The School of Greatness - 35 Aubrey Marcus: How to Build a Multi-Million Dollar Business with Passion and Authenticity

Episode Date: October 15, 2013

Optimal human potential is the goal of The School of Greatness and our next guest has grown a hugely successful company over the past few years providing the best products on the market for those seeking to maximize their performance.

This is episode number 35 with Aubrey Marcus. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up to all the greats out there?

I hope you're having a fantastic week. I just finished up my weekend in Montreal, Canada. And I've got a little story for you. I just had a handball tournament here, living my dream. Our first three games of the weekend, we dominated, we won easily. And then we went into the championship game. And that's when we met our first real test. And we were up at halftime by five or six goals. Things were going easy for us.

We were playing well together as a team, but we started to slip a little. We started to think that we had it all figured out. We had the game won at halftime and we started to kind of set back and let ourselves mentally get out of the game. We had a number of two minute penalties, kind of set back and let ourselves mentally get out of the game. We had a number of two-minute penalties, a couple at the same time, so we were playing with two guys less for much of the second half. And I ended up splitting my lip, bruising my shoulder, spraining my wrist that I actually broke back in playing football, and busted up my elbow pretty good.

playing football and busted up my elbow pretty good. And to add to that, we lost the championship game at the very last second of the game. One of the players, we were tied about to go into overtime, and one of the players made this last second shot out of nowhere right as the buzzer went off. And they scored and won by one goal at the very end of the game. And what I've learned is that every loss in life is just a lesson and feedback for how I'm showing up in the world in that very specific moment. And we get to choose how we feel and react in every situation. and react in every situation. And sometimes losing is the thing we need the most to see if we're playing all out at all times.

And this experience just makes me hungrier on my journey of living my dream of playing in the Olympics. And I'm very grateful that I get to live my passion every single day. So is it a big deal that we lost? It is if I make it that way. I look at it as an amazing lesson, amazing opportunity. What was it that I didn't do that I could have done differently? Why did I allow myself to mentally get out of the game

when I thought I had the game already won? And I got in a little argument a few times, why did I allow my ego to be bigger than the team and for me to step outside and hurt the chances of the team winning by my ego being hurt? So they're all amazing lessons that I get to step up into my own greatness. And I'm so blessed that I am faced with these opportunities each and every day. It's because I've got big dreams. And with those big dreams comes big challenges. Now, again, this was just one handball tournament, but it was practice for the bigger opportunity

in the bigger game at stake. And what I want to know is what are you beating yourself up when you lose? Are you beating yourself up when you lose? And do you look at it as a horrible thing or instead an opportunity for change and for growth to realize what isn't working and start doing something that does work for you? Are you also following your passion every single day or resenting yourself and getting upset at others who are living their life or their dreams? And because you don't feel you can't do it, you don't feel like you can live your life or your dreams. So I want you guys to sit on that for a moment while we get into today's guest. And today's guest is with my good friend, Aubrey Marcus.

He's actually the CEO of the sponsor of the School of Greatness, and that's Onnit. And I'm very excited because Aubrey is one of the most intelligent guys I know, believe it or not. And he's into fitness, he's into mindset, but he's really into optimal human performance. And for me, that's a part of greatness,

is seeing how we can get the most out of our minds, out of our body, and out of our entire system. And he has an amazing approach to why he built this company. He's built a large company on it. And in this interview, I'm going to ask him some interesting questions. It's probably one of the most fun interviews I've done actually, because we get into some interesting things that really no one really shares about. And he talks about one thing that accounts for over 90% of all of his sales. One thing that accounts for 90% of all of his sales. And he has a multi seven figure business.

I'll just say that. I'm not allowed to say the exact numbers, but it's big. And it's only started a couple years ago. And one thing has accounted for over 90% of his sales. For me, it's kind of mind blowing what that one thing is. And he's going to share with you the exact details of what he did to do this.

He's going to talk about why he created this company. I think it's important for people to understand why we create anything. What's the reason behind the job we have? The company we want to start? Why do you want to make millions of dollars? Is there a reason or is it just your ego? And Aubrey goes into talking about his authenticity and why it's so important for Onnit and his culture and his company to really build an amazing company. He also is going to tap into some of the stories about his early failures and successes while starting Onnit, almost going bankrupt,

almost losing all the money from his investors, and the one thing he did that helped him sell out his product in 36 hours. He also talks about how he managed rapid growth in his sales, again, going from multiple seven figures in just a couple short years, and what he did to really tap into that growth. So I'm very excited to introduce you to the one and only Aubrey Marcus. What is up, everyone? We're back in the studio for round two with Aubrey Marcus. We just did a practice round the first time.

About a month ago, and it did not record, so we're back. My man is back in LA, so we're back in the studio. That right shit happens what's up good to see you brother and uh i'm excited because there was more that i wanted to ask you last time so we get to go over this like a dry run it's a dress rehearsal well my buddy aubrey here is a very interesting man so i want to cover a lot of things in your life but also in your business and a Aubrey is the sponsor for the show on it.com. If you guys haven't checked it out yet, you hear me sharing about it on every episode, O N N I T.com. And it's amazing what you've created in the last three years. When you started with just an idea, you said, I want to create something that is going to first first it was a recovery supplement.

Yep. First it was hangover pills. A hangover pill. You said, I want to help people in the party industry, basically. People party a lot, drink a lot. I'll recover so they can be in the zone the next day. Right. So they can get back to work and function properly.

