#392 Sean Lake: From Pro Snowboarder to Purpose-Driven Entrepreneur

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[00:00:00] Um, where do we starting here? We should probably get this about, let's, where does we're, does customer, this is the biggest problem. Forgot to record. This is the biggest problem. Oh, we could just, oh, sweet. We could just start wherever we want. Cool. Cool. Well look at him. Just try, just slide it in. He is, he's very dialed.

Yeah. Stacks military guys. They just know, they kind of buttoned up. They're operating. We're just literally playing out here. Yep. So shiny things. So, yeah. Well, let's hit it. Um, I'm still a little running Start here. Sean, welcome to the podcast, brother. Hey man. Thanks for having me. Like half the done, so it's what you want.

You want that rolling intro? Yeah, just get right into the good stuff. I mean, we could have just ripped the first 15 minutes and released it, honestly. Yeah. Well, we're done, right? We're we're good here. Yeah. Well, what we learned in the, the pre-show convo we're in the presence of a fellow east coaster, which is comforting.

Uh, Brett also lived out in San Diego. You live in San Diego now. Got a lot in common. Yeah. So San Diego's not a bad place to, uh, to, to drop anchor? No, [00:01:00] not at all. Especially when you get to go to Austin to visit, like they're, you know, twist my arm for those work trips. Yeah. I was only there for a year, but it was one of the best years of my entire life and I just felt like I, the difference between Austin and San Diego is that the culture and community here is fantastic, and obviously is in San Diego too, but I felt like I almost didn't need to work super hard to feel very good and very healthy and low stress just being near the ocean.

Yeah. I'm sure that you feel that as well. Yep. Uh, we're, my office is literally one block from the ocean. This little beach break. A little reef break called beacons and like there's a little pathway down to it and I'll just take calls and I'm like, all, I gotta be like focused on this call, but hey, there's note takers now and other people are gonna be organized for, or if I just have to listen in, I can just go for a little walk, walk up on the bluff, like.

They're the waves. Here's nature, here's a little bit of, you know, sunshine or ocean. It's, the whole space is super calming. It's pretty epic. Do, do you feel like you can basically do all the activities that you want to do on a [00:02:00] regular basis in San Diego or, yeah, so, so I grew up. Um, more individual sport based stuff.

So, which kind of fed into the gym life that I have now. But like, I tried all the team sports as a kid, like I sucked at baseball. Um, which is really funny 'cause I'm like the assistant coach on my kid's little league baseball team and I'm like, God, I'm so unqualified to be doing this. I'm like still learning those plays.

I'm, oh, that's why shortstop covers second and second cover shot. I said, you know, I just thought the ball got hit and someone just ran to the base and covered it. Now I've got the strategy down. Um, but I kind of gravitated towards individual sports and that led to skateboarding and punk rock music and snowboarding and all the sideways sports.

Like that was, that was for like my teenage years. I was like, oh, this is rebellion. Like I'm, I'm all in for rebellion and this isn't like trying to skateboard in Massachusetts in the eighties, in the dead of winter. There's not a lot of us out there doing this. Um. And it was incredibly impactful and super fun and definitely [00:03:00] formative.

So I was always on this migration to get out west when I settled in San Diego. And, and you know, we talked a little bit about why I was surprised at how much of that culture was out there. Like I knew surfing was out there and I knew skateboarding was out there, but I didn't realize how much of snowboard culture was all in Southern California.

And I'm like, oh, I'm two hours away from Big Bear, which is like, you know, this iconic local resort for snowboarding and skiing, uh, to a lesser extent. Oh, snow summit's right next door to it. Oh, sweet. Then this is like little resort called Baldy that you know, you can get sneaker powder days. I'm like Powder in Southern California.

Like I thought it was all manmade snow. So then I realized you can skateboard anywhere. You can surf right outside the back door. It's got the best trail running and some pretty good mountain biking right there. So all my like adventurey outdoor things are there, and. For me getting into fitness in a more substantial way.

In my late thirties, it was the epicenter of CrossFit. So obviously CrossFit's kind of had its [00:04:00] heyday and it's gone up and then it's kind of come, I wouldn't say crashing down, but it's definitely hit its plateau and on the down cycle. But back then, in like 2008, it was like this total unknown up and coming almost cultish like sport.

So I was like, oh, there's a CrossFit gym right down the street from my house right next to the surf break, and on a two hour drive to be in the mountains or a 90 minute flight to Utah. So I found that being in San Diego is really convenient to do all of those things and then just live in a super temperate, gorgeous environment.

Mm. So I like it. It's worth for you. It's worked for me. Yeah. Well it's cool just having, you know, your collagen here, your MCT oil powder, the Instant Coffee as well. And the reason why I'm saying that is with, with us, with Noble being, you know, newer founders, you're always, you know, you're trying to learn from different founders and social media and it's, you know, there's so much information you're trying to figure out what's the blend of all these things that works for us and what we're [00:05:00] trying to do.

And I think we take a lot of like, you know, we get refreshed talking to guys like you, where you prioritize building this incredible business while also doing the things that you love on a daily basis. Like one of the things Harry and I were saying, I. You know, we just started, uh, especially for me, I started realizing, Hey, I'm on my computer so much.

Mm-hmm. I stopped walking outside in the sun, which was what I was doing in San Diego when I really felt that urge to create as much content as possible. So, I don't know, man, you just, like, you, you know, you, you have the thing that works and then maybe you drift away from it and then you figure out, hey, here are the things I need to do on a daily basis to feel like the best version of myself.

Yeah, that's a, it's a great concept is you, you're actually way better than most folks. 'cause you actually tuned in on that and you're like, I'm not doing this thing that has helped get me to where I am today. What happened there, and for me, it's like surfing sometimes. Like, I'll go months without surfing.

I'm like, there's an ocean right behind me. Why the hell? I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm so busy doing this, this, and this. And then I remember like what this company was [00:06:00] founded on or like, what our ethos is. And I'm like, I gotta get outside and go do some fun stuff. And then you get that fire, you get that stoked back or whatever your, your thing is for like, I call it a stoke like.

If I can get stoked, I'm all in on the work stuff. There's always the boring work stuff. Like someone's gotta do that grind. I'm gonna guess it's Chad for some of the operational needs here. Um, if, if thank you, that's gonna go well. If Chad's doing it. Yep. Yeah. If it's something that's gonna get a little bit loose, that's what we are here for, guys.

Um, but like you, you need to do those hard things. You don't have to be great at them. I, I think that's a, a misconception with founders and with like anyone at the leadership role of a company, is that you have to be great at everything. That's an impossibility. The sooner you realize that, the more peace you're gonna have with the things you're not really good at, but you do have to feed yourself in order to perform well.

And I don't obviously mean the food part. I mean your soul like. For me, it's getting outdoors and it, I [00:07:00] can scratch that itch with a four five mile run and feel good or a, you know, classic CrossFit workout. And then like, I'm energized and I can go into the shit. I can go into the, the crap stuff at work and approve labels or make sure the bills are paid with NSF or sport or you know, do whatever those things are that aren't sexy.

Mm-hmm. But they need to get done. And if you're in the leadership role, you need to empower your team. And if you don't have a team, because you guys are on the newer side of that, you need to empower each other. To really get it all done. But that only comes if you've got, you know, a good baseline. You have to feed that baseline.

And I learned that the hard way. Like, you know, I'm seven years in on this journey and there was a good couple of years there where I was living at this like high stress peak level and I was like, ah, somewhere along the way I'm like, it, it almost stopped being fun. And that's when I was at a huge [00:08:00] moment of inflection.

What am I doing? Why am I doing this? And you know, when it stops being fun and you're gonna forget it, the you're gonna make a change. You body's gonna make a change and mind eyes gonna make a change. Something's gonna fail because you're, you're taking your eye off the prize. Mm-hmm. It's almost the most important metric when you're doing, and it kind of, it kind of sounds like elementary or almost stupid being like, you should be optimizing for fun within the business.

But I feel like if you actually wanna embody your product and like be able to genuinely love every aspect of creating it. You need to enjoy like the bad stuff, like find joy in this, in, you know, going through the slack channels and approving labels and stuff like that. Well, I mean, I'll put it to you guys.

You guys have an incredibly clean design aesthetic. Mm-hmm. That didn't just happen. You didn't just draw a napkin and land where you got to. It's a process. Mm-hmm. But it's a really fun process, you know, if you can embrace it. [00:09:00] You guys have flavors, you have vanilla, you have chocolate, you have flavors that you arrived at.

You didn't just take the first flavor that, you know, some co-packer said, here you go, here's chocolate. You went, no, no, no. What's our chocolate? And, and look, you're working with an, a meat-based protein source, like that has its challenges and you rose to those challenges. Well, you can't do that. Well if you're not absolutely stoked.

If you're not fired up, if it's not fun. You get there, like that first ideation of like, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna come together and make this thing happen? Capturing that magic is essential and then feeding that so that when it is a schlog and the first time you get sued for like 80 a compliance on your website sales and you're like, oh man, this sucks.

And you realize it's okay, we got this. Mm-hmm. And you know, the, those things get energized from that baseline of like remembering why you're doing it and being energized by that. [00:10:00] Remembering why you do it. That's so important. Right. One of the things that Harry and I talk a lot about now is. Just making time to actually prioritize the friendship too.

'cause it's, so we, we hit this pattern where we're like, yeah, we're, we're roommates, we're co-founders. Like, we're all in on this thing. But you almost take for granted like just this incredible journey and the fact that you live, we're, we're living together as well, that you're, you know, we're, we realized, hey, when's the last time?

Like I just asked Harry how he was doing on a personal level, and when did we just, just go get a stake and not even really talk about business, but just talk about each other's personal lives and stuff like that too. Um, for you, you were saying, so you started Bubs 2017 and then there was a period where it was not fun and then you kind of gained that magic back.

What, um, what period did it stop becoming fun? And then how did you actually start having fun again? Um, so. It was really fun through the pandemic. Um, it was a wild growth period and I mean, and we were a bootstrapped young company. I had a [00:11:00] partner and he and I worked really hard together, like just side by side.

And during the pandemic he decided he'd had enough of San Diego, he wanted out and he started moving around the country into different spots and kind of finding out where he was gonna land. And he's a bit of a digital nomad, so he, for him it was great. Now I am an office person. Like I, I have two young kids, so working from home is kind of impossible.

You guys will see this one day. Um, and. I like the structure of going to an office. I love being able to work remote. Like, hey, I got a couple hours of stuff done, just, you know, on the way to Austin and then being here. But I like the office and I like building a team. I think when you can foster a great culture and get folks to really believe in the thing that you're doing or building or we are building and there's always a we when you're building a team, I just, I love that.

So we had philosophical differences that ultimately led [00:12:00] to just a fraction of the relationship. We didn't have like a core friendship the way you guys do. Um, but we were thick as ths. I mean, you're working long hours, you're grinding it out every day. Is are we gonna make it? Are we not? You celebrate the hits, you get bummed on the misses and, but you learn a ton in that time.

And eventually, like, you know, we get through 2021, we went through an FDA recall. We can talk about that as well. Like we. The, the worst things that could happen happen to us. You know, no faults of our own, but things happen and, you know, bad things happen to good people and, you know, it is what it is. And we did a raise.

We raised some money, which was a phenomenal experience. I mean, talk about time consuming, but, but after that we just, you know, we shifted. We had, we had a different focus on where we thought the business was gonna succeed, and we weren't together in a room to hash it out. So that just sort of creates more and more of a fracture.

Um, [00:13:00] and it hit a breaking point, you know, so I'd say by 2023, I knew that it was like it was done. I just didn't know how to, like, how done it was. And I was like, well, we can just be working partners. We don't need to be friends. We don't need to have a relationship. We just need to be able to work well together.

Um, and by 2024, it was just straight up toxic, just okay, we're, we're not. Really clicking or speaking. And then it started to invade the team. So I'm in the office, I'm with a team, and they started to get affected by it. I'm like, okay, now we've got collateral damage. Now they're not gonna work as well. And it was really coming to a head.

Um, and right when it was gonna come to a head, he ended up resigning, taking another job. Wow. And I was like, oh. So when did the stoke come back? About a year ago. Wow. And it came back flooding in really like, oh my God, I feel awesome. And it's, it's not his fault. We just had a different way of thinking of how we thought the company was meant to be run.

Mm-hmm. And I was really. [00:14:00] You know, pretty passionate about how I feel it should be run. And he was very much opinionated and passionate about how he felt it should be run. Um, and when he decided to leave, I was like, well, I'm gonna take my shot, and boy, if I'm wrong, then we won't have a company much longer.

Yeah. Which was pretty much how he felt it was gonna go. Mm-hmm. And it didn't go that way. So that's why I get to sit here now, and I'm just got this big old smile on my face because in the last, you know, eight months or so, it's just been this awesome, you know, ramp up and rocket ship, which has just been like, yes, now we're ready to go.

