From Selling Plasma to 8 Figures: Marine Vet Johnny Raushi's American Comeback

Marine vet Johnny Raushi joined the Corps at 17 for a free skateboard sticker. Four years later he came home broke, picked up change in a gas station parking lot, and sold his plasma twice a week to fund the first batches of a pomade he was perfecting on his stovetop. That pomade became Johnny Slicks — an 8-figure American manufacturing company employing 30+ people out of a North Carolina facility, fully U.S.-sourced.

Asher and Raushi cover boot camp, the in-unit suicide that happened seconds after he walked away from his armory window, the Accutane spiral that nearly killed him, the six-day phone call with Marine Raider Nick Koumalatsos that turned a kitchen-table pomade into a brand, and his first book "23 Virtues in 23 Days" (Aug 2025).

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CHAPTERS:
(00:00) Welcome
(03:30) Growing Up in NJ and the Poconos
(11:00) Faith, Questions, and the Church
(22:30) The Recruiter and a Sticker
(27:00) Bootcamp and Brotherhood
(37:00) Marrying Rebecca and Camp Lejeune
(41:00) The M9 Pistol Eureka Moment
(51:30) Deploying With BSRF-14 to Romania
(1:02:00) Losing His MOS and Earning It Back
(1:17:00) Suicide in the Ranks
(1:22:30) Knee Injury and Leaving the Corps
(1:41:00) Hair Loss and the First Pomade
(2:00:00) Selling Plasma and Picking Up Change
(2:14:00) Six Days With Nick Koumalatsos
(2:35:00) Hurricane Florence and Moving In With Nick
(2:55:00) Scaling Johnny Slicks
(3:15:00) The Accutane Spiral
(4:00:00) Building an 8-Figure Business
(4:30:00) Leadership and EOS
(5:00:00) Plant Medicine and Healing
(5:45:00) Marriage and Trust
(6:15:00) 23 Virtues in 23 Days
(6:30:00) Closing Thoughts

CONNECT WITH JOHNNY: johnnyslicks.com | IG: @johnnyslicks | @johnnyraushi

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Transcript

Host 0:09

Johnny, dude, it's good to have you in the studio, bro. We started planning this, man, last year, I think.

Johnny Raushi 0:14

Yeah.

Host 0:15

I uh yeah, you you've been busy. I've been busy, and then you were, I think you we have the holidays coming up, and dude, it's it's uh it's cool to have you in the studio, dude.

Johnny Raushi 0:24

It's like perfect timing. You guys have awesome weather here. It's great. It is really nice. Yeah.

Host 0:28

Um, it was cool to visit with you guys last night. Before we get started, dude, I'm gonna do a quick intro and then we'll just take this thing wherever it goes, dude. I'm uh I'm excited for this. It's cool. My guest today grew up as a middle child on a small farm in New Jersey, largely unsupervised, largely unnoticed, skateboarding around with no real direction and a lot of energy, he didn't know what to do with. At 17, he walked up to a Marine Corps recruiter at a high school recruitment day. Not because he wanted to serve his country, not because he had a plan, because he wanted a sticker for a skateboard. The recruiter got his email and before he fully understood what he'd agreed to, he was in the United States Marine Corps. He served four years as an armor, accountable for over $20 million in weapons and equipment, deployed with 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines to Eastern Europe before he was 22 years old, and left as a corporal with an honorable discharge. What happened next is the part most people don't talk about. He came out of the Marine Corps with his chest out and nothing in his bank account. Nobody hired him. He picked up change in a gas station parking lot to buy gas. He sold his plasma to fund a business idea. His car got repossessed, his electricity got shut off. He was 230 pounds and drinking more than he should have been, and his wife Rebecca was working her butt off double shifts of Chuck E. Cheese so they could eat. The business idea was a pomade. He had noticed while modeling hair products on active duty that whatever they had him applying to his hair every day was making it fall out. He read the label. He didn't like what he saw. He figured it was it was organic and he could make it himself. He failed at that formula more times than he probably remembers. And then in June of 2017, he got it right. He sold product out of his house through Instagram, direct messages, no website, no ad budget, no investors. In January of 2018, a marine raider named Nick I don't know how to pronounce his last name, you pronounce it. Kumalatos. Nick Kumalatos. I'm glad you finally I've never been able to pronounce that right. Um, tried the product, called him six days later, and asked to build something together. On March 6th of 2018, Johnny Slicks was officially a company. It hit six figures in the first year, seven figures by 2020, eight figures after that. Forbes named it one of the best grooming products of the year. He earned a bachelor's degree in marketing while building it. He published his first book, 23 Virtues in 23 Days in 2025. He employs over 30 people, most of them veterans, out of a facility in North Carolina where everything is sourced and made in America. He is currently building a full manufacturing facility to expand that. His name is Johnny Rushdie. He's the husband, the founder and visionary leader of Johnny Slicks, a Marine Corps veteran, and a man that continues to push through limits while lifting up those around him. Johnny, welcome to the Vanguard Wall, homie.

Johnny Raushi 3:13

Dude, that was incredible. Yeah. I'm gonna get emotional.

Host 3:16

Your life is incredible.

Johnny Raushi 3:17

That's I never heard it in such like a you have a great voice too. So I've never heard it in such like a great manner, man. I appreciate it. That was awesome.

