The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 29. Kyle Forgeard of Nelk Boys | Optimizing His Health, and Staying Disciplined to Build His Brand Empire

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Join our FREE 3 Day Breathwork Challenge: https://theultimatehuman.com/breathwork Get weekly tips from Gary Brecka on how to optimize your health and lifestyle routines - go to https://www.theultimatehuman.com/ For more info on Gary, please click here: https://linktr.ee/thegarybrecka ECHO GO PLUS HYDROGEN WATER BOTTLE https://echoh2o.com/?oid=19&affid=236 BODY HEALTH - USE CODE ULTIMATE10 for 10% OFF YOUR ORDER https://bodyhealth.com/ultimate How did a YouTube prank channel turn into a multi-million dollar business empire? Gary Brecka sits down for an in-depth conversation with entrepreneur Kyle Forgeard, the man behind Nelk, Full Send, and Happy Dad to talk about about navigating YouTube demonetizing his channels, turning fan engagement into lucrative merch drops, and partnering with John and Sam Shahidi to launch the future billion dollar seltzer brand, Happy Dad. Kyle found himself at his lowest point last Summer and knew he needed to make a change. After years of drinking and partying, he committed to turning his health around and has naturally seen improvements in his testosterone, liver function, and has completely changed the way he approaches life and business. 0:00 - Who is Kyle Forgeard? 02:45 - How did Kyle and Nelk get started? 05:50 - What inspired him to drop out of University? 08:45 - How does he come up with video ideas? 10:10 - Why it was good that YouTube demonetized their channel. 11:00 - How did they get started in merch? 14:50 - How much money does Full Send make off merch? 18:00 - How Kyle got connected with John and Sam Shahidi 20:00 - Why they started Happy Dad Hard Seltzers. 24:00 - What did they do to launch Happy Dad? 26:00 - Why it’s important to have in-person connections and meet-ups. 29:40 - When did Kyle start working with Gary Brecka? 32:30 - Gary breaks down Kyle Forgeard’s numbers. 36:00 - What changes did Kyle make to improve his health? 37:20 - Gary breaks down the protocol the clinical team put Kyle on. 39:30 - What boundaries did he have to set with the people around him? 41:45 - Keto Diet 43:45 - How public accountability helped him make better decisions. 46:30 - How has focusing on his health impacted his business? 49:45 - The impact of the Shahidi brothers. 51:30 - Launching Happy Dad in Canada. 53:00 - Happy Dad is launching a Hard Tea. 54:30 - Behind the scenes of having Donald Trump on the Full Send Podcast. 55:30 - How Kyle and Dana White became friends. 01:03:00 - Interviewing Elon Musk. 01:03:40 - How improving his health has changed everything he does.  FOLLOW Gary Brecka: @garybrecka The Ultimate Human: @ultimatehumanpod Follow Kyle Forgeard: @Kyle Follow the Full Send Podcast: Full Send YouTube Follow NELK: NELK YouTube Happy Dad: https://happydad.com/ Subscribe on YouTube: @ultimatehumanpodcast Disclaimer: The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think just this summer I kind of honestly just hit like a breaking point. I gotta make a change in my life. Yeah. Or I'm not gonna last. Like everything I'm doing is gonna be for nothing if I don't have my physical health. I'm gonna go hard on this transformation in the gym because I've said I'm gonna do this so many times. It was so much partying and like after one weekend I put it on my

Instagram called it the legendary Toronto vendor. And you're not thinking you're just go go go go we, go. We're selling merch. We're like doing, getting big videos and stuff. So now I got to do what I got to do. All right, Gary's got my back. Every week I'm going to earn the send. I definitely was living like an extremely unhealthy lifestyle. Yeah. Your enzymes in your liver show no inflammation, no irritation. Your poison levels, the alkaline phosphatases way down. The filtering rate of your kidneys is through the roof. Your triglycerides are perfect. Your cholesterol is in a great range. Yeah. It just makes you better at everything you do, right? When you're mentally focused and clear and you learn to apply it to all other areas of

your life, you've got to put in that physical work. It's a grind business. You can't take your foot off the gas. Don't come to us with a hundred K. Don't come to us with a million dollars a year. I'm not doing anything that's not going to be a billion dollar play. We would get like 300,000 people on the site at the time of a drop. Our biggest one was $13 million in like 22 minutes. I have to be an ultimate human podcast i'm your host human biologist gary brekka where we go down the road of everything anti-aging longevity biohacking and everything in between this is a really awesome day for me, you know, because I have a friend, someone who's been a client of mine for a number of years. I actually just found out that you've been a client for almost two years now. He is an icon in the social media world and the brand building world.

You're going to know who this guest is. He is the founder of the Nelk Boys, someone that I'm really happy to call a personal friend. Welcome to the podcast, Kyle Forga. Thank you, bro. What's going on, brother? Thanks for having me. Appreciate you. We did a little biohacking before this.

I know, we did. Yeah, we did. We just did the Full Sun podcast, and then we did what? Cold plunge, steam room. I don't know what that hydrogen tub was. Yeah, we did cold plunge. We did steam room. My neck was just fucked up 20 minutes ago, and now it's good.

Is it? Yeah, it feels a lot better. Yeah, it's amazing. You put them in nanobubbles of hydrogen, right? It actually just fucked up 20 minutes ago, and now it's good. Is it? Yeah, it feels a lot better. Yeah, it's amazing. You put them in nanobubbles of hydrogen, right? I mean, it looks like something out of a sci-fi novel. Yeah. Wait until people see the pictures of you with the goggles on.

Every time we come here, it's just fun. We get to do the whole biohacking setup. This setup's crazy. Yeah, I love it. And I love that you guys are so into it. And we're going to talk a little bit about our health journey. Kyle's agreed to be fully transparent with it, which I love it. And I love that you guys are so into it. You know, and we're going to talk about a little bit about our health journey. Kyle's agreed to like be fully transparent with it, which I love. So we're going to talk about where his labs were and where his labs have gone. Because, you know, one of my main themes is I just think people need to get data on their bodies.

100%. But I want to talk about your journey too, because it's, you know, I have a deep level of respect for you guys. Just as human beings have gotten to know you and your family and your partners. And you guys are just great humans. We've got a lot of great relationships in common. But you founded The Noteboy. You originally started in Canada. Yeah, we started in Canada.

I'm from just outside Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario. So I think I made the channel in 2010. So this is, and when you say made the channel, were you on YouTube? YouTube, the YouTube channel, Ontario. So I think I made the channel in 2010. So, so this is, and when you say made the channel, you were on YouTube, YouTube, the YouTube channel. Yeah. It was called actually Nelk films with like a Zed when I made it just in a way I didn't know. You know, he's from Canada with the Zed. Yeah, exactly. He just gave it away. Yeah. But no, I just made it like not thinking anything, just making a channel even to like comment on other people's shit or like other people's videos, subscribe them and then yeah i've always just been making videos since i was

like a kid like just for fun and then i'd put them on facebook like funny videos messing around and then in high school i got like really good at like the directing directing and like editing side of stuff okay so like when i was in like high school i wanted to be like a director oh wow that's what i wanted to do so i was like i was shooting short films like even serious shit like not pranks we were doing both we'd shoot like serious shit we'd shoot like sketch comedy and then we'd go fuck around and do a prank like we were doing everything really and we're but for the short films i was like winning awards and stuff and were you trying you were trying to put together an actual film like a real story like a short a short movie. Yeah, like short films. Yeah.

