The Tim Ferriss Show - #678: Jake Muise — The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation, Quality, and Meaning

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Starting point is 00:03:42 It is a great deal for a great service. So I encourage you to check it out. Take your business to the next level today and learn more by visiting shopify.com slash Tim. One more time, shopify.com slash Tim, all lowercase. I'm flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would have seemed an appropriate time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. Muse. Jake Muse.

Starting point is 00:04:27 This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to interview friends, foes, everyone in between. But the common thread is world-class performance. And the attempt is always to dig, to excavate, to deconstruct the lessons, thought, frameworks, and so on that you can apply or test or simply ponder in your own lives. My guest today is a friend, Jake Mews. Jake Mews is CEO at Maui Nui Venison, a company he co-founded in 2017 that works to balance invasive axis deer populations on the island of Maui, channeling that management into incredible nutrient-dense food. Maui Nui was selected for Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Agriculture of 2023, and its venison has been served in top restaurants across the country, including Alinea, which featured very heavily in The 4-Hour Chef. It was a big section entirely because it's so impressive. The French Laundry and Saison, where I just mentioned I was one of the very first investors when it was a pop-up with

Starting point is 00:05:31 12 seats, something like that. Josh Skeens, everybody should check him out as well. Prior to Maui Nui, Jake was executive director of the Axis Deer Institute for 12 years, part of a two decades-long project focused on Axis axis deer and their long-term management in Hawaii. You can find them at Maui Nui. I'll spell that out for folks. M-A-U-I-N-U-I venison.com. And you can find them on Instagram, Twitter, et cetera, at Maui Nui Venison. I'm shocked those handles were available and i think we will start where all good stories start and that's with lava oh wow fast moving lava so i'm going to use that as the cue and i'm going to let you run with it but let's begin with that well thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. It was good to see you. We're going to have a blast. Lava. So in 2018, a fissure started erupting on the East Rift Zone on the Big Island.

Starting point is 00:06:40 And it was an area that was a lava zone previously, but had since been built over. So lots of homes. There was this beautiful area called capoho which had amazing hot pools and tide pools and well it's now gone unfortunately so anyway fissure eight starts erupting it splits into two and it basically cuts off a several thousand acre area homes people and this lava flow is moving very quickly 20 miles an hour so then a 24-hour period is about three miles up the coast like it's moving slower at the front but like essentially cuts off this entire area state and feds arrive right away they start helicoptering people and different people out people plants pets whatever the people are holding deer and then

Starting point is 00:07:25 a cattle rancher had been cut off and there was still 50 plus animals left between these two flows and you can imagine like it looked like mordor on the ground like their sulfur was terrible there was lava bonds the fissure was constantly spewing at about 100 to 200 feet oh my god yeah it's not a simmer no it was 20 i think they said it was 26 000 cubic meters of lava per minute it was it was absurd it was like one of the fastest moving flows they'd ever seen so anyway rancher did his best job to get the majority of his cows out but there are 50 plus animals trapped between these two lava flows that's when you saw the bat signal in the sky well kind of and we had happened about a year ago to develop the first of its kind live

Starting point is 00:08:18 capture net system that with a helicopter you can essentially pick up cows live and get them out of there so if you can imagine a cone-shaped net with a 20 foot diameter frame on the bottom and it's hanging from a hundred foot line below a helicopter and so the helicopter is moving and this net is kind of flowing back and forth and you place the net over the cow and then there's a switch at the top of the cone and there's two lines and then as the animal tries to move outside you let the first switch goes at the top of the cone and the net basically falls on top of it and you just pick up the frame and it's essentially sitting in a big bag evenly distributed and then you fly it out and you put this bag down and you put the frame

Starting point is 00:09:05 over and it just stands up and walks away got it so the frame is basically a rectangle or a square it's an octagon yeah yeah octagon yeah okay got it yeah so federal PETA everybody gets a hold of us and says like we need to get these cows out of here that's because it was known at least to some subset of folks that you had this, you developed this live capture system. We were previously using it to try and get cows out of high elevation, critical watershed areas where they were causing extensive damage. So they get ahold of us. They run us through like what they want us to do. Of course I had to like sit down with the team and say like, do you want to try and rescue cows over a 20 mile per hour lava flow and I think one of the guys turned over and he's like we would get to be a lava cowboy and I was like oh man who's like come in who's who's gonna say no to that one

Starting point is 00:09:55 and ended up like doing our due diligence it was pretty safe to do but long story short we got them all out but the first couple of days were so intense. And we're driving out there in the morning. It literally looks like Mordor. The flow is creating its own weather system. It's raining. It's dark. It's a two-mile flow. So it's lighting up the entire area in dark red.

Starting point is 00:10:20 And you're driving towards it. And you're thinking, oh. And you're passing all these national guards. And you're just like, this doesn't seem like a great idea on your way out. And we get all loaded up in the morning. The head of PETA's there. It's this huge thing. There had been so much loss already. They had lost that entire community, hundreds of homes gone. And there'd been so much loss and it's the community was kind of starting to gather around this idea of these things that were left behind we could actually get them and get there in the morning we get all set up get dialed

Starting point is 00:10:51 in with the pilot he had actually never done it before but it was the only helicopter big enough that we could pick up those particular cows name is calvin dorn he's just an absolute legend so we fly out first thing in the morning like heading towards fissure eight it's fountaining 200 feet in the air like there's lava bombs like that eight, it's fountaining 200 feet in the air. Like there's lava bombs, like that look like they're going at the height of the helicopter. The cows are trapped, like right underneath it.

Starting point is 00:11:11 There's video this weekend. Put it in the show notes for people. It's crazy. And he goes to pick up the first cow, grabs the first cow, does it all right. And then he goes to lift and he's like, Oh,

Starting point is 00:11:27 this might be too heavy. have my sulfur dioxide like i have my monitor on like we're not supposed to get on the ground and the net is attached to the helicopter and he's like what do we do and i was like well give it another tug see if you can get off the ground so he gives another tug and he gets a little bit off the ground and i'm like okay can we head downhill and you can get some elevation he's like here's what we're gonna do we're gonna use the heat from the lava flow to give us a boost ride the thermals we're gonna ride the thermals up with this cow underneath us and it should give us a big enough boost we'll have enough elevation and then like we'll be able to get down to the corral system. It's crazy enough that it just might work.

Starting point is 00:12:07 And I'm thinking, I mean, you don't really, you don't really have a choice. You're like, sure, let's try that. So he gets this cow off the ground and he's moving at like a good speed. And we're picking up a little bit of elevation. And I can see like the lava flow coming out 500 yards, 400 yards, 300 yards. And we hit the flow and it's like somebody kicked us in the nuts we just went straight up in the air there was so much heat coming off the flow and i looked down to see what was happening to the cow because

Starting point is 00:12:35 the cow is 100 feet lower than us and this cow swings out and then as it passes over the top of the flow all we see is just smoke and i thought like the head of pita is sitting down watching a cow get vaporized i'm going to jail something terrible is going to happen to us this thing is over and we gain elevation and we start to come out over the flow and i'm looking down i'm like oh god and i had forgotten that it was pouring rain ah right and it was soaked and all of that water, it just instantly vaporized. And it looked like the whole thing was essentially on fire for a second. So we come out and like, I see all of the water vapor clear and I'm like, oh, thank God. And come down, land that animal, gets out, walks away, happy as can be.

Starting point is 00:13:25 And then I think we got like seven or eight more that day before they kind of shut us down and got a little crazy. And we ended up getting all 50 animals out of that place and happened to be one of the most intense moments of my life. Certainly maybe not the most dangerous, but I thought we were in a lot of trouble for that one. But it was just such a viscerally intense scenario. Yeah. You have like these lava bombs going off and these two flows. And it was a really cool experience in that community.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Like there was this celebration when everything for months had been just a lot of loss. Let's set the stage a bit by talking about the history of Hawaii. And maybe we could start for a second just with the name Maui Nui. What does Maui Nui mean? Because even people who live in the lower 48 or continental US, many people have not been to Hawaii. And certainly people overseas, many of them will not have been to Hawaii. But what does Maui Nui refer to? So Maui Nui refers to the three islands of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai.

Starting point is 00:14:32 And epochs ago, they used to be joined. They used to be one giant island. It's like the Pangea of Hawaii. And you can see it when you look at topo maps or Google Earth. You can see they used to be joined. So that's when we were deciding on a name, we didn't know where management might take us, but Axis Deer are located on those three islands.

Starting point is 00:14:51 So we landed at Maui Nui as kind of the name. And Nui is, is it fair to say a suffix that is used, or maybe it's just the order of kind of noun adjective, but big. Yes, sir. Good job. So you can say Mahhalo nui. Yeah. Like, thanks a lot.

Starting point is 00:15:06 Yeah. Also for people, this may be a way to get into the history also. Okay. Because we were chatting a little bit about it. I've been spending more time in New Zealand and I'm fascinated by Maori culture. Oh. And there is a very close relationship. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:21 Between what we're talking about. Yeah. And the culture in New Zealand. Could you speak to that a bit? Sure. And then after that, and you can tie this in however you like, but speak to sort of the agriculture of pre-colonized Hawaii. So I'm going to speak to this as best I can.

Starting point is 00:15:40 Right. And actually, let's hit pause for a quick second, because I think it's worth mentioning up front. So a company you co-founded in 2017, who was your co-founder? My extraordinary wife, Koolani. She's amazing. Yeah. Can you say a little bit about Kool for a second?

Starting point is 00:15:54 Sure. a brilliant person all around funny smart beautiful but she is a genealogist and a bit of a historian and she helps a she guides a lot of culture within what we do but she has a such an in-depth understanding of our place she'd be somebody amazing to have on if you ever wanted to really dig in but she's just this anchor for me personally and professionally to how we should be operating in this place how long has her family been in hawaii well she'll tell you forever yeah yeah yeah and she also if i'm remembering correctly looks at old microfiche newspapers yeah and sort of excavates and translates. So post-Western contact, when they didn't have a written language prior to, but post-Western

Starting point is 00:16:53 contact, they became the most literate society in a matter of like 50 years. I think 93 to 94% of the entire population could read and write. And in doing so, they created hundreds and hundreds of newspapers that like, she shows me newspapers where like, there's a picture of like a drawn picture of a zebra, like, oh, this thing is from Africa. Like it was extraordinary, the level of information that they had. And I think they were also in understanding their place, post-Western contact and how quickly their populations were declining. They were using it as this historical record and so they were just writing everything down and so what she helps to do is only two percent of those newspapers have been translated 98 percent of what

Starting point is 00:17:38 could be like their culture is sitting in these newspapers ready to be discovered and it's just like a treasure hunt for her every time she looks like like she's she comes out and it's just like her eyes are giant she's like i found a new name for this rain and she's just like she she's gonna write an amazing book one day and also i mean she's very much uh multi-hyphenate polymath because she's also an incredible designer yeah really incredibly good and gifted i hesitate to say gifted she is gifted but that maybe it sounds like it minimizes the hard work and dedication required to get good at it and an incredible writer also on top of that so i wanted to mention that because that underscores the connection that she has

Starting point is 00:18:25 and that you as a family feel with the land. So I wanted to just mention that up front. And then we can go back to the pre-colonial agriculture and the tie between New Zealand. So, I mean, I think you could define this culture as literal geniuses. They were able to navigate all of the Pacific Ocean with extraordinary accuracy

Starting point is 00:18:54 and directly speaking about Aotearoa. So Aotearoa was settled from Hawaii. And for people who don't know the matching, so Aotearoa is the Maori word for what is also known as new zealand yeah they kept such amazing records of their voyages my brother-in-law got to spend a whole bunch of time there with maori in different communities they have the actual boats the canoes that were settled from hawaii they know like the lineage of like who came on the boat and they know where the boats are they have them hidden and they know where the boats are and that's how strongly they can connect their ties back to hawaii and you just

Starting point is 00:19:38 have to imagine that somebody that could navigate the pacific with that much ease and accuracy. And it's extraordinary to hear these stories. They also were dealing with, they're on the most isolated landmass on the planet with the most finite resources. And so they develop, as far as I know, some of the most ingenious agricultural systems I've ever heard of. Great example, they're called the Kohala Field Systems. They had 500 miles of what looked like from the air, like swaled permaculture lines, and they used 273 different varieties of sweet potato. They are producing now yields 60% better than current sweet potato yields. And you have to imagine pre-Western contact, there were up to a million people in the Hawaiian Islands.