Because everybody can basically make it through the next day. But to be productive the next day. Dragging. Yeah. Right. But that didn't really work. It didn work it didn't work no you made a bunch of supplements and it didn't work but what a pretty good supplement but it just was a wrong but it was the wrong market you couldn't really sell it to people and what i think is cool though is that one you have this idea and in a few short years you created a product that didn't work and then then you created another product. And now you have this multimillion-dollar company and extremely successful. In my opinion, the best-looking brand for fitness supplement products online.

And it's amazing what you've created. Now I've got a team of 30 people. We've got a warehouse. We've got a huge office in Austin. And you've done some amazing things. And I want to learn how you made it all happen. Sure. And I want you to share your wisdom and inspiration.

All right. What you can share, obviously, because it's a private company. I'll share it all. I mean, except for the inner financial details and things like that. But all the inspiration, every trick I use, I'm more than happy to share. Nice. You know, we need as many people producing, you know, as many good things as possible, live in their dream. I mean, that's only going to help, you know, the entire industry, the entire world get better. The more people are able to get out there and do what they want to do. Exactly. So, so what did I started? It started from you, like in your apartment or your house, basically with this product, it didn't work. And

then what did you do to shift? Well, most people might fail. When they fail, they might be like, all right, I'm done. I'm going back to my job. Right. But you shifted. Now, how did you shift? Well, you know, well, first of all, I had to raise money for this idea and there's minimums in the pill order. So, you know, I had to basically put down a good amount of money in inventory and create this whole brand, create the website, create functionality. And yeah, it really wasn't selling at that point and running really low on money. And I ended up having a conversation with Joe Rogan at the time and said, man, Joe, what kind of supplement would you really like the most for yourself? And he said, man, you know, well, I'd really like an excellent nootropic, a cognitive enhancer.

And I said, all right. A brain enhancer. A brain enhancer. Something that would be focused. Right. For those who lack terminology. Exactly. So I said, all right.

I think I can do that. And from that point, I got to work and started doing a ton of research, talked to a bunch of top medical professionals, talked to some athletes, talked to different people, saw what everybody was taking, saw the latest PubMed research, and started to put together a working formula. All the while, completely running out of money in this company, ended up taking on some debt and a final debt piece. And I just actually had dinner with the guy who helped me out and he got paid back really quickly, which was kind of a cool story story but brought it basically down to the last bit where um we worked on the formula for a while did some prototypes felt like we had something really strong i mean from even the very first prototype formula we knew we had something close and then kind of mastered that um put together the first you know pill order that basically took us down to zero. This was it.

I was all in at this point. I'd maxed out all the friends and family and some small investment banking resources and taken on some debt and put it all into this AlphaBrain formula. Went on the podcast and talked about it. On Joe Rogan's podcast. On Joe Rogan's podcast, yeah. And within 36 hours, had sold out of our entire first batch of inventory.

And how many units did you have? We had 100,000 pills at that point. So that was broken down in about 3,200 units. 3,200 units at what price? $34.95. $34.95. 10% off for the Rogan people. So it was about $30.

All of them were 10% off, yeah. All of them, yeah. You sold out in a day, a week? A day. It was like 36 hours we were out. So it wasn't 3,500 sales, because some people might have bought a couple of them, but it was probably like 3,000 sales. Something close to that.

Amazing. And we had no infrastructure to kind of deal with that volume. So we were writing packing slips by hand. We were printing stuff out. We had like maybe 600 square feet of office space. And I just started hiring friends and, hey, look, we got to get some orders out. We had like maybe 600 square feet of office space. And I just started hiring friends that, hey, look, we got to get some orders out. This all of a sudden turned into a real business overnight. So I better do something. So we got in there, started mixing it up, eventually got into

better processes. And it's just been, for a lot of our growth, been a scramble to keep up with demand and always staying ahead of product quality, integrity, transparency, and our marketing. But then demand has always been this force just pushing us to grind and improve. Why is your product so popular? What is it about the blend, the quality, the branding? What is it about it that people are so crazy about that just cannot stop getting their hands on?

I think most people, we take supplements and we just imagine that they're doing good. I better take this because I heard from somebody that's going to do my brain good and blah, blah, blah. I think with Onnit, we've created something where people take something and then they feel it. And that kind of blows their mind because they're used to that happening with drugs of some sort or pharmaceuticals or things like that. But they're not used to that being in an all-natural herbal supplement that they feel and can make a definite, impactful difference on their day, the day they take it. And I think that was one of the things with AlphaBrain where people took it like, oh, I feel something. I feel good. I feel sharper.

I feel clearer. I'm playing tennis you know i'm playing tennis better i'm playing golf better i'm doing whatever it is that you you know want to do and use it for in your day and i think that kind of freaked people out a little bit and it's kind of changed the way people look at the supplement industry once they've been exposed to on it like this stuff can have dramatic acute effect right now what's the difference between like uh now would you say that market you're in like the energy drink market like the five-hour energy the people that want

to focus with that or is it more supplement market yeah we've stayed out of that energy drink market i mean all of that is it's a very it's kind of a worn out tired approach to giving your body energy it's basically caffeine triggers your adrenal glands to release adrenaline so it puts your body in this kind of artificial fight or flight mode which is why you crash your body's not meant to be in that mode unless you actually have to do something and it's supposed to be for a short period of time so as you're constantly caffeinating you're constantly pushing that button like, hey, more juice, more juice, more juice. And eventually your body just says, screw you, I'm out.

