Trading Secrets - 296. Tom Patterson: Tommy John, 9-Figure Brand & Turning a $5K Idea Into an Apparel Empire

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

This week, Jason is joined by Tom Patterson — co-founder of Tommy John — for a conversation on what it really takes to build a nine-figure brand from scratch in one of the most overlooked categories in apparel.Tom shares the full story behind Tommy John — from walking away from a stable six-figure career in medical device sales to betting everything on a simple idea: fixing a problem he personally experienced with men’s undershirts. With no background in fashion, no industry connections, and just a few thousand dollars, he set out to create a better product — one that would eventually disrupt the entire category.He breaks down the early days of the business — spending roughly $5K to create his first 200 shirts, selling on consignment, getting rejected by retailers, and relying on sales skills to get in the door. From folding inventory himself to traveling store-to-store training sales associates, Tom shares what it actually looked like to build the business from the ground up.Tom also dives into the financial realities of entrepreneurship — funding the business with savings, 401(k) money, and credit cards, going years without paying himself, and navigating the constant pressure of cash flow in the early stages.The turning point came when Tommy John landed in major retailers and later experienced explosive growth through non-traditional marketing — including a breakthrough moment on the The Howard Stern Show that led to record-breaking sales and ultimately shaped the brand’s entire marketing strategy.Tom explains how the company scaled from a startup to a nine-figure business, including the importance of product innovation, brand differentiation, and building a loyal customer base in a highly competitive space. He also shares how strategic partnerships, celebrity endorsements, and a diversified marketing approach helped fuel long-term growth.Beyond the business, Tom opens up about the personal side of the journey — including the stress, burnout, and panic attack that forced him to reevaluate his leadership style, priorities, and overall approach to building the company.From burning the boats and betting on himself to navigating growth, risk, and long-term scaling, Tom gives a raw and honest look at what it really takes to turn a simple idea into a category-defining business.Tom reveals all this and so much more in another episode you can’t afford to miss!Subscribe to the Trading Secrets podcast!

Get road ready with CarQuest Auto Parts. Save now on premium brand name products. Castro Magnetech Synthetic Oil 5-liter jugs 297. Rain X Summer Breeze washer fluid, 3.78 liter jug 397. Air 1 diesel exhaust fluid 9.46 liters 1397. Seafone motor treatment 473 milliliters 897. Hit the road with CarQuest for the parts you need. Visit a Carquest Auto Part Store or Carquest.Cae for more information in full flyer details. Only at participating locations.

When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha-chings from every channel, right in one spot, and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify.

Start your free trial today. Trading secrets. Today, we're joined by a founder who walked away from medical, device sales to reinvent one of the most overlooked categories in apparel? What is it? Men's underwear. Tom Patterson is the co-founder of Tommy John, the brand that turned comfortable basics into a premium, high-growth business. Tom and his wife Aaron built Tommy John from scratch, navigating early cash constraint, retail skepticism, product development risk and the challenge of convincing men. To care about something, maybe they just

couldn't see. Or they were feeling, though. Today, we are diving into the real numbers, the real risk in the mindset it takes to leave a traditional career path and bet on yourself. Tom Patterson, thank you so much for being on trading secrets. Thanks for having me. Excite to be here. I'll tell you what, the group's going to hear this. We call them the money mafia that listens.

And the first thing they're going to be thinking about is that shoot we did for Tommy John. So this is in connection to that shoot. We had the best time doing it. And I'll tell you what, I'm wearing Tommy John right now. This stuff is like butter. So if you guys don't own any Tommy John, you got to get on it. But we got to get the story behind Tommy John. Before we do that, I want to start in 2026, let's, for anyone that hasn't heard of the company,

talk to people a little bit about the size scale today. How many employees do you have? What does revenue look like? What is the company today? Where is it selling? Give us the overall profile. Yeah. So, you know, we turn 18 years old in April, which is kind of crazy to think about.

I think I read somewhere. Only 4% of companies make it 10 years or more. Wow. So we're less than the 4%. right now. So, you know, but it's taken a long time. And I think anything that's worthwhile takes a while to build and build the right way with the right infrastructure. So, you know, 18 years seems like a long time, but it goes by really quickly. So, you know, now we've been a nine-figure business for some time now. Like a lot of brands, we're, you know, been challenged

with tariffs and just, you know, a lot of uncertainty the last year and a half like anybody in the clothing industry. We're around 100 people. We're based in New York City. We've got, warehouses in Texas and California and just a great team, great, great brand. For many of you who may not know the brand, my middle name's John, people have been calling me Tommy since I was a little kid. That's how we got the name Tommy John. I've not had elbow surgery. I have no relation to the baseball pitcher. It's a nice reference, but yeah, it's, you know, it's been a lot of fun. We've had so many great people that have came into the company and impacted it. There's no one that's self-made, and Aaron and I are certainly not self-made people. I don't believe

that there's people around you that help help you become self-made. And I think a lot of it's just the right people came into the business at the right time. And God certainly had a hand in our growth, for sure. There's nothing else that explains what it's become. I mean, nine figure business, 100 plus people. It's unbelievable where it is today. We'll talk about how it got there. Because what's interesting is you have no education, no experience or network in the apparel business. So, of course, you know, I saw a little bit about your parents' business or being direct in the funeral home area. And like you just, this is, I think, unheard of to think about someone from scratch that has built it to this level.

And that's what I want people when you're listening today is when you have an idea, when you have a need, when you have something that isn't fitting into your day to day, you too can build this nine figure business. The other thing I want to give people some ideas for us. Like where, when you're selling today, you're selling direct to consumer, can you tell people some about the retail stores you're in currently in 2026? Yeah, for sure. You know, you can find us in Nordstrom, Dillard's, Dick Sporting Goods, Direct to Consumer, our online business is probably the biggest percentage of our business. High-end men's specialty stores. So you see your product in thousands of stores now, but it didn't happen overnight.

It's been slowly building, and that's the exciting thing. I think you need to be where the customer is. You hear an ad on the radio, or you see your commercial, you're a Catherine's commercial, which is running on TV right now. Let's go. You see the brand. Then you walk into a Nordstrom. or a Dillards or a Dix, you want to be where the customer is after they hear it,

they see it, they learn about it. And we've never been about a mono channel business. We've always wanted to be diversified with the channels that sell our product. I love it. And I wanted to establish that, again, one more time for everyone listening, you can do this. There are so many people that come on this podcast that might even be billionaires. And it feels untouchable. It feels unrelatable because they have such a specific niche that you're like, I could never do that.

Your story is very relatable. It's very touchable. It's not untouchable. So I wanted to start with where you are today. Let's go back to 18 years. So you're trying to figure out your career track. You're selling medical devices. How does a need for anything in apparel even come across your desk?

There was a show called The Big Idea on MSNBC back in 2007. And it was really Shark Tank before Shark Tank. Sure. And my wife, Aaron, co-founder of Tommy John, had started a business called Organic Heads. She was into organic product, household cleaners, fragrance-free. And I saw her build this website, negotiate reseller pricing, start buying product wholesale and reselling it online.