Starting point is 00:20:30 And there's only 1.4 million people now. So they had a million people on the most isolated landmass on the planet, and they were feeding an extraordinary population with extremely finite resources, and somehow were able to maintain all of the biodiversity that I think they only know of like a couple small species like a flightless bird that was just too easy to eat like they maintained extraordinary biodiversity which just really points to how connected to that place were they had these amazing

Starting point is 00:21:03 they call them locoia but they were fish ponds so i don't know if you remember when you were there but there's these huge rock walls that come out into the ocean near shore some of them like 600 acres and they had these amazing aquaculture systems where they were able to harvest fish constantly and they said at peak performance there were 500 plus fish ponds across the hawaiian islands producing three million pounds of fish and that's like apart from what they were also catching outside of those ponds as well innovation is culture in that place and she continues to like help point me back to like i don't know like we're going to figure this out we're a part of this place like we're going to figure out how to find balance in these places

Starting point is 00:21:49 yeah they just had some amazing both agricultural systems but also like economics and social systems they had a particular system called an ahupua system and it was mountain to ocean land segregations that entire communities lived in and managed and they were managed as like these individual land segments and the entire system was built from top to bottom to protect water every feature of that system how the food was grown how like it entered the water everything was built to maintain good clean water so let's segue from that to axis deer what on earth are axis deer number one what is the history of their presence in hawaii why did they get why did they end up there and then i have follow-up questions that relate to water yeah so in 1868 the then kamemea the fifth was given this gift who was

Starting point is 00:23:01 the leader at the time the then ruler ruler of the Hawaiian islands, yeah. Came from India, down the upper Ganges to Hong Kong. She helped translate the story, my wife did. And then they were moved from Oahu where they landed, and they were moved to the small island of Molokai, only 40 miles long, 10 miles wide. And then a kapu, which is a restriction, was placed on them for about 15 to 20 years what does that mean a couple is like nobody was allowed to hunt them or touch them and how many deer seven seven yeah and as early as 1898 there's literature that says they hired sharpshooters from california well that was 1902 they brought sharpshooters from California. Well, that was 1902. They brought sharpshooters in from California because there was already 6,000 to 7,000 of them.

Starting point is 00:23:49 And what's really unique about Axis deer is they're one of the only deer species in the world that can breed year-round. So most other deer species will cast their antlers. Their antlers fall off during the year. And when that happens, their testosterone levels drop significantly and their sperm is no longer viable. So Axis Deer are one of the only deer species in the world that

Starting point is 00:24:08 sperm stays viable year round. So it doesn't matter if a doe is missed in estrus. The current math that we have is they are 94 to 95% of them are either lactating or pregnant year round. So they just introduced an extraordinarily virile species and have had profound impacts with that type of growth rate. So if we then flash forward to roughly 10 years ago or 12 years ago, what did the situation look like in Hawaii with respect to axis deer, which have no natural predators. Yeah. So. On that land mass.

Starting point is 00:24:48 Yeah, on Molokai. In India, they certainly did. So no natural predators, the capability to breed year-round extraordinary like food sources and being able to move up and down elevation to find what they need. So on the island of Molokai, where they were introduced,

Starting point is 00:25:02 they're now at a, sustainable capacity is the wrong word, but their population is only going up and down with available feed every year. And what's happening is they just have massive die-offs. And what do the numbers look like? 70,000 and there's only 7,000 people is actually one of the reasons I got so interested in the subject as a whole is I think it was my second year in college and introduced this amazing family and I was there hunting trying to fill up my freezer for college because I was broke and I was there during a die-off and I remember coming around this corner and seeing 40 to 50 animals just like lying there lethargic essentially dying of malnutrition and it was an animal that was introduced to me as of malnutrition and it was an animal that was

Starting point is 00:25:45 introduced to me as like something to love and it was precious like for the people of molokai it was this amazing food source but it's just this that's the only way they're currently balancing populations is just this really sad thing that happens every overpopulation famine yeah and then it corrects yeah and then it corrects they lose about like a third of the population every seven to ten years and what is the impact on the various islands ecologically because i remember watching the first time this video that you guys produced in collaboration with a number of other folks and hearing voiceover, I think it was, with people talking about flying over certain areas and saying, oh, wow, we didn't know the wildfire reached this far. And the answer was, that's not wildfire.

Starting point is 00:26:35 Yeah. They are able to, because they can eat so closely to the ground, in such large numbers, there can be herds of like four to five thousand they're able to denude landscapes in days and the real issue with that is when they do that in our watershed areas or high elevation areas those trees developed over epochs thousands and thousands of years to capture water and what ends up happening is when we have like some data from this, from a recent study, those watersheds are operating at 50% of their previous capacity. I guess there are multiple issues, consequences of that, right? One is you're just not capturing water, which is important if you're in the middle of the ocean, unless you have a massive

Starting point is 00:27:22 desalination program, you need the rainwater what is the effect that has on runoff so when you think about it from like a they call it mauka to makai but like mountain to ocean impact all of that denuded landscape is anytime we get any type of like significant rain even like a decent like a medium rain these days it's pulling all of that topsoil, which took thousands of years to make. And then it's depositing it on our reefs. And what ends up happening is they're smothering both like new and old coral and the coral die. So there's huge tracks of what used to be some of the most pristine reefs in the world that are now dead. And that also then impacts nearshore fisheries. So we just had this amazing conversation about producing millions of pounds of fish pre-western

Starting point is 00:28:11 contact. And now a lot of those reefs have been very negatively impacted by that sediment deposit from runoff. And then when you look back upslope, mid-range, call it like 1,000 to 6,000 feet, is where our food systems in Hawaii are. So it's where cattle ranchers operate and farmers and coffee and all of these different really important as a function of food security, like all these amazing foods that we're trying to grow there. And you can't grow them unless you have a 10-foot fence at $45 a foot. And even then, like... $45 a foot. Yeah. That's not cheap. No. So it's also having a severe impact on our food system. So ecosystems, food systems,

Starting point is 00:28:54 near shore fisheries and reefs is a compounding conversation. To then take a look at how seriously people in Hawaii are taking this, let's talk about the three-year hunt. And we'll build from there. Okay. And actually, I'll just add one sidebar. I'll put this in the show notes as well. For people who are interested in learning more about the incredible navigational skills that you're referring to. There's a really beautifully written detailed chapter in a book called The Wayfinders by Wade Davis that talks about the sort of Polynesian diaspora and their ability to navigate. And it is mind-blowing.

Starting point is 00:29:40 It's a real mistake to think of some of these ancient technologies as primitive. They're not always primitive. They're just different sets of skills and technologies. But they would have the captain as one person, the head of the ship just making everything orchestrate, and the navigator would be a separate person. And they would basically sit like a Zen monk and not sleep at all because they're tracking multiple currents they're keeping track of where the boat is in space even when it's totally overcast and they can't use the stars i mean it's unbelievable so i recommend people check out the wayfinders by wade davis through your hunt so the access to air institute which was what I started in college, initially as a means to collect information because nobody in India would answer me, and then became like very much a way to learn more and facilitate some research.

Starting point is 00:30:38 Four Axis deer were illegally introduced to the Big Island of Hawaii. So we've talked about Moloka'iai and maui so four axis deer were illegally introduced to the big island of hawaii which was about 10 years ago and the big island is it's called the big island for a reason all of the hawaiian islands can fit inside the big island and it is also like the food hub of hawaii we grow all of our like the vast majority of food on the Big Island. And the impacts of Axis Deer were already really well known. So it was a state emergency when these animals were found. And the Axis Deer Institute happened to be one of the few people that knew a lot about Axis Deer. So we were given that responsibility and contract to try and find

Starting point is 00:31:20 and remove four deer from a hundred square mile area. So they didn't know where they were. Yeah, and these aren't elephants. Oh, no. What's the size profile, just so people can conjure an image? 150 pounds. Think about them standing three and a half, four feet high, maybe six feet long. What are the biggest differences for people who might be more familiar with, say, a whitetail?

Starting point is 00:31:42 Well, the biggest difference is where they evolved actually to evolve with bengal tigers and leopards in dense jungle they have this crazy sixth sense yeah their agility is unbelievable yeah and their just vigilance and sensory perception is is incredible incredible to observe. And they, I think because they didn't deal with some of the evolutionary stresses of like seasons in India, they've also developed this amazing ability to adapt their home ranges to very safe areas.

Starting point is 00:32:18 On a typical home range could be like a mile and a half to three miles in a given day. And, but when they find a safe spot, like they will stay in a very small and but when they find a safe spot like they will stay in a very small area for an extended period of time i see so they move less than say a white till as you're saying and therefore they're better able to denude yes a concentrated area so they'll find these little cubby holes these safe areas and they'll kind of completely denude these areas and they move on to these next places but for the project on the big island which was literally a three-year hunt we worked every single

Starting point is 00:32:50 day except sunday for three years to find these four animals did they multiply in the meantime or no yeah we ended up removing five but it was this extraordinary exercise it took us seven months like you think you're going on like an average hunt like it's three or four days and you're This extraordinary exercise, it took us seven months. Like you think you're going on like an average hunt, like it's three or four days and you're already tired. It took us seven months to get a camera trap image of the first one. We had 50 plus camera traps out over every piece of water we could find in this like a hundred square mile area. We hiked every day.

Starting point is 00:33:21 Piece of water, you mean ponds or lakes? Ponds, blue rock that water would pool in anything we could find water troughs any water sources yeah so we finally get a camera trap image we're like okay we have an idea of what this ms it takes us another four months to get the first one what do you do between so you set up the cameras you're like we know these animals need water yeah and set up the traps and take seven months so you get an image yeah oh my god we got our first image and then it takes another how long three months okay what are you doing in those three months so two things are happening one we're doing ground transects looking for sign so you would love this

Starting point is 00:34:05 you're tracking every single day you're just looking for the tiniest sign that they're in an area you used an expression transect something or other transects so you're breaking into grids you know what you've covered so you're grading at we think we're doing 10 meters like massive areas but what we also did in the process which we'll move into like our later story is we had to find a way to increase detection rates and so we started and we it was such a huge emergency that the military was involved as well so we got to work with the military and utilize some of their forward-looking infrared both helicopter mounted and binoculars and the minute we started using that tool,

Starting point is 00:34:46 we knew instantly like, this is the tool that's going to be able to like find these animals. So forward looking you've read Fleur. Fleur, yeah. Fleur is, can we think of this as sort of black and white predator vision? Yes. From the Schwarzenegger movie? Okay. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:35:00 You put the mud on you, like it's detecting heat and turning it into a visual image for you to use. And if you're cool and or like not emitting heat, can't find you. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole

Starting point is 00:35:41 food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com slash Tim. That's drinkag1, the number one, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Check it out. I posted a video you sent me of FLIR footage from a drone, which if you want to see the scope, the magnitude of the problem in terms of just the volume of animals respect to axis tier you have to see this video it'll blow your mind i put it on

Starting point is 00:36:33 instagram we'll link to that in the show notes as well yeah and we ran out of range yeah exactly it's not like they stopped yeah but it looks like a veritable new york city of access here yeah at night yeah unbelievable so this particular technology which significantly increases detection rates both from the ground but from a helicopter platform as well especially when looking straight down you don't have the vertical layering of vegetation you're able to kind of look straight down through vegetation and pick up different heat signatures that's actually how we ended up finding them after the camera trap image is we started flying on a constant basis and then we figured out where they were took a week to kind of put a plan together and then we were able to remove when was this what year was this 11 years ago 11 years ago yeah so you would have been using

Starting point is 00:37:20 we're using quadcopters or a different type of drone? No, we were flying out of a helicopter. I was going to say, this would have been very early days with any type of drone technology. Yeah, so we were out of a helicopter, leaning out of the helicopter with a binocular. Yeah, it was not a lot of fun.