Host 3:25

Oh yeah, dude. Take me back to where you grew up. Jersey, then the Poconos. What was home actually like? What was the house, the family, the feel of it?

Johnny Raushi 3:34

Yeah, I was raised, um, well, like you said in the intro, I was a middle child. I have an older brother and a younger brother, mom and dad still together. Um, my dad worked, he owned his own business, uh, sheet metal fabrication. So he installed and and fabricated H duck, like you know, HVAC. Um, and my mom stayed home, but she took care of the farm. We had horses, chickens. At one point, we had pigs, goats, geese. Um, and she kind of took care of all of that. So when I was growing up, I kind of looked at like those farm things as I don't know, I'm a clean guy, and as you can imagine, a farm is not that clean. Um, but I like getting dirty of my own accord, like going and playing in the mud or something like that. But I never really liked like cleaning up the horse stalls or uh going into the chicken coop. Oh my gosh, like there's no chicken coop that smells good, you know. Yeah, um, that's part of having chickens. But and then my dad working for my dad was just kind of not fun. It it wasn't it was more miserable than anything, and and I understand what he was doing. He took it from his father, so um he was trying to find one of his sons to take it after him, which you know is all you know assumption. Uh, he never actually said that, but it made sense for a generational business, and I never enjoyed doing it. I didn't have an act for it, I didn't have a calling for it, and um going to work for him, it was almost like trying to fit a square hay into a round hole. It just was forced and um it wasn't fun. So I didn't like being on the farm, I didn't like going to work with my dad. So um I just found trouble on the farm. I found trouble everywhere I could. I think by the time I was like six or seven, I'd been rushed to the hospital multiple times, stitches, sutures. Uh I remember when they first came out with glue, actually. Um, my favorite color is purple ever since I was young, and they had purple glue at the hospital. So I was like, they put me in a straitjacket at like five or six because I was wiggling so much, and they were like, it's not stitches, it's glue. It's purple. Look, and I was like, oh, cool, I can get hurt more. Like, this is fun. Nah, that's not what my mindset was. But I was constantly like my mom knew she put a dinner bell in because I was always out in the woods play playing and on the on the farm, jumping out of the hayloft, throwing horseshoes into a tree, uh, and then the tree, the horseshoe would get stuck. So we threw bricks at the horseshoes to get them out, but then the brick came down on my head. Like stupid, stupid things. So you should like come on, you know what I mean? Um, I've been bonked on the head probably one too many times, but now the doctor says I can't read so good, but that's all right. I'm surviving.

Host 6:11

Brothers, sisters, yeah.

Johnny Raushi 6:12

One older brother, um I think he's like 16 months older than me, and then one younger brother. Um we were the same for a while, and then video games came into the household, and my older brother went into video games. And I think because me and my older brother were so close in age, my younger brother kind of felt like he was on the outskirts. So it was kind of hard to keep including him and keeping him up. Um, I got really big into skateboarding, like really big into skateboarding. So my neighbors right across from us uh were my best friends growing up, Julian and and Tyler. And uh we used to skateboard all the time, man. Like if I was not home, I was skateboarding in their garage, skateboarding in town, skateboarding on the bridge above the highway. Like I like I was always on a skateboard somewhere doing something. Um and my brothers didn't really my older brother tried to get into that, but it just didn't have an act for it, and I don't think he enjoyed doing it. Um, and my younger brother just we couldn't, we couldn't keep it, he couldn't keep up. So um I ended up being with my friends more than my family most most of the time. But um we had probably a two-acre lot with the house, um, a barn, uh chicken coop, fields, horses, um, in the middle of New Jersey, which is like most people are like, the what that doesn't exist. It was actually really, really nice. I I was very blessed as a child to grow up in a household where my father was making income, my mom was taking care of the house. Um, I'm not saying it was a perfect life, you know. I don't think that exists, but um I I did have a really good uh I was set up. Like my parents took care of us. We were made sure that we never went hungry, you know.

Host 7:53

You guys moved when you were what, like 15?

Johnny Raushi 7:55

Yeah, 15. I just the summer I was yeah, almost 16. So um 15 years old moved to Pennsylvania. I remember my dad said that um I don't know the reason still to this day why we moved. It might have been taxes or something. Um, but my grandmother lives in the Poconos. Um my dad's mom lives in the Poconos, and um we he wanted to move to the Poconos. So I remember when I was a kid, he told me we were moving because of me, that it was my fault because I was getting into the wrong crowd and he wanted to get me away from that. Um so I always thought it was my fault, uh, which was a very consistent thing I was used to, you know, getting blamed for something, you know.

Host 8:34

And when you guys moved, like moving in the middle of high school is kind of a big deal.

Johnny Raushi 8:38

How did the it was a blessing for me, dude? Really? I was failing all my classes, and here's the thing I was on honor roll when I moved to Pennsylvania because I I moved it was like May of like um I don't know the year. I was 15 years old. It was in June or May. So there was only like a month of school left. So I when I moved and I started school there, it was strange, like socially. I've never been like I've never had issues connecting with people, like it's always been an act for me. I've I have a charm and I and I care for people. Um, when I was a kid, I used to abuse that and try to get away with as much as I can very selfishly. Now I I use it to serve other people. Um, but I still have that same, you know, it's still me, it's still John. So when I moved there, they all my grades were A's because I I didn't learn anything in that curriculum. So I moved in. Dude, I was on the honor roll, I had honor roll breakfast. I was the only kid there that was like that I didn't have glasses and I was dressed in skater clothes and I was white. Like everyone else was like little Asian kids and stuff, and like all the honor roll kids, and I was like definitely not supposed to be there, but I got a cup and everything, and I was like, I made honor roll mom. She's like, You are you got away with it, man? Like it's because of us we moved here. So yeah.

