The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Healthy Options In A World Of Unhealthy Options & A Better Life Through Nutrition Ft. Anya Fernald, Founder Of Belcampo

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

#388: On today's episode we are joined by Anya Fernald. Anya is the co-founder and CEO of Belcampo. She is an entrepreneur, chef, and agriculture expert. She has appeared as a judge on the Food Network's Iron Chef America, Iron Chef Gauntlet, and The Next Iron Chef. This is Anya's second appearance on the show and today we discuss healthy options in a world of unhealthy options, nutrition advice, and her journey as an entrepreneur carving out a new path for sustainable meat and farming. To connect with Anya Fernald click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) Check Out Lauryn's NEW BOOK, Get The Fuck Out Of The Sun HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential  The Hot Mess Ice Roller is here to help you contour, tighten, and de-puff your facial skin and It's paired alongside the Ice Queen Facial Oil which is packed with anti-oxidants that penetrates quickly to help hydrate, firm, and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, leaving skin soft and supple. To check them out visit www.shopskinnyconfidential.com now.  This episode is brought to you by Joovv. Experience the benefits of red light therapy by one of the best in the business; JOOVV! To experience the Joovv and receive a free gift with purchase go to joovv.com/skinny This episode is brought to you by Better Help We want you to start living a happier life today. Get connected online to licensed therapists at accessible prices to make sure yu are taking care of your mental health. As a listener, you’ll get 10% off your first month by visiting our sponsor at www.BetterHelp.com/skinny This episode is brought to you by RITUAL Forget everything you thought you knew about vitamins. Ritual is the brand that’s reinventing the experience with 9 essential nutrients women lack the most. If you’re ready to invest in your health, do what I did and go to www.ritual.com/skinny  Your future self will thank you for taking Ritual: Consider it your ‘Lifelong-Health-401k’. Why put anything but clean ingredients (backed by real science) in your body? Produced by Dear Media 

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. I'm Michelle Kwan. In 1996, the world was in the midst of a massive cultural movement that saw women finally taking center stage. Nowhere was this shift more apparent than at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. This audience was the loudest thing I have ever heard in my life. The noise, everybody's cheering, and we see all these USA flags. It was the most important summer in women's sports history. And team after team after team,

the U.S. women kept winning. Basketball, soccer, softball, gymnastics. I just said, give me mine. Like, give me mine. Join me for Dear Media's Summer of Gold, presented by Together. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur.

A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Aha! A meat too, anything that you're eating, quality ingredients matter so much. Everything we're seeing now is that calories in, calories out doesn't really matter. Like think about it, in the US,

we've gone from eating zero ultra processed foods to half of our diet is now ultra-processed foods. Half of our diet. If you just navigate a normal day in LA, how do you avoid hyper-processed foods? It's almost impossible, right? They're in every granola bar. They're in most smoothies. They're in most foods that we take to go. So it's like when you start to seek out really nutrient-dense, minimally processed foods, that's like the first great step to good health. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. That clip was from our guest of the show today, Anya Fernald. This is her second appearance. Highly suggest you go back and listen to the first if you have not. And she is definitely a favorite person of ours. She is the founder of Belcampo Meat Co., which is an incredible company, one of the only FDA-approved processing facilities, and butcher shops bringing farm-to-table dining experience. And on this episode, we go all over the place. Anya is a fascinating person. Lauren and I fell in love with her the

first time that we had her on the show, and her story is just incredible. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Belcampo was founded with a purpose to create meat that's good for people, for the planet, for the animals, and Anya has been pioneering that. She is an entrepreneur. She is a badass. She is a wealth of knowledge. I'm going to keep this intro short because today I'm not joined by Lauren on the intro. We're out here busting our ass in New York, running around, trying to get these episodes out for you guys. But trust me, this episode does not fail to deliver. With that, for the second time, our friend Anya Fernald. This is The Skinny Confidential, him and her. The most interesting connection I've seen with diet and mood that's just new information for

me is around fermented foods being connected to serotonin. So that's something I've done for mood is if I'm feeling bummed out, I'll literally hit the kimchi like a couple spoons in the morning, a couple spoons at night, but that is connected to serotonin as is everything around microbiome and gut health. What brand? You know, I'm going to ask that. Oh, I love mother-in-laws and then twins kimchi. Those are two SoCal brands. Can we do a burger with kimchi on it? Oh my God. It's got to be fried kimchi though. Have you ever had fried kimchi? Like not like deep fried, but you saute it and it kind of takes that real raw edge off of it and it gets a little crispy and nummy and caramelized and then that goes on the burger. Can we do a skinny confidential burger?

Wrap and lettuce with kimchi. Yes. We can do that. Yeah. That's like the ultimate mood booster, right? Yum. it sounds delicious. Did you crave kimchi and spicy fermented when you were pregnant? I love kimchi, but the problem is it's not one of those things that you think about when you're at the grocery store. But now, because you just said that, I'm going to think about it. Michael's never had kimchi in his life. He doesn't even know what the fuck it is.

No, I know what it is, but Lauren gets some really strong kimchi. I don't know what it is. I know it's kimchi, but I don't eat it. What is kimchi? I don't know. It's some kind of plant. It's a cabbage, right? It's from cabbage.

It's a napa cabbage. Actually, it just means pickle in Korean, but you can do it with radishes, cucumbers, and the most popular one is napa cabbage. People get mad at me. They think I'm making some kind of cultural observation when I say kimchi really smells strong. Well, it does smell strong. I don't think that's anything mean.

No, but the last time I said it smells bad, people got mad. They were offended. I love the smell of kimchi but well it's strong it's pungent in michael's defense i like to eat it in the car when like we're driving to the airport so that's probably why i'm a car kimchi stacker too i think are you serious i do the same thing the person eating it in the car is like i don't think it gets the effect of the person not eating when you're just smelling kimchi in a cart. Well, all of us culturally love and understand the fermented foods that we grew up with. The fermented foods that are one continent away, we usually find repulsive. That's interesting.

Okay. So like natto in Japan, kimchi, those are things that most Americans will find repulsive in the same way that a Korean might find like Stilton or some heavy blue cheese, like absolutely nauseating. How can you eat that? But think about it. Fermented foods are like this linchpin of health. So of course, we learn to override our dislike, our natural inborn dislike of extremely strong, funky things. We learn to love it growing up because it's very healthful for us. But we don't learn to love it across the board because it's still like something smells like it's rotted. Your instinct is like, stay away. I don't want to eat rotted food, but we learn to override that with the health giving fermented

foods that are part of our culture. So it's natural. It's not at all judgmental that you're like, yeah, kimchi. I mean, if you had that fermented shark that they eat in Iceland or whatever, you'd probably think it was revolting too, or natto. These are things that you can say, it's actually really culturally appropriate that you have an aversion to a semi-rotted food. Yeah. It's kind of like- And you just learn to overcome that with the cheeses that you love.

It's kind of like what my body's done with tequila and Campari. It's evolved to crave these things. You mentioned shark. I'm never allowed to eat a shark ever because baby shark is playing in our house over and over and over i think if i eat a shark that'll set her over the edge i have a question for you that i've been wanting to ask you for so long so since our last episode which you guys all have to go listen to because it's amazing since i've been eating the bell campbell burger so much i noticed that we were in Palm Springs and I wanted to stop by In-N-Out and I got an In-N-Out burger, which I used to love, but I found it gross. Why? Is it because I'm eating

like a higher quality meat and I'm used to that? I mean, I love In-N-Out, so it was very weird. Well, first off, I'd say kudos to In-N-Out. It's a great brand and they do a lot more of the supply chain than anybody else at a large scale. So brand and they do a lot more of the supply chain than anybody else at a large scale. So they actually grind their own four quarters of the animals for their burgers. So I have a lot of respect for that brand. I think though the major difference that you're probably getting accustomed to in our meat, and I'll just speak broadly about conventional meat, right, which is the baseline there. It has to do with the availability of omega-3s and the solubility. Grass-fed and finished meat, be it from Belcampo or any other quality grass-fed

and finished purveyor, I'm talking about beef here, it has a typically one-to-one to one-to-four omega-3s to omega-6 ratio. Conventional beef can be one-to-20 to one-to-30. The optimal for human health is like one-to-four. so when you're eating beef that is conventionally raised you're getting a lot more omega-6s for every omega-3 that you get omega-6s are inflammatory and you will get that that feeling right what's that feeling that we get in our tummies where we're like yeah don't feel terrible don't't feel great. That's a mild inflammation response. Like you have to shit your pants. Yeah.