Starting point is 00:37:36 And we were doing it four or five hours a day. Yeah, that won't make you motion sick or anything. Yeah, well, I've got lots of those stories. Anyway, it takes us another two years essentially but utilizing that technology we're able to find and remove

Starting point is 00:37:52 all of those deer including the two that had been born and there were very few invasive species projects that are successful in hawaii period really fact. Introduction of species to Hawaii pre-human contact was every 25,000 to 50,000 years. It was whatever came through like wind or water, right? There is a new species being introduced every eight days at this point. Oh my God. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:22 So the perfect place to grow anything. So so side note and this might be a total useless side alley that i'm taking us down why are there so many chickens and oh i love this story oh okay here we go yeah they bring in mongoose the powers that be decided were going to get rid of the rat population by bringing in mongoose one of their predators well they didn't realize that mongoose are awake during the day and rats are awake at night oops oops like giant oops so i guess what mongoose are really good at killing other things so like including our native birds, which is just like the introduction of some of these species are so absurd. Anyway.

Starting point is 00:39:09 So on the big island, Maui, Molokai, they have mongoose and there's no chickens. Guess which island doesn't have mongoose? Kauai. Why don't they have mongoose? They came to the dock.

Starting point is 00:39:22 Like they were introducing them to each island. They came to the dock and somebody at the dock was smart enough. And he like booted them off and drowned them. He like booted them off the dock and drowned them. And it's just this amazing like contrast of you can't find a chicken on another island on the side of the road. And you can drive on Kauai and see a thousand chickens in 30 minutes on the side of the road. So wild. I mean, these highly biodiverse, isolated environments are so beautiful and compelling

Starting point is 00:39:52 and also so fragile to disruption. True with New Zealand as well. Yeah. I mean, in terms of biosecurity, it is the highest, one of the highest priorities. And they do an amazing job. Hawaii is doing better better but they've done a very poor job over the years in restricting what's coming into the island so back to that three-year hunt so successful in removing an invasive species that there could have been a

Starting point is 00:40:18 million plus axis deer on the big island that's how large the big island is and would have been absolutely devastating as we've talked about for like food systems watersheds near shore fisheries etc etc and then that was actually the jumping off point for what is now maui nui is some ranchers on maui said well wait a second you guys actually did that? And you have this technology. So what we also developed with that third technology is highly accurate surveys. So within 95%, we can tell you exactly the number of deer that are there. How do you do that?

Starting point is 00:40:55 So transects again at 400 meters. And then you take a sample. No. You don't do a sample count because a lot of people do that, right? And then they multiply it out. Yeah, so they do something called distance sampling, which is they fly a certain number of transects and then use math to basically extend what they've found

Starting point is 00:41:11 and make a guess over a period. We do a complete transect of the entire area at 400 meters with a 20% overlap so we can have a confidence interval of the number of times we've detected deer twice. And we have done several projects where it's in a large fenced area of a couple thousand acres and we survey we remove deer we survey again and we're never off by more than like five percent so we have a tool that can accurately tell us the exact number of deer and the impact of our management and it's a tool it's just super important because otherwise i think what we do is there would be irresponsible without that level of

Starting point is 00:41:51 data yeah without that yeah level of precision the folks on maui said like if you can do that come over here and they were still calling them spotted rats like that was their relationship they had been introduced to mai in 1959 and 1960. So they weren't as culturally ingrained as they are on Molokai. And just to paint a picture for folks. So the spotted, the axis deer, please fact check the shit out of this if I get anything wrong,

Starting point is 00:42:15 but they're very streamlined animals. They're not as beefy as whitetail. Their antlers are angled more backwards and they have, I'd say just generally speaking, a very tawny kind of burnt orange color with white spots. Yep. And that's hence the spotted rats. Yeah. And that like dappled coloring was used in those, like those jungled environments. And it just, they camouflage between there and grassland.

Starting point is 00:42:44 Like it's amazing. Japanese deer have the same, pattern yeah yeah so it started the well wait a second if you can be successful with a project at that scale what can you do over here on maui and that was actually the first phone call to the usda to, how do we use these animals? Because they were talking about having us remove thousands and thousands of animals, and they didn't care what we did with them. They knew there wasn't a solution. Like, we couldn't use them for food, and we couldn't donate them. Like, they still needed to come under on some type of, like, food safety inspection program in order to donate them to food banks and stuff so that was the first call to the usda to say well wait a second what would

Starting point is 00:43:30 be the process because there were no rules in place well it was just considered off the table yeah right yeah so there are rules that just never been applied yes to this type of harvesting yeah so that three-year hunt was the springboard into successful project completion in that place where there's still no deer and potentially have had a massive impact and then the springboard to maui to try and do something more so i'm gonna do a little like flashback austin powers style on our wayne's world maybe get my mike my Myers stuff mixed up. Did you learn about confidence intervals playing volleyball? I think, actually, no.

Starting point is 00:44:08 It was in the worst class of my life, which was business statistics in college. Ended up being useful. Yeah, you can't imagine how much of that stuff actually comes back. All right, so of course, I'm teasing a bit by bringing up the volleyball. Just briefly, so people have a little bit more color.

Starting point is 00:44:26 Sure. Where does volleyball fit into your life and where does free pizza fit into your life? Okay. Was a classic Canadian kid played a lot of hockey until we were too broke to play hockey anymore. Okay. Too broke to play hockey. Just too much gear.

Starting point is 00:44:38 Yeah. Too much gear growing too fast. Like, Oh, ah, right. I forgot about that. Right.

Starting point is 00:44:42 It would be like replacing your ski equipment. I remember my dad sitting down and being like, I know you love it, but you need to pick a different sport. And they're like, volleyball requires knee pads. That's all you need. Your knees shouldn't grow as much as your spine. Here's a great sport for you to try. Ended up falling in love with it. Just an extraordinary sport, redirecting balls, moving 100 plus miles an hour. Luckily got pretty good at it. Spent a lot of time with our canadian national teams in different forms and then was recruited to play at the university of hawaii i was a decent enough player i actually think it was i sent them a video of surfing we started surfing on the east coast of canada when we moved out there and there's like six feet of snow and a tiny little like ice floating around and they're like well if this kid can do this like you'll probably turn into a good player. Played four or five years there

Starting point is 00:45:26 where became a family member for that family on Molokai where we talked about earlier, like was able to travel because the East Coast of Canada was so far. Really lucky to play professional volleyball for three years. Got to play in throughout Europe, the Maldives, Indonesia.

Starting point is 00:45:43 So pause, can you frame for folks who don't have the context, because a lot of people won't, how popular is volleyball? It's not something that people in the US generally watch at all. Yeah. In Canada, there was nobody. It was my mom and dad cheering us on. But Hawaii happened to be, it's the mecca of volleyball. Worldwide or just in the US?

Starting point is 00:46:05 Oh, just in the US. They actually won the last two national championships over the last couple of years, but they have a 20,000 seat stadium that they filled on a regular basis for men's volleyball. And then you go overseas to Europe. Do people watch volleyball in Europe? Yeah, it's huge. So volleyball is kind of the second sport to football or soccer. So you were associated with another club and you just got basically spillover of all the soccer fans or football fans, but a huge professional league there that for great players pays extraordinarily well. And for me, which was not a great player, was this amazing opportunity to go to Europe, see all of these different places, and the professional teams only ever accepted two

Starting point is 00:46:51 international players. So you were embedded and immediately assimilated into whatever culture you were in. It's just such an amazing way to be a part of those places versus some outsider, right? So that leads into the story of free pizza so my first week playing in chronigan which was in northern holland kazintide yeah yeah um yeah well that plays into this story um i was i had had like a week of practice and our first game was coming up and i was still very much like getting used to the language the coach was this like six eight olympic legend he was like this legendary dutch player and i think he was kind of happy i was there but like i was i was just another player and you're paid to be there so you play really well he's trying to mime with you to get things done right

Starting point is 00:47:39 he's not giving it a lot of effort um and then we're playing one of the best teams in the league for the very first game we're doing really well he puts a play together to finish the game i had no idea what he was saying okay what could go wrong completely screw it up like embarrassing level screw up and we lose and after the game he comes aside in broken English. And he's just like, you play better or we fire you. Like you weren't playing for fun anymore in college. Like you were getting paid to play really well. And I didn't understand. The reason I didn't play well is because I couldn't understand what he was saying. So the very next day we were reviewing film.

Starting point is 00:48:21 And he was going off again. And I didn't understand what it was and i just remember putting my hand like putting my hand up and say like does that mean we get free pizza after the game and he's like what and i was like does that mean we get free pizza after the game he's like no that's not what it means and then like you could kind of see his brain be like and he explained like no we're going to be committing on this individual like he explained it in english to me half an hour goes by he's like getting ready to tell us the bus schedule it's all in dutch i have no idea what's going on and i'm like put my hand up and it's like does that mean we get free pizza

Starting point is 00:48:53 and he's just like he's getting irritated and then he i think it finally clicked and he's like wait a second we need to be a little bit more patient with this guy yeah and and i tell it as a funny story because it's i used that phrase as i went to indonesia and the mall dies and it was this amazing way for me to ask dumb questions because otherwise i was lost and it has translated to like one of and i know you've talked about this in the past it's translated to like one of, and I know you've talked about this in the past, it's translated to one of these small superpowers that I have where I am never afraid now to ask the dumbest question

Starting point is 00:49:33 in front of some of the smartest people through kind of that practice. And it really is, it's a superpower. I want to highlight this because it's really important. I have another friend, Mike Maples Jr. And oftentimes when he wants to ask a question that no one else is going to ask, but it's an important question, but people are nervous to ask it for any number of reasons.

Starting point is 00:49:55 And he'll go something along these lines. He's from Texas and he'll be like, you know, I'm just a country boy. I move a little slow slow but so bear with me about let me ask you and he's actually razor sharp right but he has that as a way to sort of wrap a question that needs to be asked in the same way that you were able to buy yourself permission to ask these questions which by the way a lot of the dumb questions are on everyone else's mind not in this particular case with everyone else who speaks dutch but there's so many circumstances where there's some type of pink elephant question but people are nervous to ask it because they don't look stupid or a b c d or e but in fact it's a really important question yeah when i was playing indonesia we had a brazilian guy that spoke even less english than me and he after my third day of asking for free pizza he

Starting point is 00:50:46 came up to me and he was like thank you so much like i wouldn't know what's going on unless you were like asking these questions and now it just translates to like last week we're building a api which i have no idea what the hell this thing and like i just kept saying like i have no idea what you're talking about and i kind of had a clue but i could see like the blank looks on the zoom calls nobody knew what they were talking about and it just gets stuff done so much faster yeah and it's just been this like amazing thing in my life that has worked really really well just to put a bow on the the chapter of volleyball. So you mentioned that you were not like the Ronaldo of volleyball.

Starting point is 00:51:26 Yeah. But you ended up kind of taking an oblique angle and extending your career related to volleyball. How did you do that? Ended up starting a, or helping other players find contracts. So I had a couple of players that I knew that said like, you're not that good.