And I thought, like, what's my idea? Yeah. I want to do something. And as a kid, I had lawn mowing businesses. I shoveled sidewalks and snowblood snow before school, after school, knock on doors. So sales was in my background in a lot of ways. and the idea with a big idea on TV was

most of the entrepreneurs had solved a problem that was personal to them. A lot of people say, hey, there's a product out there, I want to make it better. But my problem was I wear men's undershirts. I wore a suit and tie every day, selling medical devices into hospitals

in San Diego where I lived at the time. I was sweating through, so I wore an undershirt to kind of protect that barrier. And as my dress shirts were more tailored, all the undershirts were baggy, they were boxy, they'd ride up, they come untuck, they'd stretch out, they'd shrink to like a midriff if you wash them in correctly or dry them wrong. Oh yeah. And I thought, why doesn't anyone make an undershirt that's longer,

it's tapered, it's stretchier, it doesn't yellow as quickly, it stays tucked in. So I set out to create what I thought was the ultimate undershirt. And what I realized, I went to the garment district in downtown Los Angeles. So is that how you start? So obviously you have this need and then you say, I got to, I got to solve it for me. When you first went to the garment district, were you thinking, I'm going to start a business or you're like, I just need a shirt that helps my day-to-day needs. I thought it would be the spark for a business. So I got out of my car at a hospital in San Diego. Everything was tucked in, but my undershirt was bunched up. It creates like this billowy muffin top look, right? You kind of pull it down, readjust yourself, and it's a pain in the you know what.

So after that meeting, I went to Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus in San Diego. And I started asking the salespeople, do you have undershirts that stay tucked in? and I learned that most of the brands pin the shirts behind the models for the photo shoot. So the product on the packaging, you see the model wearing, does not fit like it's perceived to fit. So that was a question mark. So when I went to the garment district, I thought, what do I, fabric that I want to have, soft, stretchy, breathable, took that fabric to a tailor at a dry cleaners in San Diego. I drew a sketch with my second grade art skills. And I said, can you make undershirts?

I want a T-shirt that's built like this. and she said, why would you want a shirt that's almost like a dress? It's long. And I said, I don't know. I'm just kind of weird with this product. And funny story, we talked about this last night. Our first shirts had this Donald Duck repeat character print ribbing around it because I didn't have ribbing.

And the only place I could find it was a Joanne's down the street. So is the Donald Duck ribbing in the inside or the outside? No, on the outside. Unbelievable. So I'm not into Disney. Do you have that shirt? No. Like, you got to remake that first shirt that had Donald Duck.

You know, we should remake it just for the, you know, the history of it. But I think what it goes to show is it doesn't have to be perfect. Just getting done is good enough because I wanted to approve the utility or the functionality, the undershirt staying in place worked. It worked, did everything I hoped it would do. Then next step is I went and found a manufacturer in downtown Los Angeles, walked in, paid them cash in an envelope and made 200 undershirts. How much did that cost How much cash you just paid? Oh, man. It was probably $2,000.

$2,000. Okay, so let's pause for one second. So you're at a manufacturer. You got $2,000 to make $200 shirts with the prototype you created, with your brain, your idea. And you have, at this point, you have no experience. You've never made anything apparel. Or even go back to, I think about some people how they got into their careers.

Like in high school, where you voted, like, best dressed or anything like that. Was there anything in your blood and background in the apparel business? No, nothing. I mean, I'd like to think I was always into comfort. Okay. You know, I would prefer to wear a sweatpants and a hoodie to school. It wasn't allowed to wear it our high school. Yeah.

So maybe there was some, you know, pent up frustration there. But what I learned is this category really was right for disruption. It hadn't been innovated or had not evolved in a really long time. And so all in, I would guess around $5,000 between buying the product, having it made, building a two-page PayPal checkout website, me doing the modeling on a rooftop in Pacific Beach, California with a friend of mine. And that was it. And I started selling, sending emails to friends and family, and slowly we started selling product. But I would say for any of the listeners out there, Jason, I would say the number one skill I invested in was sales. Nothing in this world starts without a

sale, knocking on doors, trying to get lawns to mow in my hometown, sidewalks to shovel. I sold cell phones at a kiosk in Scottsdale's Fashion Square Mall during college. And I learned a lot of EQ personal skills. And I think that skill set applied perfectly to medical device sales. And then my medical device sales background, conceptual selling, now I'm selling underwear and undershirts

into department stores to department store buyers. So I would say you don't have to have the perfect connections. I didn't go to the right college. I never had the right internship. I didn't have the connections. but where there's a will, there's a way. And I'd rather hire will over skill all day long at our company. And I think if you're curious, you just find a way at the end of the day.

And I was just very persistent. I saw the opportunity. I knew what it could become. The underwear category was really serious. It was unrelatable. The models were unrelatable. I want to models to smile. I like to have dogs in the photo shoot.

You can talk about that if you want. I wanted it to be like real life. Yeah. Not Zoolander. I love Zoolander, the movie, but it just felt like there had to be a better way. And I know that's a lot to unpack, but I just kept on seeing the signs that gave me more confidence to continue to keep going. Yeah, two very successful businessmen we've had on, one that started a chicken finger company raising canes and another insect repelling company. Both of those two said the same thing.

They're like, you have to know how to sell and you have to know how to sell your vision because both of those people were told there's no chance. You're going to sell chicken tenders and fries and then be worth $20 billion. Their Todd Graves is and the same with the insect repellent. So I think that's something to take away. One thing, though, that is different than selling is the idea of cash and financing. So this cost you $5,000. I think one thing that our listeners always are curious about is when you it's the leap. Okay. So once you build the momentum, you spend the money, you got your prototypes, you could start selling into stores. You could slowly build momentum. People and entrepreneur, have the biggest struggle with that first chapter.

So before that first chapter starts, I want to ask you, you're working in medical device sales. How much are you making a medical device sales and how much did you save before you could take the risk at something like this? Yeah, I mean, Ed My Litt talks about this. Middle class is the hardest class to get out of

because it's comfortable. I grew up middle class, sometimes lower middle class, sometimes upper middle class, but I always felt money was uncertain. It seemed volatile in my household. and, you know, when I got into this, medical device sales, great job, very stable. People are always sick.

They're always going to need vital medical devices to stay alive. It was a nice six-figure job. I won sales awards. I liked it. I wouldn't say I loved it. I just felt like there was more, and I wanted to control my own destiny. I wanted to create my own opportunities. And when I looked at that, it was like being an entrepreneur.

That's really the only way. So I think a lot of people like, well, does it start as a side hustle? Yeah, a night to weekends, instead of going out, instead of watching, you know, Netflix series on TV at 7 o'clock to 9 o'clock, I was starting this. And we started in early 2008, and then fast forward October 2008, I was laid off on medical sales job. The very next day I read an article that there's no better time to start a company than during a recession. And I just kind of followed the clues. And I thought to myself, I'm not married yet. I was with my wife, girlfriend at the time.

I didn't have kids. I didn't know in a house. If I'm going to go and take a big swing, now's the time. I don't want to be this coulda would have should a guy. 20 years from now thinking, like, I had this idea. That dude became what I could have become. I want it to be the guy that became what they could become. Ooh, I love that.

