and age. Absolutely. If you're not, it's totally transparent. People can tell.

They see right through it and they move on to the next thing. Absolutely. And you've done a great job of being, you know know very authentic to who you are and to you know what you're trying to speak to yep absolutely and all of our contributors we we have over a thousand contributors now we try to find you know a lot of them have come to us and some of them we've sought out and we try to find people that we believe are representative of the brand. How many unsolicited, user-generated articles do you guys receive on a daily basis? We get about 50 a day.

And we don't publish everything. Who reads all that? Our editors do. How could you possibly? I used to do all of it. I don't do it. But we have real editors now. We have two incredible editors who are,

I'll always say they're journalists first and wellness enthusiasts second which i think is important so they're real journalists they're real editors and they do an incredible job editing i think they've done an incredible job of elevating the content and what do you what are you looking for in the content like what what makes for a great mind body green post uhgreen post that you think is helpful and people will respond to? A couple things. One, I think it's got to be authentic. You can't be a nutritionist trying to write about yoga or a vice for a yogi trying to write about being a life coach.

I think it's being authentic and writing about what you know. That's first and foremost. I think it's also about having a promise and delivering on that promise and leaving the writer with a takeaway. There's tons of content out there on a daily basis. We publish 13 to 17 articles a day. What's going to get someone?

What's the hook? How are you going to get someone to read your article you're competing with content everywhere so you've got to really deliver and you need to give someone a takeaway I think those are the elements of the successful piece

and I would imagine receiving that much content on a daily basis and just kind of what your expert contributors are delivering it gives you a pretty good bird's eye view of trends or what people are interested in yeah in terms of wellness so you know what are you seeing more and more of or or you know what do you think kind of where's the focus heading or you know what's coming down the pike that people might be interested to hear about that they might not be aware of?

A couple things. I think paleo is becoming increasingly popular. Becoming? Yeah, I know, right? It's huge, right? It is huge, but I just see more. I think it's seeping more into the mainstream, so to speak. Probiotics, the whole microbiome thing, which we were talking we were talking about earlier we were talking about that earlier so and i touched a little bit uh about this in my book

the relationship between gut bacteria and and overall health cravings disease prevention all this kind of thing and you're seeing a lot more books being read articles i just posted a ted talk the other day where somebody was speaking to this issue and i think we're going to see a lot more information about that and and it's exciting because it's this way of looking at disease and health from an entirely new kind of previously unexplored perspective of using probiotics or treating your gut bacteria as a as as a way to you know health. It's pretty fascinating. No, and I think we're, like we were saying,

I think we're early on this and science is sort of catching up there. Yeah, right. There's a lot of work to be done for sure. And then when we see specific things like what types of foods are trending and like sauerkraut I think is huge right now. Really? Yes. It's a probiotic. I'm telling you, we've seen it with spices.

I'm telling you, sauerkraut is going to be a superstar. Well, turmeric is our, I think, well, is that yesterday's news? Yeah. Well, it depends what circle you're in. In our circle,

turmeric is, or turmeric, I would say. Turmeric, turmeric. Yeah, tomato, tomato. Sauerkraut is big right now and you know there are like we think vulnerability calling your trader friends down on wall street i got a hot tip for you yeah um vulnerability i think is another big trend in writing and i think i started with bernie brown did this great talk and she's written about that. We see more and more posts where people are talking about being vulnerable.

There's a lot. We see a lot. It's great because we see all the traffic and the analytics, so it's fun to see what does well and what doesn't. We have this great bird's eye view of what's really, really happening. Let's go back to that vulnerability thing because that's that's interesting i mean what what specifically do you mean by that i think before i think people are not afraid to share what's going on with them and what's and when what's going on with them is not necessarily good. People will share things. We had a post the other day about a guy writing

how he told his wife was bisexual. Talking about being vulnerable. He just flat out wrote a post that 3 million people are going to... God bless him, that's great. 3 million people this month. So it used to be people aren't afraid to share and they will be you know quote they'll tell you about their achilles heel and how they were you know you talk about the the seven deadly sins gluttonous or you go through the lot people were not afraid to share and be vulnerable i think that's very

hot right now yeah i think it's a cultural shift i think it's you know that speaks to authenticity right uh as well and that was certainly you know as long as you're authentic about being vulnerable being fake vulnerable that'll be next right the backlash i mean i think on a global level it's it speaks to issues related around um privacy and the internet and kind of a new generation of people that don't think about privacy in the same way as somebody maybe like you or I think about it or even being older. I know when I was writing my book, vulnerability was very important to me. But that didn't mean that it was easy. And that also didn't mean that I wasn't sure that was the right thing to do.

I struggled with that and it was painful. And I'm glad that I did it. And I think there is something about being vulnerable and being authentic that makes the reader or the viewer emotionally connect. Because it's more human in that regard yep um so that's interesting so sauerkraut and vulnerability yeah you can't go wrong yeah it sounds like the name of some lower east side juice bars the club closed last year yeah juice and greeting cards you know i don't know and vegan shoes? I don't know. And vegan shoes, right? I don't know. So what's next for Mind, Body, Green? Where are you taking this pirate ship?

Where are we heading? To the promised land? Yes, we're taking it home. As I said, I think we're really early in this movement. And we're going to be doing a lot i think we have a really incredible community of contributors and readers and we're still very early in making this lifestyle approachable on every level so i think you're going to see us continue to do more of what we're doing essentially you know building a community

around blogging and content. But we're going to start to get into other things. And I think that's really exciting. As long as it fits under the umbrella mission of making wellness accessible and fun, we're probably going to do it. So I think there are some interesting things. We're working on one of those things with you,

which we can't really talk about now, but it's really exciting. Super top secret. Super top secret. Very top secret. So you'll start to see in the next couple years, we're going to be getting into some interesting things with that one mission. We're here to make this lifestyle for everyone, for the masses.

Right, it's great. You guys are doing amazing work and wellness certainly isn't going away. You know, I'd like to say it's reached its tipping point. I'm not sure it's quite there yet, but there is a lot of energy behind this right now. And a lot of people who not just need help, but want help. And there's more and more solutions coming up every day. And this is not the purview of the elite this is something that we can all do together um and like you said i love what you said about you know making it fun and accessible because it doesn't need to be a painful burdensome thing you know this is about

like enjoying your life more right absolutely what's the point then? Yeah, exactly. So, all right, man. Awesome. What do you think? Well, thanks so much for... That was pretty good, right? We did okay. I think we did okay. You feel all right? I feel okay.

We should probably say the name of your website. Oh, yes. The name of our website is mymuddygreen.com. Can't forget about that. No, everybody, if you're under a rock and you've never been to the site, then you must visit. And pretty much if you, you a rock and you've never been to the site uh then you must visit um and pretty much if you you know whatever you want to you have so much content there like anything anybody wants to learn more about or find out about them to search yep um if we don't sign up for their newsletter you get the mind body green daily uh email newsletter with stories of

the day yep and uh and you can follow Jason on Twitter too, personally, right? Yep, Twitter at Jason Wachub. W-A-C-H-O-B as in boy. Right, man. So, thank you for taking the time, buddy. Awesome. Thanks so much, Rich. It's an honor and a privilege to know you and to be associated

with what you guys are doing. So, I'm just happy to be, you know, the caboose on your train a little bit. Likewise. so much it's an honor to know you and to call you a friend and have you be part of this we're all part of a movement and you're playing a big role in that thanks man i appreciate that all right everybody peace thanks plants Thank you.