Stop. And that's when you get these kind of crashing and your energy levels will end up dropping way below, even with the caffeine, what you would be in a healthy, sustainable way. So Onnit is about keeping people with sustainable vitality and not going to that same um same length and we do have coffee and things we sell i mean there's a time and a place for caffeine and i'm not saying don't ever do it but that shouldn't be the only way that you get sharp or focused or approach your body's energy level what is it about i mean really people get immune to this when they take two three four or five cups of coffee every single day. It's like they're going to have to start taking 10 cups to start feeling it because they're just putting so much caffeine and their body is getting used to it. Or it'll even flip on some people, have like an antithetical effect.

Like I knew a commodities trader, futures trader, Paul Tudor Jones, great guy, and had an opportunity to spend some time at his house and spend some time with him. Before he would go to bed, he would have to drink a tall bottle of coke he had a glass bottle you got in glass bottles and he needed that to fall asleep shut up because he had caffeinated so much that his body needed that to relax oh my gosh so it could actually even not only not get you up anymore but it can actually get to the point where you need caffeine to relax. Now, taking caffeine so much, as opposed to the all-natural herbal supplements that you guys have, how does it affect your mind and your body and your stress levels and anxiety over time? Does that create cancers? Does that create problems with the body? Not so much cancer, but it'll create adrenal fatigue. And most men and businessmen and people who are pushing the envelope like ourselves,

adrenal fatigue is a battle that we're all going to be fighting. And that's where just your adrenal glands aren't able to reduce the hormones at the levels that they used to. The cortisol is constantly there. You're constantly in this kind of high level of stress. And so you never really get to fully relax. And that can take its wear over time so you so educate me on that does that mean my testosterone goes

down does that mean yeah I have trouble sleeping I have sleep anxiety or sure apnea or what is that all kinds of effects or you know people look at and I think one of the issues with pharmaceuticals and traditional medicine is they look at one thing and they say aha this is your one symptom we will combat that symptom and we will defeat it well they're not seeing all the interrelated parties they're not seeing like okay well maybe we can fix that symptom but it's going to wear out your liver and then once your liver is worn out your whole body is going to shut down because that's the clean you know that's the organ that cleanses the blood and keeps you revitalized so you can't

really focus on one thing without it affecting multiple things so yeah you know when your stress levels are high and your cortisol levels are high your immune system's depressed your other bodily systems pretty much cognitive systems every system suffers you know you can't take one thing out except for maybe tonsils who knows what the fuck those things do wisdom teeth yeah wisdom teeth so with a few exceptions you can't take one thing out and not have it have systemic effects on the body interesting interesting all right let's get back to the business so you launched this alpha brain products after almost failing over and over and being like we're screwed if we don't do something with this right now and figure it out and make our money back you launch it get on joe rogan's show boom you realize that like these people want this

there's an audience that wants what you're providing what's next what do you do after that do you next yeah next was just to basically duplicate exactly the process we did with alpha brain but choose other different systems so we had brain taken care of all right now what about mood so mood was our next one and focusing on supporting the serotonin system focusing on relaxation and getting your body in a better mood state so we focused on the mood system then we had our pre-workout system and then we had our bone and joint system so our immune system we had basically created products under the same kind of guidelines as alpha brain and just duplicated it and

that's really been the key to success we found a working model with alpha brain found a way that we could access people's needs with certain nutrient combinations and then just applied that and duplicated it it's been wildly successful not a supplement business is probably a extremely oversaturated industry huge industry how did you feel like okay i'm this nobody who's never created something before i'm going to step in and take a piece out of the market like yeah how did you figure that would be possible or that you believed in yourself what you know gave you that belief that like i'm going to make a mark in this industry by doing it differently than all the major players right i knew that they weren't doing it that well

you know because they they were kind of a little bit old school in their models they had a lot of money they had a lot of money to promote it but not not that much money either because all of their whole models see the traditional supplement industry goes through the distributor model they manufacture something they sell it to a distributor distributor marks that up sells it to the store the store marks that up and sells it to the people unless you're talking about mlm you know which have some of the worst products generally actually you're not going in a direct to consumer model that's going to really allow you the margins to produce a really high-quality product. So I knew that if I could go and create products designed for margins that were direct-to-consumer, that I could create a superior product. Plus, I had more nimble, more agile ideas.

I was able to adjust and adapt and use smaller resources of product than some of the big giants out there. And that's really made a difference. When I was making my first formulas, the lab that was making them makes for some of the big other labs out in the supplement world. I said, Aubrey, you're insane.

These products are way too expensive. You're going to fail. This can't work. And I was like, just trust me. You're like, I'm a selling director. Just make this shit. We'll sort that out later. And that's really paid off.

