Well with Arielle Lorre - 131: All About CBD with Ret Taylor of Ned

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

In this episode I’m talking to Ret Taylor, co-founder of Ned, about how he went from chasing money around the world to starting a CBD company; what exactly CBD is, how it helps and what its applications are; why having a clear mission is so important when starting a business and how their business model differs from other companies; how to use plants and minerals to support the body and so much more.   www.Drinkolipop.com/BLONDEFILES for 20% off plus free shipping site-wide. www.Trybite.com/BLONDE for 20% off your first subscription. www.Uprisingfood.com with code BLONDE for $10 off the starter bundle. www.Piquetea.com/BLONDE for 5% off the limited time bundle with gifts. www.Helloned.com/BLONDE for 15% off plus a free De-Stress Blend sample on any order over $40.   Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, welcome to the Blonde Files podcast. I'm your host, Arial Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there is so much information out there, so I'm here to help you navigate it all and live your best life. Thanks for listening. Let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. Welcome to a bonus episode. I am very excited about this episode today. I'm talking to Rhett Taylor. He's the co-founder of Ned. And if you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, really, you've probably heard me talk about Ned before. They are a premium CBD company. They also have non-cbd products now, like their magnesium, mellow, which I drink every night and has been a really big, game changer in my wellness routine, just in how I feel. And I thought, since I love this company so much, since knowing them a little bit, I know kind of some of the backstory and what they stand for. And since I know CBD is such a popular thing now in the wellness world and a lot of people

might not even really know what it is, I wanted to bring somebody on who's an expert, bring on Rhett and have him talk about both Ned and also just talk about CBD and what it is, how it works, it can be good for who it's appropriate for and so much more. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode. Also, I have a code with them, full disclosure. So I have a code. It is blonde. You can go to hello ned.com slash blonde and you can get 20% off your first subscription order plus free shipping or you can get 15% off your first one-time order. So again, that's hello ned.com slash blonde. And with that, enjoy the episode. Okay, so I have Rhett Taylor here. He's one of the co-founders of Ned, who I'm sure everybody listening is familiar with because I have been talking about it for a while now. I think over a year we've been working together.

I think so, yeah. One of my favorite partnerships. I'm really excited to learn more about your brand. Obviously, I know a little bit because before we started working together, I got to talk to you guys and really find out more about how Ned came to be, more about the the product. It was something that, you know, I'm very open about being sober and CBD was not anything that I had any experience with really. And I was a little bit trepidacious because I think a lot of the products on the market are not super regulated, super. I mean, you just never really know what you're going to get. Not the case with your product, obviously, which we'll talk about today. But I've just really appreciated your openness and transparency and the product itself, obviously, is really above and beyond. So to start, why don't you just introduce yourself,

give the listeners a little bit of background on what you do now and how that came to be? Yeah, well, thanks, Ariel. And I remember when we first connected, and I remember the questions you had, and I remember how extensive they were, and that to me is always a great sign of what I hope will become a great partnership,

because it's the people such as yourself who really do vet the companies that they promote, they're the ones that have the best audience because they trust the promoter. So anyways, yeah, it was really great to connect with you. And we've worked with a number of different podcasters. And I can always tell which are going to be these successful partnerships. And, you know, that what I just mentioned plays a big role in it.

But, yeah, it's great to be working with you. And a bit about me very briefly. yeah, Rhett Taylor, one of the two co-founders of Ned here in Boulder, Colorado. And really came to Ned after almost 20 years in the work world and really wanting to be able to focus my passion and my purpose and make a living from it. And that's not something I did before Ned. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I was really chasing money all over the world, thinking that that would lead to happiness and a better life, and it did not.

And so Ned is really the answer to that. And it was about, you know, you mentioned transparency. It was about creating a more transparent wellness company, one that was focused entirely on quality, one that believes in karma and understands and operates under the understanding that karma is real. And when we treat our customers right, they'll treat us right in return.