Like we would enter the competitions in school and stuff and we would win. I would win every single year. So then my parents obviously wanted me to go to university, like get a degree and stuff too. Right. And so I applied to this film program that it was like you get the college, like, you know, real world film experience, but you also get a degree. So that was like the program I really wanted to get into I got into that I was like, alright, this is sick Like this is the directing program. I want to be in you know Then we were still doing YouTube on the side and our YouTube started to like pick up, you know

We get like 10,000 views and then 15,000 views and then like one video would hit like 200,000 views Wow Yeah, so then and I was in school and I was just like, you're in high school. No, I was in like university at the time, like first semester in university when the YouTube started to like take off, I think we're at like 30,000 subscribers. Okay. And I was just in the school and I was just like, I don't feel like I'm actually like learning anything that's actually going to help me make it, you know, you weren't passionate't passionate like when you're getting a degree too like you're not just doing film like i had to take like an art class where i'm like drawing shit and i can't draw for shit or i had

to take like i can't either i had to take like art history just like you know what i mean like you're just sitting there and then when it did when it did come to the film classes not to like shit on university teachers but you're kind of learning from someone that didn't really like make it at the end of the day right but obviously you can learn a lot of stuff but you know what i mean like i just didn't feel like they were focused on like the business of film like everyone there would like say like their favorite movie was like some japanese art film i've never heard of and i was like how are you guys gonna make like a living doing this you know like i like just watching like Hollywood movies and I wanted to like do that you know so then I decided to drop out and I told my parents I was just like listen if I want to

be a director or be my own like businessman be my own boss I feel like this YouTube route is the way to go because like I could build my own platform. I could build my own audience. That was early in YouTube too, man. Early. Yeah. Yeah. It was something called the YouTube partner program. And it was, um, where you could make money off YouTube. They had like almost just introduced it. Okay. And I was watching all the YouTubers and they were getting like millions of views and they were in the YouTube partner program. And I was like, there's no way you can like make a living off doing YouTube. Like I was like, that sounds like the fucking dream. This was before anybody knew what an influencer was. Oh yeah.

I mean, there were no influencers. This was like 20, yeah, 2012. Yeah. Around there, 2012,

2013. So it was totally different, you know? And yeah, I saw all those YouTubers doing it and they're making money and they're like, you know, getting rich off YouTube too. Like they were balling. And I was like, damn, like that would be the dream. So

once we got that little bit of traction, we started making like a thousand dollars a month. Like I remember our first check from Google was like, like you got it in the mail. Yeah. Like I was so pumped to like, I kept checking the mailbox every single day. I was like, when's this coming? Cause it was like, cause you got the email, like, all right, you're you're being sent like 530 dollars and then like I went in the mailbox and checked it people watching your videos and they're throwing ads yeah they're throwing ads on it so yeah I remember we got that first check it was like yeah 500 bucks or 250 bucks something like that but I was like this is like sick this is legit I got a business yeah and then we were you know we were making enough money to kind of just sustain the operation.

Like we weren't like making pocketing money, you know, but we made enough to like start traveling or whether we had to buy props or, you know, we got to buy new SD cards or the camera breaks. Just enough to kind of fund that operation. What were you like focusing on? Pranks mainly? We were doing like skits, like short sketches. But then, yeah, the pranks is what really that's when it started to like kind of take off yeah yeah because jackass was kind of biggish around that era yeah and so was it like kind of like there was like a whole group of pranks was like a huge like trend on youtube that everyone was doing and i think we were trying them out and

we were getting like traction on it but um i think everyone was kind of trying to copy that typical prank formula since everyone else was doing it but when we got big was when we really just kind of started being ourselves and like drinking beers like making cocaine jokes like just like just saying like shit that no one else was saying on youtube i I think everyone was very PG. So when we, like we would go to like an LA party and like shotgun a beer and like people would look at us like we're aliens. Well, I remember your trip to Mexico that you guys did that whole, that was a couple of years later, but that was pretty intense.

Yeah. Which, yeah. Well, I think we did. I don't know. You went to a winery and wine all over yourselves. Yeah. That's one of our funny ones we did the wine tour where we'll go basically ruin a wine tour we'll have to run

some b-roll of that into the into the podcast because it's pretty pretty hilarious yeah so you're making all you so you're you're doing pranks you're in you're and you're doing it on youtube and you're starting to make money and what's gaining traction is just you guys being yourselves and you're just who who's making up the who's making up the scenarios that you're doing would you guys sit down and plan this shit probably all yeah all of us just brainstorming whether you're in the car just chilling like you're always my mind's always going yeah like i'm thinking on planes like i'll wake up to take a piss in the middle of the night and i'm i might honestly think of an idea that we use like i feel like my mind never shuts off yeah so it's always been like that yeah it's a good thing i mean like um it's

there's something called consummate overachiever profile where people they hold themselves to a really high standard in whatever they're doing right it could be vlogging pranks instagram youtube football it could be professional sports. We actually looked at your genetic profile and you have this consummate overachiever profile, which is where your mind is just constantly running. And you're never satisfied with the status quo. And that's why a lot of people get to a certain position

in life and you look at them and you go, why is this guy still going? Right, I i mean doesn't he have everything he he wants um and so theoretically you could throw it in neutral right now um but what was the transition from doing these videos and and gaining eyeballs on youtube you you started to turn it into a real company like real products i think on the business side and the financial side and we started like when we would travel we would stay at fans houses because we couldn't even afford to

like stay in hotels because of how much we were traveling so yeah we literally started like pretty much just broke like I said so yeah we would put on snapchat and we would say like hey who's we're in Dallas like who wants who can we crash who can we crash at and then i would go on snap and i'd like kind of vet them talk to them for a sec and then i'd facetime them and i could just kind of get a gauge after that if they were like weird or not yeah and no one was ever weird we probably stayed at like 30 different fans houses really just crash on their couch or wherever they do those fans nowadays are like dude that on my couch yeah we still tap in with like a lot of them and stuff. Really? Yeah, yeah. That's kind of cool because they were part of a, you know,

like the early chapter. But when we started to like make it more on the business side, what really kind of made, we'd do like an odd brand deal, but our whole thing was that YouTube stopped paying us because we were too like R-rated. Controversial. Yeah, so. They didn't cancel you though.

They didn't cancel us. Almost they did. But, um, yeah, they, they stopped paying us. So we weren't making any money off YouTube. Like that $500 check was like, we made more back then than like when it came to like 2015, 2016, we weren't making anything. Wow. So we're like, and that was just cause we were R rated.

We were making those types of jokes. YouTube didn't want to monetize our videos. So, but it was honestly a blessing in disguise because it kind of forced us to get smart and it's like okay now if youtube's not paying us how do we build like businesses around our audience so what what we did was we launched like merch so that's like a real tipping point um it was yeah it was huge i, it was huge. I mean, it was like, we got to have entrepreneurs do that. Yeah. And it was a blessing in disguise because all these other YouTubers that kind of like, they're making hundreds of thousands a month and we're just watching, we're like, fuck, like we're not, we're not making that. So, right. But I think it

was, yeah, it was a blessing in disguise. Cause like those people didn't really have to build anything longterm right they were just getting that quick money but i hope they saved it because now they have they don't have anything long term you know what i'm saying we were forced to build like a brand okay that you know so we launched merch and then we would do it where were you still in canada at this time no we were we were going back and forth but we were probably in la okay yeah because you went the most important part of my morning routine beyond any shadow of a doubt is breath work i decided to write a free three-day breath work guide and host a three-day breath work challenge absolutely free go to the ultimate

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Yeah, so we just decided to do merch. And what we would do for that is we tried to go like more like high-end quote unquote with it. It was kind of more like a clothing line and we coined the term full send. Okay. So we heard, like, I think I heard one of my buddies say it. Yeah. And then we just started saying it in videos, full send. Okay. So we heard, like, I think I heard one of my buddies say it. Yeah.

And then we just started saying it in videos, full send, and it just became, like, you know, that term's, like, bigger than us. Like, you don't need to know Nelk to know the name, like, full send. No, it's so true, man. So we started putting it on shirts and stuff, and we would do it limited. So we'd only make, like, 2,000. Once it sells out, it sells out. We never restocked that design.

So it kind of became, like, the supreme of, like, YouTuber of like youtuber merch it did like i actually have um uh confession to make and a little bit of a bone to pick you with you because my son was like youngest son dylan was adamantly following you guys and he'd be like dad can can i use your credit card i want to there's there's a merch drop there's no way i'm like what do you mean a fucking merch what like first of all what's a merch drop he's like oh dude that you know full sense doing a merch drop and i. I'm like, what do you mean a fucking merch drop? First of all, what's a merch drop? He's like, oh, dude, Full Send's doing a merch drop. And I was like, he's like, yeah, I want to get a lanyard. So I'm like, yeah, here, I swear to God.

I think I still have it. And I want my 52 bucks back, by the way. He paid $52 for a lanyard. So he takes my Amex and he buys this thing and it comes to the house. And I was like, what is this? And it was like a little lanyard. It said Full Send on it. It had a little, I'm like, you paid 52? And it was like a little lanyard. It said full send on it. It had a little club.