Host 9:48

You've called yourself the middle child, like it explains something. What does being the middle one actually do to a person or to you specifically, maybe?

Johnny Raushi 9:55

Well, I think, and I'm I'm not a parent, so I can't speak on behalf of a parent, so I'll I'll exclusively speak on behalf of being a middle middle child, um, because that's the only experience I have. I feel like when I was born, the things that my parents did wrong with my older brother or or things, traits and actions that they deemed wrong with my older brother, they kind of did it with me rather than like like they just popped me in the shower with them when I when I like had an explosion, you know, when I was a toddler, instead of like taking care, you know, that they were like, just throw them in the shower, you know what I mean? Like things like that, more careless, but made more sense. Um, and then when my younger brother was born, he was the baby, so he got all the attention. And my older brother was supposed to be raising, you know, the kids and and taking care of us, and he really wasn't. So for me as a middle child, it just meant I didn't have enough supervision or attention. And I'm not somebody who craves attention. Like I don't I don't need the the room to all be looking at me. I I've it's not by any means an attention thing, it's more of a I'm just gonna go get into trouble and learn what I can from that experience on my own, like my own accord. So um, when my parents were they trusted my older brother to supervise me, he was off playing video games while they were taking care of my younger brother, and I just look around and nobody's noticing me or paying attention to me. So I'm like, I'm just gonna go skateboard. Yeah, yeah.

Host 11:21

Your grandmother gave you a skateboard, you broke the handle off of it immediately and put stickers on it. It's a whole personality and kind of like one sentence. Where did that impulse come from? That need to just go, dude.

Johnny Raushi 11:32

I don't know. Uh I feel like that's just been me. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. To me, that was just normal. She gave me and my two brothers this this it was a scooter, but the the handles.

Host 11:42

Yeah, I remember, man, those old school like yeah skateboards with like the big handles on them.

Johnny Raushi 11:47

Yeah, they were rad, man. And it was like, I don't know, it was just natural for me. I was like, I I looked at my brothers and I wanted to be different, and I was like, I don't really want to kind of just like be the same. I want to do something a little different. And I was like, how can I be a little bit different? Let me let me take this handle off. I'll do it with no hands. Uh whatever, whatever you do, I'm gonna do it without without hands alone, you know what I mean? And um some injuries came from that, obviously. But you know, you learn from those injuries, you get back up, and that's why scars exist to remind you what not to do. And uh I don't know, man. I didn't like the design on the bottom, so I just put stickers on it. I I it just seemed like I don't know, I don't I didn't know any different, you know what I mean?

Host 12:27

Yeah, you've uh one of the things too, you you've talked about asking a lot of questions as a kid. Like who were you asking? And what do you think looking back, like what were you trying to figure out?

Johnny Raushi 12:35

Yeah, don't if you're born and raised in a in a church, don't ask questions, apparently. That's what I that's what I learned. Um, well, I we were kind of like in our own bubble, you know, like we had our church. I was raised Presbyterian, um, and later went to a not non-denominational church. Um, my father's very religious, um, and he kind of like forced that upon us uh in in his own way, you know, and and there's nothing wrong with any actions that anyone does. I don't hold any resentment or any grudges. Everyone's doing the best they can with the information they're given. That's just being a human being. There's nothing wrong with that. Um and I'm sure he wanted the benefits of the spirituality that he was experiencing, he wanted that for his sons. There's nothing wrong with that. I just didn't jive with it. And when every time we'd go to church, I would have questions. And I realized that sometimes you're not really supposed to be asking questions. Like it's almost like taboo to ask questions about God.

Host 13:32

Unpack that. Like, what do you what what what were the questions or I'm trying to think of uh of any of them.