Take some really big swings, have a ton of fun along the way. And just that stoke came back, um, and it's back for the whole team. So I was already nurturing those outside things. But now, like the team has all felt it and like, you know, we're celebrating the wins together and that. Again, that helps out a ton.

So, and this is, you know, you guys are early on that rollercoaster, but the better you keep that relationship, the more in touch with that that you guys are and you know, and [00:15:00] also building good fences so that you know when to give space, when to help each other out. Like, hey, you're going on vacation, you got, you know, you've got the help and, and vice versa.

And having each other's back essential. Mm, totally. That's so exciting that you guys, you know, have been picking up steam the last year. I feel like when the tides start shifting, it touches like every area of the business. Everyone can feel it. Uh, it's so huge. Um, one of my business principles is just that you should treat your co-founder relationship like a marriage.

Like I feel like it's very easy to kind of just like, let's make this transactional, you know, like put it on paper. Uh, and you know, we've got all these like, you know, bylaws that kind of like govern the bi the relationship in the business, which is like just so not how it actually ends up working. And it's like.

You know, you have to have like a similar approach and values that you're basing the philosophy of the business on. So it's, it's tough when you have conflicting just like philosophical beliefs from the get go on how the business [00:16:00] should actually be run. Yeah. I, it, it makes it incredibly tough. It's like, Hey, I, I want the super human sticky business.

I wanna really like, know our customers and, and like have a relationship with them. Well that's authentic, but super time consuming to do it right. And like, I wanna write personal emails to random customers and I wanna have that connection point with them and foster their engagement with our brand. I'm gonna deliver the absolute best product experience that they could have.

But, you know, like everyone knows who Vital Proteins is. Like, oh, there is a, this collagen brand called Vital Proteins. I can get it at Costco, I can get it at Whole Foods, I can get it anywhere. Mm. Not a lot of people know that it's just another Nestle brand and there's no real personality to it unless you count, you know, hiring Jennifer Aniston and, and that's fine, but I don't want that for us, I want people to seek adventure in life.

I want folks to reach for, you know, big, you know, aggressive living, like whatever that looks like for you. [00:17:00] It could be running your first 5K, like that's awesome. Like could be getting outside and, and taking your first date where you actually do a full 10,000 steps. Could be somebody, Mount Everest, whatever that use case is.

I want to be there to inspire and I want to be there to answer questions and authentically connect with that audience. Um, and my co-founder just wanted more of an AI kind of outsourced approach to that. Um, and it was scalable. I, I guess, but it would've drifted us into a. A lane that I didn't feel was right for us.

It wasn't authentic. It wasn't that kind of stickiness that I felt we had done a really good job of fostering those first couple of years. And you know, from data points, like I've got a pile of customers who at this point have purchased from us more than a hundred times. More than a hundred times, I mean hundreds of customers at more than a hundred times.

So it's only purchases. It's a lot of purchases. Ordering from a brand a hundred times. How many brands have you? That's incredible. [00:18:00] Zero. Like once you guys are doing, and like if you look at that, you're like, okay, shady been in business for seven years. That means if they order from you every month, then yeah, that's about a hundred purchases.

And I look at that, I'm like, holy cow. Like how do we celebrate these people? Like those people are your business. They are our business. Yeah. And now I've got the next lineup of people who've only purchased once. Mm-hmm. Or twice. How do I get 'em over a hundred. Well, I'm gonna keep delivering a great product, but, you know, people drift.

Mm-hmm. I, I get it. But how do I continue to earn that business? How do I continue to earn that sense of community and that give back and all the things that we stand for? Well, it's, it's gonna happen with real human effort. I, you can't outsource that. Um, and AI's got a place, don't get me wrong, but you have to put the human first.

And so that was just something that, you know, I believed on. I think he believed in it. He just believed it could be [00:19:00] done through AI and ultimately, you know, just wasn't there. So, yeah. But after he chose to leave and, and, you know, we didn't honor the marriage to be clear, like that's a phenomenal way of looking at it.

Um. You know, it's kinda like after the breakup, like you go through a small period of mourning or whatever and then you wake up and like, oh damn. Yeah, I'm for, the world looks so different now. Like my whole lens has changed and it's amazing. And then you take that energy that stoke if you will, and you double down and all of a sudden, like you're looking at ads and you're like, yeah, I like that.

How about tweaking this copy here? Hey, I've been thinking about this new product. Oh, I love new products. Um, and the team feeds off that. Like they get that energy and then all of a sudden they level up a little bit and they're like coming to you with new ideas. And then, you know, as leaders you realize what, it doesn't have to be my idea.

It just has to be a good idea. So then you're, you know, letting people go and just run with it. And [00:20:00] that's just been insane to see the team like come to me and be like, Hey, I think we should do this. And I'm like, you think it's a good idea? Yeah. Here's rope. Don't hang yourself. Like literally give 'em the rope, let 'em go, do it.

Take that swing. And that's been, you know, again, a lot of fun. So, yeah. Especially when you have a really talented team too. And they were probably, they probably, you know, they were, they were, their whole mindset for a long time was like, where is this company gonna go? Because Sean and the other co-founder, they're not getting along, so they're kind of playing down.

They're trying to just maintain. And then when you have really talented people now that it's just your vision, now they're stepping up because they are talented and the actually the, probably the more ownership you give them. Oh yeah. The better they're doing and the better the ideas are. Yeah. I'll never forget one of 'em that this young kid, Colby goes, oh yeah.

So I guess mom and dad are fighting, huh? Yeah. I was like, yep, mom and dad are fighting. Mm-hmm. Um, and I'm like, holy cow, this is the divorce. Yeah. And um, and he's funny 'cause he is a very [00:21:00] kid of very few words, like first job outta college. And I'm like, what do you wanna own? He is like, I wanna own email.

I'm like, bold, move cotton. Yeah. All right. You're 23, you wanna own email, let's get into it. And next thing I know, he is owning email. You know, it takes months and he builds it up and he is like, I wanna learn Klaviyo, I wanna take these courses. And I'm like, rock on, man. Like, pull me in for when you want me to write an email.

He is like, don't worry, I'll edit it afterwards. Like fair. Yeah. Um, and when that's where we, we got started that way. And, um, you know, with him, take that step with, you know, I've got a gal who runs affiliate named Jona. And Jonna was like, she's like, okay, she, you know, she doesn't wanna spend the company's money.

She's very, you know, concerned about that. I'm like, go spend some money. Hmm. Um, I hired a phenomenal VP of marketing, started about half a year ago, and he's in the same boat. He's like, he's like. I wanna give you some money. How do you wanna spend it? And it's like, oh, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of fear in that.

Like, you don't wanna spend money on marketing and have it not work, but you gotta spend money on [00:22:00] marketing to see what works. Definitely. So giving the team that empowerment has been phenomenal and, and just being right there to help them, like, Hey, I, I'm here. If you're concerned about a question and you're concerned about an area that you wanna move into, like, hey, let's talk about it.

Um, but it's been neat because we've been able to get really narrow and a lot more focused and drill a lot deeper into the channels that we think are gonna make sense for us, where we can actually get our message out. Whether it's, you know, the foundation story of why we launched, whether it's the quality and integrity of what we do, um, and, and being able to drill in on those things, you know, as deep as we need to instead of like being spread too thin across a bunch of stuff.

And you guys will experience that too because Yeah, there's a lot of shiny things out there. Yeah, there's so many shiny things. They all sound really good and we love shiny things, guys. That's the founder's like worst trait. It's just chasing the shiny stone. Yep. We use, um, have you guys ever heard of [00:23:00] the EOS system traction?

Mm-hmm. Yep. So we are, we are adherence of traction and that's also new. Like, that couldn't happen until now. And now that we're half a year into it, you know, we've been slowly, incrementally rolling it out with the team and, you know, we're doing our rocks and I'm doing my annual rocks and then I'm doing my, my first quarter rocks.

And sorry for your listeners who don't know, these are basically smaller goals, like micro goals. They're not boulders, they're rocks are, they're meant to be bite-size and I'm, mine is like, don't chase squirrels. Just don't chase squirrels. And I'm like, God, damnit, there's a squirrel and I can catch it if I just, it's part of it.

That's that, uh, that's that snowboarder in you that moved out to. Utah when you were 19 to, or was it Utah? It was Utah, yeah. The first spot I moved to was I went from, I went from Boston to Utah. Do you think that that vision is kind of your superpower is, you know, it clearly it was with you when you were going for the snowboarding and, and chasing that professionally, but is that kind of your superpower in the entrepreneurial lens?[00:24:00]

You know, it's funny, I, I never really looked at superpowers early on. Um. I, I was like, when I was in high school, we had this, like, this really funny end of the year thing where you all vote into your yearbook and you know, you've got every student's name. It's like, who's gonna be, you know, athlete of the year, who's gonna be most likely to succeed, you know, who's gonna be most popular?

And they, we had one that was really funny, one called most likely two, dot, dot, dot.

I want to, you know, like, yep. It's like, what's he gonna do completely on Brandand? What the hell is this guy gonna do? So going off to become a professional snowboarder was like, yes, I completely ticked that box. Like, why not drop outta college and chase a dream that nobody does? There's like, you know what, 50 pro snowboarders in the world.

And I'm like, I can totally do this. Um, but I had to. I had to chase adventure. I had to go after and take a big swing. And I [00:25:00] can't say that like I thought about it intellectually. It was fully passion driven. And I mean, I never forget telling my mom and dad that I was gonna drop outta college. And my parents were divorced and I told my mom and she was like, good, 'cause you're wasting my money in college right now.

Getting mediocre grades, not applying yourself and just partying and, and not, not paying attention. I was, I was literally, after my freshman year in college, I was 18, turning 19. She's like, you should, you should drop out. Go figure it out and get back to work. Like he'll scratch whatever itch you've got.

And my dad gave me the ditch digger speech. He is like, alright, drop outta school, huh? Well the world needs ditch diggers too. And I'm like, oh no, you did not say that. Like hat's going the backwards. So I was like, I was like, well, now I'm gonna make it. Yeah. Now this isn't just to take one year off and scratch an itch.

No, I'm going all in. And, you know, I, I, I chased that dream down and I had a ton of fun along the way, but it was the adventures. It was like, can [00:26:00] I use snowboarding and get a free trip to Europe? Yes, I can. Can I go to Alaska and go heli skiing? Yes, I can. And can I get snowboarding to pay my rent? Yes, you can.

But it was like, you know, you have to, you're putting in years and years of effort to get there, but it was worth it. I was, I was having adventures every day. I developed lifelong friendships, you know, in those early twenties years of people that are still my, you know, my, my friends and brothers today. Um, and that adventure spirit carried with me.

I didn't really think of it again in those terms. Like, I just, I've always referred to my career as non-linear. Like, I, I thought I had a plan and then I changed the plans like 15 different times. Um. When I went, when I dropped outta college to be a pro snowboarder and then I made it as a pro snowboarder.

The goal then was snowboard at the highest level that you can like, have as much fun as you can. When I was turning 25, [00:27:00] I'll never forget this, I had a conversation with my best friend. So my best friend growing up, this guy named Glen Doherty, he'll come back into this conversation and Glen and I were both from Winchester, Massachusetts.

We both moved to Snowbird to Utah together, and then he's a year older than me, so we were, I was 24, he was just turning 25, and he is like, Hey, if I haven't made his a pro skier, because he wanted to be a pro skier. So we were doing the same adventure track. He's like, I haven't made it this year. I wanna join the Navy and become a Navy seal.

And I was like, wait, what? I'm like, what? You don't wanna go back to college? And he's like, no. I'm like, that's funny 'cause like I've been thinking about it and you can't help but think about those things 'cause it's ingrained in you in a child since you're a kid, to make the next big step in life. And all of our friends had graduated college.

All of them were in the workforce. And they'd been in the workforce for a couple years. They were in Manhattan doing, you know, corporate banking or investments or this or that. Or one was, you know, going off to law school. [00:28:00] And Glenn and I were ski bums, like I painted houses in the summer. He was a lift or you know, waiting tables in a restaurant.

And every one of our friends had knocked out their paper and you know, they were all, they're all at work and we're like, we need to do the next thing. And I'm like, well I'm gonna go back to school. Like I've been feeling this urge. And the big kind of impetus for it was, do we wanna be the 30-year-old guys still cruising around the ski resort?

Mm. And at that time, being 24, looking at a 30-year-old was like looking at your parents to me. Definitely. And I was like, uh, like they just lacked, they lacked the ability or the interest, probably more the interest to take any other steps. They got real comfortable in mountain living and they were settled into that lifestyle and it was great for them, but it wasn't great for me and it wasn't great for Glen.

So he takes off, doesn't make it as a pro skier. Next thing you know, I'm driving him to the Navy Break recruiting area in, in Sandy, Utah. He signs his papers. [00:29:00] Next thing you know, I'm, he's off to basic training. Boom. A year later he's graduating from Buds and he is a Navy seal. Wow. What year is this, Sean?

This is 95 guys, this is, this is possibly predating you. Okay. Not, not quite, but close. 93, 94. There we go. Okay. So walk, right When you guys are learning how to walk, we are dropping these life hammers of like what's next in us? Yeah. But this context is so important though, because now it's like. If you were doing what you were doing, now there's content creation.

