The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - How To Increase Your Energy, Focus, & Fitness Ft. Michael Brandt, CEO of HVMN

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

#681: Today, we're sitting down with Michael Brandt, CEO and co-founder of Health Via Modern Nutrition, avid runner, and biohacker. With the launch of Ketone-IQ, Michael and his team created an entirely new category of ketone shots, which have taken over elite sports and high-end workplaces. Today we dive into all things high-performance, energy development, and entrepreneurship. We discuss everything from ""losing"" on Shark Tank turning into his biggest investment opportunities, how to hack your morning routine, to the truth and common denominator of successful entrepreneurs.   To connect with Micheal Brandt click HERE To connect with HVMN click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Watch the Show click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential & HVMN    Visit hvmn.com/SKINNY to save 30% off your first subscription order of Ketone-IQ™ This episode is brought to you by Armra ARMRA Colostrum strengthens immunity, ignites metabolism, fortifies gut health, activates hair growth and skin radiance, and powers fitness performance and recovery. Visit www.tryamra.com and use code SKINNY at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Saie Saie: Award winning Clean and Planet Positive makeup brand sold exclusively at Sephora. Shop now at sephora.com This episode is brought to you by Vegamour Give your hair the power of the little pink bottle. Visit vegamour.com/SKINNY and use code SKINNY at checkout to receive 20% off your first order. This episode is brought to you by Nerdwallet NerdWallet lets you compare top travel credit cards side-by-side to maximize your spending, some even offering 10X points on your spending. Visit nerdwallet.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Arrae Visit arrae.com and use code SKINNY to receive 15% off your first purchase or autoship order. This episode is brought to you by Nike Find your feel with Nike Bras & Leggings that deliver supportive flexibility and comfort for whatever your day brings. Shop now at nike.com/women Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. 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! You want to be memorable. You want to be memorable. You want to be remarkable. You want to be something that's not remembered. It's like when you think about great art, like half the people think it's ugly, stupid, like this shouldn't be up in the museum, but like all this stuff that's like very good.

Yeah, that's what's like hanging up at the Hyatt. Like that's, you know, nice art. That's like the really good stuff that like changes the world. It's like, yo, that can of soup is stupid. That's not art. I could do that. But then like it's that the really provocative, remarkable stuff that like flips it on its head that like no one's really done before.

As an entrepreneur, you gotta be tough on it because I think four out of five people, especially in the early days, like the reporters or the investors or people that you're pitching your product to, they're not gonna get it. So you really have to find your tribe of people and you have to, if you're to buy the ticket of being weird and

out there, then you got to take the ride of the fact that a lot of people aren't going to get it at first. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. Today, we're sitting down with Michael Brand, who's the CEO and co-founder of Health Via Modern Nutrition, also known as HBMN. Michael is an avid runner and biohacker. And with the launch of Ketone IQ, a product that Lauren and I both love, which we're going to talk about in this episode, how to get into better ketosis, Michael and his team created an entirely new category of ketone shots, which have taken over elite sports and high-end workplaces. Today, we dive into all things high performance, energy, development, and entrepreneurship. We discuss everything from

losing on Shark Tank, then turning into one of his greatest investment opportunities, how to hack your morning routine, to truths and common denominators of successful entrepreneurs. This episode's for anyone that's interested in striking out on their own path, taking better care of themselves, building a business of their own, doing things differently. It's really an inspiring story, and Michael is an inspiring character. With that, Michael, welcome to Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. It's like if you sit down and buy Coca-Cola and Pepsi's the top ad, shouldn't Coca-Cola be able to

win that customer more easily? You should be willing to pay more than your competitor for that ad. Are you talking about ads or the actual pages? Just to give the audience context, I'm saying that when you search skinny confidential mouth tape on Google, mouth tape competitors are trying to steal my SEO. They're scared. Messed up. They're shaking in their boots. Yeah, they're skimming it.

Having a conversation that you guys are privy to and where I'm just asking both of the Michaels their opinions. Yeah, I used to work at Google actually oh well and there it is i can't fix the problem for you but we can postulate on what it might be i love it let's let's let's pause when i first got connected and met michael we went over zoom i was like this this guy needs to come on the show because we've been talking about hbmn and on the show for a bit and we've been aware of it many of our friends use it take it my sister takes it religiously now like people love the product which we're going to get into but you personally have a wild background and an eclectic life and i just thought having you on to tell your story and talk about everything

you're doing would be interesting so if you were going to give like a broad overview or brief introduction to who you are, where would you even start at this point? Before we do this, can we please take our shot? Let's do it. So what are we doing? Tell us how we're going to feel when we take this shot. We're having a shot of ketone IQ, high performance energy. I created this with a large multi-million dollar contract with the Department of Defense Special Operations Command. No big deal. Pretty easy. And this is not going to make me stay awake all night. It's not going to make you stay awake all night.

It's energy where the energy is coming just from ketones. No sugar, no caffeine. Your brain loves ketones. We'll get into all of this. But the one sentence is high performance energy comes from ketones. It tastes a little crazy. You guys don't mind. Some people, it tastes really crazy because it's fermented. It says appetite control. I love a little appetite

control. No, it doesn't bother me, but I'm also one of those guys where if I know it's good for my body and I know like, oh, like my brain is telling me like, I like it. Yeah. Yeah. What if fisting up your ass was good for your body? Would you let me fist you up your ass? I don't know. Let's just not go there. Okay. So let's get into it. So your background. Yes. Okay. I studied computer science at Stanford, got really into technology and then biohacking in particular. So a decade ago, I was early on wearing continuous glucose monitors, tracking my footsteps, seeing that basically all these sensors on and in the human body, that was a real trend that was taking off like a decade ago. No, not as many people were doing it.

Now it's like 50 million people have wearables and devices. And it was obvious to me that if everyone's objectively measuring their health, that the things that we eat are going to change drastically. Like, I don't know what a goji berry does for your health. Like it's, it doesn't register necessarily. I'm not trying to poop on anyone's startup. There's a lot of health and wellness trends that don't measurably move anything. But when we're all wearing some sensor in our human body, our body's becoming this platform and we can see our sleep score, our heart rate variability, our blood glucose.

And in that world, what actually moves the needle? What actually makes you perform better that you can actually observe and measure? So I came in as a big nerd, like a big computer science guy, looking at the human body as a platform and what should exist that doesn't exist that can move performance and health outcomes. And looked at a lot of stuff, looked at hundreds of different ideas and came to ketones. Got this large contract with the Department of Defense to develop a pure ketone drink and have been building that for many, many years. Hold on, Michael. How does one get in touch with this department? You don't just email them cold.

Right. It's the biggest organization on planet Earth. The USDOD is a trillion dollar a year budget. People talk about selling into Fortune 500 companies. If the DoD was a company, it'd be number one. It's huge. So you got to knock on a lot of doors. You got to network in a lot. You got to fill out a lot of paperwork. You got to, yeah.