Johnny Raushi 13:39

Um I mean there were there were just basic ones, like Um, did Jesus ever like did Jesus ever have sex? God forbid you asked that in church. Did he? Like uh you know I mean, I know he had urges. Uh the the Bible insinuates that he was, you know, a human and he felt human emotions. He was 33 years old before he was taken, so I'm 32. I have sexual urges. Did he? Yeah. You get a backhand for that, you know what I mean? Um you just get questions like like random things like that that don't really have answers, but also have answers. And the answers I got were like, that's for God to know, not for us, you know? Or like why why is it that we treat humans like living beings? Um, or here's a here's a good one I always ask too. Um, why do we do good things? And it was to go to heaven. You know, and I and I was told in church as a kid that that the roads are paved with gold and that you get a mansion, and the more good you do, the bigger the mansion you get. And I always felt that was weird because I'm like, wait, so I do good things in order to get something in return. Isn't that the definition of being selfish? Shouldn't you do good things because it's right and because it's good, not for something in return? And you get backhanded for stuff like that, man. You get you get really like you get punished for things like that. I remember there was an incident where um we had a Presbyterian pastor, and I asked my dad, I was having a conversation with him, and we were close with his kids too. They were me and my older brother, um, Mike. We were we were the same age as them, um, David and John. Uh my older brother's name is Mike, I'm John, my younger brother's David. It's very biblical, you know what I mean? And the pastor's sons were uh David and John. It was very strange. But um, so we were all having a conversation, and he said Jesus spent three days in hell. And I was like, What? I did not know that. Does the world know this? Did the do people know this? Like, did you just discover this? So I went home and I said, Dad, did you know Jesus spent three days in hell? Bro, I have never been like like mentally and emotionally ostracized from him as much as I was at that moment. Like he did not, he he thought it was blasphemy and I was going to hell because of saying that, and he treated it like that. And it was very, very weird. And I was like, Yeah, Jesus said, Father, why have you forsaken me on the cross? Which meant God was not with him. So when he died, if he's not with God, then he goes to hell, and he experienced hell, and then when he was resurrected on Easter Sunday, he came back and then he went to heaven. And my dad was like, No, that's not right. I don't know who taught you that, but that's not right. The following Sunday, he said that the pastor said that during the sermon, and I told my dad, I'm like, You see? And he goes, That's right. And I was like, Well, you just you just told me that it wasn't right, and now you're saying it is right because he said it and you heard him say it. I was dude, at this point, at that point, I was like maybe 12 or 13, and I was like, I don't like this. I like I learned that if you want to replicate a man's life, you take his advice in that avenue. But if you don't want to replicate that man's life, you don't take his advice, right? So, like, you don't take a homeless man's a homeless man's advice on how to enter into the real estate market. It doesn't make sense. It just doesn't. If somebody's broke, you don't take their money advice, their financial advice. But if somebody's happy in their marriage and they give you marital advice and you want to replicate that part of their life, then you take it. And I didn't really like how my father was in the church. I didn't like how it was, and I I didn't like the rituals, and it didn't really make sense to me um why my questions weren't just being entertained, why it was almost like I was shunned for asking questions and almost like told if you ask questions you're going to hell. It's not right.

Host 17:35

Did that change your view on like religion in general?

Johnny Raushi 17:38

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um well, even to this day, I'm not a religious person by any means at all. I think religion is man-made and it's all uh very spiritual. Like all all man is the same. We're all the same. Whether you do good, bad, whatever it is, we're we're all the same, and we all I believe we're all talking about the same entity when we say God. Um and you know, we're all lucky enough to be born in the same country or the right country with the right God. You know, if you're born in India, you're born in the Hindu, which is the right God for them. If you're born in America, you're born under Jesus and God, which is the right God for you, which is you know, uniquely specific. But um I'm very spiritual and I don't like rituals. I don't think man-made rituals are any any it's gonna get you anywhere closer to God. And I've had plenty of experiences close to God. Um I don't think going to church is that. I think for some people it is, you know, it's how it's how they experience their their God and and how they get close to it. And there's nothing wrong with that, everyone's doing their own thing. But going through that as a kid made me believe that the church was just something that was set up to distract us. And the more I dove into it, you know, and I I'm not trying to offend anybody. Um no shit, I am. Yeah.

Host 18:53

Yeah, but I mean like it's just your opinion, your your belief. I don't think it's for people to think about it.

Johnny Raushi 18:58

No, but if people go to church, like I've met some people that were hardcore church goers and they were offended. And the thing is, if you can get a f if I can shake your belief system, then maybe it wasn't that sturdy. You know what I mean? So like yeah, shit, I am trying to offend you. Um, but and the more I dove down the rabbit hole of uh of of church, the more I was like, what is the money for? Where what does God require my why is that in there? And then um, why does uh there's a s um a speaker Alan Watts, he's past now. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the name. Um he said in order to become a saint, you need to forgive people before they do bad and without them asking. That's the requirements to become a saint. So your wife is going to have an affair, she performs adultery, um, and she comes to you and tells you you should have already forgave her. That's what it takes to be a saint, right? Incredible, right? Very powerful. Um very difficult, very powerful. But then why do I need to go to ask God to forgive me? Are saints held at a higher standard than God? Because they have to forgive before the deed is done and without being asked to forgive, without being told I'm sorry. But you have to go to church and apologize to God and say I'm a sinner and ask for his forgiveness. So that alone just confused me. And I was like, I don't understand. Why do I have to go talk to somebody and then he goes and talks to God? And I'm like, why I don't understand. Was he how is he different? We're all the same.

Host 20:36

Like every person, every man, woman, and I think that starts like the without going down a total religious rabbit hole. Like I think that and that really depends on the dogma, right? Like, you know, it depends on which form of you know, as we're speaking now, like Christianity, because I I think you're talking about confession, and you know that's that's more like behind uh Catholicism, because I mean you know, again, uh yeah, conf you could go into the whole depths of confession, you know. Is it in the Bible? Is it not? You know, Catholics obviously believe it.

Johnny Raushi 21:06

Yeah, you know, I there's too much to me in the church realm, no matter what church, I mean you you go to India, you go to uh South America, you go you go anywhere in the world, there's churches that have religion. I mean, shit, I spent a lot of time in um Eastern Europe and um their churches, you it's very similar, you know. They have they're burning candles and you have to ask for forgiveness, very similar things. You have to do something in order to be good enough for God. And I was always confused by that because I'm like, why I don't understand. Like I've I've always battled with the concept of free will and destiny and God's plan. I don't understand, you know. And I when I bring that up in church, it was always like that's for God to know, not you. It's like, okay, but how am I supposed to live life not knowing what God wants for me? And it's like just be okay with it.