And for me and for Adrian, my co-founder and business partner, it's a bit of an experiment, a business experiment. And, you know, how well does it go when you do the right thing at every turn? And that's the right thing by, you know, what we call our quadruple bottom line, which is the right thing by first our bottom line like any business, but also by our customers, by ourselves as a team and our families that rely on the business, and then also by the planet.

So anyway, that's a little bit. We'd love to dive in more, but whatever you'd like here. I remember when we first had that initial conversation, you kind of alluded to your lifestyle prior to starting Ned, and I would like to get into that a little bit more, just because I'm curious when people kind of end up in the wellness space in kind of a helping industry, which, you know, CBD, and like you were just saying, the kind of ethos of the company is to help other people. And that's part of your bottom line. It usually comes from some kind of personal experience that guides you to that, right?

So how did you go from chasing money around the world? What were you doing and what was your lifestyle like? And how did you land on CBD? Yeah. Well, I'll back all the way up. I was born in a tiny little mountain town in Wyoming. with 11 people in it. I was the 12th. And it was way out there, as you can imagine. And then very early on, my family, we moved to big cities. And I grew up in very big cities in Colorado and Massachusetts. And then I went and worked in Saudi Arabia. I worked in Miami and South Paulo, New York City, Saudi Arabia again. And really all throughout my life, I've always gravitated toward the most natural places in those cities, you know, whether it's Central Park, a Bita Puerta Park, or an abandoned lot in Boston,

wherever I could find some kind of nature. I always gravitated toward that. And then in 2007, I was living in New York City and I just got really interested in what it was about nature that made me feel better and made me more creative and focused and happy and made others around me that I noticed feel better as well. And, you know, 2007 was a different time. It was, you know, it was before, you know, this rush on national parks. It was before people, everybody went hiking and spent time outdoors. And it was really before a lot of people had an understanding for what the power behind nature is and that deeper connection. with the natural world.

And I was spending a lot of time in Central Park. I had kind of adopted this workout where I would like climb trees and lift rocks and logs and crazily enough, it actually became one of the biggest meetup groups in New York City. And lots and lots of people joined me on this, which was, you know, just this like kooky guy climbing trees. Where in Central Park were you climbing trees and lifting rocks? Yeah, all over. I mean, we'd start in the Sheeps Meadow and then go to the ramble, which is actually very natural.

And it turned into, again, like the hottest meetup. And I used to limit it to 30 people and it would like sell out in a second. I shouldn't say sell out. I wasn't charging any money for this. It was just something I loved and enjoyed and I loved meeting the people and I loved the conversations that came from it. And it was at that time, too, I started to find research on the power of nature. the scientific understanding of what it means to be connected and how that can help us. And I started reading all of the literature and the white papers and connecting with scientists

and researchers. And it was really a passion for me in a very nerdy pursuit of mine. But one that I found just fascinating and immensely, the potential, the opportunity there is just so vast. It goes beyond the self. It goes to really the planet. And if we all have a deeper connection with nature, then we're more likely to vote for bills that don't destroy the planet.

We're more likely to actively participate in protecting our planet. So it was, yeah, 2007. And then it took all the way until 2017 for me to really find a way or articulate the need to create my lifestyle around that and my business as well. I spent 12 years selling custom four and five star hotel furniture. I could have cared less about custom four and five star hotel furniture. I was going to ask if that was a passion of yours. Not. And it like drove me crazy. I was very good at because I loved connecting with people. And at the end of the day, it was about that.