How long did it take you to get them? It took years. And yeah, it took years. So early on, we got investment from a group called Andreessen Horowitz. They're a large Silicon Valley investor. They really liked our thesis of doing tech-based nutrition. And we were still early. This was pre-ketones. We were still kind of incubating ideas. They have really good connectivity into the DoD. And then we just found other ways. And as an entrepreneur, it's hard to explain it. So you kind of manifest it and you just get it done. You find how to do it.

Yeah. Once you put your intentions to it, it's like you meet someone who knows someone and this person, this other investor knew someone else at their firm that was an ex-commander of SEAL Team 7. You just meet people and when you really have a goal and you are extroverted founder type person, you just meet, it ends up kind of falling into place. I don't know if that's the best answer because everyone's path is so special. It's like, how did you guys end up here? Everyone would love to host their own super popular podcast. How'd you do it? It's like, your path is pretty special to you. For us, it was just like, we had this intent of like, hey, let's do really hardcore,

deep tech inside of nutrition. And it'd be cool to work with a DOD and kind of manifested it. Let me ask you a question. As you were looking at all of this data and think in the early, early days before you decided to go down ketones and you were looking at everything else and quote unquote, like what actually moved the needle with the body. What were other things that you saw that you found interesting that maybe like that wasn't your path, but you're like, Hey, that is still interesting. Or, you know, maybe I should have looked at that harder or anything that sticks out. Sleep is really interesting. You know, there's a lot of different supplements around sleep with like magnesium and L-theanine and different types of mushrooms and different, and not just, and not just on like the nutritional side, but on the like sleeping at a cooler body temperature or sleeping in, in certain times

of the day. So I think like the whole area around sleep and like sleep is super impactful as well to your performance. Sleep's super interesting. Sleep's an area where if I wasn't thinking about ketones and like metabolic health there that I think sleep is super interesting. So why did you land on ketones? What was the thing that tipped it for you? I'm a big marathon runner. I run six minute miles for the marathon and I was just really into endurance sports. And when you get good at running and your body does these certain adaptations and you got to get really good at metabolism and your body gets really good at, among other things, your body gets really good at making and using ketones. So I kept seeing that coming up and I

was thinking like, okay, if your body's making and using all these ketones and you're pushed to its limits, why can't you just go to the store and buy a ketone? It's this great energy your body makes. Why can't you go buy it the same way you can buy a collagen or protein or apple cider vinegar or anything else? If you were going to explain ketones to a kindergartner, not that our listeners are kindergartners, but if you were- I'm a kindergartner when it comes to ketones. You put the glasses on. We're getting, we're like- I'm getting serious.

If you were going to just like, before we dive into everything, just talk about ketones to the audience, how would you start? It's a form of energy. Your body needs energy all the time. If you're running, you need energy. If you're lifting weights, you need energy. If you're thinking hard, you need energy. If you're sleeping, you're recovering from the day's activities, you need energy. Your body's always using energy. The process of making energy is called metabolism. Maybe people remember that. Maybe more advanced than kindergarten, but maybe you remember high school biology. Your mitochondria is the power plant of your cell. So you're always turning the stuff that you're eating into

cellular energy. And ketones are really good at that. Ketones are really good source of energy for yourselves. They're really efficient. They don't require as much oxygen. They feel really nice. Like when you're drinking ketones, like your brain especially likes ketones. So they feel really nice. So they're a form of fuel. The same way sugar is a fuel. Ketones are a fuel. They're a macronutrient. There's calories inside of it. And it's a fuel and it just works really efficiently.

How did you become this smart, man? Like, have you always been this smart? Are you just a smart kid? Like what was your childhood like? Are you just naturally smart? I mean, the first thing I noticed about you is you're smart. Thanks, Lauren. You got to ask my parents.

I don't think I was the easiest kid growing up. And it's something I reflected on. I have a two-year-old daughter and she's pretty high functioning too. Like she's a very curious cat. And like I see some similarities or just like everything's super interesting to her. I think everything's just interesting. I got into a lot of trouble as a kid i was like i was always standing up and now now everyone's got like their standing desks but i would just always get yelled at for like

standing too much being asking too many questions like i remember like i would like correct my teacher because they'd get like the math problem wrong and i'd be like i'd like make fun of them and i'd go to detention and like i think that i was always i've always been a little bit i'm just curious i don't think i'm i've always been a little bit i'm just curious i don't think i'm like that much smarter than people maybe i'm more um curious and i follow things through all the way and i yeah i i don't it's not like i just like wake up in the morning know all the answers to all the math problems i just like i think i just like spin a lot in my head it's a hard question to answer how do you i don't know i don't know if i'm smarter than

no i just think i think it's like it's not as i mean listen there. It's a hard question to answer. How do you, I don't know. I don't know if I'm smarter than everyone. No, I just think, I think it's like, it's not as, I mean, listen, there's a ton of brilliant people, but there's, and to your point about follow through, but I think what's interesting about meeting people like yourself is, you know, you've also become an entrepreneur

and you've taken something out of thin air and an idea out of your head based on science that you followed and you've created a product that's groundbreaking that so many people we know are taking and love. And I think that's what's interesting because it's like seeing it in action and creating something from nothing that actually could drive a positive impact. I think that is less common than just being smart. It's also unique to cat. It's a unique category.

It's super unique. And I think there's a unique category. It's super unique. And I think there's nothing quite like it. And one of my favorite books is this book called First and Thirst. It's the Gatorade book about how they created electrolytes in 1965 with the Florida Gators. And they had this whole insight that if you're sweating balls in the Florida swampy heat, that water alone doesn't hydrate you as well. Your sweat clearly contains things besides water. So what if you had electrolytes and the whole story of how it took them decades, right? They were working on it since the 1960s. And it was like decades before they got like Michael

Jordan and all the cool, like 1990s Gatorade ads. Remember those ads where you're like, they're like sweating blue and red, like beads of Gatorade. That was like three decades into their story. And this is that, that idea of taking something like this hard science insight and then building a really cool like the coolest brand at least in like the 90s i was like the coolest brand them and nike it was like the coolest brand of the 90s and that took a while and i think it was cool that it came from like real science i think i think generally maybe what makes us different is that like it's it's really like science at the core like i didn't come from like a marketing background or like a CPG background or anything like that.

I came in as just kind of curious nerd ball. And then I've learned a lot about, we're now in Sun Life Organics, our friend Khalil's spot. We're in Sprouse. We're in every Equinox in America. I've learned all that stuff. Where I came from was the more just hard science world. Yeah.

And well, I think that's the product speaks to that because you could tell this was something that wasn't like this didn't just exist on a shelf or in a white label like you actually like created and invented something here to go deeper on ketones how you know what happens as we progress through life and do we start producing less is there a reason do we like, is there instances where we produce more? If you're talking about as an energy source, what are things people could do naturally to start boosting it more often? That's a great question. Yeah. A couple of things that make your body make its own ketones already, like ketones, your body's made ketones for forever, for 300,000 years. Like humans make

ketones. We always make ketones. The things that make your body make ketones are cardio so being active eating generally lower carb like less sugar what happens in either of those cases whether you're doing cardio or whether you're like not eating a lot of sugar to begin with is that your body will run low on blood sugar and it will start burning fat and turning into ketones because i know people want to put themselves into ketosis and me not being a scientist, and I know there's a lot of prominent health professionals that talk about that being beneficial at times. Is that partly the intention for this when you take it and what happens to the body when you do get into ketosis? So we're all in ketosis right now because we just had a shot 10 minutes ago. So... Oh, okay. See, I don't understand that.