May is mental health awareness. The goal isn't actually to talk about mental health. It's actually to take some action and get real support. But when you try to do that, it's still way. harder than it should be. A lot of online therapy doesn't accept insurance at all, which means even during a month, focus on mental health, you're still stuck paying out of pocket or signing up for these expensive monthly subscriptions. But Rool-It does things differently. They partner with over 120 insurance plans, making the average copay just $15 per session. That's real therapy

from licensed professionals at a price that actually makes sense. You know, we talk a lot about going to the gym or even working your financial habits, all these things. You work your muscles, you work your endurance, work the most important organ in your body, that's your brain. And that's mental health. And that's where May comes into play. In network covered care for major insurance plans, the average co-pay still for Rula is just $15. And when using HSA, that is even pre-tax. The Mental Health Awareness Month doesn't just think about your mental health. Actually take this step to take care of it. I do it every other week, and so should you give it a shot. visit rula.com slash trading secrets to get started that's rula.com slash trading secrets you deserve

mental health that works for you not against your budget so i just went all in you know and everything you had to kind of unlearn everything i learned in school about taking risks cashing out your 401k you know your your safety net uh using my friends at american express visa master card to to finance inventory clothing takes a lot of inventory and it can it has a lot of cash constraints along with it. But my mindset was, you know what, I'm just going to go all in, burn the boats. There's no plan B. There's no plan C. I have to be all about this and just immersed myself in it. And my girlfriend, wife now, Aaron, had a business. So she was able to help pay some of the bills. You know, my unemployment only lasted so long at the time. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs,

you almost have to operate like there's a gun to your head. Yeah. Running your business. Every day, every minute is so critical. So I just wanted to work. Calling Neiman I got a meeting with buyer, Nima Marcus in Dallas. I said I have a product that will change your customer's life. Can I come meet with you and present it to you? Again, my sales background worked really well with that. And had a great meeting. They put us in 15 stores in the fall of 2009. So we moved to Los Angeles. Our t-shirts, undershirts were made in Chinatown. Our underwear was made in Compton. And I was the fit model for the product. I tried it on the factory. Think, all right, this fits pretty good. Fortunately, I was a size medium.

So it worked really well. I was a fit model dimensions. But Monday through Thursday, we'd be in the factories, folding undershirts, folding underwear, applying the hang tags, putting the UPC sticker on, putting it in the box, driving it to our warehouse. And then Thursday through Sunday, I'd fly out to Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and spend three days in the store, training the salespeople in these stores, talking to customers, and really getting my feet and ear to the ground, hearing about what do they like, what aren't they getting?

it created new idea opportunities for us for new products. And that 18-month period, we learned so much because we were doing everything. We were wearing all the hats, answering customer service emails. And there's no job that we really haven't done at the company. We didn't raise money and hire a bunch of people to do the things we didn't do. In the early days, it was our own money. So every dollar was critical. So we were very resourceful with everything that we did starting out.

And it was 2008. So the only way we could go was up in a recession, especially because we had products that really had never been in the market before. That's a good transition, 2008. I'm seeing and I'm hearing, and I'm sure you guys are back at home, so many common denominators from other business leaders we've had on. One being your front, Ryan Sirhan. Ryan Sirhan got into the real estate business in 2008. One of his trading secrets was when people tell you to do something at the least expected time, that's actually sometimes the most obvious. opportune time to do it, right? He's like, who would ever get into real estate when the entire industry blew up? He's like, I found it to be an opportunity. The other one you said is Burn the Boats. Matt Higgins is the author of Burn the Boats, and he's been on the show too. So it's so fun to hear the things that you're saying and draw these common parallels to people that have done it in all different spaces, all different industries. When you talked about cash constraints, you talked about

Amex, you talked about 401K. I think when people are reading their entrepreneur book and their midway through chapter one, the next thing they say is the money. You already talked about $2,000 to $5,000 in cash to actually get your inventory. When you made the decision, because I think this is one of the hardest things that entrepreneurs have to do, I'm leaving my full-time job. You actually got laid off from it. But at that point, how much money did you have to put into this business to start it? When you liquidated your 401K, how much are we talking? Did you find outside investment or did you use all of your money? Yeah, it's all my money. So I have a guess probably $15,000 and 401k netted taxes and then savings another five or ten.

But it was also to cover living expenses, travel expenses to all these cities. And, you know, it adds up. So you have to be good at money management, right? And yeah, I never went down to zero. But were there nights with me staring at the ceiling thinking, like, how are we ever going to make money in this? Dude, I'll be honest. That feeling didn't leave for four or five years. We didn't pay herself for four or five years.

In the early days, I would say the first five or six people that came into the company, we paid more than Aaron and I made. But we always believed at some point it would hit. There was never a feeling of like we're not going to make it. I think playing sports is a big part of my life, and I think as an athlete you get used to failure, right? So you're comfortable with failure because you know you're going to improve and move on and get past that.

And I think a lot of my childhood prepared me for, the challenges and gave us the ability to continue to endure. But we had a wholesale business selling into department stores, and a lot of times you don't get paid for 45 to 60 days. So that cash is just sitting, you're like, when am I going to get paid? When am I going to get paid? And then you have to buy inventory. But our business really changed in around late 2012, 2013, when we started selling direct to consumer. Selling online, we didn't have to have terms. We got paid immediately before it shipped. And we just, that's really when the business started to scale. And we were starting, starting to generate more profitability, which we could invest back into the business.

Makes sense. Get a real office out of our, you know, 500 square foot office apartment in Chelsea. It's, it's at that, I'm working into the 2012 time period before we do. I almost don't want to miss a step. That $5,000 you put out there. Because I think the early steps are the one people really benefit from. It's awesome to hear where you are today. But it's like, what are the practical steps that someone back at home could also

do. You buy 200 shirts. Let's call it 200 shirts. You spend $5,000. In that moment, how quickly did it take you to turn those 200 shirts? Were those 200 shirts used for marketing to send to people? Like, what did you do with that first product? So I started going into men's specialty stores in San Diego. And they all set, I said, we have a product that you don't carry. I see you're selling traditional boxy, baggy t-shirts that shrink. Would you have any interest in carrying this? You're like, no one's going to wear a shirt that's longer, that's tapered like this. And something just wasn't resonating with them. And after being turned down like four or five times, I was like, I'm going to go into a men's custom-made suit store because guys are willing to spend for fit and quality,

and I'll put it on consignment. And I went into this specialty store in La Jolla, and I said, I've got this product. Here's what it does. I'm going to give you a sample. If you like it, you can sign these and just pay me for what sells. And I learned that consignment was a risk-free way for them. And I just needed sales and like proof of concept. Sure. And so I started doing that. And then we went to this trade show in Las Vegas for all the big fashion brands go. I think it was like $3,000 to enter. Buy all this inventory, mannequins. I did some undershirt video. And we sold, I think it, no, I think it was like $4,000 or $5,000 all in. And we only sold like $1,800 with the product. And I remember driving back from Las Vegas, San Diego.

I'm like, how is this going to work? What year was this? This is 2008. Wow. I'm sorry. This is 2008. Yeah, this is 2008. About a month before I was laid off my medical sales job, I did this on a long weekend.

And I was like, something's wrong. It's not resonating the way it needs to resonate. I needed to be in a store where there was like a personalized experience. And Nima Marcus and Nordstrom, they have personal shoppers that walk customers through, and they really explain the brands and the products and the utilities of it. So I felt I needed to be more of a mass retailer with multiple. locations. And that's really when I started preparing to get into a department store. And I think

this is the one thing that's really important for your listeners is to get into a department store for our category, you had to have packaging, a box package. And we started working with a packaging designer and we started surveying women. Sixty-five percent of men's underwear and undershirts was bought by women in 2008, 2009. So we surveyed women and we learned that they do all of shopping for men's men's underwear for the household. They typically buy a brand that their husband's been wearing for a long time, or they look for a good-looking guy in the packaging. Interesting.