So that experience there, that might be a reaction to that kind of, that slightly different fat profile. And then we also like love what we become accustomed to. So I know a lot of you will find a grass-fed burger off-putting the first or second or third time because it's stronger flavored. It has more beefy flavor. Hunters though, think that our meat isn't flavorful enough. They're

like, this doesn't have any flavor, right? I'm a fan of our beef because it's got a great, robust flavor to it, but that's something that you get used to. Then once you're accustomed to that, you want that. Your body also associates that anticipation of that flavor with a great feeling of satiety and a certain nutritional hit. When you have a different experience, your body's going to react differently. That makes sense. Everything you just said, there was so many aha moments where I was like, okay, that makes total sense. Good. Meat too. Anything that you're eating, quality ingredients matter so much. Everything we're seeing now is that calories in, calories out doesn't really matter. Think about it. In the US,

we've gone from eating zero ultra processed foods to half of our diet is now ultra processed foods. Half of our diet. If you just navigate a normal day in LA, how do you avoid hyper processed foods? It's almost impossible, right? They're in every granola bar. They're in most smoothies. They're in most foods that we take to go. So it's like when you start to seek out really nutrient-dense, minimally processed foods, that's like the first great step to good health. Yeah. Well, and I would argue places like LA, New York, some of the coasts, you have access to more of the quality foods, right? And so when you start talking about other places in the country and in the world,

your options are even more limited, in my personal opinion, especially now, split time between two places. Yeah. No. And that's where I think everything is really stacked against you. It's like you have to be a ninja to navigate the American available food landscape. And you're right. We have a lot of access here on the coast. And if you head even to the Central Valley in California, you have a hell of a lot less, right? So it's like the challenge then, like the socioeconomic barriers, the access to information barriers, the extra time that it takes, those are massive barriers. But it's like right now with the health issues that we're having as a result of eating so many hyper processed foods it's like we're driving a hundred miles an hour towards a wall

yeah no i think like i try to find the silver lining in anything it's it's hard obviously with the last year that we've all had in this in the world now but i do think that it is a time where people are starting to be a little bit more health conscious and think about how they exercise what they put in their bodies what like how they sleep oh there's a lot of things that I think people were just taking for granted that not everybody, but a lot of people. And now they're like, okay, I got to focus on what I put in my body, what I do for exercise. There's a big emphasis on health. Now, at least everybody I know that's in that field is seeing a spike and either sharing more information or their businesses are taking off. I think it's interesting too, COVID gave us pause. It gave us a minute

where we had a little bit, like we were all freaking out, but we had a minute to sort of reflect on where we were at. I think a lot of people got more in tune with like cooking a little bit more, being at home a little bit more, a few more hobbies or things that brought them a sense of wellness and peace. And also kind of like self-soothing in a pretty stressful time. There's so much pressure right now. And it's like, you're going to get healthy. It's like, try this product, try that product, try this product. It's like, no, actually fewer products and more food, like more actual real basic food, like wholesome food. That's really what we're lacking right now. 50% of our available calories are a type of food that's functionally toxic for

our bodies. So what are some things that you eat on a day-to-day basis that you think are just really not processed, whole, amazing foods? Meat. Besides meat, is there anything else? Maybe walk us through a day in the life of your schedule because you were telling me off air that you stop eating at five o'clock. And I think the audience

would really be interested to hear your fasting schedule. Maybe even we like details. So maybe tell us like what time you have your coffee, your tea, like whatever. We'd love to hear. Okay. I try to eat in a window between 11 and five and I like to be able, I love to eat a lot and feel full and have a big like satiating meal. So I like that kind of reduced

window because it allows me to like really enjoy my meals as opposed to like a little bit of this, a little bit of this kind of spread out over hours. Also, the longer window of like five at night until 11 the next day gives me that nice long intermittent fasting. So I'm really hungry for my first meal. So I usually start with like a lot of eggs, like four eggs with a bunch of veggies. I'll use kimchi. I'll use whatever leftover vegetables I've made for the kids, like a big veggie something with a lot of eggs in it. And I'll add something fermented to that sauerkraut or kimchi on top. I sometimes will put even creme fraiche or Parmesan cheese, something like that to make it even richer, or I'll put olive oil on top. I like the satiety that fat gives me. I also think

I notice when I'm on a higher fat diet that it's great for my skin, my skin health. So I'm not afraid to eat a healthy amount of my calories from fat. And then I'll have snacks like nuts, cheese, whatever, yogurt, things that if I might want during the day, and then I'll hit a dinner that's typically meaty. I ate about a pound of meat a day on average. How much did I just eat in that burger? You ate, let's see, two, three points. So you ate seven ounces. Seven ounces. So close to half a pound. So three more ounces is a pound. Oh, that's not that much. It's not that much. So I mean, it's like two of those bigger burger patties. So you ate about half of what? So if I ate another one, that's about what you eat every day. Yeah, exactly. And then I'll do for dinnertime, big chunk of meat, ground meat or meatballs,

and then a lot of veg. And then I also, you know, I'll eat rice, a little bit of pasta, bread, avocado, other things like that, you know, I'll eat rice, a little bit of pasta, bread, avocado, other things like that, you know, kind of healthier. I love really good bread. I'm in the Bay Area. I love Josie Baker in LA. I'm always buying tartine, you know, not all the time, but like with some avocado on it, some meat, et cetera. So I like to have big filling meals that have all the food groups in them. I'm not afraid of some carbohydrates. I do try to avoid eating too much fruit and I try to drink no calories. No wine. I do not drink wine anymore. What do you drink? I don't drink anything really. I drink it very occasionally, but that's something in my

forties. I'm 46. And it's like, at a certain point, it just got really unpleasant for me. I've heard a lot of women say that. Sharon Stone said that too. She said when she hit 40, she like loved to drink and then she like got over it. It starts to like, it got me fun. The hangovers kill you. Yeah, the hangovers are good. And for like two or three years, I was that really neurotic, like bring like this wine or that wine, or it has to be from here. And then I just said like, just give up. Just like kombucha is great. I just don't have as much fun drinking anymore as I used to. I was telling Lauren the other day, I'm like, it doesn't serve me as it used to. Especially now with the kid, like waking up hungover at six in the morning when the kid

needs to get up and do something. It's the most, parents out there know, it's the most miserable thing. I don't know if some people just don't have this hangover thing, but most people I know in their forties are just like, this just starts to be a big bummer. It's just not worth the pain. If I even smell alcohol, I'm hungover for a week these days. I ran too hard when I was younger. Now I'm paying the price.

I remember I had 20s. I love weed mint. Just one weed mint. It's like a little weed edible. And I just take it and it just relaxes me and puts me to sleep. And I wake up with no hangover.

Wow. Yeah, it works really well. I've just kind of, it wasn't like I made a decision or went cold turkey. And I still, if I'm with girlfriends or drinking wine,

totally I'll drink some wine. But like, I just, it sort of phased out of my life. And you know, it's like, too, you guys run a business, I've run a business. It's like, you're busy. You want to get up and kill it. And I started to do things like, like I've noticed too, with my girlfriends, like I, I have a sauna now I'm doing like sauna and ice. Like I'm getting together socially with people in different ways too, because I just was realizing too many friendships in my thirties were like, let's get together, have a glass of wine. I'm like, well, at a certain point that that's sort of a short road for me. So I try to find things that are different for me to do with people too.