So because I took this shot, my body is in ketosis now. Yeah. Meaning that you have elevated ketones in your blood. Got it. And that's the main intention is to get elevated ketones in your blood by taking this product. So you can basically instantly get into ketosis. You're instantly in ketosis. And now you have ketones flying around your bloodstream that your muscles can use, your brain cells can use, cells in your heart can use. Your body can

use those ketones for fuel for all the things going on. And your brain especially likes ketones. When I was like, I want to say I was like 25, I did Lindora, which is like a weight loss program. And you had to take like a pee test or something to check that you were in ketosis they wanted you in ketosis to lose weight yeah when you say i'm in ketosis from this shot does that have to do with weight it kind of does because it's replicating a lot of the things that you're doing when you're doing a keto diet or doing a lot of cardio it's interesting because you don't have to do i'm not doing the keto diet right now, but I'm in ketosis because I just drank ketone IQ and it replicates a lot of the effects of a keto diet. So for instance, it helps to control appetite. Like when you have

ketones in your system, your body's not as hungry. There's this really interesting study done where they had people have drank the same amount of calories from ketones and from sugar and like a hundred calories of both. And the group that had ketones was significantly less hungry. And when they did blood tests for ghrelin, the hunger hormone, the ketone group also had a lot lower just objective scores of ghrelin. So ketone IQ is this way to get into ketosis and it replicates some of the things that people like about the keto diet. The keto diet is a pain in the butt. For a lot of people, I don't know, carbs are good too. I think it's good to avoid too much excess sugar, but I also don't recommend for everyone to go do a hardcore keto diet. I don't

think that's great either. What's interesting about ketone IQ is you can get some of these benefits without doing the full-blown keto diet. What are your thoughts on the semi-glutide that's happening? Because I feel like you are someone that-glutide that's happening because i feel like you are someone that would know about everything that's going on because of the business that you're in it's interesting for sure it's just definitely like more hardcore i think what if what we're doing is a hammer that's like a sledgehammer the the ozembex semi-glutide just the general like hard pharmaceutical stuff i think it's interesting for some people but it's definitely more like hardcore yeah there's definitely like more more side effects

and things to consider with it yeah it sounds like with this if you wanted to like this is a good way if you wanted to start managing your energy levels a little bit more and you wanted to potentially suppress your i don't say suppress but manage your appetite and your hunger a bit this is is maybe an initial step you would take besides you before deciding to take the sledgehammer approach. Yeah. It just helps you control your appetite, feel nice energy, especially mentally. And yeah, you're not that hungry. It's cool. How do you integrate this into your day? I'm a big runner. So when I'm running, I have ketones on top of that. I'll have a banana and ketones in the morning. And I just like a really nice form of fuel.

Ketones are interesting because they go through this different pathway than carbohydrates. They're just a different form of fuel. So a lot of athletes like it because they'll have it on top of their normal stuff so that they have more metabolic substrates going through more different channels in their body. How many can you take a day? On our package, we say limit three and a half. So walk me through an ideal day.

Is it three in the morning or is it three throughout the day? I have one in the morning. It's a nice way to just like wake up and feel energetic. I just feel like clicked on. A lot of people have replaced their coffee with it or they'll have it on top of their coffee. It's just like a morning stack. You know bulletproof coffee or MCT coffee? A lot of people are familiar with that. The whole idea of MCT is it's a medium chain triglyceride. It's a form of fat that turns into ketones. That's the whole reason people are

interested in MCTs is that it's a type of fat that because of the chain length of the triglyceride, it turns into ketones relatively easily. We've just skipped this step. So this is just like a straight ketone. So a lot of people have ketone IQ with their coffee or they'll have it instead of their coffee and just feel this energy rush in the beginning of the day.

And then they'll have it like, yeah, once or twice else throughout the day to kind of re-upup before a podcast or something. Can you fast and take this too? Is it going to break you out of your fast? That's something people love doing because it extends your fast. You're not having any sugar. You're not spiking your blood glucose. You're not spiking your blood insulin. So it's fasting compliant in those ways. It makes it really easy to carry over your intermittent fast until noon or whatever you're trying to do. What are some mistakes that you see because you know so much about ketosis that people make when it comes to ketosis?

Because everybody says keto season when they're like, maybe it's like summer's coming up or spring break. If you were going to follow that diet, what are some of the things that you've learned? Yeah. It works really well. I've seen for people who do it in a sprint, they do 60 days to get beach bod ready or to fit in the wedding dress. I think it works well for those. If you've got to shed some weight, do the keto diet. I think people have a harder time doing it long-term. Some people truly love it. They truly feel good or their body just does not deal well with carbs. And they just are, they've been keto since 2017. Like those people definitely exist. I think for most people,

keto diet is more of this like tool to use on a temporary basis to like hit some weight loss goal. And then when you return to normal diet, what I would say is what works really well for people is like incorporate maybe some of the learnings where, again, if once you go back to normal diet, you're incorporating carbs and stuff. But like, I think on a keto diet, one thing that everyone should try it, I think once I, again, I'm not doing it hardcore. Like I'm not, I'm not a big keto diet fan, but I think it's worth trying because you start learning their sugar and everything. There's sugar in your salad dressing, there's sugar in your ketchup, there's sugar everywhere.

And then when you, if you try that out, then when you return to a normal diet, like carry over some of those, like, oh yeah, when I have tacos, like, I don't know,

the taco itself. It's almost like an awareness of what all the ingredients are that you're normally eating. Yeah, exactly. That like, there's more sugar in things than maybe you thought

that like pasta is actually like, yeah, that your body just turns that pasta into sugar right away. And like there's different forms of carbohydrates, like certain carbohydrates are more fibrous.

Like a potato is not the same as a bag of candy, even if it has the same amount of carbs because the potato has starches and fibers in it that basically slow down the release of sugar into your bloodstream.

So like not all carbs are the same. I think you learn a lot when you try a keto or lower carb diet that you can reincorporate back when you do a normal diet later on. Let's talk about Armour Colostrum. Lauren and I have been absolutely obsessed with Armour Colostrum ever since we interviewed the founder on this show. Check out that episode. If you just search armor, the skinny confidential, it will pop up. We dive into all of the benefits on armor colostrum. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the effects of armor colostrum, if you want

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Code skinny to save 20% off your first order. V-E-G-A-M-O-U-R.com slash skinny. Code skinny. If you do a pee test after drinking this, so you're saying you will be in ketosis. Oh, definitely. I often carry around, I don't know, I might have it even in my backpack is like a blood test. You can do like a blood fingerprint.

I have like calluses on my whole finger, like a guitar player, except I'm not a guitar player. I'm just a big nerd. And I do like blood testing because we've done like so many different variations on our product and tests over the years. And with all the running idea.