So we created a packaging. We found through surveys that a lot of women love Tiffany's jewelry and chocolate. At the time, all the packaging was black and white in the department store, so it all looked the same except the different words for the different brands. So we chose a good-looking guy, look similar to you, chocolate, and Tiffany's, blue-esque color on the packaging. So we popped on the shelves. Like firing, like, it just stood out. And then you open the box, it slid open instead of like, you know, mangling the boxes like you see in a Macy's.

Yeah. And you could touch and like pet the fabric. And it was a very sensory experience. And that was one of the main reasons Nima Marcus picked it up is they love the packaging so much. And there was a great product inside. Is Bitcoin complicated or do people just think it is? I mean, we know David thinks that Bitcoin is very complicated. I use Bitcoin a lot. I actually use it to buy things from certain businesses, and I'm very surprised at how quickly that is turning the corner. Well, if you've been curious about Bitcoin, but haven't made the jump yet,

cash yet makes it easy. You can actually set up automatically purchases with zero fees, or you can buy larger amounts also with zero fees, which I personally have done myself. You could start small or go bigger. It's designed to be simple either way. It's like imagine the bridge of complexity with Bitcoin buying or anything, and Cash App makes it easy. For a limited time, new customers can get $10 added to their balance.

Just use code Cash App 10 when you sign up. And don't forget this part, send at least $5 to a friend in the first two weeks. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Bitcoin services provided by Block Inc. Brand for additional information, see the Bitcoin Disclosure. at cash. Apps, backslash legal, backslash podcast.

So we found these little ways to have an edge and stand out in a highly competitive market and environment. And I think these little things became big things along the way because we did things that the other brands weren't doing. And I think you always have to figure out, I don't want to be like everybody else. I don't want to be the next Calvin Klein or the next hanger. We want to be the first Tommy John. In order to do that, we had to do things different. So there's these bold things that we did, but it's not rocket science. It's anybody can do this. And that was like a key thing that was really big for us in the long run

and gave us the opportunity to kind of get a tryout in these major department stores. And I would say it's one thing to sell into the stores. And you can hope and pray and ask friends to go in, but there's a sell in, but there's also a sell-through. And the sell-through for us was me going to the stores, investing in the time of the salespeople, talking to customers. and I would say our second store I went to was Neiman Marcus in Dallas North Park.

A guy tried on. I know exactly where that mall is. I've been there. Great mall. It's great mall. It's beautiful. Yeah. And at the time, the only way I could really afford to go to Neiman Marcus is supposed to I was selling products.

So I remember a guy tried our undershirt on. I said, hey, I noticed you're trying these dress shirts on. Tommy John's a new brand. I started, would you be willing to try this on and just let me know what you think? And he tried one undershirt on. like, I'll take 18 black and 18 white. Wow. And I was like, okay, this can be a lot bigger than I thought if it's trying as buying. So we, and I would never would have learned that had I not been in the store.

So whenever you see people promoting their brands in a Whole Foods or a department store, there's a reason why they're trying to get traction with it and build those relationships. There's a lot of takeaways there, right? I think one, your startup self-funded and you're spending on packaging when money is constrained, right? You did something different. So if money wasn't the focus, if money was the sole focus, you wouldn't have spent that type of those resources on making the packaging different. That's one. Two, you obviously did a lot of market research on the buying process. And I think three, which is kind of cool. An outline to the market research you did was you actually had buy-in from a guy

that was there who tried it on and said they liked it. So now you're supporting your market research. You actually have evidence of a mail going in there and saying, I want 36 of them, and your packaging's difference. At what point did you really start to see momentum shifts? So you're in 15 stores in 2009. At what point did you start to say, okay, I'm on the ground. The packaging's different. The product's there. Something's happening. And what did that look like in far as numbers go? Yeah, I mean, so we lived in Los Angeles for the first year and a half. And I remember coming back from the factories home, getting caught in rush hour traffic during the weekdays

between my visits when we were starting getting into these major department stores. I didn't have serious radio subscription. Podcasts like yours weren't out, unfortunately. Any entrepreneurs listening, take advantage of podcasts in your show because there's so much to learn. And I wish it would have been available when I was younger because I think we'd be farther ahead sooner. Sure.

But I'd use that time and I'd call the NEMA market stores we weren't in yet. and say, hey, I just bought this product in Chicago last weekend. When are you going to have it here in Minneapolis? And I'd call at a list of all the stores. And then I'd have a weekly call at the buyer. And they'd be like, hey, Tom, we're getting a lot of calls from these markets that your brand is not in because they're buying it in markets that it is. Do you guys have the inventory to go into these locations?

And I just, real quick, not to interrupt, just so I understand this, because I love this, by the way. You're calling as a customer. Yeah. Right? Genius. In sales, you've got to do what you've got to. to do, especially when it's you. You're going against these massive corporations with these huge

budgets. So as your customer, like, hey, I saw these over here, but they're not here. Yeah. Brilliant. Okay, I just wanted clarification. Yeah. And I would say like, hey, when you get the second skin underwear in, can you please call me? Call me back. Brilliant. You know, my name's Jason. I live in, no, I'm kidding, but. Yeah. But that, I had to create the demand. Of course. And I knew the product, I just, I was so convicted about what our product could do and what we could become because the product walked the talk. But you had to create more opportunity. and almost act as if. And that's what we did,

and that formula really worked. And then I learned that our underwear sold better hanging instead of inside the box, because you could walk by the rack, you could touch and feel it, be like, oh, wow, I want to try that on. And you couldn't always get that experience unless the salesperson was there.

And I asked the department store, hey, can we ship our underwear, not in boxes? And they said, no, it's not allowed. And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to start doing it. I didn't ask for permission. And then our sales for underwear started doubling each week.

And they never really said anything after that. So I think there's a lot of, you have to pick and choose when you ask for permission versus ask for forgiveness. Because, you know, even stores are used to doing things a certain way. But yeah, I think entrepreneurs, you find a way to create success or you die. You know, so that you got to do what you have to do

in those early days. I love it. And so what was the first time, though, that like you started, you're looking at the P&L, You're seeing the movement happen. Your first five years, you and your wife don't take a penny. What year was it that you started to say, wow, like revenue is moving and we're profitable. Yeah, I mean, first year we did 50,000.

Second year we did 250,000. Wow. You know, big jump. Big jump. At 2011, we're like a $3 million dollar business in New York City still couldn't afford office. Our office was our 500 square foot apartment in Chelsea. We had two big mannequins. We had a pull-out couch that we watched.

TV on, 110-pound Bernice Mountain Dog, marketing materials, dog hairs on all the samples, lint rollers everywhere. And then we finally got an office about a block away. But our big break was in 2014, we worked with an agency that sent a bunch of our samples out, underwear samples to athletes, influencers, TV hosts, radio hosts. And one of them... 2014, too. I mean, let's everyone take a note of that too as you're thinking about your marketing strategy, you're about 10 years ahead of the curb there. Like the idea of influencers and sending material out to hopefully getting a promo, that wasn't an everyday occurrence from a marketing strategy standpoint. So, quite brilliant. And I've always been, I've always subscribed to any great

marketer can sell a product once, but only a great product can sell itself again. And I felt our product was so good. It was just a matter of getting it on people's bodies. And one of them was Howard Stern. Okay. I didn't know Howard received it. I was at the Javitt Center in New York. and all of a sudden all these orders start coming in on my phone, like, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, and I called Matt Kreitzer, our head of e-commerce. I'm like, Matt, I think we've been hacked. He's like me, he's like, me too. We have all this traffic on the site.