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I love that. That's really cool. I love to hear that. Tell us about your wellness, your sauna, your ice. I want to know. I bet you have a whole setup. I know how you are. So it's probably very cool. Yeah, I have a setup. I put it in during COVID. It was my major self-care investment during COVID for sure, we were all at home. I started working out at home and I put in an ice bath and a sauna and then I have a little gym there. But I love it. I have been just like every day, I do 10 or 12 minutes in ice when I can. That's a long time.

It feels amazing. It's really good for, I noticed it helps like belly fat, all the little like jiggly fats for sure. It helps tighten you up and it gives you so much energy. I come out of there like full of joy, really excited. It helps me with recovery. It's an investment, but I also see it like, well, I'm saving. I'm not like a member of a gym anymore.

Like I'm cutting costs in other ways. And then I also noticed that all the little like rinky dink things that I used to do more for like little shot in the arm of taking care of myself, like a manicure or massage, not doing it anymore because I've got this like built-in thing. It's like crack cocaine. What's your ice bath brand and what's your sauna brand that you like? It's Morosco is the ice bath. Okay. It's the one that makes the sheets of ice. Okay. So you actually get in and there's like clinking around ice. I also love the plunge. There's another fantastic one that I've used a bunch. That's the one we just got, the cold plunge. Amazing. Yes. Yeah. The plunge is fantastic. Everyone can use Code Skinny too if you want a discount. Oh, awesome. Yeah, they're a fantastic

brand. And the sauna is a Dundalk? Is it an indoor or outdoor sauna? Everything's outdoors. Wait, so is it like the wood barrel sauna? It's like the same thing, but it's a little hot. I'm probably going to text you for a picture. I've got two layers and then I took the temperature regulation thing away. We're redoing our yard right now, so I got to get your number because I want to figure out what's going on. Wait, you took the temperature regulation thing away we're redoing our yard right now so i got to get your number because i want to figure out wait you took the temperature regulate and goes to 230 degrees oh wow is that really hot freaking cook yeah but you sweat it all out and so you feel so good afterwards you're just like everything's in perspective yeah and you're just like okay this is all going to be okay you got to take it to the next level do what lair does and get a salt bike in there and go. And then also you'll find too, I think like for me, if I've got a big call

in the morning and I'm like, okay, I got to just like get in there and really get into the head. Your body can be in ice water for a long time without dying or really suffering. It's all in your mind. And I started to do this like I was during COVID because I was very anxious. It's like, what's happening with the business? Kids aren't in school. Like everything was upside down. So I started going to a river, like a snow melt river near me in Northern California every couple of weeks with some friends and the kids.

And I would just do the mergers in the river. And I would just come out of there. I'm like, okay, everything's in perspective. I feel this wash of joy. It made me emotional. Like I wouldn't like cry, but I just felt the sense of release in the water. And then I realized, well, it's actually more about the cold temperature than it is about,

I mean, the nature and stuff is great too, but there's something about this major release that you feel in the cold water and you just feel peaceful because you've shown yourself that you can manage your emotions to something really stressful, and then you can head into the next thing. But it's all about these, getting an ice bath for your house or plunges like it's a big investment. But these things, too, that you're like taking this really like I love that in my home now I'm like this is like a monument to like mom taking care of herself to like what I'm doing with my.

I also love that I'm showing that to my kids. And it's like a nice way to say, hey, this is a big step of like, we take care of ourselves and we're like planning on not getting sick. And if you hurt your shoulder, you hurt your knee when you're working out, you get in that thing three or four minutes, you're fine. What I love the most about it is, it's what you said, it's that mental clarity, right? It's that like proving yourself that you can do hard, uncomfortable things. I think, and I've gotten some flack for saying this, but one thing that this year has proven is like for many of us, we've been lured into this like false sense of safety, right? As infrastructure has been built up and technology's grown, we've gotten to this place where we feel like we should

always like, everything should always be comfortable and we should feel safe all the time. And I think what this year proved is like, human beings are fragile. The society's fragile. We're not always safe. And so you have to do things to mentally challenge yourself and put yourself in these positions where it's like, okay, I can do that. I can get through that. Because I think that a lot of what we've seen is people freaking out because they haven't had to deal with the hardships of life. Well, resilience. Societally, we have not prioritized resilience. It's like we created so much ease that we make ourselves sick with ease. Yeah. It's almost like people are shocked when bad things happen. They're like,

I can't believe that would happen. It's like, well, this has been happening through millennia, right? Like humans have had it terrible for, we're still, I still say, even with everything going on, like we're still safer than we've ever been. Right. And we're still living longer than we've ever lived. It's more amazing that things weren't happening. Yes, exactly. Like in the broader scheme of human history, it's more surprising that massive messes like we've had continue to happen. I think too, what you said about the ice bath, it's so true. Tony Robbins says this too. If you can wake up first thing and put yourself in an uncomfortable position, like getting in an ice bath or a freezing cold shower, you're so right. It does set perspective. And the rest of the day,

you're like, I got this. It's a little test. I think about it with kids. You're like, you can do this. You can do this. And you make it through, you set the timer. I get my tunes out there. And it's like, I actually just feel like I overcame something. Absolutely. And I also think the physical benefits are real too with joint health and with metabolism. I also love the block of time that you can take for reflection while you're doing that. You can't really hold your phone in the bath. You can't use your phone really in the sauna. It's like it really kind of takes you a minute to like peace out from that stuff. But I think any rituals that people have, right, it's all about establishing as you get older, establishing rituals and practices, habits that are really healthy. You know, and that's

something I don't think we get enough guidance around like as entrepreneurs like we are or just growing up in life like we people don't say like hey start investing in like really healthy habits that bring you joy and they and that's something i'd say to everybody like whatever it is if it's a hike if it's a hit workout if it's a certain ritual like start investing in habits that bring you joy i mean one habit for me that brings me so much joy which is so stupid but like i get up in the morning and I have a big hand grinder and I like hand grind my coffee and I boil my water and I like make my coffee. I always was like, why do I know it's not the best grinder coffee snobs, like fancier grinders. I know it's like not the very best

coffee. Why? And I just like, why do I do this? And it's like, well, it's a, it's a healthy habit. I get some movement. I get up first thing. And it's like, it's a habit that brings me joy. So like stack together five of those that started your day. And you're all of a sudden like going to be in a better position to conquer the day. What is your specific morning routine and nighttime wind down at like, what time do you wake up? I'm very interested because you're such an entrepreneur and a hustler. And there's so many people out there listening who really want to set up their mornings and their nights for success in the middle of that. Absolutely. So for me, first thing is morning sunshine. I go out in the garden, look at the sun, drink my coffee. If I'm feeling hungry, I'll put coconut oil or butter in it.

Other than that, I just drink it black until I break my fast at 11. I have recently started doing a 12-minute HIIT routine every morning. I try to get that done before 8, which is just the usual thing. I just mix it up. I just do three sets of HIIT stuff just to get my heart going. I repeat that again in the evening. And then my kids usually wake up around 7.30, make them breakfast, have our together time. And then I'll try to get an ice bath and sauna before I start working. So in that morning time, I love waking up when it's

just dawn and getting outside and watching the sunrise and having that downtime. I don't really think about very much, but it's very restful. And as I go to bed, I think about looking forward to that. And then I'm usually powering through at my desk and working, running around, doing things until five or six. I kick out another HIIT workout. At the end of the day, I usually throw some heavier weights in to that as well. So I do two little workouts, one in the morning and one in the evening. That is such a great idea. You get your workout in and it's like separates it. And it doesn't stress you out because you're not like, oh, I need 45 minutes. So I just do 12 minutes and 12 minutes. And if I have extra time,

take the dog for a run, do some weights or whatever. And then I do, usually I do sauna in the evening. I don't do ice again in the evening. Sauna is more for winding down. And then for nighttime routine, I cook my kids dinner. I really spend like family time. And I'll be in bed by 9.30 and off screens by 8. I know. It's so nice to be in bed early.