But if you asked me about the pile height of carpet or the, you know, how this table was made, I couldn't tell you it because I didn't spend the time. I didn't create the bandwidth to do so. And now it's being able to focus on that passion and my purpose is, it's so different. I think we can all agree that soda isn't the best. thing for our health, but also it's so good. And sometimes you just want one, right? At least I do. And that's where Olipop comes in. So Olipop is a new kind of soda that is so good and also good for you. They have functional ingredients that combine the benefits of prebiotics, plant fiber, and botanicals to

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out called Everyday Vitality and it's how to kind of combat stress and just live in high stress world like we do today and she said one of the most imperative things to incorporate into your lifestyle is to spend more time in nature and she was talking about different studies and there were studies where they found that people recovering from surgery recovering I can't remember how many times faster if there's a window with a tree outside of their window. And I think that if we really, you know, depending on where we live and depending on our lifestyle, but I think if we really look at it, we spend so little time in nature. So that reminded me of that.

But how did you land on CBD? And did you know anything about it going into it? Yeah. Yeah. So in 2015, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. And they caught it very early. And she was able to make the decision to skip chemo and radiation. And she said, I'm going to skip it. And instead, I'm going to really focus on battling my cancer through nutrition and movement and positive thinking.

And I thought to myself, well, that's really cool, mom. But, man, that's really scary because you know so little about nutrition. and not that I knew a ton, but I knew far more. And I had been paleo since 2005 or so or 2006. And just being here in Boulder, Colorado, I'm surrounded by health nuts of all stripes. And so when she said that, I was like, okay, that's your decision. Now I'm going to go out and learn everything I can about battling cancer through nutrition.

And just nutrition in general, because here I was, I was 35. or so, 36, and starting to feel, you know, so make some pains, starting to feel a bit older. I'd always been an ultra runner and marathon runner, and it was, I was slowing down and not recovering as fast as I wanted to. So anyways, I went out and learned everything I could about nutrition, and I'm still learning, and I have so much more to learn. But one of the things that kept coming up from people I trusted back in 2015 and 16 was with CBD, cannabinoids, full spectrum of cannabinoids.

And I started buying them for my mom. And I never really found any sort of affinity for any of the brands out there. Because I had questions. I was asking, you know, I'd call them up and say, you know, where's your hemp grown? Or how's it extracted? Or, you know, what's your mission statement? And I wasn't getting the answers I thought I deserved as a consumer. as somebody, like a son buying something for his mother, wanting her to get better.

And so I really wanted to create a better company that sold CBD, cannabinoids, as well as other wellness products that were all focused on connecting us with nature. So it was in that thinking that I went out and started meeting with a bunch of hemp farmers all through the summer of 2017. And I kept hearing about this one. And all the farmers I were meeting were good people and they were really good at growing alfalfa and soybeans and corn,

but they weren't great at growing hemp. And what they were trying to do was grow the same way that they grew their corn, which is to say, in like mass scale and really focusing on quantity instead of quality. And so I finally met this farmer in Paonia, who I kept hearing about, he had been a marijuana grower and then switched to hemp so he could get out of his basement

and stop looking over his shoulder. And he was growing with organically, biodynamically, which, you know, takes into account the science behind farming, but also the energy and the spirituality behind farming. So his farm was very different from the others that I had seen. And it was at that point that I knew I'd found our farmer and then I, he, introduced me to the extractor that he recommended, and they seemed great as well. They understood that it's important how you treat a plant at the end of its life. And if you hit it with tons of heat and pressure, you blast it with, you know, stringent chemicals, it's going to give you medicine, but it's not going to give you great medicine.

So this extraction facility was using cold ethanol, like a cold press, and really treating the plant with respect, which I loved. So at that point, I was like, okay, I got the two building blocks. Now I need to be able to tell the story because we're going to have, this is going to be different. It's going to be better quality. And then transparency is paramount. I want everybody to see where it's coming from and who it's coming from and understand that. It didn't even feel transported to the farm.

And so I called my good friend Adrian, my co-founder. And he is the best brand builder, storyteller, marketer that I know and many other people know as well. And it's been, you know, off to the races. The first thing we did, though, was we went and climbed this mountain, South Arapaho Peak. And we got shut down before the summit. It was like crazy blizzard came in in October. But that day we set the principles for the company. And that was by far the most productive day we've ever had because that enabled us to make decisions quickly and enabled us to say, is this net or is this not net?