I'm not sure if it's bots or what. And then at that same time, I got another call in from someone at the Howard Stern show, and she said, Howard just talked about your product. He had a question about cool cotton versus second skin, as I explained with, you know, what makes them different. and it was our best sales day ever. I think we did $40,000 in online sales. Up until then, like $7,000 was our best day.

A month later, he talks about it again. We do even more sales. And then in March 2014, someone from serious radio calls, they said, hey, we keep hearing Howard's been talking about your product. He's never talked about a brand this much that's not a paid advertiser. Would you have any interest in advertising? And I'm like, I don't, why would I advertise? I'm thinking to myself, we're getting free ads.

and then I said semi-pricing, we'll think about it, and I'll get back to you, and we looked at the pricing, and at the time, for one month of advertising on the Howard Stern Show, it was the equivalent of almost six months of our entire marketing budget. And I kind of looked at the numbers, and it just felt like this is a moment where we just need to do it. The data may not prove or get everybody comfortable that this is the right decision. It was more just an intuition. And we paid for the, We did it, started advertising, and we paid for the entire month of advertising in the first 36 hours. We went through six months of inventory in the next 45 days. And it was just like our lightning in the bottle moment.

And Howard just became such an evangelist. A couple years ago, he talked about, he sat down his family, he designated in his will that he wants to be buried in Tommy John's second skin. Oh, my God. So, you know. That's crazy. You just, you don't, you never know who that person's going to be or when it's going to hit, and there's really no way you could have prepared for it. But what you learned is at that moment would have happened a couple years earlier.

It might have put us out of business. Because you weren't prepared for the scale. We weren't, we didn't have the factory relationships. We didn't have the product, financial planning, inventory planning, expertise. Even then, it was really tough to forecast the demand for it because people would sign up for a out-of-stock alert. and every time we would get back in stock, they wouldn't buy just one. They would buy 2.9 units.

So we were going through the inventory we thought we needed three times faster. So it was just we could never catch up. But what we learned was radio, serious radio, which led to podcasts, which was a channel that underwear had never been marketed through, which is your ears,

not your eyes looking at packaging, looking at a model in a department store. And it was a channel where we could talk about the problems, solved. And we focus on three things. Fabric, fit, and function. Innovative fabrics that are more breathable, stretchy, a fit that solves problems and a functionality of undershirts that stay tucked in, underwear that doesn't ride up. When we had clever marketing, we found that when your underwear doesn't ride up, you don't get a wedgy. Why don't we just say we have a no-wedgee guarantee?

And we make these bold claims in our advertisements on the radio, give them an incentive to buy, and then the product would back up and kind of walk the talk. And it would build this loyalty through a channel that had never been marketed. So we found this awesome channel, radio and podcast, really on a whim from Howard. And it led to just a lot of growth, a lot of brand awareness in a really cost-efficient way, which led to a lot of retail expansion. And from there, the business went from 4.7 to 11 million to 30 million to 52 million, year over year. And along with that, underwear is a really loyal category. Really hard to get guys

to change. But man, if they change and they find a product they love, as long as you don't change the fit or quality, you've got a customer for life. I'm in a really interesting point in my life where I've been paying so much more attention with just how my body actually performs and recovers lately. Like, I'm really trying to just like increase my endurance with workouts and build on muscle mass. But what surprised me is how much of what you feel during training actually starts with your blood markers. And most people never think to check. Well, here's what most people overlook. Your muscles don't maybe need the training. They need the right internal conditions to recover and stay strong. And those conditions can show up in your blood.

Things like your magnesium, your iron, your hormone levels, markers that often affect how you feel in each workout. And when they're off, everything feels harder than it should. When they're dialed in, you actually see the results that you're looking for. And that's where function, 100, 160 plus lab tests a year will come into play. I can actually see what's going on. One of the things that I actually learned was that I need more protein intake, especially as I'm trying to increase my muscle mass. I also learned with sleep, I needed more magnesium. And that's where this stuff just helps. More information equals better results. Check your health the way I do. 160 plus lab tests a year for just $365 plus the ability to dive deeper

and your results through functions, connections to platforms you already use, like ChatGBT&T and Claude. Just join Functionhealth.com slash Trading Secrets. Or just use gift code Trading Secrets 25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. So the repeat business and the underwear and undershirt category is great. It's very predictable in a lot of ways. So there's a lot that goes into your underwear before you do. I have a ton of follow-up questions to that because it's an unbelievable stories. But you're six years in, your biggest and best ever, 7,000 in sales. Howard Stern does a bit on his show. You don't know he's doing a bit. You then do 40,000 in sales that day. They ask you to do one ad. You tell them, let me think about it. And that

cost of that ad on a Howard Stern show is six months of your marketing budget. How much was that act? Yeah, it was 60,000 for the month. So I believe it was close to $10,000 per one-minute read. So we had six one-minute reads within a show over those 30 days. And before you just, because I think this is one that marketers and entrepreneurs really struggle with, you have to analyze that cost to see if you're going to get the return. Are you using the 40K in sales from the one mention as your justification to deploy that kind of money? Great question. Yeah, I think, yes, we looked at the sales, but we could look at their data, their name,

their email address, what they bought. And we found the customers that came in that day came back within weeks to buy more. So the repeat rate, the cohort analysis really proved that they become a loyal, high-value customer quickly, especially from this channel. And we had Howard's endorsement, right? And he's spoken not good about brands, but the brands, he is a fanatic and obsessive about it. And I think when the customers buy the products he talks about on the show, they really live

up to the claims. so he was a very trusted source of brand knowledge. And I think that was really what gave us a confidence to kind of make a bet. So I wouldn't say it was a carefree risky bet. It was calculated in a lot of ways based on what we did, but you never really know. In the 36 hours after that first ad read for $10,000 per minute, what did your revenue look like? Oh, gosh.

I mean, I think the first day, the first ad we did well over $100,000. Wow. online sales. Unbelievable. I'm so happy this brand's advertising. You know how much I love this product. I can't live without Tommy John. Here's why I love it.

And then he talked about how once he wore Tommy John, all these other competitors started sending him product. Of course. Here's why we're better than Tommy John. Here it's cheaper, better fabrics, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, I tried them all. And nothing, nothing compared to Tommy John. And here's why.

And that gave us so much conviction and confidence. We can go head to head against anybody because the best product wins. I'm going to get back to best product wins, but before I do, I got to ask you the question. I mean, the guy's going to be buried in Tommy Johnson as will. He brings your revenue and changes your businesses completely. Like, did you ever talk to him and sit down about an equity deal? You know, I reached out to him and his manager, Don said Howard's not interested in doing any partnerships.