You know, you need to buy expensive ingredients and use the highest quality stuff to have an effect. But once you cross over that tipping point of people can feel it acutely, you know, they will pay the money to get something that they know is working, that they know people can feel it acutely you know they will pay the money to get something that they know is working that they know they can feel rather than buy some crap that they just yeah i hope that did something right just like the the average brand protein powder and just yeah filled in your system you have no clue how many thousand ingredients are in there and sugars and everything

or whatever is in there right yeah and just fart your way through the next four hours. Swallow up your muscles, drink some water. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Now, what I find is really exciting about what you've created, and we've had a number of conversations behind the scenes about this, is you kind of got in at the right time and found the right connection and made the right move early on to see what was possible for it on it and for the company for its growth and that was through and still is through

podcasting yep and you you you saw the the direct result within a day of being on a podcast with Joe Rogan yeah it was obviously one of the bigger podcasts well-known and you said holy crap like why do what everyone else is doing which is like billboards or TV or radio, spending hundreds of millions of dollars promoting and advertising when I focus on the targeted niches where there are raving fans already and kind of build my own raving fan base off of those bases. Yeah. That's as integral to Onnit's success as anything. As the supplements itself. Yeah.

I mean, I had to obviously have a great product that people were going to continue to go back and buy. I mean, our repeat customers are a huge part of our business. We know and we're extremely confident that when someone tries our stuff, we got them. And they're going to want to keep coming back because it's a tool that's going to help them. So, yes, had to have that. But how to get that first purchase? If it wasn't for podcasts, we'd still be hammering out in small numbers these first purchases because the traditional models are largely arbitraged out. And podcasts have just been a really incredible tool to get access to consumers.

It's amazing. So basically without podcast podcasting there would be no on it maybe maybe not maybe we wouldn't have been able to kind of i mean i'd like to think that somehow some way i would have figured it out you know but it certainly wouldn't have gotten this big this fast it would have been a different model you would have had to go to distributor yeah increase your products you know if we would have had to go that way there probably wouldn't be an on it because it just it couldn't work that way you know that model is there probably wouldn't be an on it because it just, it couldn't work that way. You know, that model is going to, I don't know how that model is going to continue to survive and thrive. I think business is going to have to change. I think eventually distributors will be like blockbuster cards. You know, like people will say, ah, that was funny. You remember back

in the distributor days? You know, I think in some industries they'll always exist and they do play a necessary role in the traditional model. But it's just a lot of extra steps between product and customer that, you know, ultimately are superfluous. You don't need them. But, yeah, so get back to podcasts. I think it's an interesting formula with the podcast. For some reason, people listening to podcasts, like the fans that are listening to you now, by the time that they're listening after a couple episodes, they know you. If they saw you, it's like a one-sided friendship already exists.

They would know enough about you to just talk about inside jokes, make little comments. They would already kind of know you and they would trust you because they've been listening to you for long enough. You've been right in their ear and you've been honest and i think the podcasts that are most successful are the ones that are just people talking from their heart and uh and just speaking openly and honestly whether in a comedic way or an inspiring way whatever way or informational way but they're just it's a really honest format and so we've partnered with people who honestly like the products and you know that's

another thing that's great to have about products at work is it's been easy to get products in people's hands say oh yeah i like this maybe if they don't even like the alpha brain for whatever reason there's some people who don't have pores yeah they'll find something that they like and so they can talk about that you know we never try to force feed anybody their message either. So we have a really honest, genuine message coming across to a very loyal fan base. It's very receptive to that honesty. Whereas all other forms of advertisement, you know, we're almost getting advertising blind to a lot of them, especially print and all this other stuff. We'll look at the picture, but we don't trust that, you know, and even these athlete

endorsements, we've done a lot of athlete endorsements they really haven't done much for us at all i mean i guess they give us a little clout credibility credibility social exactly but as far as direct conversions to sales hardly any you know when a football player says hey i'm taking out take an alpha brain on a tweet they they think, oh, I wonder how much on it had to pay for that. Whereas if a podcaster says, man, this alpha brain, I was driving and I was jet lagged and I had to go to this meeting and I took some and I felt incredible from it. And people say, oh, shit, he's probably telling the truth. Check it out. Yeah. So it's really been a kind of unique process. And we've really been able to leverage that where nobody else is really doing that. And so a lot of the other supplement companies are struggling on their balance sheets while

we've been able to thrive and grow from cash flow. Mad Fientist Now you're one of the only supplement companies really doing it well on podcasts, but are there other small businesses or growing companies in different industries that you've seen who are kind of stepping up and kind of taking the same approach as you sure i mean there's been a couple that have that you hear about on all of the podcasts and i don't know how they're doing but i imagine by their how prolific they are they're doing pretty well audible audible stamps go daddy yeah go daddy stepped in the companies with a little more edge to them have started stepping in and playing in the space. And I'm sure it's doing well for them.

Any indication of how well it's done for us, I'm sure it's doing well for them as well. So what was the game plan? After you got Joe Rogan promoting it, I'm sure you created a partnership with Joe. So he's been promoting it ever since the beginning. Yep. But you knew you were only going to grow so much with his audience. Right. So what did you think of next? Like, am I going to go after every podcast?

Am I going to go after this niche? Like, what was the goal? Was it find one a week? What was your game plan? What was your idea? You know, the idea was basically to get it in the hands of everybody who would actually try it and give it a fair shot. You know, I mean, anybody who comes to us, you know, the first thing we say is, you know, and we've gone down the road with some people and they pretended like they were going to try it. And we keep asking them, so what do you think?