And even if it's going to cost more and take more time, more energy, if it's not Ned, you know, we're not doing it. So tell everybody what is Ned and tell everybody about your product because I'm going to. I think a lot of people are probably familiar with the term CBD and kind of maybe know a little bit about what it is or where it comes from. But maybe just explain to people who aren't familiar how your product is different about your extraction process. What are cannabinoids? All of that. Sure, sure. Well, cannabinoids are the parts of the plants, the hemp or marijuana plants.

In our case, the hemp plant that interact with the endocannabinoid system, which is a system within our body that's really only discovered in the 90s, but it's a 50 million-year-old system and it controls so much within our bodies. Everything from stress and anxiety to sleep, joint muscle pain, inflammation, and depression, and many other areas as well. So yeah, those are cannabinoids. CBD is like one of the famous ones, the more famous ones these days. And CBD is kind of like the bus driver. Like it leads the other cannabinoids into the body and opens it up for the body to receive the other cannabinoids. And those would be CBG or CBN or CBCD or and on and on. There's over a hundred different cannabinoids and more being discovered all the time. But, you know, it's kind of like the, gets all the credit. It's like the lead singer and the rock band. So without the drummer and the bassist and the guitar and the lighting guy or gal,

you're not going to get the full effect. So you really want to have a full spectrum CBD or full spectrum hemp oil product. And so Ned is all about that full spectrum. We never use isolates. We never use, you know, we would only use the full. spectrum. We've also gotten really good at blending in other botanicals. Like our sleep blend is one of our best sellers. It's just full of beautiful botanicals like skullcap, valerian, chamomile, oat straw, and other ingredients that are really known to help with sleep. And so that's a really

popular, really effective product of ours. And I love it because, you know, the alternative a lot of people use is ambient and these drugs that just really, really throw off your circadian rhythm and become addictive and have, you know, pages of side effects. And our product is just pure, clean plants, purely extracted, cold-pressed extracted. And it's not going to make you groggy. And it's not and do all the litany of other things that pharmaceuticals do. So we really love being a natural alternative. Yeah, I was going to say no hangover. I think with so many of the products that are on the market right now, you know, you might fall asleep, you might stay asleep, whatever they do, but in the morning you feel like shit. And your product doesn't do that at all. I know that a lot of

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They are cruelty-free, vegan, and palm oil-free, and all packaging and shipping materials are refillable, recyclable, and home compostable. So Byte is offering my listeners 20% off your first subscription order. Just go to trybite.com slash blonde or use the code blonde at checkout to claim this deal. Again, that's trybite.com. T-R-Y-Y-R-Y. by B-I-T-E dot com slash blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E, or use the code blonde at checkout for 20% off your first subscription order. I wanted to talk to you also about Mellow because this is one of my favorite products ever, ever, ever.

And I know that you guys just finally got more in stock. So the combo of the Mello and I ran out of Sleep Blend, but even just the full spectrum, I mean, I sleep like a rock. it's crazy. And I've talked about this before, but I feel like magnesium for me was kind of the missing link where like when I finally incorporated it into my routine, it just felt like a lot of other things kind of balanced out. And I actually did a podcast with Alyssa Lynch. I don't know if you're familiar with her, but we were both like going on a tangent about magnesium. I'm like, I don't think anybody is going to care about this. But we were very passionate about it. And yours is so different

from others. I mean, I know a lot of people do, like, even with CBD, a lot of people are doing like the gummies, so many fillers and you're just really not getting the full benefit. So can you talk about that one as well? I love me, I love me. I love magnesium. It was introduced to me, let's see, like seven years ago by my physical therapist. Like I said, I was a marathon runner and ultra marathon runner and just like trying to stay young

and healthy. And yeah, when he said, you know, you're using magnesium, right? And I was like, no, should I be? And it's like, oh my God, yeah, everybody should be. It's an essential mineral and our bodies need it. And it helps in so many areas, just like CBD and cannabinoids do. But 75% of us Americans are deficient or not getting enough magnesium.