I'm always like testing my blood ketone levels and blood glucose levels. And you can, the best way to do it is like the finger blood stick. The next best way is you can do a pee test or there's breath tests. The best is blood, but you got to actually pick yourself. Wait, doesn't ketosis make your breath smell? Does this make your breath smell? Not really. Like the ketosis, when you're like deep in ketosis,

yeah, people will have like acetone breath because like your body's like, yeah, some people will get keto breath from being deep in ketosis. But you're okay on this? Yeah, people don't really get like bad breath from it. I think like- Why don't you launch a keto breath mint?

Yeah. That you can have after you have your keto shot. Yeah, that would would help you to- Get the Department of Defense to fund it. To fund the breath mints. Yeah. You have built a multi-million dollar brand. I want to talk about the entrepreneur side. Oh, I'd love to. First of all, tell us how you had the intuition to get into this and how you've maneuvered

throughout this whole entire journey? Because as we know, it's not easy. How did you start? What's it been like? What's your day-to-day like? It started off as curiosity. It was very much a science fair project. Me and my co-founder and trying things out. Very small team, very science-driven. And it's been really important to get partners, great partners to help, especially because where we come from is more of a technical world. It's really important for us to work with people that can help get the word out. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, you have to have some home field advantage. Some entrepreneurs have awesome platforms and maybe they need a

technical co-founder to help like build something interesting. Or some people are like really technical. They have, they've invented a flying shoe, but they have like 12 followers on Instagram that got no one to tell about it. Usually I would say like, usually entrepreneurs fall into one of those camps where they're like, you're really good and like extroverted to have a lot of like people, friends and, and, and platform, or they're just technical wonk and can do incredible stuff,

but maybe haven't figured out how to get it out there. I think the best companies have both. The best companies truly become both. You become like Apple, where it's technical and sexy. We definitely started out more technical, for sure, and then have figured out, we've gotten some cool people, like Joe Montana's an investor,

Jake Paul's an investor, I'm here with you guys. We've gotten some cool people like Joe Montana's investor. Jake Paul is an investor. I'm here with you guys. We get just cool different partners. And the work's never finished. Once you're in Sprouts, it's like, oh, let's get into Whole Foods. Once you're in Whole Foods, it's like, oh, let's get into Costco and Target. Once you're cool, can we get Taylor Swift drinking it? You're always trying to figure out the next level of the game. Does that help answer your question? I thought it was a good question. Totally. What's been your coolest moment? Ooh, I was on Shark Tank. Yeah, tell us all about that.

Did they invest? First, you have to tell us, because there's people who are listening that want to get on Shark Tank. Tell us the whole process of how you got on. Then you have to tell us the during and then the aftermath. We've had Barbara on the show and we've had a few people on the show that have been on shark tank some had deals that didn't happen after some actually did get funded out yeah i would love to hear the shark tank super interesting so yeah i'll just say up front like we ended up not getting a deal um but i would still like do it again in a heartbeat because this is cool it's like free sets and reps for telling your story it's really important to do as a founder

just get out there and tell it themselves now yeah themselves now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we've raised it a higher valuation than what we were pitching to Sharks from other big, legit investors. So it's all love though. It's like, I think we learned a lot. It's a free ad for your product in prime time. Because even if the Sharks don't invest, you'll still like,

people will still text me, tag me all the time. They see it on a rerun on the back of their Delta Airlines flight, the TV there. I'd like to pitch the Sharks and they'd not invest. You're right. It's a free commercial. Why did you decide to do it? Tell me about the application situation. We got a little lucky where they reached out to us and were like, hey, you guys are interesting. I don't know. It's hard to replicate. I think we were making a lot of noise at the time. We were just very biohackers from Silicon Valley.

We were talking a lot about intermittent fasting. And it was funny because I'd worked at Google, which at the time was very famous for free food, delicious chefs. And I left Google and was running this biohacking company. And I had this large community of intermittent fasting and out of Silicon Valley. And it was just like a funny story in the press of like, Oh,

his ex Googler is not like starving his employees. I wasn't starving anyone, but like it made it right. It made a good like headline. So I think we were just making good, good amount of noise. And then Shark Tank is like, Oh,

what do you guys actually do? Like, do you want to come pitch it on our, on our show? So I think, I think that's one thing I've learned is just like how do i you gotta like be kind of and as an entrepreneur you got to be an idea virus you got to figure out how to be a meme you got to figure out how to get like into the consciousness like you have to because like pepsi or whatever has a way bigger

budget like the attention economy is nuts these days it's really hard to stand out you have to do something that's like a little bit weird and noteworthy and so i said can we start doing that stuff and then shark tank caught wind and then it kind of like replicates because now it's really hard to stand out. You have to do something that's like a little bit weird and noteworthy. And so I said, can we start doing that stuff? And then Shark Tank caught wind. And then it kind of like replicates because now it's like, oh yeah,

like once you're on Shark Tank, then the next person wants to talk to you. The next one is, I don't know. It's kind of a video game. Why did they not invest? What was the,

was the. You'd have to ask them. I think what they would say is that, I think we came across a little technical at the time. Yeah. And I think they were like,

you guys need to. Well, yeah, because like even the reason I wanted to have you on the show is there is a real, to your point, technical element to this and how it was created. But I think, you know, what we try to be is filter sometimes to at least to our audience in kind of in a way, and I hate to use the word, but like dumb things down to make it so this is understandable. And for me, the way I'm hearing this is like, if I want to have manageable natural energy levels and not maybe have to go to other substances, you can do this. If you want to potentially manage appetite and not jump to the sledgehammers or say you could use this. If you wanted to have maybe more productive workouts

or productive podcasts and have your brain on fire, it's just a quick way to do it and it doesn't disrupt your sleep and it's a natural way with no sugar and no chemicals, right? Did I just nail it? Yeah, that's really well said. You should pitch the shark. But I think we're always looking for stuff like this, innovative stuff, because to your point, there's so much information out there, even when it comes to diet, which I think we could talk about in a second. People are just confused on what to do what not to do what works what doesn't work you know but this is what i've realized i just got off the phone with with my pr and i was talking about mouth tape i launched mouth tape skinny confidential mouth tape and they were like well people don't really know what to do with this. The editors are

confused about it. And to me, that means you're onto something because it's the most disruptive things that actually make the noise in the end. I know that mouth taping is going to be like a toothbrush in three years. I think people will be taping their mouth shut like they scrape their tongue and they use a toothbrush. And there's kind of something that gets you off or gets me off. And I'm wondering if you feel the same, that your product, it's hard to take in at first because it's new and people are like, there's uncertainty around it and it needs explanation because it is disruptive. Yeah. And it's so much true to what you're saying, Lauren. The mouth tape that you're doing is remarkable, right? It's hard to look away from.