I mean, he's making so much money in serious radio. But of course we did. Yeah. I mean, why not? And he said no, but it didn't really change anything with a relationship. I had the opportunity to go back on the show. I went on the show back in, I don't know, 2016 or 17, and we did something where we gave away product in one of the segments,

and I had the opportunity to meet him. You don't catch me as a Howard Stern guy. Yeah. Like Howard Stern, I can't see, like, every day you're listening to Howard Stern. I mean, of course I grew up watching it on TVs or whatever. I watched his movie. It's movies. But, you know, learning about Howard and the way he prepares

and gets ready for guests and the level of questioning, it's not luck. And what I really appreciate when Howard is he doesn't have people running the sound in the video. He's meticulous about checking everything in the studio before they go on. He's so involved in all the little details. And it's no

accident he became what he has become is because he was just so obsessive about it. And I just seeing you prepare today, I have so much respect for people because it's not, there's a correlation to preparation and what they do to get to the level they're at. So I, and of course,

when he started talking about our product, everybody's texting and emailing, we're getting these great reads. And I just became more of a fan. But I didn't live in New York. And arguably, he has the most loyal followers. I'm sure all your friends probably listen to him on the regular. But yeah, I think a good trading secret from there is, let's say, like Howard's content, what they talk about on their show. It's for a group of people that absolutely love it. And some people are like, I'm not listening to that content. But I think what's interesting is maybe one thing we should all think about is whether you consume the person's content or you don't, it's really important to look at the person that's achieving outlying success because you can

still learn so much from them. And I think, obviously, we know Howard Stern is an industry tycoon in his space and always has been. And I think that's fascinating to kind of learn the behind the scenes. You think Howard Stern, you're thinking some of it's like some of the crazy shows that he's done, but you don't think about, wow, he's working the cameras, he's checking the angles, he's meticulous about everything. He's preparing at all-time levels. and it's just another good trading secret. Anyone achieving outlying success, no matter what the content it is,

there's probably a story or a lesson you can learn from their actions and behaviors, which I think is cool. For sure. Just the ability to observe arguably greatness and be their firsthand. It was an amazing experience, for sure. Okay, we're going to get to the product here shortly before I do. Obviously, Howard Stern, change a trajectory of your revenue,

any other big public figures that you have considered working with or during that time you're in discussion with that also potentially had that trajectory? Well, I think what we learned is sending our product was the best litmus test if we were going to work with somebody that had a radio show on Sirius or a podcast. A friend of mine heard Colin Cowherd didn't wear underwear on ESPN. He talked about why he didn't wear underwear. And I sent him some product and said, hey, Colin, we created underwear that doesn't make you feel like you're wearing underwear.

And please send me a message. I'd love to hear back from you and gave my number and a note card. of underwear and he called back the very next day. He's like, hey Tom, I love your product. I've never worn anything like this when I ended having lunch with him. But he talked about the next day. He's like, I got this Tommy John underwear. I feel like a bulletproof politician when I wear this. They create an underwear that makes me feel like I'm not wearing underwear. I'm now going to be one of the less than 1% that no longer were wearing not wearing underwear. I'm going to start wearing underwear. But then about in 2015 or 16, someone came

up to me in the office said, hey Tom, check this out on Instagram. Kevin Hart, the actor comedian's wearing Tommy John dancing around with the shirt off and we saw our waistband. And I was like, that's awesome. When Kevin was just starting to become big and I was able to get connected to him and send him a bunch of underwear, sent him a note like, hey man, congrats on your success. I know how hard it is. I've had a similar journey. If you're ever in New York, I'd love to hear from you. And he ended up calling me. He said, hey man, this is Kevin Hart. like, God, it sounds just like Kevin Hart. Maybe it's his real him.

AI wasn't as big back then. And he said, I'd love to meet and learn more about the business. So he came into the office and he came in with a group of like three or four guys. And he was there for a couple hours. And finally, I was like, we're not looking for a spokesperson. Like, I feel like everybody wants to work with a celebrity or athlete. And we don't really have the budget to pay somebody. He's like, I don't want to pay.

There's an opportunity for me to invest and become part of the, the brand, I love the product so much and I'd rather get involved with brands I really believe in and wear and use on a daily basis. And maybe we can do a campaign together. And so I left that and I was like, whoa, let me come back with something that makes sense. And I felt it was so authentic because we're a fun, witty brand. We try not to be too serious with how we market our product. And Kevin, arguably one of the top comedians in the world, it was really on brand for us to work with

a comedian and arguably one of the top five most recognized people in Hollywood. And then we got stuck with entertainment lawyers going back and forth on agreements and contracts. And five months later, just reached this point of like, I just called the attorneys he had and I said, look, this is it. You can report to Kevin. We're not doing anything more. This has already been over almost six figures and legal fees. And there's no end in sight. The very next day, he was doing this run campaign and Battery Park City with Maria Menuno. Kevin Hart, Maria Menuno's. So I called his manager,

Wayne, who I had his number. And I said, hey, Wayne, I'm walking down here with my daughter. My daughter was in the carrier, like one-year-old Violet. And I'm like, I'd love to come by and say hi to Kevin. He was in her trailer right down by the Hudson River there. I walk in. The first thing he says, Tom, what's a deal, man? I heard you cost me all this money with attorneys.

You're being difficult to work with. And I was like, you're joking. right, he's like, man, yeah, I'm sorry. It's taken so long. What do we need to do to do to get this done? Yeah. And I was like, you know what? All you need to do is tell your attorneys, everything looks good. And within a week, it was done. Wow. And we started working on the campaign and went to LA, met with Kevin, and started concepting. But you know what? Like, I don't really believe in coincidences. I think that was kind of like a planned opportunity. And it's funny how those things work sometimes. And then that was when Kevin was really active on social media.

He's not as active now. Back in 2017, 18, 19. We did a big launch at Macy's. So Kevin love him. He's a friend, and he was so impactful in our business in those early days for just brand awareness and his scale and platform, wearing our product and movies, doing campaigns and Macy's. He had billboards and Times Square.

And he was comfortable doing everything. We did YouTube videos. We did the TV commercial. together. He spent so much of his own money traveling to these events and Kevin is who he is, like he is him. He's just like a stand-up guy, not perfect, but just genuine down to earth and such a big advocate, forever grateful for Kevin. It's crazy that you bring in a product, right? And you know we talk a lot about on this show how much people are getting paid for marketing, placement, and commercials and things like that. And you create a product that one of the most

recognizable names like you said in Hollywood, isn't coming to you asking for a budget. Is coming to you for the opportunity to invest in your company? I mean, what an unbelievable position to be in. Before I do want to ask about the product, the last question I got on marketing, when you think about marketing dollars spent, we already talk about $10,000 on the one-minute ad read for Howard Stern. What do you think has been the biggest dollar amount you've ever spent on one campaign? Oh, man. one campaign.

I mean, I think our marketing budget's so big now. It's close to an eight-figure marketing budget right now. It's diversified now. I look at it more as channels. So we have online and with online, we have new customer acquisition. It could be meta, Facebook, Instagram, it could be TikTok. It could be billboards. It could be TV ads, which you're in right now, you and Catherine, which is going to be awesome.

I'm excited for you guys. It could be podcast and direct mail postcards. We've had magazines. It's everything. It's not just one thing. So now we kind of look at it per channel. But it's not atypical for us to spend millions of dollars on one campaign. And if it works, we keep running it.

We keep renewing it. We've got a great team that looks at the data and the BI and the intelligence to figure out what the ROI is per channel. Where we may pay more for a customer because they fit a profile that's more. likely to reorder. Interesting. Reorder, that's a big piece of this business. Repeat business is a big part, but we're not the cheapest. I've never been interested in playing the price game.

I think we've always believed dollar for dollar. We provide more value in our product and our quality and our longevity and our functionality than our competitors do to kind of outrun the saturation from competitors. Love it. And you just, I think anybody that's got a brand or a business, you've got to be authentic. You've got to speak to the problems or, or, or, or, or, or, you just, I think anybody that's got to, in a relatable way. We talk about at Tommy John

having an approachable swagger. And I think Howard, to go back to Howard, what made most sense, Howard says it how it is. He's vulgar, sexual, talks about, but he talks about, he verbalizes people's thoughts.