And that's because, well, our grandparents got four times the amount of magnesium in a salad that we get these days because of over farming and monocropping and magnesium has just been stripped from our soil. And so again, we get, it's essential mineral, but we're not getting enough of it in our diet. And so it's important that we supplement it. We always promote, you know, whole foods first, if you can, but you would literally have to be eating, you know, spinach and legumes. I mean, all day long. So anyways, magnesium, I was turned on to it and it made a vast difference. I was magnesium deficient, like 75% of other Americans out there.

It took several months, but when I became magnesium optimal, I went from getting injured, I went from not sleeping well, I went from having mood swings to just feeling like, finally I'm who I'm supposed to be and I'm functioning well. and it really allowed me to step out of that prison of tough sleep and pain and just kind of just be more who I am. And so I just really fell in love with magnesium. And honestly, it was something we considered launching with first. And then also looking at what was on the market.

You know, I tried it all. And I was regularly getting blood work done to check my magnesium levels. And I would try certain products out there that just had almost no effect, just passes right through you because there are multiple different types of magnesiums. And so when it came time to create Mello, we actually took an embarrassingly long time working on the formula and trying it. But we were very passionate about it, Adrian and I and our food scientist team. So it's three different types of magnesium, we call it a magnesium super blend. There's magnesium lactate, gluconate, which is really great for the bones and blood.

There is Aquaman, which comes from the Irish Sea. And that's a magnesium citrate, and that's really good for relaxation and sleep. And then there's magnesium threonate, which is one of only two magnesiums that cross the blood brain barrier. Magnesium glycinate is the other one. But threonate's a really beautiful product that really helps with cognition. focus, mind, power, and function. And then we also added Gaba and Elthianine, which complemented really well.

Yeah. And not a little bit of Gaba or Lethene, but quite a lot, like functional doses. Okay, so we've talked about some of the benefits of these products, but who is this appropriate for? I mean, I can just say, like, in my own experience, that the CBD in particular has helped with my sleep. It's helped with my anxiety.

The way that I've kind of experienced it, which I've talked about before on the show, is that it just takes the edge off. Like, I'm very much a lifestyle person too, so I try to do everything with the nutrition and the meditation and the getting in nature and all of that. But there's still sometimes this edge and there's still life. And, you know, we're going to experience stress and anxiety.

And I found that it took it from like a 12 to like a manageable place. I use it for like I've developed fear of flying in the past year, which has been new and confusing. And it's really helped with that. I use it for jet lag when I'm traveling. I mean, it has so many different applications. I'm using it now because I have a foot injury,

which I was talking to Adrian about. And I'm on all kinds of meds. And he was actually telling me that I should just use the oil directly on it, which I'm going to do after. but it also helps with like the side effects of the medications. And I've gotten messages, which I'm sure you get messages daily from your customers, but people who have listened to the podcast, who bought the product and have gone off antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds.

And so who is CBD appropriate for? And what can it specifically help with? Yeah, well, without making any medical claims. I can say that, you know, a lot of our customers come to us for our sleep blend, which obviously helps with sleep. a lot come to us for help with joint or muscle pain. And they'll use our body butter, which is kind of an outside in approach and our tinctures,

which is more of an inside out approach. And then let's see, anxiety, stress. Those are, I mean, those are the big ones right next to sleep. We see a lot of people using it for that. Everyone from teenagers, you know, parents buying it for their children, dealing with social anxiety or stress. at school to professional golfers who use it to have a steady hand when they're putting.

So, you know, those are really the main ones that people come to us for. But there's also, yeah, depression. One of my favorite customers is former Army Ranger who has PTSD and has been battling PTSD for many, many years. He lets us know how well he's doing these days, since he got off of a lot of medication that he was prescribed by the VA. And it's really beautiful to see that. So I personally love our body butter. I use it every morning. It's just a great moisturizer.