It's different. It's weird. Those are all really good things. You want to polarize people. I think the enemy as entrepreneurs to be very good, that's the worst spot to be where you're like seven and a half out of 10. It's like a deece. But you want to be like, this is amazing. Or like, what the hell? Why is this lady sending me mouth tape? The best ideas start out like that. Liquid Death is like a crazy name to call a water company. The first iPhone, you go back, it's so funny. You go back and look at the early reviews of the iPhone. Everyone's like, this is so stupid. This is only for tech millionaires. It was like $1,200. Didn't have any apps. It was stupid. What does Apple know about phones? No, thank you. I'm going to stick with my BlackBerry. The new ideas always sound completely

insane. I think that's such a good insight on how it should really feel. If your idea makes too much sense on day one, generally ideas get watered down over time as you build out your business. If it doesn't start out with 11 out of 10 spicy, weird, remarkable, there's that book Purple Cow with the guy Seth Godin, if people have heard of that one. You see cows all the time. If you saw Purple Cow, you would remember it for the rest of your life. You want to be that. It's a great book, by the way. You want to be that Purple Cow. And if you're not on day one, you're only going to get more normie over time. So you got start out weird so true though your your product is a purple cow it is

yeah and i'll give you like even like i'm doing something different than than both of you in a lot of ways whereas like i'm running a media company and a lot of without getting so detailed a lot of the way we started this business like a lot of the pushback i would get either from publications or media agencies or brand or advertisers like, they would be very flustered about the way we conduct some of the business here at Jumeirah, the way we do things or some of our processes. And they're like, well, it's always been done this way. You have to conform this way. And I was like, have you looked at all the media companies and legacy media companies that have just like crumbled and burned and fallen apart. It's like, if they told

me, Hey, good for you, you're doing everything like everyone else. I'd be like, this is a cause for concern. Like we, we might have to shut this thing down. And the whole, the whole thing is like, and I think this is good for any entrepreneur. When you start something and you get that pushback and people tell you, well, this is not how things have been done, or you're not doing it like everybody else that should be taken as words of encouragement, not as words of despair. Because like if, if you're just coming in and doing it like everybody else, you should be taken as words of encouragement, not as words of despair. Because if you're just coming in and doing it like everybody else, you're probably just a second rate version of what already exists. And some of those things that exist could be going away. If you're getting that pushback, it's likely because you're breaking the status quo and

onto something new. And Michael, you always say when a show pitches themselves to dear media, and they'll be like, I gonna be the next joe rogan and michael immediately is like no like don't be use use your own formula you're not gonna be like don't be the next anyone yeah whenever i hear someone say they're gonna be the next any like if somebody came and said i'm gonna be the next ketone iq i'm gonna be the next hvmn i would say why there's already there already is the one you what I mean? I kind of just tune out. I had this amazing literary agent tell me today that when he decides to take on a book, that he wants people to either absolutely fucking love it or absolutely fucking hate it.

He doesn't want indifference. He wants an extreme reaction. And to your point, he doesn't just want good. And your product, he doesn't want a seven your product is is reminds me of that and it's like that mouth tape conversation i just had like reminds me of this it's like people don't get it but i kind of like love they don't get it yeah how do you respond to that with your product that you want to be memorable you want to be remarkable you want to be something that's not remembered it's like when you think about great art like half the people think it's ugly, stupid,

like this shouldn't be up in a museum. But like all this stuff that's like very good. Yeah, that's what's like hanging up at the hallway and at the Hyatt. Like that's, you know, nice art. That's like the really good stuff that like changes the world. It's like, yo, that can of soup is stupid. That's not art. I could do that.

But then like it's that the really provocative, remarkable stuff that like flips it on its head that like no one's really done before. So I think you got to, as an entrepreneur, you got to be tough on it because I think four out of five people, especially in the early days, like the reporters or the investors or the early people that you're pitching your product to, they're not going to get it. So you really have to find your tribe of people and you have to, if you're going to buy the ticket of being weird and out there, then you got to take the ride of the fact that like a lot of people aren't going to get it at first. Like if you're out there selling your iPhone on day one, like most people are going to be like that's stupid. No, thank you. I'll stick with my BlackBerry. And you just got to

have, I mean, we all know, like you got to have that thick skin to that. And then over time, it's just interesting. Like I've been talking about ketones, ketone IQ for a while. And like more and more people are like, oh, wow. Like people that like two years ago were like, oh, that was like, doesn't make sense. Now they're like, oh, cool. Yeah, that's really interesting. My trainer told me about that. Like you see it like kind of trickling in and you just got to be good vibes about it.

Like I truly like if it wasn't the right thing for someone two years ago, if they wanted to stick with their BlackBerry, like it's all love. Like I'm not like judgmental. Like I'm a late adopter on a lot of stuff too. I'm early adopter on the stuff that I, we are all early adopters on the things that we like really care about. If that's like health or fitness or beauty or fashion,

but on a lot of things, like I'm not trying to be the earlier adopter on like stuff I don't really know about. I want to go to the restaurant that like people have already said is cool. Like I'm not trying to like go to every restaurant in town. I go out to dinner like once a week with my wife. Like I want to go to the spot that's already said is cool. I'm not trying to go to every restaurant in town. I go out to dinner once a week with my wife. I want to go to the spot that's already known good. So we're all earlier, later adopters. So there's no judgment on people being late adopters. But

within your area, you want to be really targeting the early adopters. I think people are afraid of uncertainty and anything that they feel scared of. And so maybe the word ketone feels scary because they don't understand it. But I think you're right. Once you have more context around it and more understanding, it makes it easier to adapt to. And it's our job to make it more and more normal. It's just like layers of paint over time. What's new to people now? One of our recent investors is Kurt from Vital Proteins and nutritional collagen wasn't a thing. Collagen was something you put on your skin.

It was like a topical cream. The idea that you would eat it for stronger hair, skin, and nails. In 2010, that wasn't really a thing. That had to really be explained. Why am I doing that? What is that? I think the best business is fundamentally they have that. They have that weird factor of no one's done this.

It's going to seem weird to a lot of people, but like hang on with me. And then when you keep on doing it for like years, decades, then like if what you're doing has like core truth to it, then I think you can just be patient as an entrepreneur. The early adopters become like the slightly less early adopters become the normal people become the late adopters. And like you just got to be patient with it. Here's what I want you guys to do. I want you to put your pink mouth tape on and a sip. In reverse order.

Your ketones through the slit. Okay. But you know, the way I describe sometimes, and this may sound arrogant, even some of the things we're involved with is I will tell people, whether it's an investor or a partner or a retailer or whatever it is, that these things are inevitable. And what I mean by that is whether reporters or a market or an investor likes it or not, it is happening to your point. I think a lot of entrepreneurs sometimes get discouraged because it doesn't happen right away. And so they're like, wait, the market's turning it down within my first year or first years. I believe these things are inevitable, but that also is tapered with maybe inevitable,

but it might take 20 or 30 years. I think we're so impatient and we're so quick to abandon something when we get a few no's right away. And so people don't stick with it. And to your point, you've been working on this a long time. Even when people talk about this podcast, like, oh, I love when you had so-and-so. I'm like, that was episode 700 or whatever, 600. And same for you. Now people are talking about this. Now people are really liking it.

Now it's in every Equinox. Now it's in every Whole Foods, wherever it is. But it didn't just happen. You're patient. It's such a good point. Some of the best advice I've gotten is you want to find the secret that you know that no one else knows yet.