People are risk takers. Entrepreneurship is such a bigger thing like I would imagine Massachusetts or the Northeast in general, back at that time. It's like, if you're not going down this traditional path, you're just like the ultimate black sheep. You are a make it fucking loser. Yes. I mean, I was at, like, I used to joke about being the black sheep.

I remember this whole minor threat album and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm that guy. Um, you're the.dot dot. Yeah. I'm the, I'm literally the dot.dot damnit keeps happening to me. My wife's gonna shake her head at this, be like, yep. You know, that's, that's on brand tracks. Yeah. Um, but no, like, like two drop out of college should be trying [00:30:00] and become a professional snowboarder in 1991, which was when I did it was absolutely unheard of.

But what I found was a band of other teenagers and early 20 year olds who were all doing the exact same thing. Hmm. So we all had the same idea, but there was just very few of us that became my tribe. Then when Glen went off and joined the Navy, he found another tribe. And because he had that same adventure and we both had it, that's why we did it together.

Like we both knew, like we could fortify each other and like you draw energy from, from that experience in all the right ways. And when I was 24, turning 25, I was also like, this isn't forever. Like I, I saw the end. I'm like, I can have fun doing this, but there's gonna be a point where my body's gonna break down.

I probably can't do this forever. And that was about the time I was like, if I go back to school in the summer, in the fall, I can knock out my bachelor's degree. And you know, I went back to my parents, I told 'em my plan. Well, I told my mom the plan, my dad had passed away. And [00:31:00] when my mom and I like we talked about it, she's like, okay, well good.

I'm like, so she's like, you're on your own. Like you had your chance. I was like, oh, tough life lesson. I gotta pay for school. And at that point I was making money from snowboarding, so I was like, I guess I'm gonna take my snowboard money and I'm gonna pay for school, apply for some grants and see what I can get away with, or student loans or whatever and like just cobble it together.

So yeah, five years later, uh, turning 30, got a degree from the University of Utah in political science. I actually thought I was gonna join the State Department 'cause I wanted adventure, right? So I'm like, I'm done snowboarding. If I go work security or go work for the State Department, I can travel all around the world.

I get to carry a gun. How cool is that? And, uh, I don't know where I wanna get stationed, but let's go figure it out. And I was on that path. Now I'm 30. Snowboarding was great to me. Like it was phenomenal. I couldn't have asked for a better experience, like chasing powder all around the world. [00:32:00] But then I end up getting a phone call from a buddy of mine.

He's like, Hey, uh, Burton Snowboards is hiring for team manager. You wanna do it? And I'm like, nah, man, I'm gonna take the civil service exam. I, I got my plan. He is like, you sure? So you're a snowboarder? I'm like, yeah, I'll check it out. So I check out the job and kind of as a surprise to me, I got an interview and it was like, fly to San Diego, drive to Encinitas, sit down and do an interview with like, the marketing people for Burton Snowboards.

And the job was to be Sean White's team manager. 'cause he lived right in North County, San Diego. And he, he was 16 years old at the time. So he was, he was a teenager. He needed, literally needed to be driven around to go do his homework and then fly to the contest, win the contest, and then fly to Burton, develop a, you know, product lines.

And they're like, can you do this? And I'm like, yeah, I can do this. I, I was just gonna go work for the State Department, but uh, this sounds cool. And they're like, well, here's the salary. And it was like three times as much money as I'd ever made in my life. So like, oh my God. Here's your credit [00:33:00] card for travel budget, what?

And uh, I had to do it. So again, non-linear. I had a plan, but this plan looked a lot more fun. And I was like, you gotta take the swing. I took a swing at snowboarding, it worked out. I'm gonna take another swing. And that led to a decade of working in marketing in the action sports industry. And oh, extra bonus, my best friend from growing up is a Navy Seal, 30 minutes south of me living on Coronado.

So it was like getting the band back together. I didn't even think about that. That you guys were both in San Diego at the same time too. It was, it was wild. So we were, you know, here we are, roommates in Utah, best friends having all chasing powder days, having all the, having a blast. And then he takes off and he's deploying, he is going overseas, but when he is home.

When he was home, when I was still in Utah, he would fly out to Utah and like Chase powder days, like, you know, in between deployments, which is like true ski bum style. Couldn't get that out of his blood. And then I ended up moving to San Diego and then it was like, great, I've got like my best friends down here.

So I had a core group of friends, [00:34:00] which are all of his SEAL buddies that I had known since they all went through Buds together. And then I had an infrastructure in San Diego plus the action sports world. So that was a great blending of cultures right there. Oh my gosh. Living the life. Yeah. It was, it was a, it was a really good run there.

And then, you know, after a short run at, at Burton and working with Sean, you know, he went off to stratospheric fame, which is just epic. Um, I ended up working with ESPN's X Games. I had a great time. I kind of seen the backend mechanics when the X Games was like the event. Um, and then I worked for a little while with Tony Hawk at one of his, uh, skate park tours.

So that was like flying all around the country and like going to, I'm in the Caribbean to go skateboarding. I'm like, you can't ask for a better way to hang out. And I'm doing it with all my heroes, like as a skateboarder. I'm like, oh my god, Mike Val's gonna be here. That guy's awesome. Um, that was my jersey nod for you.

Um, just totally him, right? He's like, I have no idea who that is. He used to be a really [00:35:00] professional, cool, professional skateboarder. So in the day, Mike V, there you go. There you shout out. Um, I. Then, you know, like I'm, I'm in San Diego, so I'm also like in this great place to be. And then I ended up settling in at a company called DC Shoes, which was owned by Quicksilver.

They'd just gotten bought. And I got to work for one of the most amazing action sports lifestyle marketers named Ken Block, who went on to be a race car driver. Like of all things after he sold DC shoes to Quick Celebrity, got really into rally racing and I learned a ton from him. Um, and I, I ran that out through the recession, which was crazy.

So like, I had that job from like end of 2005 till 2010. And, you know, in 2010 everyone thought the world was gonna end. You guys were not quite there yet. But for the rest of us that were in the workforce in our late thirties, we were like, what is happening around here? Um, and yeah, I mean, it was, it was a wild, again, unex, you know, I didn't expect to be a [00:36:00] director of marketing at DC Shoes in my late thirties, but there I was and I was like, oh, this is a.

Pretty fun way of doing things. Still travel in the world on someone else's credit card. Still having those adventures. Um, but you know, you, we, we talked a little bit earlier about when it stops being fun mm-hmm. And how you don't put your best foot forward and that it was a really stressful time to be at that company because there was a massive recession and there were a lot of things going wrong in the action sports industry.

And it was like, I think the dream's over and you know, you're also, when you're hanging out with a bunch of 20-year-old pro athletes and you're the guy turning 40, you're like, yeah, it might be time to try something else. Yeah. And. I got out of that, but I was right in that chapter when I had discovered CrossFit and fitness.

And one of the things that, and we'll talk more about fitness, I'm sure, but one of the things I love about it is that it allows you to pursue your passions with the most energy and ability. And I mean, I'm 53, I turned 54 in three weeks. And if there's [00:37:00] one thing that I fricking love is surfing, snowboarding, mountain biking, or doing whatever, and not.

Thinking anything of it, but just strapping on a board and going, and I don't want to be that guy who's in his fifties going like, okay, I think I can do this. I hope I can do this. Like Uhuh, I wanna take care of this body so that I can go out and have those adventures. I wanna do it with my family. My wife's a big runner.

I will never run the way my wife runs. She's an absolute gazelle. She's this gorgeous gazelle, and I will follow behind her, but I'm gonna follow behind her. I'm gonna enjoy the view and, but I wanna be able to run with her, keep up. I want to be able to keep up. Uh, I want to coach my kids' little league. I want to be there for them.

My daughter needs IES all the time. She's seven. She wears 60 pounds almost. I wanna lift her up and carry her around everywhere she wants to go. And fitness gives you that. Discovering CrossFit was like. A fast forward way. 'cause before that, I, Glen [00:38:00] had taught me a little bit about fitness. 'cause you know, Navy Seal, he's like, do some pushups and um, yeah, do some more pushups and go run five miles and maybe, you know, ride a road bike.

And I did all those things 'cause I enjoyed the feeling that it got. But CrossFit was like, just turned it up to like volume 11. And it's funny 'cause like we ended up going to a gym. I would go to this gym at 6:00 AM and then go to DC shoes and it was a gym in, was called Seal Fit. And it was owned by another Navy Seal named Mark Dev Divine, who like, it was really big and like the personal coaching and like kind of transformation space.

Did all like the box breathing stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. He literally taught me everything I know about box breathing. Like it was a foreign concept to me. So Glen and I joined his gym in 2008. Glen moved up to Encinitas, so now we were like, we lived like a mile away from each other. So Cool. And. We were doing CrossFit at the YMCA, which is like not the spot you wanna be doing [00:39:00] CrossFit, like we're trying to learn kipping pull-ups on like the ERD bar that has like the bend down and we're like flopping around.

And it was his idea. He's like, oh, I, I found this new workout. Uh, when he was, he was like in deployment in Afghanistan or something. He's like, he found it online and it was all open source and he just learned how to do the workouts. He comes home, he's like, we're gonna do this. So we're doing it at the wire for a couple of months and we are getting side eye, like everywhere in that gym people, like one of these guys doing handstand pushups in a corner over there.

And so he, he did a little research and he figured out that there was a gym in town. He's like, oh my God, there's a gym in town. It's owned by a Navy Seal and. I'm like, well, let's go check it out. So we roll into this gym and Glen like, walks up there and he's like, you know, he, he glen's a big personality.

So he rolls up there and he is like, who's a Navy Seal around here? And you know, mark Devine walks up and he's just like, Glen's a, you know, big super built guy. And he is like, I am. And Glen's like, I'm a Navy Seal. You're a Navy Seal. [00:40:00] You need to let me work out here because I validate your business model.

Like they're having this like funny conversation and Mark's like, that's amazing. Like, come on in and work out. And he didn't charge him. And then he didn't charge me. 'cause I kind of rolled in. I'm like, I'm friends with the Navy sealer. And that was like our life at that gym. God loved Mark Divine. He never charged me a penny to be at his gym.

Wow. And never charged Glen. And eventually he hit us off. He is like, Hey Sean, listen man, like I, I, I finally realized I've never charged you for a membership. It's a really bad business model on my part. He's like, I need you to learn how to coach. And I'm like. I don't coach, I don't. No, no, no, no. I'm only doing fitness 'cause I want to be in good shape so I can go snowboarding.

And he's like a Navy Seal. So when a Navy Seal tells you to do something like that, you're kinda like, hmm, you mean it? And you've got a really funny way of asking me to do something that's really telling me to do something, so I'm gonna go do it. So I went and got my [00:41:00] coaching certifications, my day job as a marketing director at DC Shoes.

And my morning job became coaching that 6:00 AM class. And I fucking loved it. Like I never thought I would enjoy coaching as much as I have learned to love coaching. And I mean, I wasn't doing anything huge. I was like teaching people how to do pull-ups, but how transformative that is for someone who's never done a pull-up is unbelievable.

So here I am nonlinear, you know, career opportunity, I'm like. I really like this coaching opportunity. This is really neat. Like, I didn't, I learned something new about myself and Glen was a natural, like, you know, I, I think being in the teams and being around folks, he just taught people how to do stuff all the time.

So he jumped right in. And that just became part of our culture. Uh, I mean, I met my wife there. She did a news story at the gym, and like, literally, like my wife's a newscaster, okay. So she, she's like a, the personality on the morning news, and I met her on the morning news, like, live tv, and I'm like, that girl was amazing.

[00:42:00] I gotta, I gotta get to know her. Um, and Mark's gym helped foster that, and that whole environment was like, it, it was this, this breeding ground for learning more about who you are. Um, I got talked into going through, they have this camp called Koro and I went through it and I was like, I didn't know anything about it.

And I was like, yeah, it's like a simulated hell week. And I'm, I'm, I'm like, what? Okay. Like, oh, we're gonna do just a lot of adventure stuff and learn about. What my buddy Glen does. I'm like, well, that's cool. Like, I wouldn't mind learning more about his world. I had no idea. Totally thoughts for civilians.

Right? It's, it is the worst thing ever. And the best thing at the same time, hardest thing you've ever done. 100%. It is a moogi, like it is like, you go in with 40 people and maybe 10 or 11 or 12 are gonna come out of it. Wow. Um, people just quit. They can't handle it. And I, I think not knowing a lot about it was very helpful for me.

I'm, I'm kind of like, admittedly I am an outlier on [00:43:00] that one. Not because Glenn was my best friend and I had some inside knowledge. I knew nothing about it, but I worked out with these guys and these were fire breathers. Like these were like just gnarly fit guys and we were constantly pushing each other and leveling up.