I'm like, you paid $52 for this thing. Who are these guys? That's crazy. So your shit was working. It was $52, you guys. Oh, shit. I don't know about that. It might have been a reseller.

Like, you would drop the merch. Stuff would get reselled. And then it would, yeah, and then it would sell out. And he was like, I had to get it on a third-party website. Yeah, that's it. Can you throw me that thing? Let me show you guys what I've paid $52 for. Yeah, I think we were selling them for 10 bucks.

Okay, well, my son paid 52 on a reseller website. So can I keep this now? Yeah. Right, cool. That's my full send. It's a bottle opener too. Yeah, it's a bottle opener too. See, he's trying to build value in it.

That's an entrepreneur right there. It's not just a lanyard. It's also a bottle opener but i mean you know hats off to you guys because i know i could not have been the only parent that was like funding this and he was cultishly addicted to it because i remember he kept talking about these merch drops so these are these merch drops yeah it was crazy well and it was it was kind of crazy because like our fans were the ones that's literally how we were making our money like we were not doing any brand deals like no brands wanted to fuck with us either like youtube didn't want to pay us if there was a brand deal it was minimal money it wasn't

worth our time no big brands wanted to touch us so the only way we were making money is off these merch like like we would make videos for our fans they were buying merch and it just kept growing and growing and growing and growing and growing. And we do bigger and bigger drops. And like, I don't know. I don't know if anyone's really done what we've done with merch in like that space. Can we talk about the numbers? You comfortable talking about this?

Like what are we talking about? I mean, at the height of it, it was like we would get like 300,000 people on the site at the time of a drop. Wow. So you would like, so you using YouTube to tease this. YouTube, Instagram, all our socials. So we'd build up the hype. We'd say the date and we'd plan like a whole trip. We'd kind of see when our merch drop was going to be.

So it's like, all right, we want to do a trip. We're going to like, we went to Europe for eight weeks and we shot and edited and uploaded a video every single week, every week. So we'd go to Germany, shoot the video, like shoot for four days. Then the editors would be there. They'd get the footage. They'd edit it. They'd have three days to edit it. We'd post it. Boom. It's live. And in that video we'd announce, all right guys, in we have we have a full sun drop it's going to be the summer drop okay and then we'd upload every single week and then you constantly build the hype scarce right like so yeah so things would always sell we'd always we'd always make it

scarce to where and they were they were selling out in like five minutes wow but yeah we would we would always show how many people we had on the site. And yeah, I think at the height, it was like 305,000 people. That's insane. Our biggest one was like $13 million in like 22 minutes. No. Gross revenue. $13 million in 22 minutes. Now you guys know you're on to something.

Yeah. I mean, it was insane. Wow. It was fucking crazy. So then where does it go from there? Because now the merch is a part of the journey, and people are like, I mean, dude, I see it everywhere now. I mean, we'll get to that.

UFC, Happy Dad, Full Send. I mean, you guys are just incredible, especially in what I consider to be a really kind of super competitive space. There's so much noise out on social media. You know, I often think about how do you break through all that noise? And so you got merch drops, you're traveling, you're doing these, you're continuing to use videos.

The YouTube channel, I assume, is blowing up at this point too. Did they ever come back and start monetizing YouTube? No, we still don't get monetized. Even on the Nelk channel right now, we don't. Really? The podcast is a little more brand safe. And YouTube likes podcasts.

But we don't even care about the ad money. And then also now you can't use copyright music. No. So we just, we rather use like a 50 cent song and a montage than use some royalty free shit. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah, I mean. So you start

dropping the merch and then it continues to evolve right um where do like the shahidis and brothers come in and yeah so yeah merch is killing it we're just like you know we're doing our thing and then yeah i was always just kind of like obviously we were living in la at the time too at this now we're full-time la and i I always just want to, yeah, I was always looking for the right people to come in and just kind of help me like legitimize the business, you know? Cause like I was pretty good at what I did too, but I'm also like a creative mind too. Like I don't have real life business experience. Um, so, you know, we'd meet different people and i was always keeping my eye out i know we needed someone to come in and kind of run the business side of things properly if we

want to really build like a billion dollar brand yeah so i would meet like some people and we honestly even partnered with like like bad apples like we got close to like holy shit we would not be here if we partnered with those type of people but yeah and you know i think every entrepreneur goes through that of course and yeah you got to be careful don't partner with be very careful I'm sure you know about choosing your partners god it's like choosing your spouse yeah it is you got to be very careful um but yeah I met John and Sam I think that uh I think I think John had dm'd me but he was out to dinner with he told me this story he was out to dinner with Justin Bieber

and we were at the same restaurant and we had talked online me and John but then I think like Justin had like he's from Canada too so he'd seen our shit and I think he'd like fucked with the videos so he asked John if we could go say hi to

come up to us so like they like they came up to our table i was like holy fuck yeah this is just i've looked up to him like growing up in canada just what he was able to achieve and then we met that way and i met john that night and then we i think we grabbed dinner me and john and sam like literally the next night and we kind of just talked and like they said listen like no they were they were talent managers right I mean yeah I mean Bieber, Kanita like yeah they were they were managing talent and then Bieber invested in their company the shot like the shots company yeah so they were working with like I was I would see John like through Bieber stuff too so I was kind of like aware of

them but I didn't really know exactly what they did but yeah when we met at dinner we just honestly kind of like instantly clicked yeah even just as like friends like we just vibed yeah they're they're the best and then um they kind of just said like yo how can we help yeah like we'd love to do something with you guys like we know they're like we know the merch is already kind of killing it we don't want to step on any toes there but they're like how can we help and i already kind of killing it. We don't want to step on any toes there, but they're like, how can we help? And I was like, listen, if you guys want a project managing something, if you guys want a project, manage something. I was like, I want to start a fucking alcohol.

Wow. Yeah. And I was like, if you guys want to take that project on and you guys project manage that, I was like, let's do it. Because. So that's the genesis of happy dad. What I kind of didn't say too is that in all those videos we were doing we were drinking like fucking fish yeah every every fucking video

like yeah we were drinking coronas and we repped uh we would say rona season ah so and we were selling corona wouldn't pay us too like we kind of tried to contact them but they didn't want to touch us right because we're like drinking in public at that point and like doing crazy shit i kind of understand it now that i'm in the alcohol space but we were selling rona season shirts i kid you not we sold 20,000 in 24 hours no they just said rona season so i was like what was that doing for their brain and i would go then i'd pull up to frats and we'd pull up to parties and everyone's drinking Corona and everyone's in real life saying Rona season, Rona season. And I'm like, when I saw that, I was like, okay, we have a fucking influence on this shit. Like we have a real influence. And when I saw what we did with

Corona, I was like, I'm not doing anything in alcohol. That's not going to be a billion dollar play. I was like, don't come to us with a hundred not going to be a billion dollar play i was like don't come to us with 100k don't come to us with a million dollars a year like other alcohol companies would come to us and be like hey want like between all of nelk you guys want like 10 of this alcohol company and i was like get the hell out of here yeah this this play is going to be a billion dollar play so when i met them that's why i said i want to start alcohol wow so after that we kind of we just did it and then you guys go through a whole bunch of iterations should we do of course should we do vodka should we do a seltzer yeah i think we knew at that point that i wanted to do a seltzer because we had started drinking seltzers at that point

and um even back then we were everyone was starting we were hitting the gym and we knew seltzers were like slightly more healthy. Alcohol is not healthy. You can't say it's healthy. But yeah, beers, like, you know, they bloat you high in carbs and stuff. Like we were talking about it on the pod. So we knew we wanted to start a seltzer. And then they brought in the Butow brothers, who are our partners as well.