And you need to have that duality. And it's hard, I think, for a lot of people to exist in that duality of something you know to be true, that your approach to media is inevitable. It's such a good word for it. This is inevitable. And even when in the early days, it's like you got to ask your mom to please subscribe on YouTube and leave a comment. In the early days, like you're, you're fighting tooth and nail for everything. You have to create social assets to show people where the podcast app was on their phone.

Yup. Yup. Right. It's like, here you go. Like, and, and that idea that like,

how can it be inevitable? Like this is clearly going to be huge guys. And at the same time, you're like explaining to people how to get the app on their phone. Like, how can those both be true? Like there's like a duality to it that you have to be able to occupy as a founder if you have a vision that this is inevitable.

This is a fundamental truth, but we're not there yet. And I think a lot of people get discouraged. I don't know. I think you just got to be able to listen to your own voice and have some conviction on stuff. I think if you think it's a great idea, but then the first five people you tell about it are like, oh, it's a bad idea. And then what, are you going to wag your tail and go home?

And that's no way to build anything cool in the world. I think the duality is extreme patience mixed with extreme persistence. And you have to balance those. And then you also have to put your blinders on because everyone's going to have an opinion. Yeah. I have another question for you that is in relation to this that I think many people... So you mentioned you were working at Google. I'm assuming that's a very big company, stable environment, cushy work environment with massive

buffet or whatever it is. Don't tell my team members here that. We don't get any ideas, Carson. And, you know, taking the leap from having that job stability and having an outlined potential growth path and all these things, you know, what are some of the biggest takeaways you took from working in a massive organization like that to entrepreneurship? And what was the thought process leaving something like that to go into this world of uncertainty? You know, I'm really glad I did it. I'm really glad I had time. I worked at YouTube actually. And it was cool to see the inside of the algorithm. How do videos

get recommended? What's the actual machine behind all of that? I thought that was really cool. And just the ability to know how a big company works. Because when you start your startup, you're not going to have a product marketing team and a bunch of engineers and a PR team and an HR person and a legal team. You're not going to have all of those parts. As a founder, maybe if you have a co-founder, a couple of early people, you're just doing everything. You are customer success. You're the one emailing the reporters to get press coverage. You're the one handing out samples. You're doing all of that stuff. I mean, even still to this day,

like we just got a giant inflatable ketone IQ, like life-size suit that arrived at my house. I'm like dancing. I'm going to LA Marathon, hand it out to people. So like, you're always doing all these things. And I think it was important for me to work at YouTube, which is a best in class business and see how all the functions work so that I know, okay, well,

even at a company of like two or four or 10 or 20, like what all needs to happen. So I think big company experience is super important, helpful for any kind of entrepreneur. And then I would say the biggest thing I always say to everyone trying to make the jump is like build a platform because you can do that without quitting your day job, Or you can like build a following on pick your favorite platform, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever. You can build a following while keeping your day job. If you like talking about, if you want to be a,

if you want to get into parenting stuff, you can share like mommy recipes while keeping your day job. If you want to get into health and nutrition, you can share fitness tips while keeping your day job. Like you can get a hundred thousand followers while keeping your day job. If you want to get into health and nutrition, you can share fitness tips while keeping your day job. Like you can get a hundred thousand followers while keeping your day job. We started this podcast when we both had separate jobs and separate careers. So, you know, yeah. And we started Dear Media when we had separate companies. Like we, we've never jumped

into anything without having a little bit of stability. I think like that's worth being said, because to your point, you can moonlight and create on all of these platforms on your time when you're not working at your day job. Yep. Yep. And then there's certain things that I think do demand full commitment that you really do need to take the jump. So it's, I think, helpful to think about if you're trying to take the jump in a year or two years or whatever, what can you start doing now? Making a platform, getting a following, probably pretty good. I think when it comes to physical production or really deep design, or definitely if you're

going to like manage other people and those people are working full time I think you kind of start going full time but I think as well said Michael like that you want to find the

aspects that you can do while you still have your day job and like get the momentum going. What are the secrets of YouTube? How do you get your videos Jones?

Tell us all the juicy secrets. They're always updating it. And even they're opaque about it. As galaxy brained as you want to go on it, it comes back to making really good content, making stuff that people like and comment on and share. Shares are really big right now

because people are more and more engaging with platforms in the DMs rather than publicly liking things or publicly commenting. So it's really important to get bookmarks and shares. And this is changing all the time. Two years ago, it'd be different advice because people were more public about their actions and it was less important to get the shares and the bookmarks. It used to be more just straight likes and straight comments, but good content is the key. And then you can kind of optimize for little tweaks. But I think

it's helpful to think through, like, whatever I'm making content is, like, I mean, you guys are way better at content. But what I've learned in my less expertise than you guys is that you, like, think through, like, why would someone bookmark this? Why would someone share this with a friend? Is this just, like, pumping my own shit making me look cool? Or is this actually delivering value to where

someone would share it to a friend for a laugh or they were going to bookmark it for, I do a lot of running content. Is someone going to bookmark this for when they're training for a marathon? Is it actually meaningful or is this just me pumping my own, oh, I look cool today? Quick break to talk about NerdWallet. And I use them all the time as a resource when it comes to making financial decisions. One of the most financial decisions you can make is which credit card you actually want to use. There are so many different options out there with so many different rewards and benefits. They all have different perks and rewards and benefits that they offer.

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Sun Balm's new sunscreen thinks it's a moisturizer and that's a good thing. So they have three products. I really like the Daily Gel. This one is truly invisible. So how I use this is a makeup primer. I'll actually prime my skin before I put on makeup, which is amazing because I know I'm getting that 24-hour hydration with SPF 50 and it's sheer and invisible. Really, like it's actually sheer, which is awesome. They also have a daily face and this is more like your one and done moisturizer. This is awesome if you are on a time crunch or you're a busy mom and this is more like your one and done moisturizer. This is awesome if you are on a time crunch or you're a busy mom and you just need to get something on your face. And then,

and I'm really passionate about this, they have daily body. So this feels like your favorite body lotion, but with SPF, you can put it on in the morning and forget about it. To have a body sunscreen that you go to, I think is really important because so many of us are so focused on our face that we forget the body. So you always want to have one like on your vanity ready to go. You can visit sunbum.com and use code skinny15 at checkout. You get 15% off your first purchase. That's sunbum.com code skinny15 for 15% off your first order. sunbum.com code skinny15 for 15% off your first order. sunmum.com, code skinny15. You know what I've realized too, Michael, and I have realized this? Like, I want to look smart, right? So what I notice when I share content, I want to look like

the person who has the information, even though it's not my information. Let me give you an example. I'll send my dad Dr. James on Instagram, which is like lift weights, get your sunlight, eat your magnesium, and I'll send it to him. And as it's sending, I'll feel like I'm adding value to my dad's life, which makes me feel self-important. So what I've realized is when people are sharing content, there's an aspect of feeling self-important. So what I've realized is like when people are sharing content, there's an aspect of feeling self-important while they're sending it to someone or like I'll send Michael something about how it's like bad to be on your phone in the morning. While she's sending it from her phone in the morning. And but I'll feel there's like some kind of like dopamine hit that I get that's like I'm the one

that's like being the educator or the facilitator is the right word of the content. Does that make sense? What I believe it is is people want to feel like they take part ownership over things which is not a bad quality. It's like I will send a funny WWE wrestling meme from it says like some 90s account of like what you're doing in the 90s and that is my way way of passing my sense of humor to my friend, even though it's not my content. Or maybe you and I are talking and somebody sees like, hey, this was a really smart point that I think could help my friend. And it's in a way them taking ownership of this piece of content to help their friend. Does that make sense?