Like it was the ultimate release to me of the tension that was at DC shoes, like at DC back then in 2010. It was a heavy place to be like it. It wasn't fun. It was insanely stressful. Everyone was looking over their shoulder to see who's gonna get fired next. And I knew there was time for that change.

Like kinda like, you know, at Bubs there was a time for that change. And the change found me. There was a round of layoffs, I got laid off, I got this insane severance package, like ridiculous, like half year go play and do whatever you wanna do. And I took it. And so I was just training with these guys and then I was coaching a little bit because I had found that passion for helping others.

And they're like, Hey, you wanna do [00:44:00] the camp? And I'm like, no. Like I'm, I'll work out with you guys, but I don't need to do, I don't need to waste a whole weekend doing fitness. Like there might be good waves. I don't want to, I don't wanna miss that. And my buddy Danny Miller, like really hammered me 'cause he was the head coach at the gym and we trained together all the time.

And he was this mean little Michigan fire breather. He was like, oh, you should do it, you should do it. You should do it. Needle, needle, needle. And finally I'm like, fine, fine, let's do it. Fine. And I was kind of joking, I didn't really mean it. And we walk on to the gym like a day later and he's like, I have an announcement to everyone.

Sean said, you Duke Koro. And then Mark Divines right there. And he walked right up to me and he's like, thank you. We'll see you at Friday at 6:00 AM And that's where I met my wife. I show up for the Koro camp, she's there to cover it. And I'll never forget, she gets done, she leaves. I'm like, I gotta get her phone number that, that girl's an absolute smoke show.

And, but then it's like, okay. So I'm looking around and they're like, okay, so you know, now you've [00:45:00] got an hour, be back here. And I'm like, I asked one of the coaches, I'm like, where do we sleep? And he looks at me and he is like, uh, you sleep up there, there looks like this apartment building. I'm like, oh, okay.

I, I'd never been up there. I guess they must have bunk beds and stuff. That sounds nice. I come back and I show up for it and I'm, I remember being like, where do we sleep? They're like. Someone's like, you don't sleep. Like what? You don't sleep? And I'm like, oh wait, what did Glen say about going through hell week?

Oh yeah. He didn't sleep for like five days straight. And uh, I'm here to tell you gentlemen, if you ever decide you wanna do Koro, you don't sleep, you don't sleep for a minute, but you met your wife through the process. So there you go. You have, we're finished more, more than meeting, you know, more, more than, you know, meeting anyone during that, that, that weekend you really learn what you're capable of.

Like I am so grateful for that experience. 'cause I met my wife. What I learned about myself to then be [00:46:00] able to really engage with my wife was equally as impactful. So it's three days. It, we started on Friday and we ended Sunday afternoon. So back it was a little longer back then. I think they've kind of truncated it a little bit, but we're, we're only talking like a couple of hours.

Yeah. But no, we, um, we did that morning news, then we broke, everyone grabbed food and then you showed back up and then they just start kicking the living God outta you and teaching you about yourself from Friday, straight through Sunday afternoon. And it's an amazing experience because you learn nuggets along the way.

They're dropping breadcrumbs, but you, you know, you, you don't really follow along with it, but then all of a sudden somewhere in there, things click and like, you start with 50 people. I think there was like 50 in my group. So it was a lot. And it was 50 individuals all running around, scattered, like, trying to do all the work, which is impossible.

And somewhere around, I don't know, 2, 3, 4 in the morning that first night, this was now Saturday morning, [00:47:00] we realized we needed each other. And I did this camp because my buddy Danny Miller talked me into it. Danny Miller looks at me, he is like, I can't do this anymore. I'm out. I'm like, the fuck you are?

You dragged me into this. Like you are not quitting. And like I pulled him back from the edge and it was a very distinct memory for me because he hit his low point and I was like, no, no, you are not quitting. And they're like, you're going on to the most obscene workouts that are so hard. But all of a sudden he drew a little strength from that.

And I didn't realize I was giving something. I just was like, fuck you, you're not quitting. But then I had my low moment, you know, maybe eight, 10 hours later, and he was right there for me. But at that point, there was a couple other guys who were also there, and then another guy does it and another guy does it, and everyone hits their low point and everyone else rallies around.

And all of a sudden we realize that there's a strength in that. There's a strength in the community. There's a strength in what you two have [00:48:00] that you're gonna be tested as you go through this adventure of entrepreneurship. I had that. As this crucible experience to learn about myself and to see what I'm capable of.

And I learned that I was capable of more than maybe I, I thought I could because if I got challenged in some of the ways, I, I don't know that I would've made it if I hadn't had that experience to hit highs and lows to accomplish these workout moments or these hikes or these, these mental tests. 'cause they really are mental tests.

And the most important concept there was don't quit. But then the next concept attached to don't quit is how can you not quit? Oh, you don't quit because you've got someone else that's accountable. You got someone else pulling for you. You've got a team and if you guys work together, there's nothing that these coaches can do that's gonna break that.

But the ones that quit were all the ones that got peeled off and they let themselves get peeled off. And I remember like pleading with this one [00:49:00] guy not to quit, but he was gone. Like the eyes were glazed over. He'd already quit. I'm like, don't do it man. Don't do it like you're gonna, I didn't even think to regret, you're gonna regret this later.

I'm sure that this was like one of his life regrets. And it's like, oh no. Like, you know, you're gone. Bummer. Okay, who's back? Who's, who's in? 'cause now I need to get this energy from someone else. He's gone. Like I, I, I took it as I tried to get him back as much as I could. And then you, you come out of the experience towards that last day and you are fucking unbreakable.

And it's wild because like if you had told me that I was gonna have that thought and feeling after not sleeping for two full days, I would've thought you're crazy. And it ended up becoming something, you know, I was 39, turned 40 years old. That was one of the most transformative things in my life. And at that point.

Then obviously I started dating Heather and you know, then we got married and had kids and that was ult, ultimately [00:50:00] transformative. But I had that strength from that experience to help me with all the challenges, highs and lows afterwards. And I, I recommend it to anyone, but it's, it's an amazing experience to learn what you're capable of.

Isn't it amazing how life comes down to just a few Yes. Moments that were just like, if I hadn't had said yes to that one weekend, like my life would be totally different. Like Brett and I, the whole start of our podcast was because we ran an Ironman together. After that, we were like, we need to figure out a way to work together that wasn't even on our radar.

Did you train for the Ironman together pieces? Yes. Were in different cities. He was in Boston. I was in, um, New York and then New Jersey in the middle of Covid. But we would meet up every couple weekends and just do bike rides and train and things like that. And then, um, the race was supposed to be mantra and blunt, got canceled 'cause Canada was so strict.

Mm-hmm. Harry was looking at some opportunities in Austin. So we ended up rolling the credit into Waco and then that's how we ended up living together in Austin. And that's how the whole business started. [00:51:00] Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Now in those training moments, someone's gonna have a good day, someone's gonna have a bad day, and you get, you both gotta level up at the end of the day.

You gotta run your own race. But the training and the accountability and like the showing up, like you gotta show up for your boys, you gotta show up for your teammates. You have to show up for your wife, you have to show up for your kids. You gotta show up. A choice. If you don't show up, fuck, that's a hell of a demon to have to wrestle with that, that you're gonna be really, really bothered by for a long time.

The guys that quit, you know, I feel for them. I'm sorry they quit. And one of the, one of the expressions you've said a few times is, uh, taking a swing and it just, from hearing you tell your story, it seems like you have a really good intuition around when to take a swing. Like when to just be like, alright, screw it.

I'm gonna do this weekend, or I'm gonna like go work for DC or I'm gonna go and start bs. So like, is that something that's just been built into as somebody who's an adventure guy [00:52:00] or have you always kind of had that intuition around when to take a big swing? I can answer that now from hindsight, but at the time, no, I wouldn't have known it better.

It was just like adventure next, like what are we gonna do? Yeah. What's the next thing? And that was that dot, dot dot. But there was also, I. It was fun opportunity and am I gonna learn something? Am I gonna grow from this? Um, looking back on it, I've always done that. At the time, some of those were like massively scary decisions, um, because I didn't know.

And like, there's always a safer route, but I didn't know how to take it. And after I got a taste for it, I don't know that I wanted to. And I think right when I would've, in fact, I know when I was hitting some of those points of like, okay, this independent contractor, thing's not working out so well, fuck this job at DC Shoes is opening up.

I, I should apply for that. And I'm like, I don't know. It's not the same as [00:53:00] having all this freedom over here. Like I just got done working with Tony Hawk. It was fun, but now I don't know what's exactly next. Fuck it. Take a swing and it ends up being like going to grad school, like an amazing educational opportunity.

And you meet such amazing people. Like when you're in a setting like that, like, you know, when you're hanging out with Dave Mira rest in peace, and Travis Pastrana and Travis Rice and the snowboard world, and Devon Walsh and like these amazing people, like, wow, how, how lucky? What if I didn't take that swing?

Mm-hmm. I, I say that in hindsight when I look back at that starting bubs, same thing like this company was a social experiment when it started in 2017, my wife bought me a jar of collagen. We had just had our baby, our son Sebastian, was a year old and I was 44. I've been CrossFitting at that point for, you know, like seven years.

My niece sounded like crinkled up newspaper walking up and down a flight of stairs. [00:54:00] And my wife's in the news, so she was early on to the collagen craze in 2017. There weren't a lot of collagen brands and she's like, oh, you have to try this stuff. Uh, you know, I checked it out, was supposed to help with your joints and I'm really curious about it.

And I'm like, huh, okay. She's like, look it, you're not getting any younger and I need to preserve you in your old age. Uh, my wife's a little bit younger than I am, so I was like, okay, fair, that's fair. And I started taking it and I didn't know anything about supplements. Literally the only thing I knew about supplements was what Glen had taught me.

And it was like, we're gonna go Jack Steel, here's creatine and a pre-workout, here's some whey protein. And he bought the cheap stuff that always made your stomach gurgles, like just horrible. And 'cause he was a bargain hunter and. I knew that they were like different jars. We had these different mason jars on the counter and it's like, we're gonna go on a bike ride, take that.

It's got electrolytes and carbs in it. And I was like, okay, scoop it. Put in your water bottle. Go. And that was Metamucil. 'cause you always need your fiber. And these were [00:55:00] literally the mason jars on our counter. Um, and I would laugh about that stuff, but then I, you know, when, you know, when he wasn't around, I wasn't taking any of that stuff.

I didn't know anything about it. So we'll talk about Glenn and, and, and him not being with us anymore. But in 2017, I hadn't been taking anything. I was just getting older and still trying to like, you know, run around, do CrossFit, run around, serve, do all my things. But it was starting to hurt it. The wear and tear gets real gentlemen, it gets real.

And I just figured that's aging. That sucks. But I'm gonna, I'm not gonna stop moving. Like, I'm not geared that way. I gotta take more swings. Let's go. She buys me jar of collagen. I start taking it and I just follow the direction. She's like. Put a scoop in your coffee every morning and do it every day. I'm like, okay.

So I'm a month in, I'm burning through that jar and my fingernails are growing. Like I'm the wolverine. I'm like, what is going on around here? And I needed a haircut like a week later, I'd just gotten a haircut. [00:56:00] I'm like, that's really weird. Something's happening. And I'm like, reading the jar. And I'm like, well, hair, skin, nails, that's okay.

And then it's like joint health. And right at the two month mark, my joint stopped hurting. Literally my knees that were like aching, getting outta bed felt great. And I'm like, holy crap. What is in this stuff? So I just became an evangelist of it. I think it much in the same way that carnivore served you and, and like the way you have this transformative experience, you wanna share it with people.

I had that with collagen. It absolutely changed the quality of my life. And that's a shareable moment. And I didn't have any secrets. It's not like I was like training for some race and I had, it was like my secret sauce. I would tell every one of my friends like, you gotta try this stuff you don't understand.

And after two months it got better. After three months it got better. After four months, I was just hooked. I was like, I will take college in the rest of my life. Well, [00:57:00] a business partner came over. He wasn't a business partner, we were just, we were hashing out a work project together and he's like, you take collagen.

I'm like, oh yeah, I take it every day. He is like, I feel amazing. Like I am back squatting again. I'm back to my old self, like this stuff has changed my life. He's like, oh, it's a fast trending product on Amazon. Um, we should start a company. Just like that. And I've got a 1-year-old that crawling around on the floor behind him and I'm like, uh, you're crazy.

But shit, man, I'm always up for an idea. Kind of crazy. Let's like, what does that look like? And just kind of napkin mouthed it out right there on the spot. And the whole idea was, this is an incredible product. Like I can stand behind it like collagen has changed my life. Okay. It's, it's a good foundation.

And we're looking at it, I'm like, well, what would starting a company look like? Like it's a very honest question. If you're gonna ask someone who's gonna be your co-founder, like what does it look like? And we both [00:58:00] said at the exact same time, well, you know, whatever we do, we gotta do something cool for charity.

And a little light bulb went off in my head. I'm like, well, I know the charity, it's gotta be Glen's charity. Glenn unfortunately was killed and we'll talk about that I'm sure in a minute. And his family and I and some high school friends started a charity helping special operators transition from active duty to civilian life.