Starting point is 00:51:49 How did you get a contract? Just being honest here. Like, you're not that good. How did you get a contract in Europe? And I said, well, I just called everybody till they kept answering and was kind of working with this other player agency. Anyway, found a great way to find mediocre players teams and some of

Starting point is 00:52:06 them were only getting a thousand euros a month but they didn't care it was the best thing ever and then got a small percentage of that salary and yeah it was an amazing way to kind of extend that life and it was a lot of fun okay so let's come back to maui nui and there are a whole different number of angles that I want to take to cover some of what I think are interesting features of things. And a lot of them tie into why Maui Nui became my first ever, really, if you look at my portfolio, food investment in 2000, when was it? 2019. So it was a while ago. Part of it was, I think there's a myopia perhaps with many people who specialize in some form

Starting point is 00:52:56 of early stage investing, let's just say tech, to associate innovation purely with technological advances in a certain medium or in a certain capacity. But I saw a lot that you guys were doing that reflected a level of experimentation and sort of unorthodox thinking that was super attractive to me that made me think it would be in combination with other things like nutrient density, which we'll talk about, attractive. And also everything is fucking delicious and I like delicious, healthy things. Let's talk about the seven on, seven off. Because this will sound at first description

Starting point is 00:53:36 to be a little odd for a lot of folks. Sure. So we have a very unique schedule for our team members. And all of our team members work seven days on, seven days off. And they get a great compensation package, great benefits. And it was originally designed to deal with flipping back and forth from the sleep schedule. All our harvesting operates at night. We wanted to give our harvesters enough space to essentially recover and feel good and be able to come back to work.

Starting point is 00:54:08 And when we started to grow, we decided to keep that system for essentially almost all of our field and butcher staff, the vast majority of who we are. And it's turned into this extraordinary benefit that we didn't see kind of coming. And we did a little experiment last year because we wanted to make sure we're living in Hawaii is extraordinarily expensive and we wanted to be as responsible as possible. So we have two full teams, everybody that works seven days on and another team comes in. We essentially work nonstop.

Starting point is 00:54:42 We have two teams switching back and forth. So we offered them unlimited overtime. Can guess what happened tell me nobody took it so explain for a second what that would actually mean what what is unlimited overtime yeah so we said on your seven days off you can come in and work every single one of those days you weren't at time and a half like at an overtime rate and no one did it nobody did it and it's just this amazing what do you make of that time they were just happy with a there's nothing more important than time b lots of them it's been this really interesting and amazing thing to watch them seven days is a long time like when we hire somebody almost inevitably their first week

Starting point is 00:55:24 off they call me and they're like, what am I supposed to do? It's day four and they're like, I haven't had a seven day vacation in three years. What am I supposed to do? I'm like, well, get used to it. Find some hobbies. And it's been amazing to watch them become a better community member or start a food truck or start their own company. And they come back, like we essentially have a hundred percent retention of the people we want. And they come back on the start

Starting point is 00:55:51 of their seven days and they are the most extraordinary person coming back to us. And then they work amazingly well for seven days. Like that age old adage of like one person is better than two average is a hundred percent true. And we have data to support that in how we look at production and stuff now. And so the other thing that I think is really important for the people we hire, which are hyper local people, we're looking for like people of those places is you're giving them an opportunity to leverage that place and enjoy it. So half of them will just fish for six days or like go hunting or enjoy surfing or something else and it's just this amazing schedule

Starting point is 00:56:31 that really allows them to enjoy the place that they are from and live in but more importantly we have an extraordinary group of people and it just had to roll over the hill a little bit. And that combined with other things like I've through COVID when nobody could hire anybody with stacks and stacks and stacks of resumes on my desk, it's just has turned into this amazing work environment. And we've had no lack of essentially efficiency or production. So let's talk about some of the processes and metrics that inform that output and efficiency. Sure. Because it doesn't happen by accident. No. And I've visited your operation a few times now, and I've always been, this won't surprise anyone who's followed me for a while, I'm always impressed with very finely tuned tracking. So could you speak to some of the metrics that you track and why they're important?

Starting point is 00:57:37 Sure. And then we'll segue from that into let's have you describe what a shift actually looks like when you're going out at night. And you can feel free to switch back and forth or do one first and the other afterwards. So the harvest side of what we do, which is really the unique aspect of what we've built, is these field harvesting systems that comply fully with USDA standards, i.e. everything that operates in a brick and mortar we're able to do in the field through a combination of forward-looking infrared and these different like software systems that we built. And we were only able to create those

Starting point is 00:58:17 systems and levels of efficiency with what you're pointing to is an absurd amount of data that we keep. So we keep track of every mile, every bullet, every time we stop the moon phases, how the moon phase influences deer. We call it like moon fluence. And we have these giant KPIs and sheets that basically did performance indicators that dictate where we go, what we do,

Starting point is 00:58:43 and then who we put in different places. Actually, I haven't, I don't think I've told you this, but we just submitted a grant to NASA. Harvard and MIT, these PhDs at Harvard and MIT found out about what we did, found out we keep an absurd amount of data compared to most agricultural companies. And NASA has a grant available for ag companies where they'll fly this amazing satellite, comes over Hawaii at 10.14. We just finished putting this giant grant together, crossing my fingers.

Starting point is 00:59:10 And it's so detailed that these amazing people at MIT and Harvard believe they'll be able to detect deer with the satellite and then use the information and data we collect every single night on when we're seeing them and how and how we're interacting with them to incorporate with the machine learning to create route planning for us so they think a combination of satellite data and the ground data that we keep combined will be able to tell us on the next day where to go i was freaking out when they were explaining all of

Starting point is 00:59:43 this and lots of dumb questions that went along with it. Yeah. But they were shocked at the amount of data we keep. And they even got to see like we've run lots of different experiments of how we collect data. And I think maybe what you're pointing to is just this constant iteration of we're going to try this thing. We're going to keep data. And if you don't measure, I think there's that great saying measure what matters if you don't measure it you won't know if it's actually work and we are just constantly changing and measuring things and

Starting point is 01:00:11 so we've actually taken that philosophy into our butcher facility which is a very well-known industry with well-known inputs and production efficiencies. And we're crushing those numbers. And we're just doing it through constant iteration. It doesn't matter if the angle of a table or this machine or the different knife that we use, we are constantly iterating and constantly collecting data to see are we producing a better product faster with more quality. So let me come back to the USDA or maybe not directly USDA, but

Starting point is 01:00:48 comparables. And then we'll go from there to a sample night, like what the run of show looks like and the process. And the reason I want to talk about these two things is that in the field, things are harder to control than you would find in a facility where you're using, say, cattle shoots and so on. What does your, and people are not going to like some of these words, so apologies to those people, but I think it's fascinating and important to cover these things what does your say kill efficiency or measurements of humane kill look like compared to sort of a conventional facility and the reason i want to talk about this there are quite a few but one is that i know that a decent portion of your customer base is vegans or vegetarians who make a sole allowance for Maui New Venison, which is maybe sort of a head-scratcher for a lot of people. efficiency compared to what most people are indirectly experiencing when they buy something just wrapped in styrofoam yeah at their local grocery store sure um part of the systems we had to build were we had to follow the federal meat inspection act which the usda is present to make sure that animal is

Starting point is 01:02:26 supposed to be harvested humanely ultimately after that animal is processed make sure it's safe to eat that's their two primary functions and in a and i know this is hard for people to hear but if you eat meat like it's what it is in a typical brick and mortar facility, that animal is coming in on a trailer, moving through a chute system, going into a press most often. So that animal is completely stationary. And then the language is called rendered, but it's then essentially shot in the head. So we had to follow those exact same rules in the field and with no control of the animal. The rules meaning humane, safe to eat. Yes.

Starting point is 01:03:05 But not following that process. But not following that process, yeah. So we never pen bait. We don't interact with these animals at all prior to that rendering or harvesting process. They are entirely wild. And what we developed was a particular shooting system that allows and or standardize our shooters to miss on purpose 30% of the time. And that sounds weird, but what it is, is we are essentially making sure every shot that we hit that animal is perfect and there's never any outside injuries. And to do that,

Starting point is 01:03:41 if you shoot a two inch group at 200 yards which is difficult to do and you aim at the very very top or tip of a head you are going to miss about 30 of the time so just to yeah paint a visual for people so two inches it's a little bit bigger than i say uh like a silver dollar yep so imagine you have something that's slightly bigger than a silver dollar and you put it 600 feet away. You need to put every shot inside that silver dollar. That's what we're talking about. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:04:13 And then you need to make sure your aim point is in a place that never can create injuries. Cause if you miss high, nothing happens. That animal runs away. And so we actually operate at about a 99.9% rendering efficiency. And what is the brick and mortar average? 98 off of like thousands and thousands of animals.

Starting point is 01:04:37 So we were able to meet and exceed those guidelines or those rules. And in the wild with animals moving around yeah with a combination of so you can imagine and this maybe like leads into what like a night in the field looks like but you have these mad max looking utvs with forward-looking infrared screens essentially attached the usda inspector is sitting right beside you the entire time. And the technology is so good that the heat, the friction the bullet makes passing through the air, the USDA inspector is actually able to see that bullet hit the head of every single animal.

Starting point is 01:05:16 And it's just an extraordinary process where the animal is unaware that you're there. And so it is truly, truly wild until the second harvested and then dies immediately so there's no which like comes into play for nutrient density there is no stress yeah they're not flooded prior to harvesting and i think when we get about like a message a week from a vegan that says like i'm finally able to come back to eating meat because they understand why the animal has to be managed and why that animal is dying. And then they agree and connect strongly with that process. Like it's

Starting point is 01:05:52 truly the only stress-free harvesting or slaughter of a animal within our food system. Could you talk for a second about why this is so rare, right? Because people might think, well, can't you just go hunting and sell sell the meat you cannot do that yeah so what makes you able to do this for people who don't have that background so a elk in montana is a native species and it is owned by the public so it's on public it's on public land even on private land that animal the management of that animal is dictated by the state it is still owned by got it the people right so an invasive species on private land in hawaii is the liability and ownership of the landowner so it is a very unique situation in which you can actually

Starting point is 01:06:46 like do this process legally and it's only in the instance where it is a invasive species on private land we're not allowed to operate on public land in hawaii so what and i bring this up i mean obviously look i am love maui nui i I'm an investor. So, of course, I'm biased. But it all came down to, and I think we were initially introduced by Peter Atiyah, the quality, just the pure quality and nutrient density of the product for me. That's what it came down to. of just educating people about game meat and the sale of game meat in general, or let's just call it sort of atypical proteins like venison, elk, and so on. How much of the venison, elk, et cetera, that people might buy at a Whole Foods or something is farmed? 100%.

Starting point is 01:07:39 100%. So I bring this up just to say that people say you are what you eat. That is true, but you're also like what you eat, ate. Yeah. Right. So if let's say deer and elk is being fed, who knows, corn feed and all sorts of stuff and given antibiotics potentially, it's very different from something that is wild harvested. So I don't want to skip too far ahead. Let's talk about a night out, just what that looks like. And then we'll talk about nutrient profile got it you can imagine a bunch of like hyper local hawaiians who i love getting up rolling out of bed we all sleep on site we've got all these cubby holes for them to sleep in we all sleep on site we're getting up like 10 p.m making dinner and breakfast together

Starting point is 01:08:22 like some of them are diesel engines like you really got to shake them to get going and we are constantly moving so we have mobile facilities where we're moving from site to site to do this process we have these primary sites on all of the different ranches that we work with so the first thing we're looking at each evening is moving our mobile facilities to another site to get closer to the deer. And the reason is one of the other rules we have to follow is after that animal is rendered, it has to be back to the facility cleaned, processed without a single hair on it in an hour. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:08:57 It's pretty mind boggling. Yeah. So we'll also link to a video that shows kind of snippets of this that's on YouTube, because if people think about that i mean it's pretty mind-boggling yeah so we're asking our and maybe you can walk through how that's accomplished so we're asking our team members to be snipers rally car drivers crossfit athletes butchers the people we have on our teams just have these extraordinary skill sets.