What do you think of the products? And they've even, in initial conversation, oh, yeah, yeah, it's all good. I'm like, no, what did you take? What did you like? Say, oh, well, I don't actually ever take any products or use anything that my sponsors give me. And then our conversation stops. It's like like you should have told us that prior you know this isn't a game we're not just doing this you know to to try and have some integrity this is important you need to take it you need to speak honestly if you don't like it then we don't want to sponsor yeah it's like if

you're not going to do it forget about it so we've gone down the road with some big names and just hasn't gone anywhere but everybody else who we have been with has been someone who either i've been able to sit down with them or we've been in enough communication where they've tried the stuff and found something that they really like interesting now how many how many podcasts you sponsor now so we got adam carolla we got um joe rogan joe rogan we got steve aust. We just did the WODcast podcast. We got Joey Diaz's podcast. We got Get Fit Guy, Ben Greenfield's podcast. And a couple other ones we do.

We're also doing some stuff on the radio with Jason Ellis, which is a very similar format because it's integrated within the show. It's not a podcast at this point. It's serious, right? It's not serious, yeah. That's been great. A few other small ones as well. We're about to start with Entrepreneur on Fire. That's coming up here pretty soon.

Nice. So it's really kind of blossomed out. And everybody has their thing. It's funny. Adam Carolla, for the first few reads, was talking more about our jump ropes than about anything else. I got to check out the jump rope. He's a boxer. He's an old boxer, right? So that's what he uses.

And for him, our jump rope had exactly the right weight in the handles. He's a tall guy, right? Yeah, he's pretty tall. Yeah. Not like crazy. He's 6'2 or 6'3. But yeah, so we were like, okay, we'll talk about the jump ropes. That's fine. at least you're speaking honest and so his customer you know we sold a ton of jump rope which isn't really the game plan but we said all right we'll go with it you know that's that's something that right off the bat you've liked and since then he's tried more stuff and he likes more stuff um steve austin was the same he tried a few things likes the alpha brain but he also really likes our t plus which is our natural you know endogenous testosterone enhancer so he liked that and then when he started talking about that because he was really passionate about it that's when you know things

started to really work with his podcast yeah and when people come to the site and buy one thing they'll check out the other stuff and you do a great job of sharing the information about everything and yeah educating of what it all does and how it supports you and serves your body and your immune system and brain and everything. So, and it's all backed by doctors and neuroscientists or whatever. Yeah. We got, you know, we got really top medical professionals looking over everything. We got top athletes testing it out and then we're even taking it a further step and doing our own clinical research, which takes a long time, double blind clinical research, which takes a long time. Double-blind clinical research, which takes a long time. But we're starting to get our first results back

from the AlphaBrain stuff. I can't share it until it gets published and peer-reviewed, but everything's looking good. Looking good. Everything's looking good. Now, can you give me percentages of sales and how the podcast sponsoring and advertising has directly related to a certain amount of percentage based on sales for everything with on it yeah i would say podcasts

are responsible for about 92 percent of our 92 percent that was the last that was the last uh survey that we did in the last three years it's like where did you find us from or where did you where did you originally find us from podcast nine out of ten people yeah and then the rest were word of mouth yeah yeah because you don't advertise anywhere else you do retargeting really we've yeah we do retargeting but that's people who've already come to the site and they probably came to the site for the podcast we've tried we've tried other things magazines or really yeah nothing just burn your money yeah it's a little better i mean just wipe your so then flush it down the toilet yeah thanks lewis yeah yeah rub it in buddy

yeah i hear you i hear you but you gotta test you gotta explore yeah yeah see that's what i tell myself to help me go to sleep too oh yeah you gotta test you gotta do this yeah but i knew it i really i knew it when i was signing that contract and dropping that checks for this print work 50 grand here 20 grand here you're like it isn't gonna work it's not gonna work and i did it anyways because yeah you know you're gonna test it out now you don't live in regrets because you know it doesn't work that's true it's better to be like i wish i tell i have no regrets can't you tell i don't beat myself up at all about this so now you're sticking to what works but you know here's the thing magazines used to work Can't you tell I have no regrets, sir? Can't you tell I don't beat myself up at all about this?

So now you're sticking to what works. But here's the thing. Magazines used to work. For some people, they've seen results with it. Radio used to work. TV used to work. It must have at some point. Podcasting works now.

Yeah. But at some point, 10, 20 years, it may not work. It may not work. Too many people may come in. It could get a little overheated. So you have to innovate the next one. Exactly. So even though you try it a little bit here and there, if it doesn't work, at least you try to see what could happen. That's true.

Because you've got to keep innovating or else you're going to be blinded by what you think is always going to work. And then you're going to be blindsided when it doesn't. That's right. You can't always count on the same thing getting you there. You've got to diversify as much as possible. Someone might move your cheese and you've got to start other tunnels that's it interesting 92 that just blows my mind yeah i'm just like i want to create a physical product and just start selling it on podcast and see what i can create this is amazing you should and it's just look it's simple

find something that you could talk about completely honestly and authenticity and integrity authenticity is is it that is the new advertising model you know all the rest of it we're too smart people are too savvy i mean maybe you'll still fool a few people but the sharp people just see through that yeah you know you see you see shack and a buick and you think, yeah. He can't even fit in it. His knees are hitting the steering wheel. I buy that. I go to Miami. I go to Star Island. I'm going to see you pull it out of there in a Buick.

No. Not a chance. Huge escalade. Yeah. You know, you might as well get, you know, Rolls Royce Ghosts sponsor Shaq. And then you believe it. And then you're like, oh, okay, I get it. All right, Shaq's rolling around in the new Ghost.