Correct. Right? Without a filter. Without a filter. So he can say what people think and it resonates. Kevin can do that too. We can do that.

We have a unique voice, tone of voice, photography. We don't want to shoot models with no facial expressions. We want to be smiling in their home environment, drinking coffee, having dogs in it. Like real life, real situations, not mowing the laundry in your underwear. Like, that's kind of weird. No one does that. Or maybe you do it. I don't know about it. I don't. Yeah. But all that, I think if anybody's listening is just don't be scared to be yourself and be authentic. In the early days, like a lot of the marketing copy was me. It was how I thought translated into what I felt would resonate with more guys that thought like me.

And then Howard validated that. And Kevin Val, and you start to attract the people that make sense for the brand and the culture and the emotion you want to have connecting with the customer. Support for today's episode comes from Square. The easy way for business owners to take payments, book appointments, bandage staff, keep everything running in one place. Literally, whether you're selling lattes, cutting hair,

detailing cars, or running a design studio, Square will help you run your business without running yourself. into the ground. We always go to 12th, South in Nashville, and every one of these boutiques, literally every single one, whether it's vintage clothing or a cup of coffee, will use Square. Think about your local favorite cafes, your businesses, boutiques or restaurants, they're using Square. And finally, Square is the tool that all the big corporations have access to, but not the small businesses can use. Sell wherever your customers are. Manage the day-to-day expense with less stress. Take payments and get paid instantly. Keep your regulars coming back.

Square has built-in tools like loyalty. and marketing to help you connect with customers and reward them for showing up again. And with Square, you can get all the tools to run your business with none of the contracts or complexities. And why wait? Right now, when you get up to $200 off square hardware, just go to square.com backslash go, backslash, trading secrets. That's SQ-U-A-R-E dot com slash go-G-O-S trading secrets. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. It feels like the product, of course, has evolved and will continue to involve, and the product is the epicenter of the success. The question I have for you then is, as your product is growing 11 and 30 and 50 million, you guys are just blowing up, there has to be some kind of threat that competition's going to come in and study the hell out of your product.

Like inside and out every single meticulous detail, they're going to know it all and try and replicate it. Is there anything that you had to do to reduce that threat to make something proprietary to Tommy John, whether it's a trademark or something like that to protect that threat? Great question. Imitation is probably the greatest form of flattery in a lot of ways. Perfectly said. I think it validates you're doing a lot of things right. But I think you evolve or you dissolve.

And we have a utility patent on our undershirt because of the utility of staying tucked in. So anybody that wears an undershirt that's listening, our undershirt stays in place. It's not a girdle. It's designed to not write up and create this excess fabric gut. There's a patent on that design.

Yeah, the design, more so the utility of staying tucked in. So we make the claim that it stays in place through a multi-directional stretch fabric and a certain chest-to-waste ratio. It took like seven years to get this patent. So that's very difficult to get in the clothing category. But also, like we've came out with the lightest underwear ever created air underwear.

It weighs two ounces. You can wash and dry it in a sink and it dries in two hours or less. That had never been created. So we took fabrics and incorporated them into underwear in ways that have never been done before. So we're continuing to evolve and innovate and give the customer something new and different. That's more breathable.

It wicks more. It has anti- odor. We have a hammock pouch. So the only thing that should be swinging is your nine iron is our tagline with our supportive hammock pouch concept. So if guys want that, we have something for everybody that kind of solves problems. And underwear is the thing that a lot of men suffer in silence.

There's these uncomfortable truths, like they adjust themselves. And once you see somebody adjusts themselves, you can't unsee it. So we had this TV campaign called No Adjustment Needed that ran in 2016, and it showed guys adjusting from, like, childhood and walking through the halls of middle school to elderly people in an airport,

showing that it's a universal epidemic that all men have. And so you have to be creative with how you market, especially you can kind of create like a brand and an emotional loyalty to kind of offset a lot of the competition. Smart. It's genius. I love it. One of the things I want to ask you is you're growing, you're growing, you're growing. When was the first payday you got, whether it was, I don't know if you guys worked with private equity or there was some kind of big investment or some liquidation event,

but what happened and what did it look like your first payday there like oh my god it worked yeah we you know we did a private equity round in late 2021 okay you know we had been running the business for 13 13 years at that point and never really had a big financial windfall so we brought on some great partners that had a lot of industry expertise to grow the business and this is just right after COVID um but at that point we really hadn't taken a lot of of money off the table. I mean, we made a nice salary. We had a nicer life. We were living in a 1,200 square foot apartment and battery park. But, you know, New York is an expensive city to live in. You know, what's wealthy in some cities is almost poverty in Manhattan. It just, you know,

it doesn't go as far as you think it does. But yeah, that certainly gave us some breathing room and an opportunity to take some meaningful money off the table. But I think, you know, you don't have to raise money if you're patient and you're really building something for the long run. I think we were very conscious about not wanting to give up control of the company to investors or venture capital and having a bunch of suits in the room talking about what we should do. There's so many ways you can, I think, create financing that allows you not to raise money. So for example, I would fly to factories in China and Egypt and Israel and negotiate better pricing versus spending those 20 hours building a PowerPoint to go raise more money and give up more of my company and give up more control. And by doing that, I would ask for better terms where our money could last longer,

stretch longer. We did lines of credit. We did factoring. We factored our POs in the early days where they take a percentage of the purchase order, but allowed us to finance our inventory without giving up part of the company. So I just, I had a mentor in the early days said, make sure you have the right margin and build profitability into your business. So if you want to raise money, you can, but you don't have to because you're not going to need to. Brilliant. In 2021, when you took that, we're talking millions, tens of millions. What did it look? Give me an idea of what that paid like. I would say it's, it was enough where we don't have to work for a while. Yeah. Or, you know, and if we don't want to. But honestly, it wasn't really about the money. Yeah. You know,

I think for us, I just wanted to prove we could do something different, something big. in the entrepreneurial space and it's been so cool to build the company alongside my wife with the business in a lot of ways, but don't do something for the money. If you find something that you stand out and you're doing differently

and you're passionate about, it's funny how passion leads to money. Right? Perfectly said. I'm more impressed at the people that are wealthy doing something they hate. I don't know how they do it. To live a life where you just

going to go to work today, it's so hard to give up this life, but they dislike their work. There's so many ways to make money doing what you love. And I just don't cut yourself short. Don't get too comfortable in that or just accept it and make the best out of it. But that was our thing.