Starting point is 01:09:25 It's the funnest thing to watch a guy in his first week. Axe-steered decathlete. Yeah. Well, we have to pick up every single one of these animals and carry them on our backs because you're not allowed to drag them. You can either introduce contaminants and or like bruise the meat. And it's actually one of my favorite parts of the night is it is the complete opposite of the rest of the meat industry after you've killed this animal for food you're carrying this animal on your back into its next stage of life with the food and there's an individual connection with each one of these animals and it's something that every guy on our team like really takes pride in is being able to like pick up these giant 250 pound animals across like razor sharp lava or all like super 150 that's a big boy yeah these giant bucks

Starting point is 01:10:10 like anyway we're moving mobile slaughter facilities and we're getting all set up and stage and you've got these like mad max utvs and everything is getting ready for what we call the performance period and the usda shows up and it is essentially game time. You have a finite period of time, which for a long time was only three hours. So you have all of the variability of a wild animal and you have to make it all work in a three hour period. Like your entire business comes down to your mission, business, how you operate comes down to managing variance within a three-hour period. So nobody walks, everybody drives faster than they'd like to. And we've never had more than like a cut finger knock on wood. And we expect just extraordinary people and athletes

Starting point is 01:10:58 to come work with us. We have had lots of people that have come and been with us for a week and said, I can't do this. I can't do this every night. Like it's impossible. So USDA comes, we have this very defined performance period where we're going really, really fast under control and getting as many animals as we can, getting them back and processing. And then before you know it, the sun has come up and the night is over. Now, just so we understand some of the tools of the trade that go into this, you're using night vision scopes. How is the technology layered to make this work? The first piece of technology that will start the night is these forward-looking infrared drones. So a drone is going in there to give us a picture of a couple thousand acres

Starting point is 01:11:43 to say like deer are going to be in these areas as we get started the forward looking infrared binocular system that we use i can tell you the difference between a goat and a deer at seven miles so at 150 yards you can see like every hair any abscess like the usda being able to say that animal is healthy is achieved through that technology and there's no lights on like it's completely black deer has no idea what's going on as they're being like evaluated by the usda and then the shooters also have forward-looking infrared scopes so you never have to introduce light into the scenario to scare them and that's what allows you to like harvest enough animals every night to

Starting point is 01:12:27 make it work. So you come up over a hill, you see a couple of deer, all of the lights go off. All of this forward looking infrared equipment comes on instantly. So the USDA is able to view it. He's able to look at those five animals and say, yeah,

Starting point is 01:12:39 you're able to take those animals. And he has to like verbally, like we need to wait. He has to verbally say those things. Oftentimes you can shoot several of those animals because they don't actually know what's going on it's the middle of the night and the minute they don't feel safe they just run so you know you're still harvesting them under stress free conditions if they're still standing there half the time they'll go back to feeding animals are rendered properly they go down immediately and as soon as our shooter says clear and the usds is clear people are like sprinting into the bushes

Starting point is 01:13:13 to find these animals again it's the middle of the night if the grass is four feet tall we have laser pointer systems that come off of the utvs to like show them the right direction and animal gets picked up brought back to the utv and then we'll collect a couple of them we have a roving team they're called so we have a team of rovers that essentially are the mad max team where they'll collect a couple deer and then they'll move as fast as they can back to where the mobile slaughter and processing facilities are stationed and so they are just cycling back and forth between the harvesting team and the processing teams so it's just this intricate dance and this is all at night on just not paved roads these are like rough off-road scenarios and so one of my favorite things to do is the first week we train somebody we have a course that they have to run and we let them run the course once and it

Starting point is 01:14:08 takes typically takes like seven minutes and we're like we need to do that in three minutes and they're just like what like you do that in three minutes or it's not like you were not going to get back in time and so it's always fun to sit in that seat. And we have these very specialized UCVs that are essentially impossible to tip over. But it is so fun to watch these amazing local guys develop all these incredible skill sets. And every morning the sun comes up and everybody's just like grinning ear to ear. It's very much feels like a sports team. And obviously with my history, I run it kind of like a sports team and the coach. And just an

Starting point is 01:14:45 amazing experience to do one of these hunts yeah so just to define terms also if people don't know what utv means it's kind of like a super tactical mad max golf cart there you go that's a bit larger yeah right yeah some people may have seen like polaris is one brand name there are many others there are other terms used to refer to these things, but that's what we're talking about. Yeah. So what are some of the other keys to selecting or building a team like you have built? Because you're asking a lot of these people. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:15:22 And it's an unusual work culture so what are some of your framework systems criteria for hiring but also training once people are yeah in the position great people already being there to train great people like really really goes a long way and we can talk about kind of that system we built later if you want but the communication and people being patient is probably the most important thing you have to imagine you're doing almost everything through radios so you sound like kermit the frog all night long and you only catch half of it sometimes but you're moving really fast and the expectation is like you keep moving fast and so somebody has to be patient enough when like oh i didn't get that message or i didn't know what's like communication is so key when you can't see body language

Starting point is 01:16:14 you can't hear properly and everybody's operating out of a headlamp so you have this little 10 degree view of what you can see through light. And I'm sure it's the most critical thing in like a lot of businesses, but when you're operating like that at night, it just becomes this amplified skill that if you don't have, we just, we get on it so fast. The communication.

Starting point is 01:16:38 How do you get on it? I've never been, or had a hard time talking, like kind of having hard conversations. So I would talk to people about tone and approaches and different words they could use, like reminder instead of like, get this thing done. Like we really focused on like individual language. And then we basically built a language of harvesting.

Starting point is 01:17:01 So we have all of these keywords. So we have all these key words that we use so people don't get confused with what's going on so we've created kind of our own harvest language that allows people not to get confused when we're going really fast and then ultimately we built a system called hhs which stands for, smart, and is largely based on humble, hungry, smart. Okay. Gotcha. So it was the Canadian. Yeah. Yeah. And it's largely based on a book that Patrick Lencioni wrote called the ideal team player. And it is a peer to peer evaluation system that measures humility, work ethic, and emotional intelligence.

Starting point is 01:17:47 It became so important for us to have the right people. The biggest risk we have every single night is safety. And it became so critically important to have the right people and the right personalities that we had to build a system to measure those personalities. And that's in the recruiting vetting process? Oh, yeah. How do you measure those things? Humility.

Starting point is 01:18:04 Yeah. So we created you measure those things? Humility. Yeah. So we created essentially a scorecard. It has six questions per category. So six for humility, six for work ethics, six for emotional intelligence. Questions like, do the energy they bring every night, is it consistent? Isn't it positive? So we talk about body language and emotional intelligence and all these different things within these questions. And I'm happy to like provide this thing and we use it in three

Starting point is 01:18:28 ways we give it to the person on the second interview and we're hiring somebody so we say here's the hhs system this is the only thing you're accountable to in your first month and two things happen they read it and they go or actually they just don't call back and i've made a ton of hiring mistakes in the past where you get past this honeymoon phase and people turn into grouches and it's just there's there's people first mentality's involved and i remember a guy that we were going to hire that was a like brilliant electrical engineer he wanted to quit his job come work with us because he heard about the seven and seven schedule and thought it'd be the best thing ever.

Starting point is 01:19:08 And then he read it and he didn't call me back. I really wanted to hire him. And I called him back and I said, any reason you didn't call me back? He's like, I have terrible body language and I'm not willing to quit my job and take the chance within the first month that I get fired for bad body language. Because we score them. If you're an A, we celebrate and figure out a way to reward you. If you're a B, we find immediate improvements that you need to make within some of these categories.

Starting point is 01:19:35 And if you're a C, we let you go on the spot. No questions asked. And you set that expectation up front. Oh, so we set that in the interview. They have to agree to this system coming in. They're evaluated by their entire team, including them doing a self-eval, which is a part of the overall score.

Starting point is 01:19:52 They get to like grade themselves. And the team, are they sent on like a test evening prior to hiring? Or I guess they just know that once they start going out. Yeah, so we call them tryouts but when somebody comes to try out with us which means we give them a month we hire them on but we call them a tryout and at the end of that tryout which is typically a one month period they get graded by their entire team and they know it's this like really tense moment where how many people are

Starting point is 01:20:21 on a given team eight to ten got it yeah so it's a good average so if somebody yeah if somebody's got a bug up their ass about somebody doesn't matter just one person it always ends up being like a great average and it always ends up being a great measure of that person and it's been this extraordinary filter for hiring asshole is the wrong word. But when we figured out how to use that system, we now grade every person at their first month. We grade every single person quarterly, including me. Every single person gets graded. And there's questions on there like, do they try or ask to do more than is required of them every day. And it's been so amazing to see the mistakes I make in when we're hiring new people or moving people around. Like a great example is I moved a couple

Starting point is 01:21:12 people from a field position into a management position. And then all of a sudden their work ethics score started coming down. And it wasn't because they weren't working any harder. It was, I didn't do a good job defining to the team what their new responsibilities were. So they saw them sitting on a computer and doing these things and they're like, well, they're not in the field helping us. And so it's just this amazing quarterly exercise that just pulls out all of the tension within your teams and creates framework for people to address those tensions. And then ultimately what's amazing is to watch people grow. How do you give feedback?

Starting point is 01:21:48 Let's say they come back and they've got a bunch of bees. Yeah. So we sit. What's the big boss do? Yeah, so we sit them down and we say. Is that the royal we or is it just you? No, no, it's.

Starting point is 01:21:57 It's multiple people. Yeah, it's me and like the two or three other harvest managers. Got it. Great example. One of the questions we asked talks about, are they genuinely happy to see their teammates succeeding because safety is such an important part of what

Starting point is 01:22:10 we do when we bring somebody in that's more talented we will just like a sports team moves the best people into the best positions we immediately move people around positions based on their skill sets so somebody has to be genuinely happy to train somebody that may replace them in a role that they may enjoy yeah they used to be the yeah like right striker or whatever exactly got replaced and it's amazing to watch somebody that really wants to be there because they find purpose and they really love the schedule and they know the impact that they're having to our community have to make the decision to be better for their teammate every night to be like celebrating that person's growth even though it's potentially coming at the cost of something that

Starting point is 01:22:52 they enjoy yeah so there's these that's hard oh this whole like i have that's asking i mean i'm not saying it's unreasonable but that i mean that's asking a lot of a lot of people i mean i don't know if i would be honest with myself i think that'd be hard here's the thing like it's been such a amazing exercise with lots of iterations right the first three iterations i made so many grown men cry and i felt so bad was that your delivery or the measurement where you just like it was just the mission fuck this it was the measurement was wrong sink or swim no you're getting evaluated by your peers on your personality and the value it's bringing to your team and you have to sit down quarterly and be told your humility is not

Starting point is 01:23:38 good enough for this team i assume that the responses are all anonymized yeah everything's anonymized so and then average for anonymized and then averaged. For what it's worth, I've done what's called a 360 interview. And I know people who as executives or founders have had these done. And without exception, myself included, every time that I spoke to somebody who's experienced this for the first time, they're like, I went and they sat in my car. And I basically had a nervous breakdown, crisis of meaning the what do i do like these are names everybody would recognize but they were just like holy shit yeah the first time we did it with a large enough team that i included myself in it because we were just so small early on it was like think like the third iteration i was like i need to be a part of this and i got all of the feedback back i was just like oh my god

Starting point is 01:24:29 but if we really want to build extraordinary teams like i realized my approach to some of our conversations had to be so much better and nuanced to make them better it wasn't the right approach and you learn all of this you end up reading this thing like braille after doing it i've done it like hundreds of times now yeah and i mean with repetition i imagine yeah it's like exercise right it's like okay you're going to apply metrics once a year you're going to be very very very sore yeah and you might even hurt yourself but it was amazing to see what happened is we built this system because we knew we had to go from like eight people to 45 in a really short period of time to hit our mission goals about a year and a half ago. And I had made poor hiring decisions in the past and they were mostly personality based or they were, that person was operating amazing when I was around, but the minute I left, they turned into a different person. And then there's this, he said, she said game.