They have like a long history in the alcohol industry. And we kind of started from a point of this like seltzer and then we tasted it we said change this this this this but it was completely from scratch wow so it's a crowded space too i mean the seltzer space is crowded it was more yeah it was crowd it's more crowded i think over the last two years than it was then but yeah it took us probably like a year and a half between the different taste tests to get the flavor to where we wanted to launch it yeah because we would try it say all right change this this one needs less sweetener this one needs more this one's too carbonated like flavor wise right and then it would take another month to get the sample back then it's like uh almost there changes change that

wow took us like yeah like they are pretty good man i don't rep alcohol but they are good i think i mean i i think it's the best seltzer out there for it is it's it's it's freaking delicious um but you're you're breaking into um you know kind of a i don't want to say bratty bland brand in a negative way but this is you don't have like the icon of Budweiser or, you know, big established brands and you're breaking into a crowded space. How did you get distribution? I mean, how do you get Southern Wine and Spirits

and Shell Space if, you know, you don't have that? So that was kind of like, that's what I kind of looked for from John and Sam. And they honestly, they are doing a fucking insane. I know. I talk to Sammy sometimes, John too. And they just blow my mind with their business acumen. Like where'd these guys come from?

They're like business. That's what I mean about choosing good partners is that like, I knew that what NELC brought to the table, I think when you're choosing a partner, you got to realize like what you bring to the table and what the other people are going to bring to the table. And like each person has to play their role properly, you know? Right. That's why like, we're not gonna be able to build happy dad by ourselves. Like I'm aware of our influence. I'm aware of like what we can do to make people buy it, but I don't want to know about trucks and fucking what shipments are going, like what? So you got to know when to like, let go of like what you're, what you're good at and what you're not good at, you know? Right.

So that's what like Sammy and John are doing, like the business side of happy dad, they're absolutely crushing it. No, they're so, but yeah, but what John did was, um, yeah, the go puff founders like Raph and yeah, they're, they're, they're some of the first to believe in us. And, uh, they got us in BevMo, which is the biggest chain in California. Okay. And Grutman, too. Grutman's been, like, an amazing—yeah, he helps us out like crazy. He got it into all his restaurants, and obviously he's connected us with so many different people.

Yeah, same with me. David Booth at RNDC. So just, like, yeah, that's how it kind of started. And then we just used our sales data to, you know, once it started selling in BevMo, which is the biggest chain in California, then Total Wine Calls, then eventually we can pitch it to Publix.

And it's just a domino effect. You guys are still organically building the brand, right? I mean, like, so basically this is in your videos. It's like, it's in the videos. It's on Instagram. Now when we're shooting videos like it's all through the same way we did merch it's like it's in the videos it's on instagram now when we're shooting videos it's like yo how are we going to integrate happy dad into the videos yeah right and then you're but you're um you know you got the youtube channel you're integrating it into the videos but then you're also doing you you go to destinations and you do pop-ups and you do other things well the alcohol industry is such

an old school business right so it's it's really a shaking hands business that you got to put in that physical work and it's like it's a grind business you can't take your foot off the gas so we're also aware like yeah if we pull up like i think next week we got to go to like south carolina and we're going to like a couple like and what do you do you parachute into south carolina and you hit a couple up we'll pull up to liquor stores announce we're going to be there yeah go meet the liquor store owners thank them like thank them for carrying us like supporting us as well and then yeah we'll draw a crowd there probably like 300 people or whatever like some are bigger than others right we'll sell the shit out of the product but then we'll also kind of drop

like a local bomb when we go there because we'll hit the small towns right we're not going to like just like dallas la new york miami like we're going to like butt fuck nowhere south carolina we'll go we'll go anywhere yeah we like hitting the small towns dude i love that where there's nothing going on so then everyone like hears about it like who are these guys that are here yeah oh they have this seltzer happy dad like and then next thing you know everyone everyone's trying it. Does it still shock you that like you get on site and, and so many people in a bumblefuck middle of nowhere town know you. It's crazy.

And what's crazy now is that, like I said, I made the channel in 2010 and like, I think we started selling merch like yeah, 2014. Wow. At these meetups, people will pull up in merch that we sold like no lie, nine years ago. Wow. At these meetups, people will pull up in merch that we sold, like no lie, nine years ago.

Wow. And they're still rocking the merch. And they're rocking it. And they're like, I've been watching you for nine, like 10 years. That's so awesome, man. Which is crazy. That's such a cool journey, man. But yeah, no, Happy Dad's just, it's crushing it.

And that's, it's exactly the way that I wanted to do it. Was there ever a time that you maybe thought that you weren't going to make it in that? I mean, in Happy Dad or just in general? No, in Happy Dad, did it just kind of? No, the initial, I knew it was going to, I knew if we had distribution, it was going to fucking sell. Yeah. The only tough part, I knew Nelk could push it. I knew we could get that initial spike.

I knew if we had distribution, that's why I looked to John and Sam and I knew note could push it I knew we could get that initial spike um I knew if we had distribution that's why I looked to John and Sam and I knew like all right these guys are the right people they're connected they're smart they know how to run a business if they can get distribution and we can cause you know the initial hype this is going to be a home run that's so awesome yeah so um fast forwarding a little bit uh you know i i meet you in 2022 um and it we started a health journey together um with you and and it was cool because um i think grutman introduced us yeah yeah and and you were like i just i want to get dialed in i'm traveling i'm not sleeping you know i want to get some info and you know so we we decided you know we decided we were going to work together and and i i got some numbers here because these are astounding and you know i always like to because this is a health and wellness podcast. I always like to talk about what impact has it made on you, um,

to have just gotten a hold of your health, like when to just improve your sleep and, and to just start getting some data on your body so that you can better operate your business. And then I want to go into some of the numbers because people, people are always interested, like, well, what exactly did you do? I think it's everything, man. I think that, like, you know, like I said, I've been doing this for a while. So I've been traveling, like, staying at fans' houses, and then just, like, you're partying, you're drinking. Like, I did that for, like, God, we're just kind of—we're still not slowed down. We're still not slowed down.

But now we're better at—I'm older now, turning 30 next year. So, like, the hangovers hit me way harder. But, you know, back then, when you're, like, 21, they're like— down we're still not slowed down but now we're better at i'm older now turning 30 next year so like the hangovers hit me way harder but yeah you know back then when you're like 21 yeah when you're 21 so like even 25 makes up for everything you don't feel shit so like dude we're traveling we're drinking almost like i don't know every day every like other day and you're not thinking you're just go go go go we're selling. We're selling merch. We're like doing, getting big videos and stuff. So I definitely was living like an extremely unhealthy lifestyle. Yeah.

And it didn't really affect me. But then the older I got, it really started to, to hit. You started to notice it. Yeah. It started to affect me mentally, especially the last, I mean, honestly, as recently as like probably this summer, that's when it really, like, I was like, yo, I got to make a change in my life or I'm not going to last. Like everything I'm doing is, is going to be for nothing if I don't have my mental health and my physical health. And what was the biggest things that were like bringing that to your attention?

I think it was just, it was just like, just the way I felt after, like, you know, like I'll still go, I'm still going out. I'm not sober or anything, but it's just about balance. You want a space tomorrow morning. I want a space tomorrow morning. Dude, I love this tactic, though. Go to bed at a regular normal hour, then get up at 5 in the morning. That's just going to be a funny video.

That's going to be awesome. I thought that was hilarious because you guys are like, we're going to space. I'm like, oh, that's freaking hardcore. No, we're actually going to go to bed and then get up and then go to space yeah but no i was just adding up it was just like all those years of drinking and partying and then the benders like if you do three days in a row of partying you're fucking done like i'm done now yeah so i think i've kind of done that in my life already now and like I've partied with every celebrity. I've met everybody. I've been, I've experienced so much cool shit that now I'm just kind of just like, it's, it's harder to

get me out of the, it's, it's harder to convince me to come out and party. Yeah. To be honest, you know, like I'll go out if it's something dope. Like we went to what the fountain blue opening. Yeah. That was like, those are times where it's like cool shit like that, you know? But if it's not anything like just to go out and party yeah just to go out and party it's just like yeah it's whatever now hey guys if you've been watching the ultimate human podcast for any length of time you know that one thing i do not do is push products i do not just let any advertiser into this space because i believe that the products that appear on the ultimate human podcast should be things that i use every day in my life to improve my own physiology one of them is something called the echo go plus the

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is the most beneficial water that you can drink. And now you can take it wherever you go. You can go to echo, E-C-H-O, H2O.com. That's echo, E-C-H-O, H2O.com. Enter the code ULTI code ultimate 10 for a discount echo h 2 o entered the code ultimate 10 for a discount and now back to the ultimate human podcast on well i mean when when we met um you know we we decided we would take a deep dive and get some data so we we did a gene test and 2022 is probably fucking that was almost two years ago

so that was like oh yeah you want that was probably really bad you want to hear the numbers sure i mean i know you know these but you might have forgotten them um so some of the things that we looked at were you know how's the how's the liver doing like i mean oh that was probably down in the dumps oh it was it was taking quite the beating. Oh, it was taking quite the beating, my friend. Was it? Yeah, it was taking quite the beating. What was it on like a scale of 1 to 10, like on the rankings? Like a 2. Really?