It took me a long time to own that. Like I'm just a dork. I just like to go to bed early and I like to wake up early. There's nothing better. There's nothing better than getting in bed early. We're going to like high five each other. We get in bed at 930. It's like better than any party.

So you're not on your electronics. Maybe we can talk about this. In bed, you're off at eight. I try to be. It doesn't always happen if stuff's blowing up or I've got to deal with something. Do you wake up and check your phone ever? I try not check it until I've done my morning time and my coffee.

Because otherwise, if there's bad news, it's like there's no good outcome. If it's bad news, I'm stressed out. If it's good news, nothing got better than my morning coffee and my sunshine, right? What do you guys think? And also, it's a to-do list of everyone else of what you have to do.

It puts you into a mode of being reactive and not proactive. A hundred percent. And your best thoughts and your best self as an entrepreneur, it's about being proactive. Your team wants you to lead with great ideas. That's something, too, as an entrepreneur and in general, it's like one of the things you can do for your business is take really good care of yourself. Same thing in partnership. One thing you can do for your partner is take really good care of yourself. Same thing in partnership. One thing you can do for your partner is take really good care of yourself, right?

It's like, I think there's this model, like the Wall Street model. You see these guys and they're like at the top of their career and they're like dumpster fire of health. Not all of them, but there's a model in corporate America that we grind ourselves. We're out drinking martinis every night. We're inflamed and sick. I love that we're kind of in this next generation reinventing what it means for entrepreneurship and saying,

you can come forward and shine and be full of creativity and be very vital and you can lead with that energy. We all know I am a crazy psycho about my morning routine. So normally it takes you 15 minutes to shower in the morning. But what I did is I tried to optimize that 15 minutes. So what I do is I do 10 minutes of Wim Hof breath work in front of my juve. I got the one that is so big. It's standing up, but it's super chic. And it radiates this red light,

which has tons of benefits, which we'll get into. And I do my 10 minutes of breath in front of the Juve. And it kick starts my day. I cannot even tell you what a big difference. If you want, you can get a little handheld one, like a little travel size one. There's lots of different ways to implement red light therapy into your life. It does not have to be the standing one. Just a little background, Juve is the top light therapy brand and now they have new and improved devices, okay? It is the leading light brand. So the benefits, like I said, is it increases circulation and blood flow. So that's why you get that energy. But what's so crazy is at night, I swear it like works on your circadian rhythm because I can wind down to it too.

It also treats pain and strain and it's really anti-inflammatory. So if you're looking for a light that works on inflammation, this is it. I cannot recommend it enough. Michael does it. If you want to start with a Juve, I would recommend the new Juve Go. It's great because it's affordable. It's battery powered. And like I said, you can take it anywhere. It fits in the palm of the hand. You can use it

wherever, whenever. So you can use code SKINNY for an exclusive discount. I have used my own code before because I'm so obsessed. And if you're looking for a new Juve, I have exciting news. You're going to go to juve.com slash SKINNY. That's J-O-O-V-B dot com slash skinny and use code skinny. You'll get an exclusive discount on Juve's next generation devices. Exclusions apply, limited time only. And if you want to know more, I wrote a whole blog post on it. Just Google the skinny confidential Juve. A hundred percent. And what you said earlier too, about the home, I think before COVID, I don't think we really valued our home. Like we do now. I think everyone was looking for all this outside stuff. And now what, at least in my experience, I've realized, wait a minute,

I don't want my home to be this like stopping place where I go in. I want my home to be somewhere like a sanctuary with health and wellness. And like, I want it to be somewhere that I want to be all the time. And so that's been an interesting shift too, that I've seen. What have you changed about your home to achieve that? Well, we moved states because here our home was like very much like you run in, you run out, you grab things. Now our home is like... We were looking at like the differences in what we have, what we had before. like very much like you could just you walk in it's like it doesn't feel we have like a bachelor pad and now we have like now we have like warmth that's how i would

everything's like wood and earth tones and grounding we go for a walk every morning we put our feet in the sand like you know what i mean or not the sand the dirt but like i just think that like it's more sanctuary vibe totally yeah for me something I've started doing in the past year is getting way more into gardening and in the morning I'll get up and I'll just like walk around and like trim a little bit of stuff or like check in on things and observe and listen to birds and like before COVID it's like I got out of bed and I was like a cannon, like a cannonball shot out of a cannon. Like get the kids ready, take the shower, do maybe a little workout, get into the car, get to the office. And it was just like this whole idea that I could actually take a little bit of a morning moment and like look at a plant and take it down a notch.

It's really changed the role of home for me. It's also made me think I went from somebody didn't really think that working from home worked for most people to saying, I don't know if I could ever work back in an office again. I think a lot of people are in that boat as well. That's really interesting that you just brought up gardening. I actually have been reading a lot about how much gardening helps with mental health. If someone wants to start a garden, which we do, I'm sure there's people listening that do, what are some little tips and tricks? Like, should we get certain plants or seeds or herbs? What would you start with? Get like three wine barrel containers.

That's all you need. Big wooden ones. You can get them on Ace Hardware. They're inexpensive. Buy some good organic potting soil and start with like, do one with like three or four different herbs. Put two or three tomato plants in another one and plant like zucchini or cucumber in the third one.

And you'll have a lot of fun with that. Like trying to get some things. Those are all gratifying, easy plants that you can incorporate into your cooking. And then if you have kids like we do, I love it that I can tell my son, like, go get the pizza herb. And he goes out and gets the basil. And I always encourage them, like, smell it before you pick it, like encouraging that sensory education. So there's so much that you can do with that. And then if you plant like a zucchini, you can use the flowers to make stuff, zucchini blossoms, you can have fun with that too. But the gardening part, it's like,

it's so peaceful for me. And it absolutely has that reaction. I also have been reading along those lines about fire and creating human connection around fire and relaxation. So actually campfires have massively lower cortisol levels and they also facilitate emotional connection with people that you share. All these things that like our grandparents just sort of did, Campfires have massively lower cortisol levels, and they also facilitate emotional connection with people that you share. All these things that our grandparents just sort of did, right? Because we've been doing lots more fire time. We have a little fire pit outside, and just on a Wednesday night, it's like, whatever.

It's summertime. We'll light a couple of twigs and do some marshmallows or cook something. And that's something, too, where I've really noticed it's like everything downshifts. The gardening downshifts, the campfire downshifts, and they're cheap and easy things to access. This is good news because we're getting ready to do all of these things. That's why we're redoing the whole yard. We're copying on everything. Oh, nice. I'll give you a good fire pit. You know, what's interesting though, is gardening and fire are both from the earth. And so when

you're touching the soil and stuff that's grounding, and when you're around the fire, I mean, it's probably similar ions or benefits. But we're also talking about the things that reconnect us to food making. So we started out this conversation saying ultra processed foods. All those things came from convenience, right? Ultra processing means you don't have to worry about refrigeration. You don't have to worry about, you can put that stuff in the pantry and pick it up in three years and you'll be fine.