And Glenn's call sign in the Navy was Bub. And Bub stood for two things, self-improvement and helping others. And I was like, okay, we'll start this brand as a tribute to Bob and his way of life, this tribute to Glen and the great things that he stood for, we'll give 10% of all profits to charity 'cause he was always helping others right to the very end of his life.

And we will put the absolute best in quality product [00:59:00] into this jar because I'm not putting any low grade dog food in there if my best friend's name's gonna be on the jar. And I didn't know if it was gonna work. It was a total social experiment and we had this idea and I'm like, we're gonna call it company Bubs.

And I called two of Glen's Seal teammates that I'm friends with and I'm like, guys, what do you, what do you think about this? I called Glen's mom and I called his sister and brother. I'm like, his family members. I'm like, what do you guys think? And they all said the same thing. Glen would kick your ass if you don't do this.

Like you have to do this. I'm like, I guess we're taking the swing. And that was it. I had to learn about sourcing, I had to learn about the product. I had to take a total career shift into product, but I knew I believed in it, and I had that energy from, I had that stoke going back to that, like the stoke was there.

I was like, does anyone care about a company that gives 10% of its profits to charity? I don't know. I guess we'll find [01:00:00] out. And my business partner was a big digital marketing guy. So he had the background to set up the website, to drop the pixels, to have the Facebook ads and do Instagram over here. And, and I had the kind of brand juice, but then I had to learn production.

I had to figure out cost of goods and you know, kind of the mechanics behind actually getting the powder from the cow into the jar. And there's such a huge discrepancy between good collagen and bad collagen. There's a massive discrepancy. So that was the adventure. The adventure was, I gotta find out the way, I want the best flavor, I want the best solubility, and I want the best amino acid profile best, best, best.

And if we can't do it. It ain't happening, but we know it's out there. And, uh, that was it, man, go figure that out. And that was the next half year of my life was literally doing taste tests of like, brands off of Amazon and any vendors we could find and like pour 'em in a glass of water, which is like the, the most crucible test, seeing 'em all clump up.

'cause collagen is a glue, it's a binding [01:01:00] protein. Uh, and then the best ones wouldn't. And then you figure out who the manufacturer is and you go to them and talk to them. And that was like such a cool adventure because you're, you're, you're learning something new. It's like grad school. Like you don't know what the hell you're doing, but you have to learn all these skills and you come away from it, ideally with a better understanding of what that looks like.

And it takes years. Um, but you hope you end up in a good spot with a good brand. Here we are. Has uh, has the political science degree come into play ever? Or is that, is that off place? Did it right? I did get the degree, yes. I, I have a, I have a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Utah, um, class of 2002, 3 4, 5 6.

And, um, it was, uh, it has come in real handy in there. There's something about politics, which I find interesting, which is reading the room and understanding people in policy and why things happen. Um, I really enjoy understanding it, an argument from both [01:02:00] sides. And boy, if politics in America isn't understanding both sides, I don't know what is.

Mm-hmm. Um, we're not understanding both sides or not understanding both sides. Yeah. Well that's, that's, yeah, maybe that's a problem right there is the not understanding part. I like the understanding part. Yeah. I like understanding the mechanics behind an election and like, you know, like with the election we just had like why the Democrats get their asses handed to them.

Like what have they done so wrong? For the last 12 plus years that got them served up. And are there any lessons they can learn from that? What did the Republican part of you really write? How does that apply to business? Right. Like shift away from the politics stuff, because I think it's pretty obvious what the Republicans did incredibly well over the last decade plus.

And if that isn't just a map of where our country is, I don't, I don't know what is. But in business, you know, [01:03:00] I'll go into some different relationships and I understand now more than I did early on where you can make things happen and where you're gonna feel like you're forcing it. And if you have to force it.

There is a point where you can force, but there's also a point where you have to pull back and it's not worth the fight and you have to put your energy elsewhere. Like, you know, why did Biden decide to pass some policies and jam them through? Same with Obama, when it just pissed off too much of the country.

So in making business decisions, like some of the partnerships we choose, or some of the manufacturers we choose to work with, you know, like get to know them better, get to know who you wanna work with, who do you want to give your money to mm-hmm. To manufacture your products. What agencies do you wanna work with on the marketing side, they're gonna best represent your ethos.

Um, we're vetting new creative agencies right now and you know, I had to fire two to get to the three that we're talking to now. And I used to have a really hard time firing people [01:04:00] because I just wanted the relationships to work. I wanted the teamwork, the camaraderie. Now it's like, nope. I have no problem letting you go if you are not gonna do things and perform to the absolute, you know, highest level.

That's how you have to do it. Politics has definitely helped me read the room a little bit better now and understand like who's kind of vetting you and they're kind of coin operated and, and which ones want a true partnership and that helps guide me 'cause I want the true partnership. I don't want the coin operated.

There's plenty of that out there. Yeah. Yeah. I love what you were saying about that kind of is the, the nature of the beast of CCP G too, right? How reliant you actually are on these manufacturing partners and these agency partners and the buck ultimately stops with you. So if someone runs the wrong campaign on meta or somehow it's a crappy piece of creative that gets pushed through, or manufacturer screws up something, the supply chain.

So you guys are stocked out. You're the one that's taking shit from the customer ultimately. Oh yeah. And it's on you. But people don't know that the behind the scenes mechanics of like these partnerships are [01:05:00] the lifeblood of your business. Yeah. Hands down. So like, it's funny 'cause we have two skews here of this product.

This, this MCT oil is coconut oil. I have one that purposely has grass fed butter in it. It is creamy and delicious. And it's like, it is just amazing. We're outta stock right now. I couldn't give you any. Hmm. And I don't like being outta stock. 'cause I have hundreds and hundreds of subscribers to that product that write us email.

Like, when are you coming back in stock? Mm. We should never have run outta stock. But there was a snafu in the manufacturing and it doesn't matter because we're outta stock. Mm-hmm. It's like the, the why doesn't matter on that one. Like I can explain it in an email to every customer and I've had to do that, write those long emails.

At the end of it, just take ownership. Hey guys, it's our fault. We're outta stock. We're gonna make it right. We're gonna refund you or we're gonna pivot you to a different product on us. Like whatever that, that make good is because I want them to stick around for a hundred plus purchases. Um, that sucks.

So [01:06:00] to go through an experience like that, you will, like you're stocked out of one of your flavors right now on your website. Do we had a bad stock out this summer? Yeah. Yeah. That sucks. Terrible. And those are customers that they're gonna go to that other guy and they're gonna buy his stuff. Yeah. And maybe you'll win 'em back, but maybe you don't.

And it's like, I don't, you don't want that to happen. No. Keep 'em the whole time. Um, but those are the lessons you learn. And then you go, okay, how can I create a new SOP to make sure that never happens again? It happened. I don't want it ever happen again. Some things you can't control. You can't control some elements of your supply chain.

But control what you can and read the room. Like again, the politics of it. Like who do you wanna work with, who is gonna be a good partner, who's gonna have your back and treat your business like it's their business. And I think the right agencies do that. There are great, um, co-manufacturer partners out there that, that will do that.

Um, [01:07:00] and the right ones will carry the right certification. So you just gotta find them. Good. Three pl too, right? Who? I just fired one. Yep. Just fired one. I mean, you have standards you have to hit and, and we're in the age of Amazon right now and every customer has two day prime at the fingertips. Now it's fricking one day prime or half day prime.

Literally half day prime. Like my products can arrive to me within four hours of ordering it. If you're anywhere from LA South, like, I don't know what it's like in other geographic areas, but it's literally same day delivery. And on one hand I'm really proud of that because we're a part of that. But then I think what if we could do that?

It would bankrupt us. Yeah. That long. And the short of it, it's, it's a completely unachievable goal for our business. But I've got plenty of customers that wanna subscribe or wanna buy my product. And if I can get it to 'em in a reasonable timeframe, three to five days, no big deal. What if you're three PL doesn't share that same values?

They, they don't treat your business like that. They just [01:08:00] treat you like you're one of another box that has to get filled and it'll get filled. But you might lose a day. That's a valuable day. And if a customer is in tune with one to two day shipping from Prime, and you can't deliver in three to five days, you're gonna catch some heat.

Mm. And then now you're not gonna win that customer for a hundred purchases. You're not gonna win 'em for two purchases. They're gone. They might buy you on Amazon, or they might just find someone else. I don't wanna lose them. I know you guys don't wanna lose those customers either. Like that's, I, it's important to be able to protect your business and a three pls gotta treat you well and then cost.

Dude, shipping is expensive. Yes, COVID. If Covid taught us anything, it's that the old rules of shipping products are gone. The expectations from the consumer side are that you're gonna get it right away. Oh, and shipping should be free or cost almost nothing. Well, the fact is, like I was, it was costing me 13 to $14 per shipment and I was charging my customers nine and I felt [01:09:00] bad charging them nine, but like I had to charge them something.

But then we have all these free shipping triggers, so my actual cost to ship was even higher. And I'm like, I'm losing money, like losing gobs of money, shipping this product and then like, well I have, this is a challenge. This is an opportunity and a challenge. Alright, go find a better shipping partner who will ship same day, cut down that time period and has lower fees, lower storage, lower tech fees is a modern.

Three PL that understands the direct to consumer space and has a better cost structure, better shipping rates with FedEx or UPS or whomever. And like, I hammered that space for half a year to figure out who that partner's gonna be. And then once you find them, stay on top of them, the old Ronald Reagan adage, trust, but verify.

Like I totally believe in that. Like, do I trust that I've got good agencies? Yeah. But I wanna verify it. I'm gonna make sure the [01:10:00] math line's up. I'm gonna use all the right, you know, software programs and vetting to make sure that same thing, like you, you, you want a good three pl, I, I can't stress that enough.

If you're in that side of the business world, do it. Yeah. Just, just having a. It's amazing just the things that, um, these industries in general just accept in status quo. And you're almost like, as an owner, you feel like you're almost forced to just pick the best outta status quo people. And then you, then you meet someone or maybe a couple partners where it's like, no, instead of being a reactive three pl, we're gonna be a proactive three pl.

And just like what that could do to your business. Um, our friends, Morgan and Derek, they have this company called Grit Distribution. Okay. That's based in Texas. They're from Canada and now their facility is based in Texas. And, um, we've wanted to work with 'em for the last couple months because we, we spoke to a couple of their customers and just meeting them, just the sense of like true responsibility and duty they feel to their partners.

We were like, we, we need some of this. Yep. And um, they actually, they came to us and said, Hey, there's a. There's an issue [01:11:00] with one of our brands in Canada, something legality, something changed there, and they're like, we have to just pour ourselves into them right now. Um, but when the timing makes sense, we would love to work with you guys too.

So like even just someone that cares about their clients so much that they're saying no to new business and they wanna work with us. Like that's someone that we'd love to do. Like what could, that could do for Noble or what could that do for Bubs? Yeah. You keep, keep tabs on that. Yeah. Uh, one of the, I mean, just to, I'm not gonna nerd out on the logistics side, but like, one of the things I highly recommend is because shipping is so expensive, I.

Try and keep your three pl right next to your co-packer, like within a very short truck drive. Yeah. Because when you guys are starting to do like just truckloads and truckloads and truckloads on each production run. Yeah. You're gonna want 'em close by. Yeah. That's great. Just, just food for thought on that one because when you, like I used to produce in Utah and then I would truck to Michigan for my three pl and it was like, I'll spend in like at the time it wasn't much money.

It was a couple thousand bucks per truck. Well, got your be by the way. Yeah. [01:12:00] Course Utah. Okay. Utah to New Jersey right now. So I'm Utah. To Utah. Yeah. My truck costs, despite how much they've gone up, if I send a truck from Utah to the east coast, it's $5,000. Like it's a $5,000 truck. There's no way around it.

I spend $300 per truck to go from my co-packer to my warehouse, and then I have to balance that out and say, well, what does that look like compared to my cost of shit to the East coast? Pencils out. You know, I got the math people to help me out with that. Trust me, I wasn't, I was not solving that math problem.

But you guys are literally going to Jersey for your shipping. Yes, but we're, we're in the process of switching right now. Is your mom pissed that you ship all this product to her and expect her to pack all those boxes in Jersey? That's not even cool. She's not that, it's all in the garage, but, uh, it's funny though, the thir with the three pl conversation just in terms of like vetting, uh, Morgan and Derek, I did a workout with them, not even vetting, but like they, they were coming to Austin, first time meeting [01:13:00] them, and we just had a workout together.

And after that workout, the way that I saw Morgan and how she worked out, and Derek, I was like. We should just figure out, I don't even know what they do. What's something with them? If you're the, you're a puddle on the floor and they're like, what's next? Like, I wanna work with you guys. I was doing, I was doing the Chad workout, which is basically a weighted vest.

Yep. You do a bunch of step ups. And she was legitimately the first person I did the workout with, 'cause I was doing it for a bunch of days straight. She's the first person I, I saw do the workout. Nonstop. She, I don't even think she blinked the whole workout. She was just up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.