I'd never thought to a million years I'd be selling underwear, men's and women's underwear living in New York, but you just have to find those opportunities and be willing to go all in. And a lot of times, you'll find out if you're made for it. Yeah. A lot of this conversation has been about the success

the trajectory. There's always pushback in downfalls. And I think I'd listen to an interview this morning about a downfall or just a learning lesson you had in 2018. When I listened to it, I was like, oh my God, it connected with me well because the first book that I wrote, the restart roadmap, literally the first five pages are me depicting a scenario in which I'm at this big boardroom, CEO, CFO, I'm the youngest one in the room, biggest pitch of my career. I got a nail it. I've never missed a pitch of my life. I'm hitting home runs every time I go into a boardroom and Raiders were about to start the pitch. I was like, is there a bathroom? The CEO was like, excuse me? I was like, I need a bathroom. And he's like, yeah, okay? And I ran down the hallway,

went to the bathroom, closed the door, didn't know what was going on, hit the deck, passed right out. No idea what happened. Panic attack. And so I went home, did some soul searching. and a lot of my book is connected to the soul searching I did as to the why. Why did that moment happen? What else was going on in my life? What was I disassociating with? And it helped me a lot connect with myself and change things in my life. So when I heard the interview you talking about in 2018,

you had some form of a panic attack. You didn't know what it was, but it was a wake-up call for you. I wanted to ask you about what that experience was and what you learned from it and how you changed your business mindset. moving forward from that. Yeah, it's funny. You find a lot of entrepreneurs that's more common than you think,

or athletes or celebrities. And for me at the time, I had two kids under four years old. We had just launched our women's business, working with Kevin and our, you could never catch up with all the work, right? Probably wasn't sleeping or working out like I needed to.

And I was in a meeting in our doing like our weekly business review and I remember I was just like man I'm having trouble breathing am I having like an allergic reaction probably like you did I felt myself getting really hot and I was like am I like sweating in front of people so I just got up and went out and usually our front office receptionist is there no one was there I'm like looking around like man is this how I'm going to go out am I having a heart attack

I couldn't figure out what was going on I like couldn't get a breath I almost stuck my finger down my throat and I sat down on a couch and it was like the longest five minutes in my life. I was scary, you don't really know what's happening, why it's happening. And I started Googling online later that it was a panic attack. So I changed a lot of things with, you know, sleep, health, always been into fitness, but putting, I would say,

different people in different positions where I wasn't taking it all on and doing all the things and started delegating differently, went deeper in my faith, I started doing ice bass. I got really into cold plunges at the time. And it was just a multitude of those modalities that kind of helped me, I think, deal with just the growth and the stress.

Look, I think stress is a blessing. In a lot of ways, like if you're not growing, you're dying. So I think it's a privilege to have that stress. That means you're doing a lot of things right. But as a leader of the company, like, you've got to be there. You can't get sick. It's expensive to be sick. It's expensive to be out of the office. And it really kind of changed a perspective on a lot of things with how I led, how I manage, how his husband, and everything. So I look at it as a good thing now.

Yeah. But yeah, like, insecure. I thought it was like, man, what's wrong? Sure. You know, I'm sure you had similar thoughts. Did you do anything differently after yours? Yeah, for me, it was like I had to identify, like, what was the why? Like, what was the why? And what I realized the why was is I felt I was putting so much pressure.

I was getting my MBA at the time. So it's like you. I had limited sleep. I'm working full time. I'm getting my MBA at night. And I'm exceeding expectations at work. So I'm putting in so much effort. And I started to realize that the way I was doing it was by essentially customizing myself to

what everyone else wanted me to be. So at the bank, I was, I looked the way I was supposed to look. I dressed the way I was supposed to dress. I talked to the way I was supposed to talk. I acted the way I'm supposed to act. I said the vision. I was supposed to say it. And I realize I'm putting all this weight in my backpack on my shoulders

of trying to be what they want me to be except being myself. And that pressure, when it mounts and you're at the core tight, you're good. Like today, I have a lot of weights on my back into my backpack, things I got to get done before I fall asleep. But I got me. This foundation is tight. I can carry that weight. I didn't have that foundation.

I started to lose touch with who I. I was. I didn't really know my identity. I didn't have a core. So the weight just like it crashed in. And I think your body kind of gives you signals, whether it's physically or it's mentally. And I think in business and life and personal situations, financial situations, you've got to listen to those indicators. They tell you a story that's so much greater than what you're seeing. Yeah. I mean, it's funny like a, I think like a week later, like the day after our tenure anniversary, such a high, you know, our head of people, my wife and our president sat me down. They're like, you need to leave for a couple weeks.

You're not yourself. You're not good to be in the company. And I was like, whoa, it was like one of those interventions. Yeah, yeah. Wait, I'm actually that guy. I'm the guy right now. It's like this out-of-body experience looking at yourself. You're like, dang, that's a tough deal to swallow.

And I left for a couple weeks and just said Tom was off. And I went surfing and went to California for a week and just relax and red. did a lot of like self-reflection. And I'm so glad that I had people that cared enough about me to have that conversation. And they saw it and they were willing to give me that feedback. And I probably didn't want to hear. But you know, you swallow that pill and you're like,

all right, like if it's more than one person and they've talked about this before I had a plan before they sat down, like this is probably necessary. Yeah. But yeah, burnout's a real thing. Yeah. It happens to everybody at some point. I don't know if it's avoidable, but I think it can be preventable now because so many people are talking about it.

Yeah, and it seems like in both scenarios here, one common denominator is connection with yourself. Like you obviously took some time, connected with your faith, connected with yourself, and when you get more connected with yourself, all things work out well. Now, Tom, I could talk to you for another four hours. Tom and I had dinner last night for three and a half, but unfortunately, I will not be responsible for you not making your flight. and I got to take your reach to the airport. We're running late. So I can keep this conversation going, but it's been such a pleasure talking,

you're learning more about the business and really trying to dissect a little bit of some learning lessons people back at home and entrepreneurs can take in. But we got to wrap with your trading secrets. So one trading secret specific to you, we can learn from you, and likely no one else.

What can you leave us with? There's so many people that could have been millionaires that were one yes away, right? They were so close. and I think a lot of times when it seems like all the odds are against you, it's those people that make one more call, they make one more visit to a store, they do one overseas trip,

and it's their breakthrough moment, and there's been so many highs and lows along the way, and I got used to failure at an early age, so I knew you could always come back from failure. And I would honestly, like, play sports, put yourself out there in an environment, where you're going to fall flat on your face and have to overcome obstacles and challenges and it builds resilience, builds character. And I think that's part about being an entrepreneur

is if you want certainty and predictability, being an entrepreneur is probably not for you. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. The crazy ones are entrepreneurs in a lot of ways. And it's volatile. It's uncertain. It's going to be twice as hard. It's and it take 10 times longer than you thought. But it's worth it. I love it. It's totally worth it. And I wouldn't change the thing.

It's been such a fun journey and such a fun business and the people we've been able to work with and meet, be a part of. It's one of the coolest things. And it's what makes America great, love it or hate it. It's built this country. Being entrepreneurs, they create jobs. They create livelihoods.

It's a big responsibility, especially when your company gets bigger. But man, just like, go for it. You're never going to be ready. You're never going to be prepared. All the stoplights aren't going to be green. You know, you just got to go. I love it. You just got to go. So many trading secrets here today, guys, stay tuned to the recap. I'll tell you what my biggest trading secret was from this episode. And David and I will talk about all the curiosities he has. But Tom, thank you so much for being on trading secrets. Guys, if you haven't seen it, go check out this commercial. Go see Tommy John on, of course, their website and their social media. Catherine and I are there and a massive thank you to Tommy John for also contributing to

Wags and Walks, which is a non-for-profit 501c3 that is rescuing thousands and thousands of dogs every year. So Tom, thank you for being on trade secrets. Where can everyone find everything you have going on or anything related to Tommy John? Yeah, I'm not very active on Instagram. I am Tom Patterson and it's my personal Tommy John where is our Instagram handle and Tommy John.com. Very cool. Tom, let's get you there. Thank you for being on Training Secrets. All right, thanks, Chase. Great beer.