It's just as bad as it was on day one, right? But all these conveniences took us away from like the drudgery. So I think of it almost as like enlightened domesticity, right? Or like domesticity for wellness. There are certain things like, if you think about it, like an ice bath is actually just bath, right? These are things that are like kind of part of the domestic sphere that if we like broaden the understanding of what wellness can be, there's lots of very healthy aspects of just food preparation

and broader health that can be incorporated into your wellness routine. So I would challenge is like, do you need to go to a spa or do you need to have that getaway weekend? Or can you like actually find spaces and green spaces in your own? In the same way, I love it when people put like a shrine in their home and they have a place where they can downshift and like a clear space for meditation or relaxation. Like there's lots of things you can do in your home sphere that actually create opportunities for wellness that are really economic, that like, like it's very achievable. I agree, Michael. So don't make fun of me when I actually ordered, you're going to laugh, a wood shrine. So to meditate in front of, Michael, you're on board with it though. Don't

act like you are. I'm on board it's just i want to like stick to like one or two or three things no i want i want like no she's anya's right like all around the house have little things because we're having a little bit of a problem because the baby's addicted to screens she grabs the phone she wants the tv she wants the movies and i want to like get her like out of that you have to be really careful because you know the problem with like video games for kids is that they get them onto a dopamine cycle where their reward system gets so tied to the video games that they don't get as much pleasure out of like a PB&J or a trip to the pool you know so you see this all the time if I always ask my kids do

you want to play Minecraft do you want to go to the pool they're like Minecraft right and the pool is really fun for kids though right and they love there. So it's really challenging to have those boundaries around it. You have to remember too that your kids watch you every stinking minute. They're looking at you. So that's where I think the boundaries around using your phone for yourself and your wind down time is like find a way during that time that you're doing meal prep or dinner time with her that the phone's totally out of the picture. Yeah. I started reading again on, like, I love reading on a Kindle or a screen, right? But you got to be careful of the Kindle. Well, that's what I'm saying. So what I realized was she's watching me sit there with the screen and the Kindle reading. So what I, I went back to switch to hard, like to hardcover books, right?

Yeah. Because I figured, okay, maybe she can watch me read paperback or hardcover. And that's not the same as a screen, but she'll like, I would want her to adopt that behavior of picking up a book and reading as opposed to picking up a screen. Yeah. It also makes it more exciting for her when you're picking up a book to read with her. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I mean, the garden is a great idea for her age though.

She's 18 months. You can get her involved in that. She can plant it, plant sunflower seeds. Kids love planting those and pushing them to the ground. Those are like, you can watch them grow. You can eat the sprouts. You're making me want to go back to Austin right now. I wanted to switch gears here and talk to you about, because we haven't had a chance to connect. The last time we connected in depth like this was pre-pandemic. And obviously, you're running a business that has brick and mortars, food, restaurants. How did you navigate

all of that? Man, COVID was really challenging for the entire industry, for the restaurant industry. Belcampo, the company that I co-founded and I'm now the board chair of, at the start of the pandemic, I had to shut down two restaurants immediately, both of which were in large malls. And we just didn't think malls were going to work out. And everything was really imbalanced. We just didn't know. Remember at the start of COVID, it wasn't clear if there was going to be funding or how things were going to work out. And everything was really imbalanced. We just didn't know. Remember at the start of COVID, it wasn't clear if there was going to be funding or how things were going to work out. So we ended up shutting two restaurants of our seven immediately. We had two catering kitchens that we shut down as well. We had to lay off a lot of staff, very heartbreaking. Our New York restaurant, we shut down just a year after opening it, less than a year after opening

it. So a huge amount of work and blood, sweat, and tears had gone into that. It was heartbreaking. And we then in our locations in California, we have five really leaned into food delivery. And I was fortunate that our food is mostly burgers and meaty salads is pretty well adapted to take out. So we were able to pivot to that and actually sustain our revenues throughout the pandemic. We launched an e-commerce business as well, pretty small. And we were able to take advantage of some of the ebbs and flows, but we launched that and then we continued to sell through grocery as well. So the answer is like we weathered it like everybody did, being super resilient, pivoting a lot, very very stressful time i think for everyone above all

just like worker safety yeah you know like having because we also we have a farm and we have a usda slaughterhouse and our usda slaughterhouse like all slaughterhouses it's an environment really conducive to disease because it's refrigerated and cold so it's a place where the virus thrives we never god bless had an outbreak but anytime we had employees who thought they've been exposed, we had to proactively quarantine. And so we were constantly swapping people in and out. It was a very complex time. That said, there's aspects of that time, Michael, where it was like, maybe the most exciting and interesting time of my career, you know, to have like endless curveballs, have people really paying attention to health and wellness, which is a big platform.

Sure. Interested in the climate. And then I had a planned transition out of being the operational CEO. And I'd hired at the, we'd been hiring at the start of the pandemic, a new CEO. So in the midst of that, I transitioned to being co-CEO and then being board chair during the pandemic. So that's also like, there's an opportunity for growth, you know, like getting out of the day-to-day operations. You're smarter than me. I should have done this. I should have got a CEO for the pandemic. Oh my gosh. It's so interesting too. It's like, you look your ego in the eye so much, right? Because you all of a sudden handing off the day-to-day reins to somebody and you're like, oh, wait a second. I need to be involved in every

decision or do I? What's the best and highest usage? So there's been some soul searching for me around like, what's my best and highest usage? How do I add the most value? And then fortunately, the guy that we brought on is like a far better CEO than I'll ever be. I mean, incredibly like logistics mastermind already scaling the e-commerce business in a really smart way, has rationalized the products, made fewer products that are better. I mean, he's done a great job and we work as a team. So I've learned a lot from him. But I have to say that's been like one of the more, like, so it's a year of real highs and lows in 2020. It's 2021 and I feel like everyone is about mental health.

This is super personal to me. I've had a lot of family members struggle with mental health. So to know that there's a platform online that assesses your needs and matches you with your own licensed professional therapist is insane. I think this is such a cool concept. To be able to connect in a safe and private online environment is convenient, it's efficient, and it's effective. And that is all done through BetterHelp. So you can start communicating in under 48 hours with your own licensed professional therapist. So you should know that this is not a crisis line. It's not a self-help line. It actually is professional counseling done securely online. You can just do it all from the comfort of your couch, which is really, really incredible. And you can connect one-on-one. It's way more affordable.

I know when I was young and I was going to therapy, it was breaking the bank. So to know that it's easy to access and that they have financial aid is incredible. The service is available for clients worldwide. And the licensed professional counselors deal with depression, stress, anxiety, relationships, sleeping, trauma, anger, family conflict, self-esteem, all the things. So you can go there and just get this outlet that's super helpful. Anything you share is confidential. It's convenient, professional, affordable. Like I said, I am a big advocate of therapy if it's done right. I have had a lot of therapy in the past that was really beneficial. So to be able to share BetterHelp is really powerful.

And I hope if you know any friends or family members who are struggling, you can let them know about this platform. I want you to start living a happier life today. As a Skinny Confidential, him and her listener, you get 10% off your first month by visiting our sponsor at BetterHelp.com slash Skinny. Join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health. Again, that's betterhelp.com slash skinny. Drop into my DMs and let me know how it goes. I think you're going to love it.

I mean, you have a very good way of looking at it, saying that it was one of the best times of your career, because I feel kind of the same way. Like you, you deal with like at some point, and I don't care what business you're in. Like if, if you're running a successful business, but it's the same thing over and over, it's redundant. Like you get joy out of having a successful business, but at some point it stops kind of challenging you. Right. And I think a lot of people like you have two ways to go. The people that they get challenged and they get flustered and it breaks them down. You have the other people that's like constantly looking to challenge themselves. And again, like I couldn't run a business or be part of something if I wasn't

getting challenged in some kind of way. Not saying I want to crash and burn or deal with every hardship, but I wouldn't want to just do the same thing repetitively over and over. Well, I loved to in COVID by sort of month two, I had the sense just by usage of our app. So we had an app, we'd had 3000 users at the start of the pandemic. A month in, we had like 23,000 users. Our email newsletter is going through the roof and it's like, oh my gosh, we're seeing this like compression of consumer adoption of new technology. And it felt to me like every month in COVID was like three to five years of consumer, of a fast forward button on consumer comfort with things. Nobody, we left behind the

idea strategically for Bell Camp to pursue e-commerce because it's like, well, the meat's quite expensive. People are going to be afraid to buy it and have it thaw on their doorstep. There's no way that this is going to have the adoption. Then all of a sudden it's like, everyone's working from home. Nobody wants to deal with the friction of the grocery store it's like wow this door just opened up was that door going to open up at some point hell yeah of course like it was coming regardless maybe 15 years from now you know and the technology wasn't there yet so it's just like and then all of a sudden they the people started to really get comfortable with food being delivered to their home we got better at making food shop at their home perfect so there was just like this

chance to learn and grow which was exhilaratingating. And then it was, you know, the counterbalance was at a time of huge suffering and huge stress and people really suffered from anxiety as well. So there was a lot of different factors to it, but I say from an entrepreneurship perspective, I feel like it was probably as exhilarating and interesting and challenging in the best ways as any experience in my career. And then also kind of prolonged. It's been so interesting. Because there's no playbook, right? Yeah. And there's so much opportunity. You really got the sense too. It's like, anytime the ways are rocky, it's like, make the path more clear and push a little harder.