Now was she from the culture of CrossFit or Functional Fitness. Okay. So she didn't go into it like, gimme some weights and I'll jump up here. No, she was a beast. They're like you, they're OGs. Yeah, that's, you guys would probably love each other. You guys would definitely free. Yeah. So that guy, Danny Miller that I, I was referencing the first time we did Chad was during Covid when Dave Castro launched it.

So I, I mean, I, I know Dave Castro from CrossFit. We did some work projects together and he, [01:14:00] he's a just a really cool guy and you know, that was one of his friends. So this was a personal workout for Dave and I was like, Hey man, like gyms aren't really open right now, but we got a couple boxes and we got a couple weight vests.

And I had literally had an old weight vest that was, I couldn't get the weights out of like it's one of the old block ones and it would weight up to like 60 pounds. And I had it like a could pull a couple of them out to get it to 50 pounds, which I, I think it was like 50 pounds was the Yeah. What it was supposed to be.

Yeah. Right around. So I have a 50 pound weight vest and it lives in the back of my pickup truck. I pull it out when I hate myself. And I pulled it out that day and it was like 20, 21 I think like whenever the first year they launched that workout. Yeah. And we just did it. I'm like, let's go. 'cause you need those adventures and those challenges.

Like, but what a hell of a workout to put them through. So for anyone listening who doesn't know the Chad 1000 x, it's literally 1000 step-ups. And for guys it's 50 pounds of like in a weight vest or a backpack or whatever. You have to hold that [01:15:00] weight. Yeah. Yeah. And they were like, they absolutely crafted.

So I remember going back home to Brett being like. Yeah, they're incredible. We need to like, figure out how to do more stuff with them. That's awesome. Yeah. That's a great vetting process too, right? Oh, yeah, totally. Well, kinda like doing an Ironman together Yes. And realizing you want to be in business together.

Mm-hmm. Like, you see what each other are made of in those moments. And that's phenomenal. A hundred percent. Yeah. We, we've uh, since we did a hundred K together the next year after the Ironman, and I feel like that was, that was the trim of so weight way worse. Yeah. 'cause we, we, I mean we, we ran that whole race together.

The Ironman, you're in the swim. We lost each other from the get go, but the, the run we were every step of the way together. Yeah. So, you know, you we're running through the middle of the night, uh, in middle of nowhere Texas, you know, pitch, basically pitch black, and we're both cussing at each other. Just like, what are we doing here?

Why do we do this? That's pretty, that's pretty neat though. That's, uh, my, my wife and I did our, our, what I call our marital training. Uh, we [01:16:00] trained for the Boston Marathon together. So after Glen died, we got a charity bib to race the Boston Marathon, and that was our hometown. So we, um, the year we got engaged, we trained for Boston together and Wow.

It was a, I mean, I learned a lot 'cause I'd never run anything. Like, the longest distance I'd run was a half marathon and I thought that was plenty. Uh, but my wife's a gazelle and so she was like, it was like her eighth marathon. She was like, yeah, let's just run a marathon. And then we got a charity bib to Boston and, you know, I mean, it's Boston, so you have to do it.

Um, yeah, that kicked my ass up and down, left and right. A great experience. Do you feel like after, uh, Koro, you're just like, I can, that, that, that feeling you were talking about on Sunday where you kind of just felt bulletproof and you're at that point where you're like, pretty much whatever physical event I got put through, I think I I I should be able to do it.

Does that, did that translate to something like that or some of these other things that you do now? Yeah. It, it really did. In fact, the, and you get an itch to do more of it, it doesn't just go away. I mean, for, you know, and my wife knows this, like, you, you, you, I have to [01:17:00] move, I have to keep moving. And we have kids now.

So like you, you can't always train for an Iron Man and, and have that right allocation for, for family. And I want that balance. Like I'm very conscious of striking that balance because for a lot of years, like I still treated my life like I was a pro snowboarder except now I've got money. So no one's paying for me to go snowboarding.

I'll just go and snowboard. And you miss moments along the ways and you can't do that as much. So I. The need to do those things is deep inside me. The preparedness to do those things is the part that I don't ever wanna lose. Like, that's the part that's super important. Like, you might not be able to jump up and do a hundred miles tomorrow, but I guarantee you guys are keeping yourselves at a baseline so that if a reasonable challenge comes up, you're not starting from zero.

Mm-hmm. We're starting from at least halfway there. Definitely. And those are really fricking cool challenges. Like I, I've got one I've got my eye on for later this year, and it's called 29. Oh, 29. Oh yeah. [01:18:00] Summiting Everest. And do one of those. Which one are you hiding? Uh, actually, funny enough, Canada. Okay.

So maybe you guys need a little, you know, a little rebate. Do it a little differently. Um, but it's at the end of September and it's like, what a cool challenge to, to simulate summiting Mount Everest. And it's in the mountains. Like, I love mountains. And I just, the idea of it, if it's not this year, it'll be next year.

But what I can do that training. Yeah. Um, and, and, and I want to do that training and yeah, it's gonna be really fricking hard, but you're gonna be around a community of people that are all doing it, and they're gonna energize each other. And like, that's the community that's, that, that juice that's worth the squeeze.

It's worth the suffer to see what you're made of. And you know, like I, I, I'm a, I'm buddies with this guy Michael Easter, who's written a couple phenomenal books and he talks about these oggi, these challenges that people need to put them through themselves, through to like really see what life's all about.[01:19:00]

And I remember reading these books and I'm like, yeah, he wrote this book called The Comfort Crisis. And I was like, yes, yes. I don't know if I need to do it way you're doing it, but Yes. Um, and we, you know, we hung out a couple times and I'm like, yep. You got it, man, doing the like, like a one hour workout, like the Chad 1000 x or it can take a little more than an hour, or like psychos can do it in less than an hour.

Um, you're hurting and like when you're 500 steps in and you're only halfway there and like 500 step up is a lot of step ups and you realize you got that much more to go when you're doing a hundred mile run and you're only at mile 30 and you're like, I've already run more than a marathon and I'm just getting started.

Like there's some games there. Uh, you have to do some crazy tricks in your mind to get you through that, that sort of stuff. Have someone there to help you get through it. Mm-hmm. Um, probably one of the, one of the neatest things I did besides Concur that I highly [01:20:00] recommend is, um, I did, uh, a GORUCK challenge.

And, you know, why do a regular one? I did the STAR course, which is a 50 mile plus, and you have like 20 hours to do it. So again, you're going overnight, you have to have 20 plus pounds in a backpack and go and map out all these different spots. You're gonna go and do it. And I was totally under prepared for it on, on some levels.

Like I, I did a couple of Rucks, so I was like, yeah, it's walking with weight. I can, I can do that. So, um, but then. I was surprised. I found myself at three, four o'clock in the morning. What the fuck am I doing here? This really sucks. And then I've got my teammates around me. And the difference is, since I had the Koro experience, I was able to tap into that.

I saw the suck. The suck was talking to me. It was really loud, my ear. And then I had other people that were like, they were in their good moment, so they were cheering me on. And then same thing, like, it flips back and forth and all of a sudden that teamwork, that camaraderie helps pull you up. And the next thing you [01:21:00] know, you're, you're, you're doing it all for this little patch, and you earn the patch.

And then you're just like, yes, this was totally worth it. I'm gonna sleep for 12 hours. This was totally worth it because that feeling is just something that's so pure that it doesn't matter how many tubs of collagen you sell or whatever, these accolades, it just that purity, that's what we felt caught, you know, the purity of baseball or the purity of you chasing that run when you were, you know, snowboarding professionally.

It's very tough to find that in the real world. Yep. And the fear is losing, um, the feeling that you had on, on that one Sunday after Koro. And Harry said to me multiple times, he's like, dude, I think we gotta, we need that mess, SOGI, because that's when all the juices were really flowing. And what's funny, a couple weeks ago, my buddy did, uh, the Rocky raccoon a hundred miler.

Okay. So he had trained a couple years for it, so it was a huge deal for him. But he ran outta Pacers and so I didn't think I was gonna pace at all. I was literally going to the gas station to get a Red Bull and they called me and they were like, Hey dude, you're up for lap four. And I'm, I was in like baggy sweatpants and I luckily had a pair of [01:22:00] Hoka on.

It's like this gnarly course in, in the middle of Houston. It was nine o'clock at night. He was hurt. And he's like, he's two 50. He's a big boy. Oh, big dude. Yeah. He didn't, he didn't fuel enough either. So by lap four, 'cause it's 20, it's 20 mile loops. So lap four is the hardest, right? Because you're so close.

But so far it's yeah. Time. No, that's your mental suck. Like you, you still had to do another one after that. Like hundred percent. You're, you're crushed. Yes. But that one lap that I wasn't expecting to do with him, we started at nine, we finished at six 30 in the morning. In the middle of the night Headlamps died.

I had zero fuel on me 'cause I wasn't expecting to do it in these backy sweatpants. But in the middle of it, I was like, this feeling that you feel right now, this is what you've been looking for and you haven't had that in a long time. Yeah. So it is what you're talking about. And when Harry's been talking to me about too, I, I, I can't recommend them enough and like I'm eyeing this 29 or 29, and it's funny, I have another friend of mine, this guy Derek Price, who does this, uh, just amazing business life coaching now played in the [01:23:00] NFL.

He was, you know, played for the Lions. And I put him through Karo Glenn and I put him through Karo, this former NFL stud, like just giant monster of human. He's done Ironmans, he's chased all the same adventures, and now he's in a position to share and, and share in what he's done. And so he hits me up and he is like, Hey, so I've got a group.

And I really want to give them a oggi and I really wanna do a oggi, however you, you pronounce it. And we just start riffing and it was like two teenagers, like, oh, and then we could do this, and then it could do this. And I'm not even involved in it. And I'm like, we're throwing ideas back and forth and it was awesome.

And it lit that fire right up again. I'm like, I don't ever wanna lose that fire. So unfortunately for you, and unfortunately for you, you guys are already there. You're gonna keep doing it. Oh yeah. We're in it. And just, you know, just create a good understanding. My only advice in relationships is explain that very well to your other halves so [01:24:00] that your wives understand, or your girlfriends understand that it's not a disrespectful thing to them.

It's, it's actually gonna fuel your relationship and you're gonna be better in the relationship because of it. Um, but we gotta find out what we're made of. Going back to that whole adventure thing and like something we, we touched on a little bit earlier. And this is all, again, through the lens of hindsight.

You guys ever take those like Myers-Briggs test? Have you ever done anything to find out like the kind of person you are? Mm-hmm. There, there's a variation on Myers-Briggs and it's not called Myers-Briggs, and I should know the name of it, but there's basically eight different personality types and you're mapped to one of them predominantly.

And they have these really like, you know, classic names and, and like most entrepreneurial leaders are like, it's called like the general or something like that. And next to the general, the other leadership type is the adventurer. And I'm in a couple of groups in San Diego and in and around the country of like different business owners and we [01:25:00] all can kind of share stories and they're, they're incredible groups to be a part of, to realize you're not alone in whatever you're encountering in business.

But I took this test and you have to be, you know, just be honest with yourself or like, you're never gonna get an honest result. And I go through and I kind of answer all the questions and I go through and it's, you know, it's like an hour long test. It was, it. Definitely took a little bit of bandwidth and I came out as the adventurer mapped to that general, and I'm like, oh man, this hits, like, all these other people in this group are all the generals.

They're all, they're all like, you know, on that leadership side. But I'm that guy who takes wild swings. Bingo. I got it. Like in, in, in traction. I'm that visionary. Mm-hmm. Like I am definitely not the, the implementer and I can implement and you have to implement when you're early on in business. But I found on that visionary, so by reading the book, rocket Fuel, which is part of the traction series, I knew, especially after like my partner left, I was like, [01:26:00] oh, I never had an implementer.

No wonder we, like, we were bound for failure. Like he's kind of a visionary on his own too, which is great, but like not great when you're trying to do it together. And my VP of marketing in the interview process, I just casually had that discussion about the book Rocket Field. He said, oh, I just got done rereading it.

He's like, you know, man, I just, I never wanna be a visionary. I want to, I just wanna be behind the scenes. I wanna get things done. And I'm like, my man. And uh, like it was, it was what it was just yeses across the board from there on. And now, yeah, we're only half year into working each other with each other, but I'm less like, yep, you are gonna call me out on all my wild shit.

And you're gonna say yes to the right, wild things, but you're also gonna like pull me back when I need it. But you're there for the adventure. Mm-hmm. It's phenomenal. So, man, the fact that there's, that's something Harry and I have learned, that there's people out there the way that you love taking wild swings.

[01:27:00] There's someone that loves operations just as much and you just perfectly compliment each other. Yep. And you guys will learn that like you're going to like realize if you guys are both on that visionary side, might be that you need a Chad in your world. Just throwing that out there, guys. Um, but like you realize that and the earlier you can realize it, the better set for success you're gonna be.