Perfect, you know? But yeah, I mean, and I guess it does work for some people, but I think a lot of the sharp, savvy people, which is the crowd that I'm marketing to, that's not going to work. Now, what's your dream, man? What's the big dream with all this? I'm living the dream, man.

I'm living the dream. Amen to that, bro. Just pop on that. Every day, I got an office right now. We got a racquetball and basketball court in our office. I'm going to come down and play all the time. I mean, it's not crazy. It's like 19,000 square feet, but we were actually able to get that when we moved in, which was awesome because that was in the previous lease.

Then we got our gym there. We have a masseuse come in and do work on people on a copay system. We work our asses off but it's fun you know we got a dartboard in there and some pool like ping pong uh no no ping pong yet come on we'll get it when you get it i'm flying down we're playing a little tournament i don't know if you want that lewis i will dominate i just don't know if you want that but i'll accept the challenge. Perfect. Just in case. Perfect. But yeah, so we work our asses off, but we're all there having a good time as well and trying to be better people ourselves and then with a company that's designed to help other people become better people as well.

So it all kind of works together. It's been cool seeing our employees get in the best shape of their life. And their kind of confidence increased, their swagger increased, their style changed a little bit. And everybody just feeling the best they've ever felt. That's extremely satisfying too. Now how did you become someone with this mindset, this champion mindset to grow something over adversity and to continue to grow it and build an amazing company, product, culture. What have you created in your life that's given you this drive, this motivation, this inspiration? I'm not exactly sure. I've had some techniques that I've used and that's been, ever since I was was little i've wanted to be the best i possibly could at everything i tried and i kind of set a rule for myself that i didn't want there to be you know people out there

that were better than me and more than one thing like i would accept one thing you're roger federer all right you're gonna be my tenants but you know i've got out there on the basketball court we'll see what happens you know so i always kind of had this competitive kind of idea where I really wanted to be as good as many things as possible. Where did that come from? I think probably partly from my parents and partly from just an innate drive. You know, I mean, I think it was certainly instilled in growing up. My mother was in the semifinals of Wimbledon.

She was a pro tennis player. Wow. My father was a commodities trader, which is a highly competitive kind of business field. So they were laying it out there on the line. And so I kind of gathered that from some of them. But I always kind of had that drive to really be good and to practice being excellent. Now, for a long time, it didn't really lead me anywhere. And I would get pretty down on myself and depressed.

Like, what am I doing? I'm really capable, but I'm not doing anything yet. Because I hadn't found the channel. And the Onnit channel. Onnit is ultimately the business and the channel for me to apply all of the skills and all of this practice. I didn't know that yet. I didn't have that set up. So I just trying to

continue to better myself, you know, practice being excellent. And, um, that's really parlayed to finally, when I did start on it, I had maybe not a lot of practice doing that exact thing, but I had a lot of practice at becoming great. And, uh, and that's really what's paid off and helped pave the way. So if there's someone who's mid-20s, late-20s, early-30s, who's kind of gone job to job, still doesn't know what their passion is, can't really get things together, what type of advice would you give for them? If they're like, oh, I've just been struggling. The money's not coming.

The relationships aren't coming. I'm working my butt off. But it's just not coming together. And it sounds like that's kind of what was happening with you for the first 30 years of your life. Because you're 33? 32, yeah. 32 now? First 29.

First 29. You were like, what am I doing in my 20s? Like, I'm good at this and this and this, but it's not really coming together. And it kind of reminds me a little bit of the story of how Robert Greene really found his niche after 40 years of doing all these things. And then finally finding the channel, which is on it for you. So what advice do you give for someone? You know, I think, yeah, I always fall back in this quote from Cyrano de Bergeac, which is my favorite play. And it says, I was once troubled by all the many paths that lay

before me. So I decided to be admirable at everything. And that's it. And just practice being as good as possible at whatever it is i don't care if you pick up juggling you know if you put that on your resume if you say i can juggle nine balls that's impressive i'll be like damn you have some dedication you know how to perfect an art patience yeah patience yeah hours and hours you put you string a few of those things together and then all of a sudden you know you have a you're i'm gonna put you way ahead of somebody who you know 3.7 gpa blah blah blah this school whatever because i know you can go through school and you can get good grades without really putting effort in but can you master a real craft you know can you be excellent

at something if you can be excellent at anything then you're interesting to me and you're dangerous in the business world because you know how to be a master and i think even doing it in trivial things people say oh juggling who cares about that well it's just an example could be darts could be whatever card tricks doesn't matter become fully excellent at whatever you're interested in and then when you find something that's both interesting and business leave I you know viable through business and lucrative then both of those things will come together and you'll have the practice and the skills to really be excellent at that mmm I love this I think that's the key man just practice greatness that's what this

this school of greatness is all about yeah so what so you're living the dream but what's the vision what's the long-term vision for you what do you see that you really want to create is this it is on it like okay on it's my life or is there like a bigger mission vision about health and wellness or fitness or what is it? For you personally. For me personally, the only time that I'm ever down and I'm ever a little depressed and ever a little sad is when I don't have the fire to go help humanity as much as I can.