So that's how I look through a lens now. And then how do you reverse engineer that as content creators? How do you tap into that? I think it comes back to creating things that are of a not so self-serving and are of value to the people. Even when we think about this show, there is a lot of self-service and we get media interesting people and have the conversations we want. But our thought is always like, could one of these conversations go and impact someone's life in a positive way? Whether they're laughing or they're taking something that changes their business, Or in this instance, maybe they're looking to take that entrepreneurial step or they're looking to have a more managed appetite

or they want to have a better time in the gym. There's elements here where I believe if people are listening, they can take and have a positive change, which is why on this show, we never really get into stuff that I think detracts, which is maybe gossip or this show, we never really get into kind of like stuff that I think detracts, which is maybe like gossip or stuff that's harmful. Does that make sense? Totally. Like we take on heavy subjects, but I, like, I always am trying to think about it and we're trying to think about it from the lens of like, if somebody turns this on in three or four years, could it still have a great or good impact on them or somebody they share it with? It reminds me, honestly, a lot of like fashion like when if you're making ralph lauren for people

or coach or whatever for people that like you're giving them a way to express their identity like they're picking nike today or they're picking ralph lauren today like why are they picking that like they're using what you created as the creator of the fashion brand as a way to express their own identity because not everyone has it in them to like make their own total like fashion like who's making their own clothes right but that we use

the brands around us and the content around us as a way to convey parts of who we are so ideally every day you could like write a poem to your dad or whatever

but like short of that like that's a lot of work can you like send him something that's like pre-made by someone else that still conveys like, you know, 80% of what you would do if you made it yourself originally?

Like, can you convey your identity by using the content that's around? And then as content creators, it's like, how do we provide people with those fundamental building blocks to let them express good things about themselves to the people that they care about. I also think it shows the person

that you're like thinking about them. Like it shows my dad, I care about him. I care about his health. It's interesting. That's why I send him videos of people crashing on dirt bikes. You and my dad's DMs are literally the weirdest shit I've ever seen.

You screenshotted me something from my dad the other day that I... These are things that it's You guys are sending each other like What is that? I don't even know how to describe This is not appropriate Let's put it this way. The DM

meme that my dad sent to Michael is so inappropriate The fact that I'm married to Brad's her dad's name. Brad, the DM you sent me the other day, let's just put it this way. About eating pussy.

It was, oh God. It was, have you ever seen Ace Ventura 2? The pet detective or when nature calls? Why is my dad sending my husband DMs about eating pussy? It is a, do you remember when Ace Ventura comes out of the rhino, the mechanical rhino and his face,

what it looks like? It was a meme of something like what she sees when yeah i'm down and it was like i'm like i cannot believe my father-in-law is sending me this sorry immediately i don't think my dad gets it i was like this is so fucking funny i was like i have to text my wife what her dad is saying okay sorry brad talk to me i'm gonna pull that clip and send it to my dad. Talk to me about what it was like pitching Jake Paul and Kurt of Vital Proteins. I want to know how you pitched them and how you got the deal done. Because those are some people that you might be intimidated to pitch. Yeah. You got to just talk to people like they're regular everyday people. I think that's the

biggest thing I've learned. Just meeting interesting stars or people who are at the top of their game is like everyone's just a person and I don't think people really like having too much smoke blowing up their ass I think that people want to just be talk to like a person and like if you're excited about what you're excited about then yeah just like meet people where they're at I try to just get to conversations as like soon as possible try not to like fangirl too hard try not to stand too hard. Just talk to people about what's real. With Jake Paulson, my co-founder, Jeff Wu, met Jake. They met in Miami. Jake was getting into boxing at the time. And a lot of elite athletes had been using our product. So Conor McGregor had been using it. His trainer was big into ketones for increased stamina, better energy, all that in the gym.

And then my co-founder showed Jake was like, yeah, look legit. Like Connor follows me and like using ketone IQ for, for training. And then Jake was, oh, that's interesting. Let me start trying it for us. We have the advantage too, if it's like a real product, like people can kind of try it around, you can like hand someone a sample in your pocket and then Jake got into it and then got it just kind of rolled from there organically and then my co-founder jeff and jake they started something called anti-fund which is uh they do consumer investing and a bunch of interesting different stuff so it just was natural from

there to like cut in a check and i don't know it's kind of like you can't force things either when the fit makes sense it makes makes sense. When he's investing and you're getting these high profile investors, are they seamlessly integrating this into their content? Like is he drinking this

on his stories or is it not like that? Is he primarily an investor and that's it? With Jake, it's mainly an investor. Like there's levels. Like when someone's like

as big of a star as Jake, there's definitely levels to the game there for sure because like there's just a lot of someone's like as big of a star as Jake, there's definitely levels to the game there for sure. Cause like there's just a lot of surface area when you're that level, like mega sled, there's like, I don't know, you're boxing. There's a logo in the center of the ring. There's, you're just on five podcasts every single day.

What's in there? So like, there's a lot of brands kind of around him. And so there's definitely levels to it. There's a difference between like cutting a check into a business that you're like into or you like the team there versus like you're like title sponsor for your next big fight. So like, yeah, there's levels to it. He's a businessman, huh?

He's, I think that's so cool. He's very multifaceted. I would just say at this point, anytime people hate on those guys and listen, they know how to play, like they know how to, they know how to play like they know how to they know how to grab attention which is i'll say but like anybody that's hating on those guys like what they have done is remarkable like they you know one of them's in the wwe he's got an amazing you know beverage line one of them is boxing like people can say what they want about the boxing but he's actually knows how to box and actually knows how to fight and he's knocking out some serious people like all of this stuff is not like hey just fall in your lap like you you you can't not be intelligent and on your game to get to the level they've gotten he's on ketones they're on ketones

they're mad smart they're living the american dream they're two brothers from ohio that made youtube videos in their basement until they just got really big and famous. Like you can hate them or whatever, like cool. Like they don't need to be your favorite creator that you like all their posts or whatever, but I think you've got to respect the game. Like they are doing what I think a lot of people are trying to do or wish they could do. And yeah, you might not have their exact same affect or sense of humor or whatever,

but like, you know, they took what they were passionate about and made a full like living lifestyle. They're creating a lot of jobs for a lot of people around them. They're doing their things. I think it's all love. Not to go on a tangent with them,