And I'm not sure if you found this, Michael, but I found so much more focus. Well, I think like I said, it either kind of like breaks you or forces you to find that focus and resilience, right? And I feel the same way, right? Like you're like, once you're in something like that, like when you're in a pandemic and you don't really, you can't just do what you've always done, like you're forced to look at it in a different way from a fresh perspective, right? And you're forced to actually make those decisions to deal with the issues that are going on around you. Like, you know, you can't just like, oh, I'll phone it in and wait. Like, especially for you, you couldn't wait. Like, getting shut down, things are changing rapidly. You have to almost have to change your whole business model.

Absolutely. No, it was that sense to a focus. It was all of a sudden we were sloughing off things. Like, okay, this line doesn't make sense. These products don't make sense. This is too complicated. You know, so simplifying things. Yeah. What is your favorite thing at Belcampo if you're ordering? What's your order? I always get, well, I mix it up sometimes, but my favorite is keto bun Belcampo burger. And we do the keto buns with a company called Misfits, which is based up in NorCal. It's delicious almond and coconut flour bun. And then we have our half pound Belcampo burger, which I always get medium rare. And that is just bomb. It's really filling. It's really delicious. It's just like, I think about it, I'm like, it's like such a umami rich taste. And that burger I

did at the very start of the company. So that's of my first menu of the company in 2012. That burger was the recipe that I did. That, I think, the only thing that's still on the menu from that first menu. Now, the fast burger I did in 2014 when I opened up in downtown Los Angeles to have a more affordable, because that area, it's like that we wanted to have also things that, just in general, broader range of price points. So I launched the fastie at a $5 price point with three ounces of meat. And now, of course, it's a bit more expensive and we do it typically with a double patty. But those were the two kind of like leaders. And, you know, we started the company really with more of like, it was going to be kind of a simple cafe, built it up and people wanted

like, this is like expensive meat. We want it in a fancier format. We then pivoted to make it fancier, but then the world evolved, right? And folks that were interested in health and fitness got interested in grass-fed and finished. And all of a sudden there was a demand for more like fast casual with prime, with really prime ingredients. And that's where we've landed now, which is basically fast casual with top notch ingredients. What do you think the secret to entrepreneurship is? I mean, everything that you're talking about, it's so entrepreneurial. You said you launched a burger for $5 downtown. This is like very entrepreneurial.

What's the secret? To me, it's taking the time to observe, but also having an opinion. Okay. So anytime that you're not just doing this of like, this person did that, this person did that, you're not having a new idea. You can benchmark, you can be inspired by things, but you'd like to have a new idea. You need to be courageous. And honestly, they're not always like consensus driven. You can have a, this is sort of the thing we need to do, but it's like, have an opinion. And if you fail, get it over with. I've failed at so many products, of so many products that we've just ditched over the years. And then we have some that are still here to the day, right? I mean, but there's so many, it's like, what's the ratio? One to 60 of products that make it past one year. So if you're, and that's like the cycle for me as

we're looking at which products stick and things, but if you're launching it, be attentive to your own ego. Do you notice this with Instagram? This is going to be relevant to product, I swear. But like when you go and you do an Instagram post, that's more about like, I'm feeling a little bit insecure today. So I'm going to do this thing. Like it never does as well when you're coming out at an energy of your own ego. That's my experience. When I come at a post or anything that I'm doing where I'm like, I really want to share this awesome thing that I care about. I've started to gut check everything I post online to be like, is there any part of me

that like is needing like an ego scratch by doing this? There's a pat on the back, ditch it, right? And the same thing goes with products and with concepts. If there's part of it that's with ego, be careful because you know what? You're going to stick to defending that product or that idea for longer than you should because it's more about your ego than about what the customer needs. And that's something that took me longer to learn that I'm comfortable admitting, right? But some things where I'm like, oh, well, the world needs this. And it's like, well, is it your vanity wanting to have this really super cool, unique, particular thing that you develop that people understand is very

special? What's the gratification of that? So the growing up for me has been also like, make this really all about what the customer wants. I feel like one thing that I respect about you so much is you've disrupted a category. And you took something that's like burgers and you made it like dynamic. Do you have any advice for someone who wants to come in and shake up a category? Yeah. I mean, that's been the most surprising thing. And I think early on with Bell Camp, everyone's like, you can't do anything innovative in meat. Now there's lots more kind of packaged meat brands that are doing it, but we were the first to really create a brand around a commodity.

And especially in California. So for me that, and I think you'll vibe on this, it had to do a lot with like kind of design thinking and being very attentive to look and feel in a way that some people found frivolous, right? So that's some pushback I got early on was being too obsessive about design and look and feel and how everything, you know, and too anal about the wrong details. And I agree. I did focus on some of the wrong details. Like the burger flag has to be this way and the plate has to be this way. But it's like, I was thinking about, well, I want people to take a picture of this burger, but I need to have the brand on it. So that's where the burger flag came from. And that's become an icon for the

brand. It was like, pay attention to the details about look and feel. And then the other thing about disruption too is like, remember that your success is your customers deciding that this thing that they thought of like air, this thing that they didn't ever care about is actually something that they want a different level of quality for. That's a really crazy thing. There's not that many categories that have been disrupted, but remember when water used to be a thing that nobody was going to buy, right? Every category has had this disruption moment. So if you think about like, gosh, I've got to get all these consumers to actually pay attention to something that they

take for granted and give a hoot about a name that's on it when they've never cared about a name on it before. Wow. How do I do that? And that means making sure you're paying more attention to the customer-facing piece than everything. So making sure that... And I noticed this in restaurants. You build a restaurant, you're burning through money, getting it all done. And there's so many decisions that you made. And then it's like, you get to the tabletop and you're like, oh my gosh, we only have like $10 left in the budget. Right. That's a mistake. Start from the tabletop, start from the things that touch the customer first. One of the things that I think is an important trait for entrepreneurs is, and you

kind of touched on this as like, you know, when you fail, get it over with, or like having this resilience, you've, you've had a little bit of controversy this year, like going through that one, maybe just like to talk about it a little bit into the audience. Like, how do you, how do you weather storms? Like, there's a lot of people that they get started on something. They get a little bit of flack, a little pushback and like, Oh my God, I'm done. I'm not going to push it any further. But you, I think you have to be able to kind of weather these storms as an entrepreneur in order to get what you want out of your business. Yeah. I mean, we had a really challenging situation where we had an expose about some sourcing issues in one of our locations that was exposed by an employee. So the world

found out about an issue in my company at the same time that I found out about it. So it was the worst case scenario. And what we did is, our CEO and I, the first thing was like, figure out if this is real, right? And then make sure we really get our hands around it. And so we actually really slowed down on, the first thing I did was issue an apology. As soon as I realized that there was some veracity to it, I was like, get out there and apologize and own it and be accountable, which is the absolute first thing to do. Then we actually took, I think, more time than our customers wanted to really fully document what exactly had happened. And the magnitude of the

issue, it was an issue, but it was social media isn't the best way to completely factually capture everything, right? So there's definitely elements of it that got virality because it was so surprising because of the nature and the purity of the brand. So we made sure that we really got our head around it. While we were doing that, there's tons of press coming out that were all just telling part of the story. So that was hard to see. But I think my sense of it was like, we built Belcampo by inches. Of course, there are missteps. Own that. Of course, there are missteps. Own that.