If 10 is really good and 1 is like... 2 out of 10 liver function? It was like 2 out of 10, 3 out of 10. So there's a measure of like the enzymes, the amount of inflammation, the amount of irritation in the liver. These were triple digit in some cases. So you know I wasn't lying. Oh, you definitely weren't lying. Yeah.

Okay. These, if you want to know if he was really partying, I can prove that he was partying right here. So when the, you know, what happens in the liver is like when you, when it gets inflamed or irritated, it slows down its filtration rate. So the poison levels rise, something called alkaline phosphatase um the enzymes rise ast alt so these are these are through the roof um your cholesterol level for at the time 27 year old um male was through the roof you have virtually no vitamin d3 in your bloodstream um very high levels of sugar in the blood your hem hemoglobin A1c, like the three-month average of your blood sugar. And for a 27-year-old male, your testosterone was in the mid-300s.

So you can see that the body is not performing like a 27-year-old male because the liver's inflamed, the kidneys are a little irritated, testosterone's down, you know your your blood fat's high you know kind of hormones are off your sugars are really high you're on your way to being pre-diabetic and the reason why i put this message out there and i appreciate you allowing yourself to be vulnerable is that there's a lot of 27 year olds running around right now that don't think they can be killed by a bullet, right? Like they're, they're still living their best life and not maybe realizing, you know,

maybe now's the time to make the shift. And you fast forward to today. I mean, I think most people are familiar with your change. You know, we have a lot of overlapping, you know, followers out there, but it is astounding what you've done physically, but internally, I mean, your liver function is through the roof now now no information there's no inflammation so i got a 10 what is it now um like a 9.5 whoa almost a 10 you know your your enzymes in your liver show no inflammation no irritation your poison levels the alkaline phosphatase is way down the filtering rate of your kidneys is through the roof it's gone from in the 70s to like 117 which for anybody that knows what that number is egfr tells me how quickly is blood moving through your

kidneys so the more inflamed they get the slower the blood goes through the slower the blood goes through the more the poison levels blood urearea, nitrogen, creatinine. So these things start, you know, creeping up. Your sugars are perfect. Your hemoglobin A1C, the three month average of your blood sugar, you're no longer insulin resistant. Your triglycerides are perfect. Your cholesterol is in a great range. Your testosterone is in the 860, almost 900 range, right? And you you're not i want to just make it known you're not on testosterone right um you know our clinical team did not put you on on on hormones and so aside from getting the testing and taking some multivitamins and getting on the on the program like what are some of the changes you made lifestyle-wise,

exercise-wise, sleep-wise? Because these are major changes. I think even when I met you, when we did our first initial test, I was always just in and out of the gym. Okay. So I'd be consistent for like a month and then I would travel, which I had to do for work and, you know, film and then we'd be partying and then I'd kind of fall off. And then when I'd come back home, I'd try to pick it up again.

Yeah. But I think in my mind, I was was I kind of was just making a mental excuse I think that I was like kind of whenever I traveled I was like oh it's gonna be impossible like I was like there's no way like I'm gonna be just take three days I'm gonna be in a different city every three days like it's I'm not gonna get access to good food so I think I was just creating that mental excuse in my mind so you know when i was when you're home it's definitely 10 times easier right on the road it's definitely a challenge to find good food and like you know you might be in the airport you might be hungry and there's only like sandwiches and pizza and shit so it does make it tough but there's definitely ways to get it done and i think that uh yeah i just this summer, I kind of honestly just hit like a breaking point. Like it was so much partying and like,

I just, after one weekend, I put it on my Instagram, called it the legendary Toronto bender. And it was just three days just partying with my hometown boys. Just, we just went crazy. I want to write a book about it one day or make a movie. Yeah. But, um, after that, I was just like, yo, like i gotta make a change yeah like i seriously have to i remember the call actually yeah and you were like i'm ready dude yeah i want to go and it just clicked all in yeah balls out so i want to be specific about what we did so first we put you on a methylated multivitamin called 10x optimize and what this was designed to do was to give you all the nutrients

you're deficient in methylfolate b-complex um the specific b vitamins like methylcobalamin these are just vitamins and uh you know amino acids that are already in your bloodstream but we just dose them properly for you um because the liver was like irritated and inflamed we use something called glutathione and called glutathione. And glutathione is the most prevalent antioxidant in the human body. It's actually made by the liver. Every single cell in your body contains glutathione.

So we started you on a glutathione supplement. You could see your liver enzymes, the liver just calming down, like the efficiency of it coming back. And then we did simple things like IVs, you know, nutrient IVs. I know you're a big fan of those. We started to make sure that you were hydrating.

You're on the hydrogen water bandwagon now. And then you made- The electrolytes you told every morning. Yeah, yeah, electrolytes every morning because you were working out, I think, before you were eating. So electrolytes and amino acids in the morning before workouts. And then you really put in the work. I mean, when you take the toxic load off the body and then you give it the raw materials, it needs to do its job. Glutathione, methylated

multivitamins, sodium in your water in the morning. And now like today, I was pretty impressed because you've been here all day and you had your food delivered, not from Uber Eats, but you actually had, you know, the chef that made your stuff. And, you know, I'm super impressed by that. And what are like, once you feel the way you feel now, how hard is it to stay on the program? It's, it's easy because yeah, like you said, it's just like, what I basically said was like, listen, I still like going out. I like having fun, obviously. So I was like, I'm just going to keep it to once a week. Yeah. Once a week, every week, I'm going to earn the send. That's what I called it earn the send it's like Monday to Monday to Saturday morning like Saturday morning I'd still hit a lift maybe even a two a day before the send Saturday night

go back and run some cardio Saturday yes every every Saturday was a send okay and then Sunday's a rest day like Saturday you go out you. Sunday, probably maybe do some cardio. Maybe a little cheat meal Sunday too. Okay. And then back to work Monday. So I did that and I said, I'm going to do this for 120 days. And I found the best way that I, I just had to put some mental pressure on myself too. So once I got you on board and I knew, all right, Gary's got my back.

Now I got to do what I got to do. Right. And I just posted it. And I said like, yo, I'm doing this. And I just wanted to put pressure on myself. Yeah. Because I knew the fans would roast me if I didn to do what I got to do. Right. And I just posted it. And I said like, yo, I'm doing this. And I just wanted to put pressure on myself. You put yourself in a box. Yeah. Because I knew the fans would roast me if I didn't do it.

Right. So I was like, I'm going to put pressure on myself. I'm going to do this. And then I just stuck to that. One send a week, 120 days. And I was on the road for two months. Wow. At one point.

Yeah. And you never. Like two months. And you never missed. So what's like a typical day for you? If I was at a day on the road. If I was at like, and sometimes I'd have to go to three, like three bars a week.

So I would just like, I would, I would go in and I would just have like three happy dads and chill. Right. And I wouldn't like, if there was chicks at the bar, let's say one wanted to come back or something. I was like, no, like I'm going to bed. I'm waking up. I'm working out.