And I mean, it's an exciting time to be in protein. Like one of my friends is Gabrielle Lyon, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and she's exploded, queen. She is literally the protein queen. So her husband Shane, um, we worked out together as Seal Fit. Literally like back in 2010, like Shane and I were just like beating the crap out of each other.

And then I met her the year we launched our company. And this was, you know, seven years ago. And she was, she was early on, like, hadn't written her book yet, hadn't done those things. Um, but she was dating Shane. So we had this little personal connection and I just found what she was doing to be [01:28:00] fascinating.

And then you give that pulpit up and you realize like she is out preaching the good word of diet, nutrition, of course, exercise and strength training. But like, she pulls no punches. This is a medical doctor. She is talking to you about what you need. You guys, you know, for what we're doing, like we're providing a product line that's gonna help people that just can't necessarily do it on their own.

They're not out eating organ meats. They're not getting, they're not eating tip to tail in the right way, the way nature say intended from 150 years ago. Like, 'cause it's really hard to eat that way. Well, guess what? We have processes now for collagen peptides. We have processes for organ meat, whole meat proteins, and an amazing amino acid spectrum to help get the job done for the, you know, the necessity of protein, protein intake.

Then you've got, like Dr. Rhonda Patrick talking about these things. You've got these huge personalities that are, I don't say [01:29:00] normalizing, like good dietary habits, but yeah, for lack of a better word. Like they're making sure people recognize that the world of really bad decision making is, you know, clock's ticking on that.

Mm-hmm. The ultra process foods are on blast. Mm. It's a whole new administration with RFK in there. Yeah. That's gonna help change that. Now it won't change overnight, but I love knowing that you guys are in the game to help change that, that you guys have a platform to help folks recognize that, oh, I, I should probably pay a little bit more attention to what I'm eating.

Oh, there is this, maybe that vegan diet wasn't such a good idea. Maybe there's other ways of doing it. Um, it's, it's incredibly powerful. It's a, it's a cool time to be around that and you guys are doing it right. We appreciate you saying that. Yeah. Three years ago when we started the Meat Mafia Podcast, quit our jobs, it didn't really sit my bad spot.

Nope. Try doing it with a 1-year-old gentleman, dad. Hey mom, we're gonna, uh, quit our corporate gigs and we're gonna start a podcast called The Meat Mafia. Yep. [01:30:00] Yeah. And, and trust me, it's gonna be great. It's, it's gonna be huge. Yep. That reminds me of that conversation with my mom. So I'm dropping outta college to become a pro snowboarder.

I. Good luck, but then again, like you guys had that passion vision to dig in and to do it. Yeah. Um, I do wanna talk about Glen a little bit because I'd be remiss not to talk about like, why is this thing called bubs? Yes. Um, sorry, I kind of had to grab the mic on that one, but No, no, I wanted to circle back to it anyways, so I was gonna, I was gonna ask you if you felt his hands kind of in the business as you've been scaling it, just that presence of who he was and just how he shows up and the products that you've made, you know, and Yes, a hundred percent.

And actually, I love the way you framed that question because I wouldn't say I'm an overly spiritual person. Um, I would say I, I have different moments when I'm more in tune with it. Um, but I don't live my life like thinking that way. I just kind of, I think I charge too much to just [01:31:00] stop and smell the roses and like be in tune with all of that.

But I can 100% say that the day we started. Thought of, of the company. He was there for it. Um, so, so let me back up a little bit. Glen, obviously, you know, as I stated, he was my best friend growing up. We dropped outta college together. We had all these great life adventures in our thirties. We ended up becoming roommates against the last two and a half through almost three years of his life.

You know, we were roommates, so he was deploying overseas at that point. He was outta the Navy and he was contracting for the CIA. Um, we literally like made our wills out to each other, like did all this stuff for like, Hey, if I die, you inherit all my debt. If I you die, you inherit all my debt. Like we, it was as thick as two guys can be like, we're brothers.

And you know, like when I met my wife, like Glen was right there for our entire courtship. Um, when he wasn't deployed overseas, Glen's last deployment and it was really meant to be his last [01:32:00] deployment. Um, he knew he couldn't work. Security and, and do the GRS job for the CIA much longer. Like, you know, he was 44 at the time and he was like, dude, I'm, or 43.

He was like, I'm getting, this is getting old. Like these are long days, these are hard hours. This is, it's tough work. He's like, I'm, I think I'm gonna go back to school. He was ready to make a shift. Um, and his last deployment was to Tripoli in Libya in 2012, and that was in early September of 2012. Well, you guys remember nine 11 of course, because nine 11 in New York was, you know, this horrible, tragic incident and in DC and you know, in Pennsylvania.

But there was a second nine 11 and that was the one that happened in Benghazi, Libya, and it was 11 years after, so it was on nine 11 2012. There was an Al-Qaeda terrorist attack in Benghazi, which is about a two hour flight from Tripoli. So I'm going to bed on nine [01:33:00] 11. I'm like checking the news and I got a text message from a friend like, Hey, like some weird shit's going down overseas.

And I look and I'm like, oh, Glen's in Tripoli. He's like, he's nowhere near that. Like Benghazi, I don't even know where that is. I had to like look it up on the map. I'm like, okay, Glen's gotta be cool. But I read a little email that night like, Hey man, be safe out there. And at that point it's the middle of the night.

'cause I'm in California and he's in Benghazi. Well he was already in the fight. Mm-hmm. So Glenn responded to those terror attacks at the State Department annex. That ultimately led to the CIA annex in Benghazi responding to that terrorist attack. And Glen got on an airplane with a couple of the special operators and some personnel flew to Benghazi, waited for an escort to take him to that CIA annex and literally like.

Fought his way from Tripoli to get the plane, to get the plane into Benghazi, to get from that airport [01:34:00] to the CIA annex, and ultimately laid down his life, saving all those Americans over there. And the next day, around noon, I got that phone call and it's, it's funny 'cause like it's a phone call I would never normally answer.

It was like 8, 5, 8 number. And I'm like, I'm a seven, six oh guy. So I'm like, I'm not answering that. But some little voice in my head spoke up, talk about the hand speaking to you and said, answer that call. So I did. I said, and it's just Mr. Lake. I said, yeah. I said, I need your return to your home on, you know, X address in Encinitas.

Um, we have some news to share with you. I said, all right. And I'm like, my heart just sank. Like I knew I had to get home so I, you know, zip right home. I. Sure enough, there's two black SUVs parked in front of my house with a bunch of people in like the black suits with the whites, the black ties. Like it's literally out of a movie.

And, um, you know, CI, a operative walks up, shakes my hand and says, we regret to [01:35:00] inform you that, um, Glen Doherty's, you know, he's died. And I was like, I knew, okay. And that, that was a, if Korra was a shift in my life, this was the next shift. Me and my wife, you know, the most significant shift in that moment of losing Glen, just everything changed.

He was best friends to hundreds and hundreds of people, and I was the executor of his estate. I became this shepherd of his legacy, if you will, um, his family, like we all shared in it. But it was like, Hey, the buck stops with me and there's a radical shift in there to honor this most epic human, this this seeker of adventure.

This my, my compadre, my best friend. And there's a lot of sadness in all of that. But there was also a lot of inspiration and goodness like, man, I couldn't ask for a better [01:36:00] fucking north star in the world than Bub. So when the idea of the company came about, it felt right and like you guys didn't eat mafia.

'cause it felt right. It wasn't like, Hey, podcasts are cool. We're gonna do a cool thing 'cause they're cool. You guys did it because you had a life transformative experience and it was worth sharing. It was worth jumping up on that pulpit on the street corner and evangelizing the world to this great message.

And guess what, three years later here you are. Same thing with with Glen and being involved in the business. I would look to him for inspiration when it got low. Like when I was like, this isn't working, this isn't worth it. And there was that little, like that little voice and I jokingly call it the the what would Glen do, ww GD.

I'm like, what would Glen do? And I always know the answer to that. And I have this North star and it's the quality of the product. It's the integrity of everything that we do that I am proud to like offer as a gift here. And I'm [01:37:00] like, I can't wait for you guys to try this stuff. It's the next stuff that we have coming out.

It's like the new products and the ideation behind it. It's weird marketing ideas that I would never normally say yes to. But Glen was kind of a kooky, wild guy. So what would he do? And it's like, yeah, go for it. And, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. But guess what? Not all of his decisions work either.

But it's an epic North star. And you know, like I'm, I'm grateful to have that. I'm grateful to have that in business and I, I realize that that's an, an amazing thing to have in your back pocket. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, he's, he's there. And I definitely feel that hand. And, and I now I'm more in tune to like, connect with and call it spirituality.

And, you know, he had this thing for hummingbirds in our yard. There were always hummingbirds buzzing around, and it became kind of this symbol after he died. Like, he'd be thinking to Glen, you see a hummingbird? It's like, the fuck. How'd that happen? Yeah. And now it became so regular, like, oh, I'm thinking of something.

There's a [01:38:00] hummingbird. What would Glen do? There's this like easy connection point there, and that's spiritual. Like there, there's, that happens and I'm like, wow, what are the chances? Well, don't analyze it like that. It's only, it's only weird if you question it. Just go with it. Yeah. I've learned that. So, and I'm sure you guys have those moments too.

They're, they're good. 'cause they're, they lead you to the right place if you led it. Definitely. Yeah. It's almost like, it's very interesting because as you've been telling this whole story, it was very clear that while he was living, he had such a big impact on you and pushed you. And you were talking about, you know, the CrossFit gym with Mark Devine and him getting you into all these workouts and coaching, and he was in Nashville to all this stuff.

And then I didn't even think about this, that, you know, he's still pushing you in so many ways, like through this brand, and it's almost like you've created the most beautiful skin in the game for yourself and your team and your family because there's no, there's no option to fail. No. Damn. It's like, it's so tough being friends with these guys.

Yeah. Navy Seals are insanely hardcore motherfuckers and I'm a. Washed up snowboarder. [01:39:00] So yeah, having them, you know, having that presence in my life has been, I, I mean, look, I'll call it a blessing. Like it's, it's not anything I thought I would, I never sought it. It was just how life played its hand. And so now to be able to tap into that has been amazing.

And I would give anything to have Glen back and he'd be sitting right next to me and he'd be hogging the mic and telling you all the great stories. 'cause he was a storyteller. Um, and I'm just trying to, you know, do what I can in his absence. But I've got that inspiration and I've got that, that legacy to play with.

And it's, it's the most natural thing to guide us. You know, it's interesting 'cause my wife made this observation just the other day. She's like, you know, I, I only knew Glen for like two years. Wow. It's true. He died in, you know, nine 11 or nine 12 in, in 2012. We'd only been dating for like two years at that point.

Like, oh wow. You're right. Like. What a wild thing to consider. Like she's had like, what is it, 11, [01:40:00] 12 years, 13 years now of not having him. But she had that amazing time with him that was that transformative, that's how impactful he was on people. Like folks that only knew him those last couple of years.

They were his best friend. Mm-hmm. He was their best friend. You know, that's, that's powerful stuff. Was there a moment in your guys friendship where you realized that you were gonna be lifelong friends, you guys were gonna just do stuff together for a very long time? You know? Yeah. I would say like that winter that we moved to Utah was the defining one.

Because before that, you know, we're all running around where high school is like, you know, there's 10 of us that are all in this crowd together. We're all thick as thieves and, but Glen was always the centerpiece of that. Like he was the rower. He was probably the most popular one. We were kind of the nerd crowd in high school.

Um, I. Playing Dungeons and Dragons and like, you know, but Glen was on the wrestling team, so he was cooler and when, when he took off to college, and then a year later [01:41:00] I took off to college. And then we would always team up in those moments, like coming home for Thanksgiving, coming home for Christmas.

That's when those plans started hatching. And like no one else wanted to have those plans. Mm-hmm. So there was that like, all right, we are, we are cut from the same cloth, like we're meant to do this. And the idea of going ski bumming for a year to test it out, um, like no one else was thinking to really do that.

I was like, wait, what? What are you gonna do? And then we were like, yeah, we have to do this. Um, and, and that just like cemented it. That year Adventure really cemented it. My brother joined us, my older brother, and he did his one year and then he went back to college and, and you know, knocked out his degree and for Glenn and I was like, no, this is the calling.

This is the way. And that. Fed us and fueled us. And then when all our friends had graduated college and they all had their regular jobs, we didn't like laugh at them. We were like, oh, that's amazing. We actually don't know if we could do that. Like, I don't know if I could, [01:42:00] the only way I, I think I made it through college was by doing it with the adventure, with the dopamine in between to make sitting in that classroom worth it.

'cause I had my eye on a bigger prize, you know, when Glen decided to join the Navy, he wanted to see what he was made of. He wanted that challenge. And I did too. I wanted it in the mountains. I wanted it in in different areas. So it was early though. It was, it was definitely in the most teenage years that we realized that that clicked.

And then, you know, like people lose touch. And this is before Facebook. This is before social media and Instagram and TikTok. And everyone's like chatting, you know, you're texting people on like tick, tick, tick phones, like flip phones and stuff. Like you weren't, you were using a pager. So you know, when Glen was in the Navy early on, like he was payphones.