Host 21:55

It's like it's a very interesting concept. So kind of going back to to your channel. Childhood, just a little bit. Like, were you were you into sports or anything like that? Or I mean, other than skateboarding?

Johnny Raushi 22:06

No, I I'm not athletic. I mean, skateboarding, yeah.

Host 22:10

Uh so you gotta be somewhat athletic to ride a skateboard. I have like biceps on my legs now.

Johnny Raushi 22:15

My calves are huge from skateboarding because I would push for miles, man, just to go into town. Um, no, I wasn't big into sports. I didn't like the it seemed like a weird cult to me, sports. It was like, I don't know, it was too much information. You gotta remember everything. And I didn't like that, man. It was like you gotta remember the rules, you gotta remember people's names, you gotta do all uh there's uniforms, and I'm like, nah, I I just want to like skateboard, man. There's no rules, so you just do whatever you want, man. You get kicked out of places, and then you joined the marine corps, and then I went the complete opposite. Yeah, I know, but that was more of an escape or or getting away and pursuing something.

Host 22:49

Yeah, talk to me. Like, how did the marine corps come on your radar? You come like was there a history of family service, or you know, what was it?

Johnny Raushi 22:56

No, I believe my grandfather um did something in the in the National Guard um during Vietnam time, but I'm unfamiliar and he never really spoke about it. So uh to my knowledge, I'm the only one. Um, my uncle, my mom's brother, joined the Marine Corps, and then this is speculation, this is what I've heard from her, um, that he escaped off Camp Lejeune, which is like a feat in its own. Um he got off base and they eventually kicked him out for escaping off base as a recruit. So he never actually like completed the boot camp. Um, but I was at lunch, uh decaveter in school, and I noticed the all the military members who are in the side room, uh, you know, we had a glass window so you could see them. And all of the military members were um well, most of them, I say most, not all, most of them were in like camis that looked kind of sloppy, and they were sitting down, like on their phones or like writing or doing something. And then I looked over and I saw a Marine in blues standing there, like looking like a statue. And I was like, Oh, he's different. Well and you know, from a child, I w I wanted to be a little bit different. I wanted to do something different. I didn't want to fit into this like cookie cutter mold of a of a person. So I went up to him and uh, you know, I need a new sticker for my board, and I thought it'd be cool to represent that uniqueness. So I said, Can I get a sticker? And he said, Give me your email, I'll give you I'll give you a sticker. And I was like, Okay, whatever. Wrote in my email, um, got my sticker, put it on my back of my phone, and uh I was like, Oh shoot, I want one for my skateboard. So I went back up, he gave me another one, he was very kind. Um and uh I went back home and he already emailed me twice by the time I got home after school. And I was ignoring it for a while, and then he like was calling me out in the email saying that I was I was like ignoring him. And do I want to be someone that just takes and doesn't give? And I was like, Yeah, you got a good point. Yeah, I don't want to be that person, and and this is kind of embarrassing. Um so I went down and talked to him, and he didn't promise me anything, it was pretty simple. I just kind of want to get away. I I wanted to get away from my household. Um, I've had some you know some traumas that I I I I wasn't too I didn't grow from yet, you know, and I was still living with and carrying and I was resentful and I just want to get away from home. Um I just wanted to go and do something else. And I figured if I had a um you know a government contract, my parents can't say no to that, you know. The government's calling me, I gotta go. And uh um, so I eventually signed up and um he said, What do you want to be? And I was like, I don't know, something with my hands. I want to work with my hands. Um I didn't really know anything else, you know. The time I did work for my dad, I it was a sheet metal fabricator, so we're working with metal and and uh plasma machines cutting and insulating. And um he gave me welder and I was like, That's cool. I've seen my dad weld, I can do that, yeah. Um and then all of a sudden, welding became small arms technician repair and armorer. Um the welding school was like six months backed up, and uh it was in Fort Lee, Virginia, so it was the same place. But when I got there, they were like, Do you want to be Alpha Company or Bravo Company? Bravo Company is like ammo tech, fuel specialists, cooks, and armorers. And I was like, just I don't want to be an ammo guy. I've already heard at this point, like I'm young in the Marine Corps. I was like, I don't want to be an ammo guy, those guys just count jelly beans all day. I want to do something else. Um, so I was like, small arms technician sounds cool, I'll do that. Um yeah, and then it just like it all just seamlessly happened. I didn't have any expectations of the Marine Corps, I didn't have like I wasn't promised anything, so I have no resentment or like build up of like they scanned me. Like I wasn't promised anything, other than the fact it was gonna be hard, which it was, but it wasn't that crazy.

Host 26:37

What did your folks say when you told me you were joining the Marines?

Johnny Raushi 26:40

My mom always has two re reactions, um which I was used to. Um her first one was like anger, changes coming, um frustration, and then I go and tell my dad, and my dad was like cool, which I can tell wasn't real. I think he was doing it because he saw my mom's reaction, and then later that night my mom was like, Cool. And I was like, I this is so fucking weird, man. Like, I just want to get out of here, man. I don't know if you support me, if you don't support me. Um, but I didn't really receive any support um from them when it came to the Marine Corps specifically. It was almost like it was almost like I was leaving. Like, and I was, but it was like they were acting that way too. And I never said that to them. Like, I'm never saying, like, hey, I'm trying to get away. Um, I want to experience life. I want to go out there and do something, and I feel like I'm gonna I was watching my my brother um still lived at home and and just kind of doing his thing, and I didn't want that. I wanted to go out there and do something, you know, and experience life and skateboard someplace else, other than down my street. Um, yeah, they didn't really it wasn't really like a support like drive me to PT or whatever. I had to figure that out.