And there's been different periods where I've felt betrayed by people and I felt like people are just... Certain situations have happened where temporarily I've been kind of like, you know, people are just, you know, certain situations have happened where temporarily I've been kind of like, you know, I don't, I don't care anymore. And when those situations happen, I get terribly depressed because what makes me happy and fulfilled is going out there and, you know, enlightening, you know, enlivening people's lives helping them inspiring them getting them tools to make their life better to live a happier existence and uh and so for me on it is the vehicle to basically take care of the mind and body part of that particularly the body and the brain and

the physical systems the energy levels and fitness levels and things like that. But the other side of that is the philosophical and spiritual side, which I've started my blog and podcast called The Warrior Poet Podcast and Blog. Which Ian loves. Yeah. And that fulfills the other part, which is very important as well. And just like you can't take one bodily system out and expect the thing to work, you really need all elements. So for me, it's just pushing further and further and creating better tools for your body through Onnit and really usable philosophy and practical spirituality through the same method, experimentation, seeing what works, seeing what you can really identify with rather than sticking to

kind of the old models and um applying that to both on it and my own personal philosophy i mean that's that's the dream you know in my deepest visions in the jungle you know i see um the ability to kind of spread that light as bright as you know my drive and desire and uh kind of belief passion vision can take me and uh depending on how that goes the brighter it gets and the more people can kind of look up and feel a little bit of the warmth feel a little bit of the light and be a happier human being since we i feel like we both believe in a lot of the similar things and i think we both know that 100 is possible 100 of the time and if you i'm sure you know this but if you couldn't fail in 10 years you couldn't fail where would you be what would be happening what would your life look like who would you be impacting i think you know i think it would be

an idea of magnitude rather than a change of venue or change of you know path same mechanism same mechanism same thing it would just be the magnitude would start to grow exponentially so what's the number so it would be millions billions i don't know i mean really truly i mean it would be couldn't fail yeah i mean it would be it would be creating you know obviously people have to digest ideas in different ways so on the personal side it would have to be books that went wildly popular on the bestseller like like the book the secret you know creates this kind of phenomenon which is very simple yeah worldwide phenomenon um so that would be on the book side and then maybe there'd be you know i think even the movie avatar expressed like some really interesting tribal ideas that

permeated culture way more deeply because of the interesting backdrop of the story you know so maybe there would be some stories created on that front and then with on it it would just be ubiquitous it would be everywhere i mean the basic fundamental tenets whether you're buying our products or not at least the philosophy behind it eating good healthy fats making sure you're getting your minerals cutting out all the gmo and the crap and the chemicals, working out in ways that are going to help sustain your energy and get your body functionally fit rather than risking injury and hurting yourself in another way just for aesthetics. All of these principles would become just mainstream widely accepted and whether people were buying stuff from us or not.

My goals, if I look forward to the future, are certainly not economic. It's about impact. It's about magnitude. It's about how many people can I just turn their life up for the happier, just a little bit. And maybe some people get to turn it up a lot, but the more people that you could kind of affect that way,

that's what it is. It's an idea of magnitude. I love it, man. So It's an idea of magnitude. I love it, man. So what's the definition of greatness? Definition of greatness. I think greatness is the point where in your deepest heart of hearts, in your true self, you know that you are doing what you were designed to do and capable of doing. were doing what you were designed to do and capable of doing you know really at a nobody else knows what you are truly capable of other than you yourself and you know so only you can be the judge of whether you're great or not so it's all it's all kind of funny you know there would probably

be people from the outside now who would say you know aubrey you're you're doing great man you've made it you've this is incredible and then you know they'll really kind of pump your tires but i know what i'm capable of so even through all this success i just know that i'm doing what finally i'm doing what i was meant to do from the start and so i don't feel this kind of elation like oh my god look at me this is this is amazing it's like yeah thank you but i know i'm just doing what i was supposed to do and what i'm capable of doing and then on the converse you'll get people who will hate you and try to take you down and that was a unique

experience as well oh you're you're you're a liar a con artist a blah blah blah and i'm you know when i heard that because i know myself where I'm at, it was really terribly troubling. But then, you know, I talked to my good friend, Bodie Miller, who was a skier who certainly had his fair share of praise and is more than his fair share of hate. And, you know, he said, he basically drove that point home. He says, look, man, only you really know what you've done and what you're capable of and whether you've laid it out there and whether you have done what you are, what is possible for you. And so I think for me, you know, the definition of greatness is, is that feeling of, all right, I have done what my potential is. And I feel, you know, in the past year or so that i'm finally on the path to being able to do that yeah yeah and now it's about taking it to the next level every single

day yeah and pushing the limits and stretching your body sure and you know it's always a sliding it's always a sliding scale because the more momentum you get the more you're capable of if you apply yourself to that you know certain point you know because once a life is a lot about momentum the hardest thing is to get the ball rolling once you get the ball rolling then applying the same amount of force will create even more momentum so um yeah but that's that's it man and so i'll let you know i'll come back on the school of greatness if i feel like you know what god damn it lewis i've reached greatness at this point because i know it i know it deep inside but but not to be hard on yourself if you're not there yet it's all it's

all a journey just know that you're trying to lay it out there 100 and uh and achieve what your potential is you know what's interesting interesting is I just started to realize that I've been very hard on myself for my whole life. Even playing at a high level, every achievement or accomplishment, it was always like time for myself to beat myself up again. Oh, yeah. It's like I was never good enough.