but what I respect about both of them is breaking... Take all the digital content aside, which is hard in itself, but you could tell both of them are passionate about the things they're doing now. It's not easy to break into the WWE and get to be one of the, you know,

biggest grossing names in that sport. And it's not easy to just all of a sudden say, I'm going to go into pro boxing and start having huge, you know, pay-per-views. Like these are, these are like, these are lanes that are,

have been traditionally a ton of gatekeepers in the way. And now these two guys have gotten it. That has to be respected in itself. Before you go, you're the perfect person to ask this. What are some other things that you do in your life to biohack your mornings and your night? What are some things that we need to start paying attention to that are these ketone mouth taping weird things that you're doing? I'm really into barefoot, like spending as much time barefoot as possible. Love it. Your feet are incredible machines. You have 20,000 nerve endings in your feet. Your feet are just like your hands. And there's all sorts of sensory deprivation that takes place if you're just inside of a shoe all day. Like you're supposed to interact with the

world around you. I do a lot of running barefoot because it just makes me a better runner. It forces you to do things like take quicker steps. Your foot hits the ground the right way. Like a shoe with all the chunkiness rubber and all that, it can really mute your foot's ability to read the ground around you. And so then that leads to your foot sitting around the wrong way. And then your knees hurt and your shins hurt. And the more I started barefoot running, the less, like all my pain went away. And it's totally counterintuitive. Cause I want, you go from having like two inches of rubber between you and the cement to like,

it's you. And I'll wear like, um, like Vivo's or Vibram's, like the kind of super minimal shoes. And you run in those, you're just like on the fricking app. I can feel every pebble on the ground and all my pain went away.

You should check out our friend, Mark Sisson's. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Mark's homing in. That's a TikTok clip.

People are going to want to know about what you just said and you know my husband i would really love for him to not be muted in his shoes in my house maybe you can start walking barefoot before you get in the house instead of walking half in and dragging all the drugs the fucking texas shit kickers on right now it's probably not the best yeah he walks in with his like heavy boots. I'm like out. What else do you do? What else are other biohacky Michael things?

Magnesium for sleep is just fantastic. Especially if you exercise a lot, you're pretty depleted on electrolytes in general and magnesium in particular. I just think like night and day for sleep. So I don't sell any magnesium or anything. What are your brands that you go to? There's one called like triple magnesium that I like a lot. Yeah, it sell any magnesium or anything. What are your brands that you go to? There's one called

like triple magnesium that I like a lot. Is it a powder or a pill? It's a powder. I've been looking for a good pill because like the powder is kind of like

I flew here. Momentous has a good magnesium 3 and 8. Cool. Cool. Okay. Cool. I'll check that out.

I like Momentous. I have some other Momentous products. They have a good sleep pack too that has the magnesium in it. I'm big into mouth tape like prior to this. Wait, you mouth tape yeah yeah oh my god i gotta give

you some skin i would love to try it yeah yeah i love it it's huge i got my wife into it we just we're big we're just nose breathers feel really really good good sleep score the wild thing is like i got i take it on runs sometimes too yeah i see a lot of runners now working to do more nose breathing and i imagine because that is probably like the more efficient way to breathe why do you like nose breathing let's hear it from you okay so well this also ties into one of my other hacks of just like sometimes i exercise where i try to exercise i'll try to run as fast as possible while keeping my heart rate low. I'll try to see how fast I can go while keeping my heart rate under 140. And so I'll wear a heart rate monitor and I'm a big marathon runner. So that for me is like part of my training. It just

makes you more efficient. Like if I can run a seven minute mile while keeping my heart rate low, that means that when I really, really try, I can go really fast. What's the fastest you've ever done a marathon? Two hours, 40 minutes. Holy shit. What is that? A six, like averaging a little bit more than six? Yeah, it's like six or something. Trying to get under six. Like that's, I'm cracking. I don't think people understand how hard that is. Go on the treadmill, put it at 10 and do that for 26 miles. That's what I do for fun. That is gnarly. I mean, that is an accomplishment in itself. You follow Casey Neistat at all? Yeah. Did you see that video he just came out with? Yeah. He just broke three hours. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, just like, I mean, it took him, I mean, what he

did is an accomplishment in itself, but what you're taught, I mean, you are on the, I didn't realize that that is intense. It's my happy place. I really liked running. That's basically like going outside right now to try running first a six minute mile. Now try doing it 26 times in a row. So why do you like nose breathing? It forces you to breathe more from your diaphragm. You have to take these deeper belly breaths. It forces you to breathe more slowly. You feel yourself more relaxed, more parasympathetic activation as a result. So you're just more like you're, when you're breathing, like mouth open, you're almost hyperventilating. You're in this like sympathetic fight or flight mode. When you're nose breathing,

you're in this parasympathetic rest and recover mode. So you're just way more chilled out, like vibrating at a better frequency. There's some chemicals too, like you get more, I forget what it is. Body makes more, I want to say nitrous oxide when you're breathing through your nose. Generally, you just feel more, more calm and better in control. I am going to give you some pink lip mouth tape and I want to see you in your one minute marathon that you run the fastest marathon ever wearing your mouth tape. I would love to. The one I have is like, it's like black. I don't know. It's not pink. It's not interesting. You and your wife need to be wearing pink. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you were going to start with this if people are going to start with

ketone iq hvmn if they're going to start using it maybe give me three buckets of like the of a profile so for me i mostly i'm interested because i'm really trying to like up my my workout game right now and so i'm taking it prior to my workouts and going and training in a more focused, harder way. But if you were going to say, okay, there's three kind of ideal profiles to start using this. Yeah. What would, how would you tell people to start? Yeah. I'll give you right now. So the one, okay. I wanted to work out harder. I want to be more focused, more dialed in, in the gym. That's bullseye for sure. Next is I want to be, I want to have less cravings, more appetite control. I want to be able to just like work and do stuff and not be hungry all the time.

Really solid there. I want to be doing, you know, intermittent fasting. I want to be able to keep a longer intermittent fasting window, all that like kind of appetite control. And then the third one is just getting in the zone at work. Like mentally, I want to be able to just sit and focus and think and like have my, I don't want to be tired. If it's two, three in the afternoon, I don't want coffee. I want to just have something that's going to get me in the zone

into flow state. That's what I say. This is great for podcasting too. I'm going to start doing these more in pockets. We have a bunch of podcasts coming up. These are solid to take. Yeah. Someone told me it's like low dose Adderall the way they make it feel. I always talk about it as like, it kind of feels like runners high in a bottle. So people like it it does feel great i like it i'm gonna definitely take one every single day i personally am gonna do it before i weightlift cool we have a discount for 30 off your first subscription order of ketone iq go to hvmn.com skinny and you will save 30 buy some for your significant other or your friends too, because they're going to try to steal them. Michael has so generously said that he is going to give away a month supply to five winners. All you have to do is follow on Instagram at HVMN

and tell us your favorite takeaway of this podcast on my latest post at Lauren Bostic. Michael, thank you for coming on thanks for the thanks for the shot of energy and the appetite control i actually don't feel hungry no feel great i'm in ketosis right now yeah i'm in ketosis thank you michael thanks so much