Host 27:52

But what was uh what was the Marine Corps like, dude? What was that like an initial shock sensory overload? Like, how was that for somebody like you?

Johnny Raushi 27:59

A lot of psychological. Looking back now, if obviously it's psychological, but as a kid, I thought it was like dude, it was terrifying. Like, what did I just get into? And I'm in a bus, like being treated like cattle, being shipped onto this Camp Lejeune smelly swamp place in the middle of like the night. I think it was like 3 a.m. when we ended up like getting onto the yellow footprints, something really crazy. And then it was just a lot, bro. A lot of yelling, a lot of go here, run there, stand here, nut to butt. Like you're right up against these other guys that you've never met before in your entire life. You get a haircut like first thing, and it's not like in the movies, man. Like, they cut you, like you are sitting down, your haircut is like 15 seconds bald, like, and they're not cleaning them in between, like you are getting cut, like they are pulling the clippers down to triple zero on the clipper setting and just going. And if you have any type of like bump or uh like a wart or any type of like growth on your scalp, it is getting cut off, man. And they don't care, and you are like bleeding, like there are guys bleeding down their scalp. And I had like it's really dry, but like wet. I don't know, it's a very strange environment, man. You got sampleys everywhere that are going towards your your eyes and mouth and any moisture you have. You got blood dripping down, you're itchy because of the hair and your camis and stuff, you're being screamed at, you're sweating. And we did that for a while, and then finally got to our our um actual bay, and uh then you start unpacking. You have all of this stuff now. You have like backpacks and camis and gear, and you got suited. The the Marine Corps photos of like the boot camp photos, they take dress blues and they cut it in half, so it's only a crop top, and it's not like on the back, they put it over you, so it's not you know, it's not like an actual blues. I didn't know that. I thought they were like you're like you're in uniform. Nah man, they throw it on you, you take a photo, and then you're out in the sandpit doing push-ups right after because you're you're you didn't earn that dress blues photo, so like you're being punished for where for doing what I was like, it's such a strange, but that started the psychological thing, the brain, the brain rewiring where they break you down all the way to build you up as a certain type of person who thinks a certain type of way. Um, I didn't realize that at the time, but very quickly was I broken. I didn't have much brain function at the time, you know. I was like, I didn't do well in school and I didn't really pursue knowledge. Um so I got broken down easily with through the physical um feats and and through run here, do this, do that, push-ups, do this, do this, pull-ups, run, push-ups, push-ups, burpees in the sand. It was terrible. Um, and then when they said this is what this is what you need to repeat, this is what you need to say, I just stuck to that man. Like it was just like my brain was empty so quickly, and it was just it just stuck to me. And then all of a sudden, all of the guys around me, their faces started to mean something to me, and their names started to mean something to me. And it was really cool because I saw that transition of like, oh, I'm a part of something now. And like, dude, having no contact back home was overwhelming at first, but then like it was cool. Like, I missed Rebecca a lot. Um, because we met you know, we met in high school, so when I went away, we were just writing letters to each other. But other than that, it was like I was suffering near they say those who suffer together stay together, right? I was suffering near guys that were just like me, and we were all going through the same stuff, just like me. And it was it was weirdly fun, you know. Um it was uh I'm not gonna say it was easy, it was hard, but it was simple. Just do what you're told. It was easy.

Host 31:45

When did that cross happen mentally in basic training? I guess when you when you cross mentally from this is hard to I belong here.

Johnny Raushi 31:51

Maybe the first month, because you start to get like this repetition down where it's like, okay, we're up at 3 a.m., lights lights, lights, and you the lights get flicked on, stand online, you go into the showers, you're gonna brush your teeth, you're gonna use a bathroom, like you're going through this repetition. Now we're gonna get dressed, go down to eat breakfast, then we're gonna go drill. Like it was like we knew what was coming. You know, there's nothing worse than not knowing what's about to happen. Like that fear of the unknown. The first month, that was like always present where I was like, I don't know what's gonna happen, I don't know who my drill instructors are, I don't know who's nicer, you know, you categorize these people as a human. You put labels on these things and you learn what to enjoy and what to fear. Um, and it was very natural to do that. But uh right after the first month, we started to really get into like more important things as Marines, not so much just breaking you down, but building you up. And I think that once we started getting built up, it was it was cool, man. It was cool to see the drill instructors kind of have some pride in you, and um it's starting to get a little fun. You know, there's some drill instructors that were some fun, they were funny, man. They're they're all like they're walking comedians, man.

Host 32:59

Marine drill instructors are like their own character in DOD for sure, man.