Like, right. There's just, there's so many temptations. Right. And everyone's always trying to drag you out. Yo, come out to this, to this come out to this i'm like unless it was my night to party i did not go i didn't care who it was i don't care what it was i was like this is what i have to do i love that because i i always talk i talk a lot about like keeping small promises to yourself like simple things like i'm gonna go to bed at 10 o'clock tonight and then go to bed the structure is important yeah now what i have structure is important keeping that keeping that structure

for yourself because like yeah you promised the fans but also internally you promised yourself i promised myself yeah that was more for me and yeah i was just like you offend a lot of people as well too because no one really understands and i think for us too like everyone's always trying to box you into like a certain category right so they're always boxing me and it's like what do you mean like you're the party or you're the drinker like right so it's like you do offend i think some people and they're like what do you mean you don't want to come out like right like they think it's because of them and it's like dude i'm just trying to like i'm on this mission for myself right you have to you might offend some people to get where you want to be right yeah so what is a typical day like on especially

on the road during that yeah during that i would so for the first 60 days i pretty much kind of did like keto okay i cut greens yeah so so no rice no bread just yeah like high fats high protein so good you instantly feel yeah and then just I was just eating meat and cucumbers pretty much. Really? For 60 days. Yeah. And like avocado, like fats, healthy fats. Okay. So kind of keto variant, I guess. And also easy to get when you're on the road. Exactly. It was more of a mental thing because we're always eating at restaurants, right? So I

think in my head, if I was like, all right, I'm allowed to have healthy carbs. Then when that bread comes to the table, you're kind of kind of like okay well i can have like a piece of white bread but if it's no carbs it's like no i can't i can't eat that bread i can't have carbs right so it's more of a mental thing i think just cutting cutting grains and like bread totally it helped me sustain it on the road and how much how soon did you start to feel better like how quickly did it kick in you're like okay i'm on something like pretty quickly yeah i mean yeah it was tough at first to cut those grains yeah but after like a month i really saw you know i was losing fat i was burning fat and then yeah i would do i'd pretty much do a lift every morning and then i would do conditioning

after the lift like a hit circuit style workout for like 30 minutes and that was in the beginning where you just like fuck no because i was always i was always like in and out of the gym so i wasn't totally like physic performance wise i wasn't totally like out of shape it was definitely hard the hitch it's hard the circuit like burpees and circuit stuff but i would do that and then at night i would also do 45 minutes of steady state wow so i would do a two a day six days a week maybe if it was legs i would not do conditioning that day yeah but i did that mirror starts responding fast too you're like it's you go to brush your teeth and you're like whoa and the other thing i actually did to keep myself accountable is i i said that during the process i'm going to post a weekly photo every single Friday to on, on Instagram.

And the reason I did that was because the second, yeah. Keep myself accountable. Accountability was really key. It's like, if it's like in high school, like some teachers didn't check your homework and some did, you know what I mean? Like, and if you, the teachers that didn't check your homework, like you probably didn't do it. You need to have that, like, you need to have that, like constant, you know, there needs to be a consequence you know so whenever there was a temptation on the road or something i always thought like okay like there's this one party tonight like this does sound dope like but i'm like shit i gotta post a photo in three days and if i and if it looks like shit i'm gonna get roasted yeah so i was like okay fuck that i'm

going to bed all right did you ever like miss one of those or were you like really focused on i don't by the way i like those bites i don't think i don't think i cracked the only reason i would ever do it if it was happy dad related business related like if i had to go out to like a bar but if it wasn't my night to party i just kept it like i would just chill have some casuals not go like crazy right the key was going to bed at a good time to where i could get enough sleep because i'd have to wake up like on the road we'd have to leave sometimes at like 9 30 9 30 a.m the next day so i would have to drive into most of these places were you flying kind of a combo yeah maybe it was catching a flight at 10 a.m so if you have to have flight at 10 a.m you got to be there at nine so

i'd have to get enough sleep to be able to wake up, hit a lift, eat, get in that car to get to the airport. So it was all about just time management. Yeah, I mean, now, you know, my assistant knows. Because you've got to sleep too, right? That's the most important. Yeah, it was about just getting to bed. Yeah, not just getting to bed and staying on your phone for three hours because that can happen too. Get to bed, get that sleep because I'm also doing a two-a-day.

So it's like if I'm not sleeping, then I'm... But, you know, I think when you start doing two-a-days, it actually helps you sleep because you get that good kind of tired. Like right now, right around 10.30, if I'm not in bed, my body starts powering me down. I'm out by like nine. Yeah, I'm up at 5.36.

But even being up at nine, your body will start to power. No, I'm out by nine. Oh, you're out by nine. Like 9.30, like yeah. What time are you in the gym in the mornings? Seven. Yeah.

So, you know, when you, you know, like I say, everybody sees what happens on the outside. I mean, what's happening on the inside is the real magic because, you know, I love that you're setting short-term goals and the mirror is kind of giving you this feedback that you're on the right track. But I feel physically, I feel amazing too. But too but internally you're like feel like you're thinking more clearly and like your short-term memories more and you're contributing to your business so

just happier going yeah and just happier way happier yeah i mean sick fat tired people are not building empires you know yeah um but so so back to the business i mean now um you got your health in check you know you're partying one day a week um you know you're feeling better like what kind of impact does it have on the business what's going on with uh full send happy dad like where is this machine going yeah i think the impact it's had on me is like yeah it just makes you better at everything you do right when you're mentally focused and clear and you create that like accountability for yourself you learn to apply it to all other areas of your life right yeah like yeah when we're waking up and you're hitting a lift and then you're doing a cold plunge in the morning bro you're ready yeah you're you're

ready you're ready to take on the day after that like nothing's stopping you like the steam room he's like man i fucking love this steam room dude this is my favorite thing in your house insane here that's so dope yeah i love it i love coming here i'm like you think we're gonna be able to do recovery shit too yeah yeah no we always try to sneak into that room and you're like yeah get in there yeah i can't wait to show the thing with you the goggles with the hydrogen the eyes the ears the nose the red light then we did steam cold punch hydrogen baths. It's awesome. When you start getting into that kind of thing, you realize how good it makes you feel,

and then those become your drugs of choice. I love when, yeah, the drug of choice thing is like, not just the cold punch, but yeah, the workouts, the whole, that's my, I'm addicted to it. Yeah. And that's what feels so good now, is that I'm not like trying to do something anymore. Like I physically can't not

do it yeah like i'm actually it is like a drug yeah like i am addicted to it the other day he said uh cold plunge addict or something yeah he was in bali and he was having these people build a cold plunge there you know he ships them to hotels to yachts to wherever he's going it's like fun too yeah yeah it's fun to figure it out and like it's funny i was um i was at the makeshift ones and shit yeah yeah and and um i was i was leaving in the in the morning to go downstairs to the gym and i saw this dude coming down the um hallway with a huge pillowcase full of ice i was like you doing a cold plunge he's like yeah man i follow your shit dude you got me into it and he was walking in the hallway with it but he had gone down to the ice machine with like he had a pillowcase full that's awesome um to dump

it dump it into the tub but that's that's so awesome but so with happy dad yeah it was yeah yeah happy dad's happy dad's our main happy dad is our main business venture that we're focused on okay we like we have a few other things that we're doing too but happy dad is that minimum billion dollar play for us that's great for sure and yeah we just um i mean the traction you guys have snoop dog um you know dana white and the ufc i mean just you know where the associations i see with your brand now when you think of where you came from and building it organically from you know a non-paid youtube channel to where it is now and you hear about these certain tipping points choosing the right partners making a choice in your health um you know switching to you know merch from trying to

just monetize youtube and these are really important decisions i think really important tipping points on the on the journey yeah and now, so what, Happy Dad now is on its way to- 2024 is going to be huge for a year for us. Yeah, like I said, with the partners, like Sammy's an absolute fucking robot that guy. Like he's the CEO of Happy Dad. He's running the operation and that guy does not stop. He's the hardest worker I i know by far he does not

stop yeah he's do you think the mullet has anything to do with it it must because he because he just recently got the mullet i'm just wondering if that yeah it must be the mullet i don't know what it is but yeah he'll go out like he'll be at the club with us and then like he'll like be doing emails like two hours later like he's always on his laptop he's always doing emails he's he's just like he's dialed he's the He's always doing emails. He's just like, he's dialed. He's the definition of dialed. And then John is obviously just like a genius too, like in every way.

And he's another one of the hardest workers I know. Yeah. Super hard worker. He killed his health journey too. Yeah. Yeah. I've been on an amazing health journey with him, you know, before his wedding, you know,

he really wanted to flick the switch. And even on the podcast, he was like, I used to wake up in the morning and I used to pray that my wife would not find me dead in bed. And I was like, wow, well, that's, uh, that's intense. And that's a gripping moment when, you know, you've got a business venture that's taking off and you're engaged and you're getting married and you have those kinds of thoughts on your mind. But he has been, and Sammy both have been incredibly generous to me too. I mean, they,

they reached out to me when I first started the podcast and they're like, dude, we want to get behind this. We want to help you. I don't own a bit of it, but I want to treat it like it's my own. I mean, they,

they plugged us into Spotify. I mean, Johnston. Yeah. John just likes to, likes to see people that he cares about. He really does, man.