And there have been other missteps. And this is one that was particularly egregious and definitely was related and amplified because of COVID and the lack of onsite management, right? And that it had to do with sourcing in one location that had gone off the rails. And honestly, in the order of things that could have happened in COVID, it was understandable. But it was about taking a step

back and saying, hey, being reactive to this isn't in the service of the longer term. And that's hard because emotionally, you want to say, I'm so sorry, I'm fixing, I'm doing this. And it was a big lesson for me to say, step back and get an assessment of it and then share a really thoughtful response that's as focused on the exact what happened, but also it was more about like, yeah, the company needed a compliance officer and we put that rule into place. I think the way you responded was incredible, right? I think like so many companies that they are reactive and they get defensive and they get their egos involved and they don't do the proper investigation research to see what's going on.

If you're running a large scale business, there's always going to be things that happen, right? And like the big, what I always tell people is like, it's constantly looking for that room to improve and get better. Like you can't, not everything's always going to go the way you want, especially as you start to open more offices, more people have more decision makers. It's not as streamlined as people would like. Yeah. And it's also, you know, it's not like this past 18 months has been massive growth for the company. I mean, it's been like scotch tape in a lot of ways, right? And that's part of the issue. But I think it's been a situation where the company's had to pivot and grow and focus

on so many different things that it was deeply, deeply discouraging. But it was also in light of what had happened. I was like, well, I understand the factors that led to this. And I also understand that it's fixable. I understand that the bigger picture is not broken. And that's the story that I need to tell customers. And I also think it's like the company is set out to scale regenerative agriculture. And we're at now, we've grown into being a community of climate positive farms. Belcampo in 2020, net of everything,

net of all the cow farts and the FedEx boxes and the trucks and the restaurant, everything, sequestered 24,000 tons of carbon. A meat company. Yep. No, I mean- And it's like that, like doing that vision, building that, it's like, it's a big thrust. It's going to be a long-term change. We've got to fix the climate. And I sort of know it's like the biggest service I can do to my customers is own the problem, but really focus on fixing the problem and keep focused on that North Star, which is like, can we make meat climate positive?

Yeah, no, I think like, you know, because people knew about our relationship, obviously, and you being on the show, like people asked us what we thought. And I was like, I'm going to wait to talk to Anya because I know the mission behind what you're doing. And I know who you are. I know what you've built. And so like, I knew that that, I knew you were going to handle that the way you did, which is why... And I think you handled it well. And I think that's why you still have all your

customers and why people are still happy. Anyone that's judging any of this, when you're building a massive company, like Michael said, there's not going to be perfection. And that's boring if there was. There's going to be things. You've got a lot of employees, there's a lot of different personalities, things to handle, things are going to happen. And then you pivot and you fix it and you're doing what you're doing, which is so smart. You said you're actually fixing the problem and going towards that North star. When you look at like sustainable and tell me if I'm saying this wrong, sustainable health, like pasture is meat companies, right? Like you are, you guys are probably one of the North Stars

of people that are doing it right. And so I think like whenever there's a kink in an arm or for somebody who is doing it right, like you're like, people are quick to judge, but like there's a lot of others in this business that probably should be looked into before they'll camp. That's a hard one to bring up. Let's go to McDonald's.

Yeah, but you know what I'm saying? There's a lot of other people that need some fixing. We're not a commodity-based company yeah we started from one farm that farm is 27 000 acres we leased another 11 000 acres we have 3 500 cows and about a thousand pigs we have we're now a community of farms we have a few others that we like all of our poultry is now raised on a farm two hours south of us to our specs pastured all the different things. So I lay that out to say that's not a commodity. So I'm not in a position where I can say, well, I'm buying my oats from

here and I'm buying my oil from here and building that whole supply chain. It's a volatile business and we are the first people scaling it. So the issues that we had actually weren't related to scaling that. But I think broadly, the bigger that we had actually weren't related to scaling that, right? But I think broadly, the bigger premise that you raised, which is like, yeah, it's really challenging and it's important, I think, in business, like in relationship to say,

yeah, messed up, really focused on fixing it, intend to be a thousand percent transparent on fixing it. And we understand that breach of trust was too much. I understand that. There's not like, I'm not there trying to claw back. I'm just saying, hey, we're trying to scale regenerative agriculture and make it widely available through our own shops and other channels. And then COVID has been complex because it hasn't been easy. There have been moments where it's like, wow, this is crazy and amazing in the best way. And

then the other times where it's like for two weeks, there's nobody in stores. So there's been particular challenges associated with this time that I just encourage everybody to think back on and be aware of in light of our issues and other companies. It's been a volatile time in the food world. I know a lot of... One thing that worries me about this kind of attack culture, and people get so mad at me for talking about this, but I don't really care. In my opinion, people like yourself that are doing this and doing your best to put good into the world and change things and update things.

When we create a culture that attacks people like you or attacks people that are trying to do good, innovative things, some people start to look at them like, well, why even bother? Just leave it as it is then. And to me, that hurts innovation. It hurts the growth of the entire community, entire world because it demotivates people from saying, you know what, I'm going to put myself out there and try to push against the grain and try to do something differently. And a lot of times you look at people, I talked to a lot of founders like, yeah, I was doing this, but like with the climate, like I'm just not even going to do it. I just ran into, I won't say who he was.

He was a judge and he's out of New York City. He started at a very successful law firm, very successful lawyer, moved on up and now he's a judge. And he's like, you know, I started this because I wanted to start giving back to the community and presiding over cases and helping people. He's like, now with everything that's going on and how crazy everything is, he's kind of like, why do this? Like, I'm just going to go to my place and retire and like not participate anymore. And that's disheartening to hear because you've got a guy here whose intention is to help people, but it's so crazy now and people

are giving him so much flack. He's like, you know, I don't even want to bother anymore. I think there has to be a correction. This is an independent entirely of Belcampo's kind of scrutiny, but there has to be a correction around the way we're contributing on social media. Because I recently read in Science Magazine that people are 70 more likely to retweet false information oh yeah even if they know it's false and there's like this reward for amplifying things and there's also a reward for negative comments and that it's just there's something culturally where this is like i personally have just noticed like there's so much more negativity than joy. And if you think about it, if you went through your day-to-day interactions being as negative

as most people are on social media, you'd be totally ostracized, but you're allowed to in that anonymity. So this is something where I think there has to be some type of correction. I think you see it around bullying too. Like people are saying, hey, this is unhealthy. But I think there's a chance to say like the great stories are about people learning from errors. I mean, gosh, what I've learned from my mistakes is so much greater than what I've learned from my successes. Yeah. It's messed up. I mean, when I was a kid and there was bullies and someone was bullying, me, when I used to get in a lot of trouble with this, I would just hit back. When I was a kid, it got me in a lot of the problem is now, as you do this anonymously,

nobody can hit back. It's just this constant thing of getting bullied by all these different, and they're the loudest voices, right? And these platforms, like you said, they reward these voices because they're sensational, right? And they create this controversy and they create this feedback

where somebody has to respond in a way that is defending themselves. So it's like this constant back and forth. You see this big divide in the country and this like us versus them mentality. And I think what people forget is like in a society, everybody's in this together and what's not good for society is not good for anybody, right? Like this, I point out on social, sometimes the direction we're going in is going to be to the detriment of all of us. It's not going to be like one side wins eventually,

everybody's going to lose. Right. And so, I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is that instead of being so quick to attack, like take a step back. And one thing that I've learned in COVID is you get an email, it says urgent or something has to be solved right away. It's like, no, I'm going to sit back for a minute. I'm going to wait like 30, 40 minutes. Maybe I'll make it a day, two days just to form an opinion and think and like say, okay, is this really urgent? Is this, does this really need to be addressed? Is there something I'm not seeing? So many people don't do that anymore. It's just like react, okay, is this really urgent? Does this really need to be addressed? Is there something I'm not seeing? So many people don't do that anymore. It's just like react, react, react.