And I know I'm getting cannabinoids through my skin. I love our body butter. And then I also use our 1500 whenever I feel like it's going to be a stressful day. or it already is a stressful day. And then at night, I use our sleep blend. And that just really helps me sleep. And then I also use mellow as well, both morning for the cognitive boost it gives me

and at night for the relaxation that it gives me. And sometimes, you know, I just want to like crash. I really want to get some great sleep. And I'll use both sleep blend and mellow. And then other nights, I'm good. I know I'm going to fall asleep pretty quickly. And I'll just use Mellow because it just feels like a very restful light sleep. So, yeah, I mean, we design our products for what we want and for what our family wants.

And so we're launching a new product very soon. In fact, samples will start shipping on Monday. It's called the de-stress blend. And you can guess what that's for. But, you know, obviously that's a tough one for us these days. saw a statistic a while back that said the average teenager has comparable levels of stress and anxiety and depression to what would have been considered a severe case in the 1950s of an adult visiting a psychologist or psychiatrist.

That's the average American teenager. So we're all dealing with so much more stress, anxiety. And unfortunately, a lot of us are turning to pharmaceuticals just straight off the bat. And I think we all know those who have really kind of fallen victim to this. And I think, too, that there's an awareness that's really encouraging to me, an awareness of natural remedies and other alternatives. And we really hope to be, you know, one of our main goals is to become. the pharmacy that people come to before pills. And plants before pills is a motto of ours.

And it's not plants, not pills. It's plants before pills. Because, you know, we really believe that there is a place for those pills. But for the vast majority of us, natural remedies are where we ought to be starting with and where a lot of us can end up with before getting to those pills. Yeah, I heard somebody kind of articulated. recently where they said like our brains haven't caught up to our lifestyles. So things are moving so fast now and technology and social media and this digital age that we're living in and everything

is go, go, go. And we know what everybody else is doing. We're just inundated 24-7. You can wake up and be on your phone until you pass out essentially and, you know, teenagers are falling asleep with their phones and their hands and getting notifications. And our brains have not evolved to be able to accommodate that. And I think that there is this gray area, just having talked to a lot of experts and psychiatrists and therapists and people in the medical field where, you know, they're seeing kind of this epidemic of people who are in the gray area. They're not clinically depressed. They're not clinically, you know, anxiety disorder, but they don't really fit in anywhere else. And so they're being put on medications. And, you know, I'm a proponent of medications. Obviously, like, when appropriate, I've been on

them in the past and I've been off them. And so, you know, like you said, this isn't like medical advice and this isn't to poo-poo the medical industry or anything, but it is kind of disheartening that like the default now seems to just be medication. And as a result, I think people and especially kids who are growing up that way don't develop any coping skills. Yeah, I think you're 100% right. And it's unfortunate. And it's also very right. And it's also very right. in saying that our brains and our bodies, which I really think are one and the same, but it's another topic of conversation,

have not caught up yet. In fact, we're getting further and further away. That's why I think we see more people seeking out nature these days. And it's why National Parks had record numbers last year. And because there's always got to be a counterbalance. And we're getting so far from our connection with home. nature was home for us for the vast vast majority of our evolution really only until the last blink of an eye so the term biophilia means love of what is natural and it's when we go home imagine going home

to to your parents place or where you grew up or to your friends we just feel good and we feel comfortable And it's the same way when we return to nature. So it's about reconnecting, not connecting. Yeah, I love that. Well, so fascinating to learn about all of this. And that's so exciting to hear that you guys have another product coming down, the line that we can all use and love. Where can everybody find you who's listening?

Hello, ned.com, h-l-l-l-n-ed.com. And then we're on Instagram at Ned, N-E-D. those are the best two places. Thank you so much for coming on. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. It's really important. I really appreciate the opportunity to share. I hope you enjoyed that episode.

If you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. I'm always posting about each episode there or over on my personal page at Ariel Lorry.