Starting point is 01:25:29 This completely erases all of that because it's anonymous team scoring and the manager doesn't have a unweighted vote on whether that person stays around. And what ended up happening is that hhs program started attracting people they started hearing about this accountability process to ensure you're attracting better fits oh yeah so coming back to so you're not saying hey fuck face in like the fourth fifth tenth twentieth iteration yeah what's the language that you use um if somebody has growth opportunities let's go it's really specific to which of the 18 categories they're struggling in right like how does the meeting start okay so we sit down and we we're gonna give them paper and we say like okay you're a b minus yeah tim we put a 250 pound l on your back you crumpled into an origami crane

Starting point is 01:26:23 and you couldn't get up so you're a b minus and then we celebrate first some of the categories that they're doing really well in like some of the categories that point to professionalism or energy or all these different things we celebrate right away because they're each one of the 24 segments have different scores within them that have been averaged throughout their team. And then we address the ones that they're like a C in. Got it. So they're not cut if they have a C in a particular review point. It's the average. Yeah, got it.

Starting point is 01:26:51 So the C average, it's been amazing to see that system work. I've let go several people that were Cs that I would have never let go. I wouldn't have known to let them go. Like wouldn't have known that that was the impact they were having on the team at large. It just would have never come out. Yeah. I would love to,

Starting point is 01:27:13 you mentioned, I think you offered to maybe share the question. So we'll put that in the show notes as well. Yeah. Tim.blogs.podcast because I'm incredibly curious to check it out myself. It just, at least at face value, it seems like a very elegant solution to a lot of problems that can seem like fragmented, separate problems you have to address in different ways. And again, I'm just a system builder and by no means is it perfect. But I've heard lots of people speak to how important these different personality

Starting point is 01:27:45 traits are and how they reward them and more importantly than the c or the a's being able to like say to somebody this incredible combination of like humility work ethic and emotional intelligence is making your whole team better and your whole team is telling you your extraordinary ethic things being able to reward and compensate somebody for that and have a measure to do so you say compensate so let's say they have because i know this is getting the weeds a bit but i feel like yeah that's where a lot of the good stuff is hiding so how many questions were there again there's 18 questions six on humility six on work, and six on emotional intelligence. And they get this like A, B, or C for each of those questions.

Starting point is 01:28:29 Yeah. So they get, it's graded one through seven. Yeah. We just did it because it was seven days of the week. And we talk about like being at excellent every day. So it's one through seven. And then we add up all the scores, which is 126 total, and they get a percentage. So if they're an 87, we give them a B plus.

Starting point is 01:28:43 Which is the average for the total. Which is the average which is the average how do you reward or compensate the a's if they're in their first six month of employment and they get two a's or a pluses in a reward we give them a raise based on that contribution and then we celebrate with the team like not always an a this last quarter we make sure the team knows the contribution that they're having and it's already was so interesting they already all know but to not have framework to reward them for being amazing people has always been this fuzzy place for me where i couldn't reward or compensate that person for being an extraordinary individual that was

Starting point is 01:29:23 making their whole team better because it didn't fit into what the classic hard skills define as like they're a great shooter or they're a great driver or one of these different things and every single one of those a plus people are our most highly skilled people as well they just when you operate with a certain level of humility you are more willing to learn and you learn faster and every single person that's come through our program that was like a b minus or a c that was like highly skilled and made the choice not to get better at these like what i very much consider skills just weighted themselves out it's been really cool to see people grow and like you're in this camp and you see these guys with their a lot of them will tape their score up above their bed and they'll like look at it in the morning and say like i was a

Starting point is 01:30:12 b minus in this thing i need to bring more consistent energy every night like we've got guys that go up and down and up and down and they're like okay i'm gonna be trying to be more consistent like they know what they're working on you know this gave me a flashback because when i was in high school and I wasn't a particularly, I just, for whatever reason, I mean, I trained my ass off, but I was not the most gifted wrestler,

Starting point is 01:30:32 but I was pretty tough and not 10 out of 10 tough, but I ended up reading this book. It's, I'm sure dated in a million ways, but it was called Mental Toughness Training for Sports. And there was an assessment. And it was actually, now that I think about it, pretty similar to HHS.

Starting point is 01:30:49 And I gave the assessment to like five or six people. And they did the assessment. And then I took my score. And that became my reminder. And that is when, in a single season, I mean, I went from kind of middle of the pack to almost entirely undefeated until the very end of the season and it's not because i was the most gifted but it's in part due to having a constant reminder that is not from one person you spot patterns really okay if it were just one person i could maybe dismiss But no, now I'm getting this from multiple people I respect.

Starting point is 01:31:27 And it works, man. It really works. And you could do this. I'm just thinking out loud, obviously. I was going to say talking out loud, but that's a bit redundant. I'm just talking out loud here, folks. But you could use this outside of an employment context, right? Like you could take this HHS and give it to five to 10 people,

Starting point is 01:31:48 you know, and just ask them to be honest. Like that's the prereq. I'm not asking you to be nice. I'm asking you to be accurate. And I want to give credit where it's like, dude, the book, the ideal team player, which is what a lot of the questions, like the questions aren't based on it, but this idea that the original name Humble,

Starting point is 01:32:07 Hungry, Smart is from that book. And so when somebody comes in, they have to read that book and it gives them the base principles of what we're talking about. And then we basically design the questions. And yeah, it's been incredible to get young 25-year-olds that come in and their first couple of weeks they're sitting in a meeting and they're hunched over and like they got their hood on and typically that's a hard conversation to have with somebody to say like i need you to sit up take your hood off be an active listener because it's an uncomfortable thing to like talk to somebody about their body language and you get to do that immediately because the team has framework and language to say like,

Starting point is 01:32:45 hey, listen, brother, in three weeks, you're going to get graded. One of those things is body language. And if you just sit up in the meeting, take your hood off and make sure like you're looking at the person talking, you're going to get a better score. We like you. We want to keep you around. Yeah. If you happen to come in late.

Starting point is 01:32:59 Set up front. Like it's not impromptu, improvised. Yeah. It gives them the ability to have hard conversations when somebody rolls in a little bit late which is already unacceptable but if they don't genuinely apologize somebody gets to come to them and say like one of our questions is about being like genuine about your apologies if you've made mistakes and we're allowed to make mistakes here we make a lot but like you come in and being like oh sorry guys don't do that next time and it will

Starting point is 01:33:28 be better so it's outside of me it's given everybody else framework to have uncomfortable conversations and or celebrate people right so the ideal team player lencioni this is a assigned reading yes this is an assigned reading do you have any other assigned reading not for field teams we have them focus on that one for sure we've got for some of our other staff we have confessions of a pricing man simon i think is i've read that book it's really good i have like a lot of anybody that deals with any type of like product strategy i make sure they read that one and i haven't i haven't thought of that book in a long time it Oh, it's so good. Confessions of a Pricing Man. And then The Road Less Stupid. Okay, I don't know this one.

Starting point is 01:34:10 It is one of my favorite general business books. I'm drawing a blank on the... It's okay, it's memorable. I've read a lot. Actually, Chris Ashenden recommended it to me. For those who don't know, Chris Ashenden is the founder of AG1, previously Athletic Greens. Yeah, he's been an amazing... The guy's always handed me homework. He's a great operator. Yeah. So those who don't know, Chris Ashton is the founder of AG1, previously Athletic Greens.

Starting point is 01:34:27 Yeah, he's been an amazing guy. He's always handed me homework. He's a great operator. Yeah. So again, I'm happy to share all of the questions. And I think when people see the questions, you can actually, they're tailored to our teams, but it's actually pretty easy to tailor those questions to your specific work format. I haven't quite found a way to move them into like the virtual zoom world because a lot of them are so tactile and how people work together and workflows. And there will be several iterations. We just changed it again,

Starting point is 01:34:54 but in its current format and framework, I think it could be valuable to people and happy to share. Yeah. We'll put it in the show notes for folks to check out. I promised it earlier. So I want to not be remiss and come back to it as this conversational boomerang returns to me nutrient density how should we tackle this where would you like to start uh we could start at when this is true for plants yeah also true

Starting point is 01:35:21 for me anything you put in your mouth has a certain composition. And just because it's called the same thing, banana, banana, banana, green bean, green bean, green bean, does not mean they are equal in nutritional value. I'll start at maybe the end. I think nutrient density, i.e. food quality, and being able to measure that accurately and someone be able to understand it in its simplest form, i.e. on a label, is going to completely change our food system and be the lever for regenerative agriculture.

Starting point is 01:35:54 Meaning having an indicator on a label, some type of measurement, just like you look at calories, just like you look at film. You walked into a store tomorrow and you flipped it over and there was two blueberries and one said 92 and one said 76 and you knew that 92 meant that was that much better for you

Starting point is 01:36:10 measuring thousands of biochemicals that they now can through metabolomic testing you're going to buy the one and what's so amazing about the conversation of nutrient density is that is nutrition of place and when you think of regenerative agriculture practices which is basically just layering conservation practices like we're taking care of soil we're taking care of water we're doing these different things which people have done for a long time in certain cultures and we got away for for a long time and now we're coming back to it and if you knew the quality of your food not measured by the five metrics that are currently available but measured by the thousands of biochemicals that we can now

Starting point is 01:36:52 test for both good and bad billions of dollars going into this like the patagonia provisions of the world like this is coming for sure and what was really interesting for us is we got to be one of the first people to be fully tested. So about two years ago, we submitted our bone broth to a typical USDA FSNS lab to make our label. And I remember them, yeah, they called me and they said, something's wrong with these bones. And I was like, we sent you like the bone broth. They were made from regular bones. They had thought we had put like some form of like protein powder or additional collagen in there

Starting point is 01:37:32 because it tested 33% higher in protein per ounce than anything they'd ever seen. So they had to like retest it and it came out the exact same way. And our mission was never nutrient density. Our mission was to balance populations. And I always knew it was better for me because that animal had a choice to eat. But when we got that testing, we were like, wait a second, like what is going on here?

Starting point is 01:37:54 So we sent more, like we sent livers and hearts and different cuts into a conventional lab for testing. Sure enough, lab emails me in the middle of it. I remember this one. They're like, there's something wrong with the hearts they have too much choline i'm like there's nothing wrong we just sent you a heart and we were working with did you introduce us to anthony gustin who dr anthony we got to anthony i don't think so but i do know I know who he is absolutely so we're working with how he's helped other people I know we were trying to figure out and compare after we got that information to a typical comparison to beef and what he pointed us to which was crazy and scary is the vast majority

Starting point is 01:38:38 of the USDA databases from the 1930s I wonder if I made that intro it's possible you've made a lot of them my friend but what we found out is that the nutritional comparison to beef weren't even actually able to do it because the data was so dated and you're able to be off to within 20 on a label which is a whole other story anyway dr anthony gustin. People who are packaging things have more wiggle room than a lot of consumers. 20% wiggle room. Yeah. Up or down, whichever one favors them. Yeah. So Dr. Gustin introduced us to somebody, Dr. Van Vliet at Utah State University, who has probably the, one of the most advanced food labs in North America. And he was doing the largest beef study ever done and the most in-depth,

Starting point is 01:39:28 measuring a thousand plus biochemicals through disadvanced metabolomic testing. And we just happened to get like tossed in at the end of it. So there's like 200 plus beef samples. And then they threw us at the end and he thought like oh this will be really cool to see an animal that has a choice to what it eats what that might look like in a what we understood as a fairly fertile area so comes out two to four x the phytochemicals so all of the good stuff from plants that gets transferred into meat

Starting point is 01:40:05 were two to four X were eight to 64 X the omega threes. So like DHA was 20 times. It was just every single category was absurd. And then probably the most exciting for me is they measured oxidative stress. So the stress an animal goes through during that process, you can measure that oxidative stress and its impact on, there's a whole bunch of chemicals. I still don't understand. I'm not a nutritionist, but they were able to measure the negative impacts of stress. And of course, ours was essentially zero and the beef stuff was all over the place. It was pretty scary.