Well, that's a really good point around business too. I think there isn't enough encouragement to people to take a beat. Yeah, it's always like go, go, go. Exactly. One of the smartest pieces of advice I've ever gotten from an entrepreneur was Keith Cunningham.

He wrote The Road Less Stupid, I think it's called. And very, very successful guy. And he said he schedules thinking time into his calendar. And just to wrap this episode around, you kind of said that in the beginning, your thinking time is in the ice bath and the sauna. You have to have thinking time without your phone, without people around to be able to just think. And that sounds stupid. But once you really start to think about that, the thinking time is like what makes creative ideas happen. Well, there's a moment in your career as you grow when I started out as a passionate culinary and very interested in

health and culinary wellness. Built a brand that provides products that really support that. Six, seven years into that brand, I didn't have time to cook for my family, right? And the great joy of my life now has been an ability to come full circle back to that. But I recognize and I regret not doing things a bit differently where I was able to keep that through line, that continuity. You know, of course, you know, it's like you might do some things for performance effectively, but the real ingenuity and the real creativity that comes from me of doing my craft was missing. It's like a through line that was missing for a few years there because I became so responsive and so reactive and so much have to respond to every email in one hour and prove that I could

be that person. And it's like, well, in retrospect, that wasn't the best and highest usage of my brain. And so now it's interesting to have the space creatively to have incredible ideas. And this is something where I think a lot of entrepreneurs to say, where can I add the most value? And how do I take the most of my time and add the most value to it? So how do I use most of my time adding the most value? As opposed to doing things that other people could do, being in meetings because my ego needs that, being in meetings that I'm doing as kind of like a people pleaser, because my friend wants me to meet their friend and have coffee about nothing. You know, like all of that stuff, like that's been a really, and COVID really fast forwarded my thinking around that too, because all of a sudden all this FaceTime was gone and all this chit chat was gone.

But in that time, I sort of realized it's like, well, to add, to be my best and highest self, A, I need to like start every day with massive joy and bring joy and like volatile energy and happiness to everything that I do and to people around me. That's like part of my personality and how I want to show up. And then I also have to practice my craft and infuse what I do with my craft. Now I'm 10 years into this business and I've been in entrepreneurship for like 20 years, right?

So it's a privilege that I, you know, I've earned over the time that I've done this. But I think it's something like throughout, it's like finding a way to keep the thread of your original joy if you're the creative role in things as opposed to needing to be the fully functional on the business side and hold all pieces of it. I feel like you're saying my entire career story. You start out doing what you love to do. For me, it's to create. And then you look around one day and you're like, I'm not creating.

You have to own your time back. I started saying, I'm only doing calls on Wednesdays. I don't want to be on the phone all week. That's not why I did this. I'm only doing Zooms on this day. I only want to do interviews this day. So you have that space in your calendar to create and I think it's so true You almost go through a phase where you're saying yes to everything and you start to get depressed

Because you're not doing what originally fuels you and to get back to that you have to say no And that's a shift. It's a big shift and it's really Hard because people you're saying no to are important But it's the most important is the foundation of the craft. And like you said, it's probably very intimate and special that you're able to cook your family dinner. I mean, that's special. And it feels to me so indulgent where I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm done now. Like two, do I really get to just go cook? Or do I really just get to go think about this problem? And it's like, it's brought me so much

joy. And it's something that I think if I had been able to block out those pieces of time earlier, that would have been a really good move. Now, when we're hustling, we're hustling, right? And we all know what that's like. There's times when you're like, everything's on the edge. It's very fragile. How things are going to fall apart. You got to show up and do all the different things. Like we've been there. When you build a business, like we build businesses, you know, you start it with $1, the first dollar of revenue, and then everyone after that, you earn every one of those dollars. But you've got to also, if you're coming at it as a creative and you come out as the idea person, you have to think about that as your role and as this cup that needs to have that cup be full as a creative helps your whole team feel invigorated. And they're like, I can focus on these functional details because there's other people really holding this bigger vision. It's a way to think about your... Now it's like self-care is one way

to think about it, but it's like there's a way to carve out the space that you need to keep your ideas and energy around things replenished. Protect your peace. I think one thing that people got confused with, with hustle culture is like, hustling doesn't mean moving fast all the time, right? Like you still have to be thoughtful and focus and you still have to make the right decisions. And I think we got into this, like go, go, go, go react to this, react to that. And, and what you don't realize is like, by doing that and then making poor decisions, you have to go back and clean up so much more and take so much more time to actually fix any mistakes you make.

So now I've just been like, okay, even if something's urgent, I still have to do all of the work that I would do if it wasn't. I have to sit back, think, be thoughtful, and then make the best decision, even if something is pressing. Well, also think about your value proposition. Sure. Think about what do you add when you walk in the room? And then to me, I think, does networking with randos increase your value proposition?

No. For me, definitely not. Some people it does. Some people love networking. If you're in sales, maybe that's something that's going to actually do it, right? For us three at this table, I don't think networking is the right thing.

Does having meetings about a maybe possible business deal with somebody that's really kind, you know, like there's so many things that you can just say, if you just look at it as like in the same way you look at product and you'd be like, okay, this product is different because of X, Y, and Z attributes that really set it apart from the market. So when we're looking at whatever aspects, the packaging has got to talk about those attributes. But you look at it in a really clear way what value does this add i might look at myself and say well what well what value do i have when i walk in the room and then does everything that i do so like in my time personal in my relationship in my family in my professional life does that all add up to supporting the the thriving of that

because that's why i get to walk in the room. Yeah. And it's actually poor business sense to be doing anything that takes away from that value proposition. Yeah. It's just counterintuitive. It doesn't support your personal value proposition. So if you look at it as a lens, like as a product person and say, okay, like, cool, there's this, you know, half day that I've got doing X, Y, and Z things. Are these all laddering up to supporting my value proposition? If not, like clip things. Are these all laddering up to supporting my value proposition? If not, like clip it. Don't do it. You are amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. I feel like this interview had so much depth. It went everywhere. You guys, everyone follow Belcampo,

follow Anya. Tell us where to find you. Tell us how to order. I personally would order, if you're ordering e-com, the bone broth. I love the beef bone broth and the meatballs. Yeah, my meatballs. They're really good. I'm doing a chicken meatball now. I can't wait. It's coming out in just a couple weeks. We're huge fans.

Huge fans. And the ribeye. And there's so many things to order. Also, if you're in LA, you have to try the fast burger with a bun and without. Tell us where to find you. Pimp yourself out. Okay. Belcampo.com is all the Ecom offerings.

You can go to Belcampo.com to find out where our five restaurants in NorCal and SoCal are. You can also buy us at our amazing grocery partner, Air One in LA and Metropolitan Markets in the Pacific Northwest. And then me personally, I'm at Anya Fernald and Belcampo's Instagram is at belcampomeco. And your cookbook? Home Cooked. And my YouTube channel coming soon is Anya Fernald and Belcampo's Instagram is at Belcampo Meco. And your cookbook? Homecooked. And my YouTube channel coming soon is Anya's Kitchen. Love it. It's all fire cooking. Your cookbook is absolutely beautiful. What should, what recipe should we start with? Should I start with a salsa verde?

Okay. That's it. But I want you to do carnivore with like a couple little tweaks and whistles and just try it out. For 10 days. 10 days. You can do maybe two, five days. Do a Monday through Friday and then take the weekend off. Do a Monday through Friday. I'm going to text you about this because I need to know exactly. And the salsa verde might help you power through the pain of carnivore. Okay. All right. You're amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Come back anytime. Don't forget to pre-order a copy of my new book,

Get the Fuck Out of the Sun. There is so many insider tips and tricks on skincare. You guys are going to be obsessed. You can expect routines, products, tips, and insider secrets from 100 plus of the world's best skincare gurus, of course, peppered in with lots of happy hour conversations with moi. Pre-order on Amazon or where books are available. To get the scoop on the book, there's also a whole website called getthefuckoutofthesun.com.