Johnny Raushi 33:05

Yeah, there's nothing like that in the entire world. Like, I remember writing down, like taking notes, like we had no taking gear, and I'm writing it down. I'm like, oh, he said this, it was really funny. I I still have that stuff, and I'm reading it now. I'm like, that's not that funny, but dude, you know, time and place, those guys are something else, man. Like the things they come up with to like haze people, it's funny, man. Like, I don't know, I don't know the the boot camp marine corps now. You know, um everyone says it's changing, everything's always changing, but um, dude, we had it was funny. It was dude, there were even times where it was happening to me and I'm laughing. Like, like this is funny. Like, I uh I found out I'm allergic to blueberries. Don't know where that came from. I don't know. Maybe one of the vaccines they shot me with just changed my my liver or something. I don't know. But um I ate blueberry, dude. They I don't know why they did it. Uh the setup, everything in the in the military set up, like boot camp is set up, you know. We have blueberry pancakes, blueberry yogurt, blueberry muffins. Like it was like you were set up, blueberry Gatorade. Like, I didn't even know that existed. And dude, I found out really quickly that I cannot hold down, like keep blueberries. So I was like, Sir, this fruit requires the head. And he's like, What did you say to me? And then, dude, so I ran to the head without his permission. So he followed me in there, like stomping, screaming at me. And I'm puking in the toilet, and he's like, You think you have a right to throw up in my toilet? Blah blah blah, dude. I'm like laughing, throwing up. He's making me do push-ups in the head. Like, dude, that was funny, man. Like this guy, he I looked and he had to hold his hat down because he was laughing. And I was like, This is like I've never had so much fun in my entire life throwing up and doing push-ups on a tile bathroom floor. Like, this is fucking awesome. Um, and that was around month two, and that's when things started to get kind of like more like okay, I can I can do this. This is cool. I can do this.

Host 34:56

You said the Marine Corps was the first time you'd ever been like around people all suffering together towards the same goal. Yeah. What did it feel like to not be alone in that way?

Johnny Raushi 35:04

Oh, it was great. It was amazing, man. I finally felt like like I don't know, man. We were all on like the save, granted, it's part of the brainwashing, the re the reprogramming, but we were all in it, man. Like we all had pride in this. We wanted to see our drone instructors have pride in us. We wanted the same thing. So it was like there were 70 of us, and we were all granted, not every not all of them are doing it, you know, but I'd say 50 of us are like doing our best for this unified goal of X. And it was all at the same time, man. And it was like it was some painful moments where um we're we have our rifles and we're going to go do laundry. You have a laundry bag, it's like netting, like like soft netting, and it's it's a nice bag. But then we go to the PX and we get laundry detergent, two gallons, and then you have all your dirty clothes and it's in one bag, and you're holding it in your left hand, and that's on the rifle grip, like the the barrel. You're holding that, and the bag is just tearing your hand, bro. I've never felt pain like that in my entire life. And we're all just standing there waiting. 20 minutes, we're holding that up, man. Uh, I've never felt such pain in my life. But I look over and there's everybody is doing the same. And it was like nobody wanted to drop, not a single one of us wanted to drop that bag because we knew that the drill instructor would be disappointed and not only punish all of us, but we'll probably have to keep doing it. So we wanted to make the drill instructor proud, but also not let each other down, not be the one that drops and breaks it everything for all of us. And it was like that is what kept me going. Where I was like, I don't know, you can break it down psychologically, don't be the weak one, however you want to break it down and word it. But I just didn't want to be the one that ruined it for everybody, and it was it was like at this point in my life, it was fun. Like that was cool to be a part of this thing that was like greater than me. And I see other Marines walking. You know, you have your your perspective, which is you know, from your inside and you're looking out, um, but you see 70 other Marines walking in unison together, and you're like, shit, that's what we look like. That's fucking cool, man. I like uh this is cool. I like this, and I know that if I were to get switched over to that unit, I would feel the same. Like it was like all working, all rowing in the same direction on the same boat for the same goal in the same direction. It was just like seamless, and it felt natural and it felt like home, you know.

Host 37:39

You and Rebecca got married before you shipped out, which is kind of uncommon. I mean, you were 18. What was going through your head? Getting married, headed to Camp Lejeune. You know, normally your 18-year-olds get married, they have like, you know, some kid or or whatever. You guys did it because you know you really cared about her. And your wife is an amazing human being. Thank you. She is, she truly is. I guess I'm the lucky one here. Yeah, she has to deal with this knucklehead all day.

Johnny Raushi 38:02

But um, yeah, we met. Um when I moved to the Poconodes, we met. Um, I think she was 15, I was 16. We met, we started dating. Um, and then it just like, dude, it was like love at first kiss, man. Like we kissed for the first time, and it was like it was almost like we were in a previous life together, and we just picked up where we left off. It was like we got married, we did not talk about it. It just happened. Like we just both wanted it without talking about it. It was uh like insane. When we moved in together on Camp Lejeune, we did not talk about that. It just happened. It's like the most surreal thing, man.

Host 38:35

What do you what do you mean? Explain that.