It's such a rare. I think he likes just helping. He likes helping. Like if he sees potential in you and he knows what like you could do he likes to help and get you to that yeah he does and and he and he does a lot of giving without the expectation of receipt so he deserves a massive shout out hey guys i think the most important website you may ever go to is the ultimate human.com that's the ultimate human.com because on this website, we can directly interact with one another.

You can give me suggestions for podcast guests and topics that you'd like to see me cover. You can ask me any question that you'd like. More importantly, you can sign up for my entirely free newsletter. It comes out every single week. I write this so I can get the information to the masses on how to live a healthier,

happier, longer, chemical-free life. You can also sign up for a pre-order of my book. And if you'd like to take the genetic test that I talk about all the time, it's available there too. And lastly, you can even see all of the products that I use in my daily life for a chemical-free, healthy living style. A lot of people ask me, you know, what do you use in your daily life, Gary? What do you brush your teeth with and clean your countertops with well it's all there if you'd like to see it and you can again ask me any question that you'd like and get my free newsletter the ultimate human.com i promise you that information will help change the trajectory of your life

and now back to the ultimate human podcast but but with Happy Dad, yeah, we're launching Canada in February. Oh, wow. Because you're only in the U.S. now, right? Only in the U.S., yeah. So we're pretty much launching an entirely new country, which is going to be, that's where I started. So it's going to be insane. Yeah, Canada?

Yeah, it's going to be crazy. Now, is Canada kind of like the U.S.? I mean, obviously alcohol is regulated, but. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's in Ontario, which is Toronto.ario is a population of like 15 million people holy yeah toronto is the third biggest city in north america out of like u.s i think it's like la new york toronto or chicago okay third or fourth so toronto is like a massive and there's a lot of big american brands up there you're competing with too yeah it's the same brands yeah so it's the same thing, but we're going to, just because that's where we started.

The fans that I told you about that wear merch from like nine years ago, that's our like base. So they're going to go crazy for that. And then I know Sammy announced it on your pod, but yeah, Happy Dad's not just going to be like a seltzer company. I personally think that any alcohol that tastes good, that's like a good product. With the Happy dad name. I think it could live on. So we're launching a hard tea. Hard tea.

I know Sammy announced it on your pod. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I don't know. Yeah. We weren't supposed to. Sammy just jumped the gun.

Sammy jumped the gun with that announcement. So fuck you. Fuck you, Sammy. We didn't send that out, Max. Yeah. Sammy's like, don't, Sammy's like, don't announce that anywhere and shit. I watched it. He announced it.

Yeah. But, uh, we're launching a hard tea which is gonna be i think it could be even bigger than the seltzer it's it is so good really if you look at other brands like all the the beer categories beer categories obviously going down like in on the the data beer categories during down seltzer is even dipping as well just because it had such a big spike yeah happy dad's growing we're one of the only seltzers that are growing in our category wow but the tea category is is absolutely booming wow yeah so we kind of got like lucky we started it over a year ago too it took us same thing a long time to taste test but um yeah other brands have like like i said like 26 grams of sugar yeah that's insane pop yeah ours is gonna and again it's not healthy but ours has one gram of sugar yeah that's awesome i mean the worst thing is combining sugar and alcohol and when we came up with that concept to make

a lower sugar one i was like all right well it's gonna taste a lot worse probably yeah but then when i tried ours i was like taste holy shit this is fucking gold so too that's so awesome i know i feel like i'm just getting too excited about it but it tastes it tastes so good i can't wait till you guys try it no i can't wait though i'm so i'm fired that's gonna be a bomb for us i think we're gonna announce a pretty crazy signing like someone like out of this world really like one of the most famous people on the planet really yeah that's amazing when you guys have had i mean the podcast especially i mean you guys have had some insane guests on your podcast uh who i i mean it's hard to answer that i mean i get asked it all the time too.

Like who are, I would say some of your favorite guests, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Post Malone, Dana White. I mean, it's hard. I think I have to say Trump. Trump is like just my personal favorite. I like the first time and the way it went down. You know, Dana got him for us obviously. Oh, he did?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did it in Atlanta, right? We did it. Where did we do the first one? Because you've been on Air Force One. We did it at Mar-a-Lago, the first one. Wow. Yeah, but we went on Air Force One, again, with Dana.

Yeah. So, yeah, we were. You, Steve. Me, Steve. Is she his? Salim. No. Salim?

Salim's been on Air Force One, and I haven't been on Air Force One. And I'm Canadian, too. I'm not even American. You're not even American. I want to go on Air Force One. But no, Dana knew we were Trump fans, right? Yeah. So then he called us.

He's like, are you guys actually Trump fans? And we're like, yeah. And then he's like, we went to fight week in the COVID bubble in Abu Dhabi. And that's the first time we met Dana. And then two weeks later, he's like, yo. How did you connect with Dana like what was that connection his son was a fan Dana jr Dana jr fucked with our videos and he put Dana onto the videos yeah and then Dana thought they were like funny I guess yeah and um I think he's yeah he probably saw the value of like you know we could maybe help with the UFC too and I think he just fucked with us and yeah we when we met

though we just became friends and same shit yeah just hit it off yeah and like i personally like i've what i've been watching ufc since like high school i like i've looked up now you're in the vip area it's all happy dad but like as an entrepreneur like i've followed dana white's story since like the beginning yeah like what like it's crazy that i'm even able to call him a friend like i've literally he's someone i looked up to and like he inspired me like the way they built the ufc and like everyone just sees what it is now yeah him and the but like dude the ufc the hurdles and like the battles of every state they had to go through like dude dana white is literally the goat so like yeah i literally said if if we ever did

something with the ufc it'd be a dream come true and now that I can actually call him a friend is like yeah what is life crazy you know what I mean so he reached out to you and he was like you want to go on Air Force One and you were like are you fucking serious yeah I think I think that I mean our goal is to kind of help I guess Trump with like the young vote I guess right or like the younger vote Sammy's calling me you throw him on speakerphone be like hey we're on a podcast dude yo sammy i'm just on uh i'm doing ultimate human right now we're shooting a podcast right now you're live on the podcast buddy awesome i doubled i doubled down on your hard t announcement since you jumped the gun and announced it on ultimate human

don't don't think i didn't see that and you don't think I didn't see that. Don't think I didn't see that and you said don't announce hard T. I mean, Gary put me on the spot. Yeah, I put him on the spot. All right. Hit me up later. Call me about Canada.

Okay. All right, peace. See, he's working. Dude, shout out to Sammy. But so he calls you and he's like, because obviously it can't help get to the younger vote but um and we were supposed to interview him we were supposed to interview him then actually so we were supposed to this was before the last election okay 2016

2020 okay yeah and we were supposed to interview him then so we went on air force one we were going to do the interview we're all ready to do it And then last minute they got cold feet. Uh, I think Trump got cold feet or someone on his team did. And they're just like, Hey, listen, like this is really tight right now. We just don't want to take chances with anything going on. Like they probably didn't trust us too. You know, I'm surprised we were like, we don't even know why we're on the plane. Like, we're just like, yeah, we honestly get it. Like you shouldn't, you shouldn't trust it, but we don't know why we're here either, but we just met him and they said, you can come in his office, you can film them, but like, we're just going to keep it chill. We're not going to do an interview. So yeah,

we walked into his office on air force one with Dana and it was just fucking crazy, man. And he was just like exactly like he is on TV. Like just the exact same. Yeah, I've met him a number of times too. Just soaks up all the energy in the room. And just he was complimenting us, calling us good looking. Yeah. I know. And how old is he?

70? Yeah, he's on his game. Talk about an ultimate human. Yeah. How does that guy? I wonder that. Like how at that age are you able to like, like they must not sleep much. They must like.

And the stress that he's got to be under. The stress. I mean, yeah. So in any case, you get on Air Force One. When did you actually do the interview with him? We did the interview. I don't even know exactly what the date was, to be honest. It was like a year, year and a half ago.