You get a phone call from someone you're gonna lock down. Everything stops, and you're on the phone for the next hour, like just jamming with your best friend. Um, but you know that, that inspiration on those, like you're lucky [01:43:00] to have a friend or two like that in your whole life. Mm-hmm. And I'm grateful to have had that with Glen.

Like, and we fed off each other, you know, like make no mistakes. Towards the end of those last couple years when we were at Mark Dev Divine's gym, like I was hell Ben at beating him at every workout we did. Like, but that's that fire, like, that's that energy. Like that's, that was the fun stuff. Like I beat him at a workout, he would never hear the end of it.

And then he would beat me to workout and I'd have to jaw, you know, listen to it until I could beat him at the next time. They were just going back and forth and back and forth and, and then it became like, how are we giving each other advice? How are we listening to each other? How are we responding to each other's highs and lows?

And that all really happened later. Like in your twenties, you're just kind of invincible and doing whatever. In your thirties, you're starting to see what, like, where those challenges are coming in and like. Where you're like, oh, this is kind of scary, this life thing and these big decisions and getting married and getting divorces and you know, like leaving a job is the only job you know how to do.

In his case it was the Navy. What do you do [01:44:00] next? Like there's a lot of uncertainty out there, starting the company, right? Talk about scary stuff. So it was really good to have a copilot for that. And it was really, I'm grateful for those experiences to fuel me today. And yeah, man, I feel like when you know, you know, and you can meet those friends, I believe later in life, I was lucky I got to meet 'em early.

Yeah. Yeah, but especially you have to navigate so much of life together too. I mean, even you guys being in your thirties and living together, like that's not common to do that. No. Yeah. Literal, literally like dude's 43, like going to deploy in Benghazi and he's telling me not to kill the plants on his way out the door.

Hey, you know, I'm like, yeah, we've been living together since I was 39 years old and you know, I was 42 at the time or whatever. I'm like, yeah, this is probably not what I had scripted. I think I thought I'd be like married with kids and, you know, doing all that stuff. Maybe I don't, I don't even know. 'cause I never actually planned that until I met Heather.

So, yeah. So it's, it was definitely unconventional, a non-linear [01:45:00] career path, if you will. There you go. It's special. I think, you know, when you are someone who like seeks adventure and wants to see what you're capable of, you need to have those mirrors into like those other souls out there who are just like, I'm gonna send it.

I'm gonna do the hard thing. I wanna, I wanna be on a, an adventure like that as well. Um, I. So I think just like coming across as people and being able to go through seasons of life with someone like that, who's a high performer, but also someone who wants that, that edge of life and to kind of live out there on that edge a little bit is, is special.

Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. And to have that in. And someone like him, who's also so outgoing, that's why when I say he was friends to hundreds of people, like that's, that's rare. Like I might have hundreds of people on my phone, but they're not best friends. And that's how impactful he was, how genuine he was.

Like, Harry, he'd meet you and he'd be like, you tell him a story a year later, he'd check in on that story with you. Like, Hey, how's that one thing going? You'd be like, how do you remember that? Like I just said that in passing. Like, he was [01:46:00] locked in and he cared. And we're lucky to meet people in life that care, that want to know, like they want to know how you're doing.

And otherwise it's just small talk and bullshit. Like one key takeaway from this gathering is. I'm a resource in what I've learned about putting powder into a jar. And if I can help you guys, whether it's logistics and like what you're doing, like in shipping, like I need to be there for you. I don't have a choice.

I want to be there for you, and you guys are doing good work. I want like, let me help if I can help. If I can't help, hey, no big deal. But how can we all collectively help each other? That sense of community, not just in our industry, but like in life. Where do you find those groups? Where do you find those people?

Like Glen would be the rower. Like, okay, I'll do, I'll rally. And that's, and I think it's an important calling for all of us to be able to do that and like, like help each other out along the way. Like, Hey, there's plenty of people that have made all the [01:47:00] mistakes before me. I'm lucky to know a few of them now.

And then now I've learned about those mistakes along the way. Cool. Maybe I can share 'em with you guys, but you haven't made those mistakes yet. Let me help you with those. Yeah. Um, and it's great. It's great to be able to have that, you know, in. Kinda woven into us to know, to be able to extend yourself and be there to help, to go help your friend out at that race to, Hey, a man I got my hokas on, let's go.

Like, that's awesome stuff, man. That's the juice that's worth squeezing. Mm-hmm. Like, that's the fricking awesome stuff. And uh, I, I don't ever wanna lose that. And again, I got a couple laps around the sun on you gentlemen, but like I can tell you that I intend to do this exact same shit 10 years from now, 20 years from now.

Hopefully my wife's cool with that. I can tell you this, I think one of my life metrics going forward is gonna be, if I'm 53, dropping the word stoke on a podcast. I've done things the right way. Yeah. And I think you've done, there we go a few times. Thank you. [01:48:00] Well, it's funny too, we were talking about this here, and I were talking about this when we were walking in.

So we've done over 400 episodes of the show and transitioning from 24 20, 24 to 2025. It's always just been like, how do we always. Keep the creative juice to the podcast while trying to build Noble, trying to do the marketing agency and all these different goals that we have. And I think one of the things that we were talking about was kind of fizzling outta 2024.

We were trying to reclaim that creative juice. And so, you know, not that we took that much of a hiatus, but we just slowed down the podcast a little bit, toned it back. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, Harry's been doing some solo episodes. I've been doing some solo episodes. So we've fi figured out that this podcast is the first interview that we've done together since, uh, since 2024.

Was it November? Yeah, I think it was in December. Yeah, it's almost half a year, gentlemen. I know, that's Wow. But I'm telling you, man, I think you're feeling the same thing, like after talking to you, I think there's a reason I think God wanted us to have through us to have this conversation for you to be that interview.

Yep. It's only strange if you question it, right? [01:49:00] Yes. That's, that's like, that's that casual spirituality, if you will. Yes. Like, yeah, like it's funny 'cause I listened to a couple episodes before I came in and I wanted to tune up and they were solos. You weren't together. Yeah. And that was my first question to Cha was like, I was like, well, who do I get?

Do I get hair? Do I get Brett? Like, what? You know, what's the deal? You get both. Oh shit. Well, okay, let's go. But you're right. Like that's, that's that stuff we're meant to have this conversation and like, that's the cool stuff. Like that's why today worked out. You know, Hey, find a studio. Let's go. Let's find this, make this happen.

Yeah. Um, there's a reason why you're in the product that you're in. There's a reason why you started this podcast. There's a reason why you guys met in college, and there's a reason why for meeting in college. You decided to go for the next challenges. And the next challenge is, and there'll be some that are apart, but you'll be there to support each other for those two.

Like, that's the good stuff. Mm. I think that's what we're all here for. Yes. Yeah, totally. Well, we really appreciate it. I appreciate Josh trying, connecting us. That was a, a major. [01:50:00] Uh, he's the haul out. And, and yeah. Him, him making that connection was, was huge. Yeah. Josh is a connector of people. He has an intuition about him and like, it wasn't like it was a choice.

Like, Hey Sean, do you wanna meet these people? It was, you're gonna meet the meat mafia and that is how it's gonna be. I'm like, okay, okay. But he also knows me well enough to know, like, I'm like, sure man. That sounds great. Yeah. I'm flying to Austin, just I'll attack on an extra day. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. And well worth it.

Oh my gosh. We appreciate you, man. Seriously, this is one of the most, uh, juice conversations in a long time. There's just there, I mean, we touched on everything. I don't think, uh, unless we wanna really nerd out on the benefits of glycine and collagen peptides. I think we've covered our bases here. Yeah.

Well, we can't wait to try the product too, like just right up our alley in terms of what we're all about. Just high quality and the collagen is incredible. And then we've got the what, MG here? Instant coffee. Yep. So, so literally, I mean, I, I will, I will close on this note on these. The idea of what [01:51:00] collagen does for body.

'cause you guys are on the front end of this and better to get ahead of it now than to have to chase it later. And, and, and take it from me. Like someone who discovered collagen in his forties. Like, I'm grateful that I discovered collagen for what it's done for me. But at the end of the day, all it is is a glue.

Collagen is a protein. It is the most abundant protein in the human body. It's crazy to think about. You have more collagen in your body than any other protein. Your hair, your skin, your nails, your skin, your entire body, your skin, your intestines, your muscles, your joints. Think about that. Like that's everything.

That's the whole thing. It's the whole thing guys. Um, alright. Your organs, you know, you don't get it there. Yeah. Um, or not as much, but your body stops producing collagen naturally in your twenties. Like it just turns it off. So this is the whole idea of like exogenously. Ingesting something to trigger an endogenous production of [01:52:00] something.

And this happens with other proteins and other products. You, you, you take it from outside the body and it triggers the natural production inside the body. And I am no lab coat scientist. I know that it worked for me. Well, what is it? It's ground up cow hide. It's ground up Cow hide in just the right ratio and sequence of amino acids.

You know, proline hydroxyproline, glycine that glycine like it does all these wonderful things for your connective tissue. It's a glue. It's a binding protein that holds your body together. Hair, skin, nails, muscles, joints, and it literally produces synovial fluid, lubricating your joints, the muscle recovery element's.

Not gonna get you bulked up on muscle, that's what your protein's for, but it's gonna do amazing things for your overall connective tissue health. And I'm like, what an amazing thing. This is the fricking fountain of youth. In the form of ground up, cow hide. Mm. Like you need that. When I look at our [01:53:00] MCT oil, it's literally coconut oil.

It is two ingredients in this jar. It is coconut oil and tapioca starch. And all tapioca starch is powdered up cassava root. So coconut oil broken into a medium chain triglyceride. It's a shorter chain fatty acid in the bloodstream breaks through the blood-brain barrier and think mental focus and your body's juiced on those healthy fats for energy.

And then tapioca starge is creamy and delicious. Like it's literally diet friendly for every diet you want to run. And you can just scoop up your coffee and next thing you know you got rocket fuel for the day. Hmm. This is the thing I'm most pumped to try and I feel like I operate best on like MCT oil, coconut oil, fat, um, just, you know, clean fuel.

Go like first half a day just on MCT oil, and it's like, this goes as it gets literally, that is gonna be an absolute game changer for you. And there's not too much, like, I think there's a, there's a fine line with MCTs if you don't have a big tolerance for it. Okay, there's five grams per [01:54:00] scoop, you go 15, 20, you might be hit the toilet a little rough.

So, you know, operate with caution, but there's five grams per scoop. So it's like, Hey, have a cup of coffee, put it in there. You're gonna feel the difference. And unlike collagen where you know, it takes a while, it takes three weeks, maybe a month, maybe two weeks, like it takes a while before you feel those effects.

And those effects are transformative. But who doesn't want that kick of energy first thing in the morning? Just be like, all right, I'm revved up, ready to go. You can feel it. You can feel the electricity in your brain. Yeah, the sharpness and the quickness and everything like that. I'm Jones gonna take a scoop of our chocolate with your, the unflavored collagen, the MCT, the coffee.

Oh, full. Yeah. Magic blend. You stack that tomorrow I'm gonna have to bring a little crap of it. Get you juice for Josh Tran. You'll be talking a mile a minute. I, so I get on with Josh to Josh tomorrow. Go. Let's go. I'm all about it. Yep. Bring some by, we'll be at his house bright and early tomorrow and uh, I can always use a little rocket fuel.[01:55:00]

Yeah, we, we have a couple extra bags of chocolate at the house too, so we'd love to send you home with some as well. We don't have it on us now, but we live like five minutes away, so maybe we could drop it off tomorrow. Dude. Amazing. Yeah, I'm literally gonna spend the day with Josh and like Josh is epic.

It's like, I'm so excited to like, get over there first thing in the morning, tap into his rituals and his morning routines, share a little bit of mine and what we do and kind of put a little, you know, mash that up and then we're gonna turn on the mics and, and some talking, which is gonna be definitely adventurous.

I have listened to, his questions are gonna be heavy. Oh yeah. I'm ready to get heavy with him. Yes. Um, what I can say is I've really enjoyed getting heavy with you guys 'cause this is, uh, just an invigorating conversation. I fricking love this stuff. Yeah. Well we've, I can speak for both of us. We've learned a ton just sitting here and being able to ask you questions.

It's, it's great. We're like selfishly just like. I'm so grateful for all the people who get to sit in that chair 'cause we just get to expunge as much value as I'm getting out of it for ourselves. But also, you know, like just hearing your [01:56:00] story and your thirst for life, it's like, it's very inspiring. I feel like both Brett and I needed to hear as he was saying, uh, it's just like great being around the energy and people like yourself who are going for something big and just taking big swings.

So yeah, we appreciate it. Thanks man. I appreciate it and I also appreciate that we all got up the Malmo to wear black t-shirts today. T-shirt, including Chad. Yeah. Yep. Uniform. Just Chad. Thousand eyes. Yeah, exactly. Nice guys. Well thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks Sean. Cheers. Cool.