I kick my own ass so often. And I shouldn't. It's a trap. It's so bad, man. And I just started learning like and recognizing that okay i don't have to be myself i can acknowledge what i've created right love myself celebrate the moment then i can go to the next thing yeah as opposed to as opposed to oh i just made whatever this much money or i was an all-american or whatever and but it's not good enough i didn't

do it this way it wasn't looked the right way you it's just like, that's how I've lived my life. And when you can let go of that, like self-destruction, no matter how great you are, and let go of it and really just love yourself and acknowledge what you've created in a humble way, as opposed to like, I'm the man, like I'm a God, you know, but like love yourself, what you've created, the effort you put into it, and then you can move on. That's so crucial. I mean, having that kind of immaculate, ruthless self love is very important, because that's what's going to fuel your belief. You know, and that's what's also going to keep you happy on this road. You know, if you're unhappy as a person and deep down, you're, there's going to be weird results on the outside yeah you know perfecting self-love and really knowing all right win lose or draw you know i know myself and i love myself for it and even if i so what you know i i love myself enough that i can withstand that and that allows you that gives you the courage to fail you know if you have shaky self-love you're going to

be scared as because you're judging your own self-worth based on something you know if you have shaky self-love you're going to be scared as because you're judging your own self-worth based on something external so if you fail your own love for yourself is on the line you know and if that's on the line and you beat yourself up more than anyone else you're going to be in trouble it's worse than any physical relationship or emotional relationship with a partner you're like the biggest one that's holding you back yeah i mean the toltecs call that the parasite. They call that the parasite of the mind, that part of the mind that is going to constantly judge and attack you.

And that's really self-limiting. That is the most self-limiting factor, I think, out there, other than anything external. Because that's what controls your belief. And what controls your belief limits your belief, limits what you're capable of. You will never achieve anything that you don't believe you can achieve. And all of these different factors on the mind will control what you believe.

And that will segue into the next episode of The School of Greatness when Aubrey comes back in a few episodes. We'll leave you with a cliffhanger there but that's why you've created amazing supplements to help believe in yourself and have the energy and do everything that we can do energy is important you know when you're tired or when you're sick self-doubt creeps in yeah you know you know when you're sick you just you just you'll beat yourself up more you'll think all kinds of negative things come in so So yeah, creating reserves of vitality are important. But also having the right mind and philosophy is important too. Exactly.

So with that, make sure to check out onnit.com, O-N-N-I-T.com. Special discount code greatness when you check out. Is it all products or just some products for the 10% discount? Supplements for the 10%. The fitness and the foods, the margins are super lean on those so any supplements the Alpha Brain the Shroom Tech and the T Plus

and all that stuff you get 10% off if you use Greatness in the checkout and make sure to check them out and and just try stuff

if you don't like any of our supplements you don't even have to send it back just be like yo I don't like your give me my money back

and we'll give you your money back. It's as simple. We're not trying to take advantage of anybody. We're not playing that game where cut out eight coupons and do the Sudoku and send it back, and we'll give you your money back. If you don't like it, cool. Send it back. It doesn't work for you. You don't even have to send it back.

You don't even have to send it back. Keep it. Keep it. Play darts with it. I don't care. Give it to friends. Give it to friends. Exactly. But if you don't like it, just let us know. We'll give you your money back. Keep it. Play darts with it. I don't care. Give it to friends. Give it to friends. Exactly.

But if you don't like it, just let us know. We'll give you money back. That's our deal with supplements. So give stuff a try. And I think something or another is going to be a tool to help you in your life. There you go. Honor.com forward slash, I think, Lewis is also a link you can go to. Or just use the checkout code greatness.

Check it out. And where can people find you personally online you've got warrior poet but are you on instagram and twitter yeah well twitter and facebook facebook's real active channel for me yeah it's been really blowing up lately so facebook.com slash warrior poet us and my twitter handle is the same at warrior poet us so definitely try to post a lot of inspirational philosophical spiritual messages on uh on the Warrior Poet side of things. And then we've got an On It podcast now, too. We've got a lot of great guests on there.

Yeah, some cool athletes we're dealing with. The last one with Cub Swanson, if anybody's interested in MMA, should definitely listen to that. That guy, I think he's going to be a champion. Aubrey Marcus, love you, man. Love you, too, brother. Good to be on here. This one was even better than the last one.

Way better, man. Yeah, for sure. Hopefully we got the recording all right and there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, Aubrey is doing some big things. So make sure to go ahead and check out onit.com. That's O-N-N-I-T dot com.

And also, feel free to share this online. If you really enjoyed this episode, go ahead and share it online. You can see all of the show notes over at schoolofgreatness.com. Go ahead and share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. And again, please post a picture wherever you are listening to this in the world on Instagram. And also head on over to soundcloud.com slash Lewis Howis, because that's where I'm going to be hosting all these shows moving forward. And SoundCloud is doing an amazing job of helping me spread the word and support this. So go ahead over to SoundCloud.com if you are not already a member.

And check out, they've got some other great stuff on there as well. But you can comment on this podcast on SoundCloud.com and also over at SchoolofGreatness.com. But I'd love to have you follow me over there because you're going to get instant notifications when this thing is uploaded to SoundCloud. So you're going to get this before anyone else, before I even promote it myself. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Again, share it with your friends. If you did, post a picture on Instagram. You know how much I love you.

I love meeting all of you. And I love hearing your stories about what you're doing about achieving greatness in your life so make sure to go out there and whatever you do today I don't care what it is just make sure you do something great