Yeah. And did he sit down on a podcast? It was when the Russia, the Russia-Ukraine war just broke out. Okay. So we thought that would be kind of a good time to reach out to them and say, hey, we want to get you on the pod. So we asked Dana, and Dana's like, let me call him. Yeah.

So Dana just calls him. Yeah, let me call him. 24 hours, fucking calls me. He's like, I think he said, like, who's your fucking daddy or something. Yeah, that sounds like something he would say. Or like something like that yeah and i was like what he's like trump's in no i was like we freaked the fuck out yeah he's like yep someone from the someone from the his team's gonna be reaching out to you shortly and then you went

there and he's like love you buddy and he just sat down yeah yeah it's crazy i was like down and just ripped that interview yeah and then we just pulled up. We did it. And it went super viral. It got 7 million views in 24 hours. Wow. And he literally said on the pod, he's like, YouTube's going to delete this. He did.

He did, yeah. And they did? He said, YouTube's going to take this down. And I was like, no, they're not. Because I thought YouTube wouldn't be that obvious to take it down. I was like, that'd be too obvious if they took it down. But Trump's like, no, they're going to take it down. I was like, that'd be too obvious if they took it down. But Trump's like, no, they're going to take it down. It's like, all right.

7 million views, 24 hours, deleted. No. Yeah. No. What did they cite? They said, because their policy was you can't talk about election fraud. Oh. But they actually reversed that policy like two months ago.

So now you can talk. Like, it's actually, they sent the notice like, hey, these are our are our new changes like you're allowed to talk about election fraud now which is weird so they should honestly reinstate that pod but i wonder if you could throw we should try yeah actually that's a good idea yeah but um i get 15 of that 100 whatever the answer gotcha yeah there's no money on that one for sure all right so that's not my get rich quick yeah and but it kind of again when something like bad happens it kind of works out in your favor too because it made it so big yeah and then like that night uh trump went on fox and he's like shouting us out on fox no just did an interview with the milk boys wow fine fine gentleman like fine you

know what i mean and then he was like shouting us out at rallies really yeah like he's like i just did an interview like you know the trump rallies yeah yeah of course oh just did an interview with the nut boys like and we're like what the fuck is going on crazy so did you redistribute it other places yeah we threw it up on like uh twitter i think and we put it on spotify okay you probably throw it on rumble yeah we i think we put it on rumumble too. Okay, that's awesome, man. He's my favorite for sure. Elon was obviously legendary too. Yeah, Elon's legendary. Trump's just such a beauty.

He's just so funny. Yeah, I like Elon because he's so philosophically intelligent with the way that he speaks. Whether you like him or love him, and I know he's getting a lot of hate right now, but I saw him talking about the the appearance of doing good versus the actions of doing good and how he loathes the fact that people out of one side of their mouth you know talk about espouse all these good things that they're doing but their actions are really evil and he and he just and he

just calls it out and he may lose tens of billions of dollars on Twitter, you know, on that acquisition. He was cool, yeah. He sat with us for like four hours too. Yeah. Crushed like six or seven happy dads. Did he really? Yeah. Well, he smoked weed on Joe Rogan's show.

Yeah, he can slam them. He's a big dude, isn't he? Yeah, he's big. Yeah, yeah. He's really cool. He's sick. That's awesome um so getting back to um the health journey because i i want to really drive home like the impact that it's had so uh talk a little

bit about the mental aspect like what's happened to your like mentally how much better offering obviously you look a lot better you look amazing um you're feeling better you're sleeping better but like how's the mental game like what are some things you've noticed like i said i think it just yeah it falls into everything else every aspect of business you know i just feel like i'm less lazy i'm more yeah like less lazy definitely i think is a huge one yeah Like not making as many excuses. Like if I have to do, whether it's like researching a podcast or any task I have to do in the day, I feel like I'm a lot less mentally lazy. If that makes any sense, I'm not creating as many

excuses in my mind. Um, yeah, I think it's just, you're just more dialed like in every way. I don't know how to explain it. Yeah. That's so, that's so awesome. It's, it's short-term recall. It's, it's your, it's your, it's your memory. It's your cognitive function. It's that clean, clear waking energy that you have. Confidence.

It's the confidence there. That's so awesome. Well. And then physically, obviously just, you just feel great. Yeah. I mean, you know, you feel, you feel great. And when you feel great, you're you're more available for your business. I mean, I always say it's like, it's like the the hub of the wheel, you know, it touches every single spoke of the wheel, right? And it touches your relationships, it touches your touches your business, your partnerships, I mean, just at your self-esteem your self-image you know i love how you talked about just keeping those small promises to yourself putting some fencing around yourself so you said i'm going to post this thing every friday um i'm going to do two a days you know i mean it's and i think just for like even just like if like you know like i think everyone will

get anxiety like i would get anxiety sometimes too and it's just like we actually talked about that yeah yeah like i would get i would get anxiety sometimes especially after long benders yeah anxiety dopamine yeah just anxiety like depression days where you're just feeling down and stuff like that too so i think this provides you know everything i've done with you too it just provides like a consistent like base for all that stuff to kind of go away or like very severely limited yeah you know if i'm getting anxiety or i'm feeling depressed it's because i'm fucking up on my on my shit for sure yeah i'm doing stuff that i shouldn't be doing like it's such a all the stuff is such a natural cure yeah all that stuff so it is like it's crazy like i would never

say i wish people could feel that high because they wouldn't chase anything else 100 that's why i always use the term drug of choice like yeah the cold punch is my drug of choice because nothing i look forward to it honestly like it's just i love waking up early yeah like when you set your alarm for 5 30 yeah and you wake up and it's just so it's dark in the morning it's peaceful i love that You wake up and yeah, do your routine, hit your workout. Yeah. Do a plunge in sauna. Yeah, like most days, like by the time I make it down my hallway and out onto the balcony in its first light

and it's just coming on and it's before like all the police sirens and all the construction noise and it's just like this low hum. It's the best part of your day. Out in the city. Yeah, and the water's so calm and the sun's coming up. It's, I don't know, man. I think it's hard like this low hum it's the best part of your day city yeah and the water's so calm and the sun's coming up it's i don't know man i think it's it's hard to not have and it's hard to explain it to people i find too because even after my when i did my transformation a lot

of people hit me up and they're like like how'd you do it and but it's always the most simple shit you're telling them right it's like dude just get in there like be consistent like but i think it clicks it clicks for everyone at a certain time. It's hard to convince people. I think everyone hits that point themselves. And until you hit it yourself, you're never going to be really consistent. You know, you gotta, it's got to click in your own mind. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, um, dude, this has been amazing. Yeah. This is, this has been a long time coming and I'm glad we got to really chop it up like this but and i appreciate you taking me on i know you got a lot of huge a-listers and stuff so i appreciate you're always taking care of us hitting us up you're like i'm dead serious and

i'm like i'll go on this journey with you but i was like i don't like to fail and i want to you know you convinced me that you were committed and you were man you flicked that switch and i mean the transformation proves it the lab i always say labs don't lie um you you can't hide from the data so the data proves it and nothing makes me happier than being a part of this part of people's journey and then watching them crush it in other areas of their life because we've been able to just get their health right right um so i i wind down every podcast by asking every podcast guest the same question and there's no right or wrong answer about it but i always like to know what do you think what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human i think i think everybody's different and

i think it's just it probably simmers down to just like being the best being the best in like what you do in your field I think you know everyone has a different job and everyone has different roles but I think just being the best being the best performing I don't even know actually like the best version of yourself best version of yourself yeah yeah and being able to do like what you're supposed to do at at at the highest performance. Do you feel like at 30, you're now the best version of yourself? Do you feel like you're a better version of yourself now than you were in your 20s? I think it's like, yeah, like as I'm kind of like a leader in this group that I'm in, you know? So I think, yeah, me, I have to be an ultimate human to be like the best leader I could be.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's awesome, man. Yeah. Well, brother, thank you, man. I appreciate you coming on. This has been amazing.ats on the pod it's amazing so thank you so much appreciate you hey guys um I hope that you guys enjoyed the podcast Kyle Forgard I will put links below to happy dad and everything that we talked about on the podcast today give these guys um you know a follow and if you haven't had a happy dad seltzer we actually had them back here on the shelf I don't someone crushed them um, there was a lot of them back there. I did not, um, drink them, but as always, that's just science.