Starting point is 01:40:46 But when I saw it, the most exciting thing, honestly, wasn't Maui Nui. It was a, this is nutrition of place. This is a direct reflection of how well and how fertile a place is because all of that nutrient density is coming from the plants that they're eating and i.e the

Starting point is 01:41:06 soil and the water moving through the soil and instantly realized if every consumer had this level of insight into the nutritional quality of their food it'll completely change the way people look at that food system and then it'll change the entire sort of supply chain production it'll completely change the way people look at that food system. And then it'll change the entire sort of supply chain production. Well, it's not a race to the bottom anymore of producing commodities, which is like the most you can at the cheapest price. I mean, this is my favorite saying. Every time Peter Atiyah says we're overnourished, I'm just like, yes. We're producing an absurd amount of calories that aren't good for us it's coming and we're going to understand the nutritional quality of our food and it will be graded and easy to know and that will create these direct relationships with these what will probably be

Starting point is 01:41:58 regenerative agri like practices that are fostering the health of these places. And then, so when we dug even further, we found out that the leeward slopes of volcanic, what does leeward mean? It is the windward or the, the windward side of a slope. Got it. Yeah. Hawaii,

Starting point is 01:42:17 Haleakalā has a very particular soil called andesols. And then there are three types of andesols. Andesols are some of the most fertile soils in the world. They hold water better and hold more nutrients from those waters better. And then of the three soil types, of the three andesol soil types, we have one called a U-stand and it's the most fertile of the three. So the slopes we're harvesting these deer on are actually i think the u-stands make up 0.05 percent of the world's soils so that's wild so we happen to be luck of the draw yeah again like this was never our mission the mission was just to balance populations but we

Starting point is 01:43:01 happen to have one of the most virile animals in the world that has a choice to eat exactly what it wants moving through the most fertile slopes maybe on the planet and i think that's what dr van bleep got so excited about is he now has a marker to say when there's an extremely fertile place that's for most part well taken care of in a lot of the areas because they're able to go to the very best areas this is what nutrient density could look like and it's you know two to vitamin a was 800 times in the liver versus some of these beef livers so to come back to one point the dha i don't know if there's epa in deer. I have no idea. I'm not a lipidologist. I think there is.

Starting point is 01:43:46 So on the omega-3 side, is eating axis deer, in terms of levels of omega-3s, I guess we'd have to think about the concentration per ounce, but is it comparable to eating some types of fish, or would it still be significantly lower? Well, we don't know the answer to that yet yet because the study measured it in comparison to beef all right i saw right so the percentages and so on were benchmarked to beef so the new piece of equipment that dr van viet has coming in will be able to give us measures in milligrams microgram like they'll we'll know that in the near future here and this is what ultimately there's several companies working on this audacious is one of them is amazing company like

Starting point is 01:44:29 they're going to be able to measure these thousands of biochemicals to the form that you need to turn them into a label but we know to answer your question we know even in comparison to beef it is about halfway to salmon so it's actually a significant source of omega-3s that for some people that don't eat fish, like it goes a long way. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay.

Starting point is 01:44:51 A little inside joke. Before we pressed record, we were talking about some very, very well-known professional sports teams who are using Maui Nui to feed their players. And some of these players, for whatever reason, just won't eat fish, but they will eat Maui Nui to feed their players. And some of these players, for whatever reason, just won't eat fish, but they will eat Maui Nui. Well, and they blood test every week,

Starting point is 01:45:11 these extraordinary athletes. And we've just started working with a lot of these sports nutritionists and they're going to be able to measure for us if it's having an impact on these athletes. That's so cool. So this is really, again, like never part of the mission for us,

Starting point is 01:45:30 but an understanding of place. And is what gets cool honey like my wife so excited and she's like this comes back to that conversation of innovation is a culture and hawaiians were able to produce extraordinary nutrient-rich foods with finite resources for a million people. And Hawaii now imports 95% of its food and half of its Twinkie level nutritional value. It really points back to our places informing what we're doing. And it's really fun to have such a strong connection to place, and it helped to inform your solution. So connection to place, you have Kualani honey you have the little ones oh yeah right you live in hawaii let's talk about the family for a second oh clawback allowances oh man i get to give you credit for this

Starting point is 01:46:18 wait till you hear this one yeah okay fire away Yep. You know, I was just thinking about John List. John List, the economist you had on the show. And he was talking about using clawback allowances in a professional format. But I remember him talking about using it to potty train his kids. And this idea of loss aversion, i.e. like I already have it, and you're going to take it away from me being much stronger than the opposite. Right. How hard will you work to make $50 versus how hard will you work if you feel like $50

Starting point is 01:46:47 has been taken away from you? Exactly. So. The latter. We had been struggling with. Equals a lot more. Allowances for the kids. And we make lots of mistakes as parents.

Starting point is 01:47:00 And what the allowances were accidentally or doing where they were training them they had jobs and they did their jobs and then they earned their money if they did their jobs what it was doing is when we asked them to do extra stuff and be helpful it was like am i gonna make more money and we had taught them this system that was the opposite of what we were trying to teach them which was to try and be helpful. And me and Kool, I remember that, like I remember her listening to it like six hours later than I did. And she's like, did you hear about the clawback allowances?

Starting point is 01:47:32 Like, did you hear about clawback? I was like, yes. And we both thought of it instantly, like let's do it for allowances. And so what we do now, and we changed two things. We put $20 in ones on the fridge at the beginning of the month. And we say, this is yours.

Starting point is 01:47:53 And what we do now is we claw back those dollar bills for attitude instead of jobs. So what we do is when we say, Paliq, can you go feed the dogs? And he's like, we just walk to the fridge and we pull off a dollar. And it was this amazing exercise over a period of three months. It was straight revolt. Like, what are you talking about? And revolt turned into a little bit of sarcasm. Like, yeah, fine. I'll do that. They didn't want to lose their money. One step back. We don't buy them anything. We're kind of strict when it comes to like, they get stuff at birthdays and they get stuff at Christmas. But other than that, they need to be useful people and earn their money. And so they really value the dollars they get at the end of the month

Starting point is 01:48:28 and it went from mutiny to sarcasm and i remember it happening and i remember like asking leo who to grab the laundry and she's like sure and i was like wait a second and i looked at cool i was like that actually just work? Don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. They're amazing kids. They're 99% of the time. Yeah, but they're kids.

Starting point is 01:48:49 They're little humans. And now, just a couple of weeks ago, I came home and like, Pallika was like, I just, I cleaned the car and I was like, what? What's wrong with you? Like, it was this odd thing

Starting point is 01:49:00 that like a combination of the clawback allowance and training for attitude instead of them earning for a task yeah it was just this if it helps anybody again we're not amazing parents by any means but like i think i think you're pretty good parents that what i can tell small trick yeah oh boy yeah it it's been a big one for us for sure so i'm gonna toggle around a little bit here i have some notes in front of me so we're talking about the kids yeah secret pinterest boards oh man this is another one for the relationship

Starting point is 01:49:32 between you and your wife yeah all right i know you're not allowed to talk about it but it's just me and you um yeah just us sitting at this table well i've actually not millions of people i've actually tried to talk about this with a couple of our friends. And this is like fight club level. Like you don't talk about this. Exclusive here first, folks. Tim Ferriss show. So all of the credit,

Starting point is 01:49:55 much of my credit goes to my amazing wife, but all of the credit for this one goes to her. And this has to happen in a very, you have to follow the rules of this one or it doesn't work. So early on in our relationship, I think I'm two years in, she's an extraordinary person. I have no idea what to buy for her. I've failed several, several times.

Starting point is 01:50:15 And she's not like, she barely will spend $100 on herself a couple times a year, right? She's that type of person. She thrifts 99% of her clothes, et cetera, et cetera. So she's just like the worst person ever to try and buy stuff for. She's that type of person. She thrifts 99% of her clothes, et cetera, et cetera. So this is like the worst person ever to try and buy stuff for. She's so picky. And she sits me down. I give her a birthday gift. I get it all wrong.

Starting point is 01:50:32 She sits me down the next day and she's like, this is what we're going to do. A, we're never going to talk about this conversation again. And B, I've created a secret Pinterest board that I've invited you to. Every item on there is something that I want. It's exactly what I want. It's like the link goes exactly to it. But here's how this works. You are never allowed to talk about this.

Starting point is 01:50:55 And you're never allowed to give it to me for like a birthday or something. It won't be grand birthdays anyways. And she's like, I will pretend that you did it in every single stage. No, this is the most important part. Okay. Yeah. Right. My children think I'm a genius.

Starting point is 01:51:10 Like they'll come home and they'll just be like this random box on the table that has these beautiful earrings in them. And cool will come in and she'll just be like, oh my God, how did you know? Like, this is exactly what I i wanted i can't believe you found them i've been looking for them forever and and my girls will look at me like how did just amazing dad like how did you know she does it so well half the time i think like oh my god i'm amazing like she she has fake cried several times she does it in front of her mom the only way this works is i believe half the time that i've done this amazing thing for like that's how important it is

Starting point is 01:51:52 and it has been the greatest i never ever think about buying her anything anytime i even like have the slightest inclination i go straight to the pinterest board and i just grab one thing off of it and it shows up and she does this amazing job of like it's the biggest deal your dad's the most amazing person for being able to like figure this thing out and they all believe it and we're never allowed to tell anybody about it oh it is so she's done it in front of couples and the guys are just like how the hell hell, like, how did you know? I'm like, I just, I just pay attention, man. I just figure it out. And she like, it just makes me look so good.

Starting point is 01:52:32 And she gets exactly what she wants. And we never, like, I tried to bring it up once when her mom was around and she looked at me like she was going to kill me. She's just like, we don't talk about it or else it goes away and it doesn't work. You know the rules. Oh man. Bite your tongue. It's so good. It is.

Starting point is 01:52:48 She has to pretend it's real. And I feel amazing. Win-win. Yeah. Win-win-win-win-win-win on so many levels. All right. So I'm going to let you choose where we go next. Okay.

Starting point is 01:53:03 Old lady crying on the couch game or tug of war. Okay, I'm going to stick with my wife's genius one here and we'll give her the old lady on the couch game. She for years, and I didn't ask about it until recently, she for years has done this thing and I didn't know what it was. When she was frustrated or something was going on, she would like close her eyes and like instantly turn into the happiest person in the world and like be loving our kids, even if they were monsters.

Starting point is 01:53:32 And I didn't know, I didn't know what was happening. And so I finally asked her, I was like, okay, what is that thing you're doing? And she's like, that's my old lady crying on the couch game. And I'm like, what the, like, what is that? And she said, when I'm feeling frustrated with my kids, I pretend I'm 80 years old. And she's amazing. Like she really like closes her eyes and she pretends she's 80 years old. And she says, I'm given the opportunity. It's my birthday or

Starting point is 01:53:58 something. And I'm given the opportunity to use a time machine, but I am only allowed to go back to this exact moment and she really does it like she closes her eyes and she opens her eyes and she's 80 and she has five minutes to be this 80 year old lady looking at her nine-year-old daughter again after she's been grown up and she can open her eyes and she just like stands up and she's like oh my she's so cute and she kisses their face and the kids know what the game is and they're just like oh mom you're doing that thing again like but she genuinely can put herself in the place of gratitude to be back in that moment seeing her kids again after 30 or 40 years of them being grown and old. And it's just watching her do it is amazing. And then I have tried it several times since she told me, if you really put yourself in that

Starting point is 01:54:52 situation, I've done it with my son. He's turning 14 and he's got like, it's happening. Puberty is happening. It's happening. Right. And I only have four more years with him until he graduates. And a couple of times I found myself frustrated with him. I closed my eyes and I think when I'm 80 and my knees are sore, what would I feel to be able to go back and see him at 14 when he's in this place? Your self-care at 80 is amazing. It's just like when I'm 80 and my knees start hurting. But yeah, I get it. And I got Peter and Tia as my friends. She's a genius. It's this, in some of the most frustrating moments where you've like, kids are like your greatest joy and they will frustrate you more than anybody on the planet can.

Starting point is 01:55:40 And she's just found this way to have gratitude for that time because it's gone. And she calls it old lady crying on the couch game because she cries like she she'll like be tearing up and the kids will be like oh god here we go again because they get kissed all over the face and like oh you're so small and cute and it's amazing and like yeah she's she's amazing at finding ways to be grateful for i'm really grateful you brought this up because it reminded me of something that i found super valuable for a couple of years. And then as often happens, I just kind of forgot about it, which was for Tribe of Mentors. So my last book, there were many people featured. And one of the questions I asked almost everybody was, when you were feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, what do you do? And one of the answers was, when I'm feeling overwhelmed or frustrated, I look at whatever

Starting point is 01:56:29 this mundane situation is. And I'll give a personal example. Like if I'm laying in a hammock and not necessarily, I could be frustrated or preoccupied by something, but like my dog Molly's playing with a stick and I'm just kind of chilling. I ask myself like 50 years from now, how much would I pay to come back to this moment for just 10 minutes, right? And similar trick, right? But I haven't used it.

Starting point is 01:56:55 It's so good. And this is the perfect reboot. Yeah. So thank you, Koo. Oh, yeah. Again, she gets the vast majority of the credit for anything that's smart that comes out of my mouth. Tug of war. Okay. This one, Ricky Lias, founder of Red Ventures introduced to me through Peter gets all of the credit, but it was so good. I just, it's something

Starting point is 01:57:16 that I started doing that I have to share. And he described this, the last parenting one, I promise he described parenting as a tug of war you have to lose okay and it's really interesting when you have kids and you hold on to them and i've heard lots of different parenting advice and the one the reason it stuck with me so well is it's such a great visual of your kids pulling a line across from you and that line moving through your hands so when they're two and three years old, you don't even have to hold it. You're just like, whatever, you can't pull that thing. And then they get like six or seven and they give it like a little tug and you're like, Oh, well,

Starting point is 01:57:54 I got to hold on to this thing. And then the best part about that advice is knowing you have to lose. So knowing when they're 18 or 19, you have to have fully let go of that rope. And the visual that comes to my mind all the time is just this really slow, steady release of that rope instead of these giant jumps or like these parenting mistakes that you're not letting them become independent and responsible and useful. You're trying to teach them all of these things so that you can let go of the rope at the end of it and they're okay you're trying to spare them the feeling of being useless how does that impact that metaphor or analogy how did that affect how you parent or make decisions good example they all who asked for her like first sleepover which we've

Starting point is 01:58:45 been pretty stringent about because she'd like wants to go an hour away and sleep in a house and i would like my immediate reaction was no and then the thought in my head was like wait a second she's 12 and if you're gonna like let go of the rope of a little bit like this is probably the right situation like you're gonna have to let a little bit, like this is probably the right situation. Like you're going to have to let it all the way go. This is probably the right situation to like, let it go a little bit, make sure it's safe. And you call the parents and you figure out what it is.

Starting point is 01:59:11 But like, it reminds me the best actionable use of it is knowing it has to be gone. You have to do it eventually. So like, do you want to let go of 20 feet at once? Probably not. And like they fall flat on their ass or do you want to like gradually let it go?

Starting point is 01:59:23 So it's okay. And just the idea of like seeing it moving through your hands and knowing you don't want it to be this sudden jerk has made it easier for me to make those small decisions knowing at 18, 19, hopefully we'll see they're gone. Right. And there'll always be mine or ours, but it's one of the few parenting advice I've ever heard that created like an actionable thing where I said like, okay, I need to make this slow and smooth and the right transition for them. So it's been, thank you, Rick. It's been, it was a good one.

Starting point is 01:59:56 Amazing. So I want to ask just as we start coming to a close, a few questions. One is, what are your hopes and dreams for the next few years? And I want you to also answer something, which is one of the questions, you may not remember this, but it was a very important question for me to ask very early on, which was, I asked something along the lines of, how do you ensure that you do not over-harvest or end up doing more damage than good because people respond to incentives. If this economic model works, if the product is very, very high quality, which it is, if there is a lot of demand, how do you ensure that you're not seduced by the sirens of capitalism

Starting point is 02:00:35 and end up becoming something antithetical to your current ethos? And so maybe that ties in just in terms of rules, objectives that you've set for yourselves as a company. But broadly speaking also, hopes and goals over the next few years. Okay, so I'll answer the second first in that our mission is to achieve balance. And defining balance, we don't actually get to do that, which is probably really important.

Starting point is 02:01:04 So we have the tools to make sure we can measure, like we talked about during surveys, we have the tools to make sure we measure really accurately how many we're harvesting and the impact it's having, but the individual landowners ultimately make that decision. And then the community at large gets to weigh in as well through public lands. And so if we've done our job really well deer will find a place within our food systems not within our critical ecosystems that collect water and not at densities that impact our reefs they will find a way into our food systems in these mid elevations and the ranchers are already pointing to that they get to decide what densities

Starting point is 02:01:44 they want and they can only have densities that are healthy, i.e. they grow enough grass that those animals are healthy and sustainable. We get to be the tool to help find balance. We actually don't get to answer the question, which is the guarding agent between us doing more harm than good. They get to make that decision, which is awesome. The community gets to make that decision. And there'll be some ranchers that decide, ranchers are grass farmers, right? There'll be some ranchers that decide, I'm not doing cattle anymore. I want more deer in this area. But we have the tool to manage them the same way they would a cattle herd. And that's really my hope for what we're doing at Maui Nui is we find the balance that's best for all of our communities, ecosystem communities, food system communities, human communities, nearshore fisheries. And the great part about what we've talked about today is where there's just so much iteration to what we do.

Starting point is 02:02:41 And it's so variable that it's the infinite game for us that we're just going to keep doing it every single year trying to find balance because some years you'll have more rain some years you won't and we'll constantly be able to go back to our community and say how is this working what does this look like and i think maybe that's the like balance is maybe my hope for like life as a whole and like personal goals i don't have this is not a multi-billion dollar business for us i'm so content we already love the place that we're in like i don't need bigger brighter shinier things if i've done a great job letting go that rope really slowly and collectively like we've talked about today growing incredible people I never realized how much value I'd find in growing teams.

Starting point is 02:03:28 I didn't know I was going to come back to that like I did with sports. And seeing the extraordinary group of people that are now at Maui Nui and being the shield that ensures there's only ever great people there, ourselves included in that process, man, that is hope enough and mission enough.

Starting point is 02:03:48 Like if I can do those two things really well, that'll be more than enough. And I think that'll go a long way in serving community and hopefully my kids and- A whole shebang. Yeah. Dig it. So last question is the billboard question.

Starting point is 02:04:03 This is sometimes a dead end. So I'll take the blame if it goes sideways, but if it goes well, I'll give you all the credit. So simple question. There is a billboard, metaphorically speaking, right? You can get a message out to hundreds of millions, billions of people. Could be an image, could be a quote,

Starting point is 02:04:23 could be a word, could be a question, could be anything. Could also be something you want to remind yourself of. Could be any of those things. What might you put on that billboard? I remember thinking about this, listen to your podcast for years. It may not make perfect sense when you read it, but the first business book I ever read was called The little red book of selling. It was this like tiny little thing. I got another book and a quote in there stuck with me for years and it was pick up the phone. And early in my career,

Starting point is 02:04:53 that meant pick up the phone, take any opportunity, do everything like just always, always pick up the phone. And later as I've grown, it's turned into less of like pick up the phone and later as I've grown it's turned into less of like pick up the phone and take those opportunities but address the thing that is in front of you that you don't want to like have the uncomfortable conversation like pick up the phone like just do it and what it's resulted in is a very rapid iteration of like taking action constantly and not being a lot of downtime in between it and

Starting point is 02:05:26 now it means today just addressing all of those hard things that are like in front of growth or with my family so if it if that billboard said pick up the phone that could mean something to somebody really different like maybe that's your mom that's calling that you don't want to like pick up the phone but for me it just it constantly iterated. And it's been this crazy thing that has stuck with me for, I mean, I read the book like 20 years ago. And it's just this thing that plays in my head all the time. Like when I see something that I don't want to do or I know that has to get done immediately, I say, pick up the phone. And I just like, I'm able to just do it immediately. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:06:00 Pick up the phone. Good reminder. What a good reminder. Jake Muse. Good reminder. What a good reminder. Jake Muse. Francais. So nice to see you, man. Always so good to see you, my friend. And people can check out Maui Nui

Starting point is 02:06:16 at mauinuivenison.com on all the socials at Maui Nui Venison. I love this company. I love the ethos. I love your family. I love the ethos. I love your family. I love the impact that it's having. And this is not because we're meeting today, but if you look at my backpack right now,

Starting point is 02:06:35 I have three of the, what's the right way to describe them? Pepper sticks. Is that fair enough? Yeah, pepper sticks. So the pepper sticks, which are, I guess now I know what, 10 to 11 grams of protein per stick, something like that. So I just throw three, if I need to be on the run and I need some quick

Starting point is 02:06:53 pick-me-up for breakfast or snack or quick lunch, just 30 grams-ish of protein, I just throw three of those in. And a lot of my protein for the last several years has been Maui Nui and I feel good about it I feel really good about it and I feel good overall so uh what an adventure yeah well can't tell you how much we've appreciated the support and insight and advice so it's been highly impactful as well yeah what uh what a gift it's been to get to know you and to realize, like you said, your family's very down to earth, but connected with the earth

Starting point is 02:07:33 in a way that is very aspirational for me. I really think very fondly, I still have photos on my phone, of just us sitting around a fire, whether it's having a fire at night and just decompressing or having the most delicious slash shitty instant coffee in the morning which is just fantastic though it really makes a difference when you get up at five in the morning and it's just fucking you know you've been freezing your nuts off, which, surprise, surprise, can happen in Hawaii at elevation.

Starting point is 02:08:08 And you have that coffee and you're with people you really care about and you feel close to. It puts in stark relief how much nonsense and garbage we fill our lives with when, in fact, when you just sit with close bonds, in close proximity and connection to nature, how much something very deep is nourished that alleviates much of the hunger for a lot of these trappings. A true connection to place, whether personally or professionally, can essentially solve for anything. Connection to place.

Starting point is 02:08:48 Jake Muse, so great to see you, man. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much, my friend. And to everybody listening, we will link to all sorts of stuff, all the books, HHS, video clips, everything you can imagine that we've covered in this conversation.

Starting point is 02:09:02 Probably not the secret Pinterest board. You have to make that for yourself. We'll put those in the show notes at TimDuckBlogs.com slash podcast. You can just search Jake and it will pop right up. And as always, my recommendation is be just a little bit kinder than is necessary, not only to others, but to yourself. And until next time, thanks for tuning in. Mahalo nui. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter,

Starting point is 02:09:43 my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field. And then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.

Starting point is 02:10:25 If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is one of my favorite companies out there, one of my favorite platforms ever. And let's get into it. Shopify is a platform, as I mentioned, designed for anyone to sell anything anywhere, giving

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #678: Jake Muise — The Relentless Pursuit of Innovation, Quality, and Meaning

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