Johnny Raushi 38:37

Like we just she just expected it, and I just expected it. Like, we didn't say, like, hey, do you want to move in with me? There wasn't this big like proposal moment where I like got on one knee. Like, it was just like, Hey, you want to get married? Yeah, like tomorrow, courthouse. Okay, like it was just this normal thing, it was like going to the park or going to school or going to work. It was just this like seamless thing that we both just knew was gonna happen. We just wanted to get it done, and we're together. Like, but we kissed for the first time and then we just started dating. Um, I told her I signed up for the Marine Corps, and she was cool with it, man. She was fine. She was like, take me away, like uh, let's do it, man. Um, I went to boot camp. I came home on boot leave. I got like an extra month of boot leave because of uh um the weather, something happened. I don't I don't really remember, but I was on recruiter's assistance, which sucked, man. I felt like a like a solicitor at a mall. I was just handing out cards trying to get people to sign up for the Marine Corps. I'm like, this is you you went back home to the Poconos, or you still yeah, I was in the Poconos, yeah, at that time. And um, but I'm like trying to convince people to go do something that sucked for a while. I'm like, why do I have to why I'm doing your job? You go do that, man. Um, no, it was cool. It got me back into like I went to high, I got kicked out of my high school in uniform. Yeah, it was wild, bro. The Poconos, man, they were wild. I went in there and apparently I needed like uh somebody to walk around school with me, but I just wanted to visit my old teachers and I'm in uniform, like I'm in my blues. And um I got escorted off the off the premise, man. It was wild. And I was like, even the the lady who was taking me off the premise, like the security guard there, was like, I'm sorry, this doesn't really make sense to me. You're clearly a respectable man. I don't know why I have to escort you. I even I talked to the principal, like I was I was close with him, and he was like, No, you need an escort. I was like, I'm a marine. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like that started the ego, that was where the ego really began. Um but I came home on boot leaf, we got married, then I went down to Fort Lee, Virginia, where I did armory school. That kind of like that was my first Eureka moment in my life, actually, that opened the world around me where I like pursued knowledge and growth that was at that school. Um, I don't know if that was intended by the school or if it was just my own like eureka moment.

Host 40:49

Did you just geek geek out on your job?

Johnny Raushi 40:51

Like I dude, I did not understand guns at all. Like I was born and raised in New Jersey. Like we didn't really, we had guns. My dad had a gun room, but we never really shot them. I hunted as a kid with my grandfather pheasant hunting at at the game. Um he had he had some like elk lodge or moose lodge or something like that. So we hunted pheasants. Um we moved to the Poconos and I shot like my dad's AR a couple times, and it was fun, it was cool. But then I'm sitting down, and um, the Eureka moment was in the first class, the M9, learning the M9 uh Beretta. And it was like they did a thing, which is great for school, where you take it apart and you put it back together, you take it apart, you put it back together. You have your technical manual right there, so you have the TM. Um, but then you take it completely apart. Like, I'm not talking about like field strip, you are taking springs, like there's a uh spring called the eagle spring. Um, it's called that because if you don't, if you're not holding it, it takes flight and it flies across the room. And good luck finding it because it's tiny. But you're taking every single part of that pistol apart. You're laying it on your desk, and uh you go to lunch, you come back, and the instructor's like, look, we either added a part, we took a part, or we didn't do anything. So good luck. Put it back together and make sure it operates. So you're sitting there putting it together, but you have your TM, so you're watching, and you're putting it back together, and you're like, Did they add an extra part here, or did they take a part from his desk and put it in mine or mine and his like, or did they do nothing to my desk? And um they didn't do anything to mine. And I the whole time I thought they were, and I was like, I didn't really know. You have hundreds of pieces everywhere, man. Tiny little springs, you're following it, and you you know, you're timed. I put it back together, I rack it back. I um, you know, I'm racking it with the with the pistol or the trigger down, clicks, everything's good. I did it, I put it down, I aced, and I was like, that was actually really easy, cool. Granted, it's a small weapon, you know. We have the 50 cal coming up, we have uh the grenade launchers coming up, but bigger weapons, bigger machinery. Um, but I went home that evening to my barracks room and um I was stapling my TMs. I was putting staple new staples in them, and I looked at the stapler and I I I had to put new staples in it, bro. And I opened it and I was like, this is like the M9. This is like this is like the same thing. I don't understand. And I dude, I disassembled a stapler completely. Like I completely take it apart, I put it back together and I stapled, and I was like, I looked outside and there was a street lamp, and I was like, I bet you I can take that thing apart. I didn't, but I bet you I can take that whole thing apart and put it back together. And I was like looking around my my bearish room, and I was like, the bed, my my nightstand, my phone, everything is the same. That and that was my first Eureka moment where I'm like, everything is like little pieces put together, and then if you can take those pieces apart, you could find troubleshoot the problem, fix it, and put it back together, and it'll operate. And then after that, dude, class was easy. Everything was that. Everything had some sort of mechanism, operating system that you could take apart, troubleshoot, put together, and solve. And then all of a sudden, it started to become well, how how is my life any different? And I was like, I'm separated from Rebecca. Is that like I can take that apart, identify. Identify the problem, the route, troubleshoot it, solve that, and put it back together. And I was like, dude, everything is the same. And I'm surrounded by the Marines, so I can't like go out there and say that they're gonna put me in the brig for something. So I'm like, I'm like, this is like I was by myself talking about this, like in my mind. I'm like, this is nuts, dude. Like, this is insane. There are no problems, they're just opportunities to troubleshoot and solve. I'm like, guys, no, I can't talk. I can't talk. Okay, I'll see you at launch. Yeah, yeah. It was a insane eureka moment for me that would completely set my life on a path that I was first off not really prepared for at the time, but something that like I did not know was going to be so filled with love and compassion and empathy and just overall fulfillment just from that little situation that occurred, man. It was it was very unique and and really life-changing for me.

Host 44:52

So when you get out of armor school and you and you go to your first unit and you get settled, what was that like for you, that transition? You've been in training, you've had this like life-altering experience, right? Like coming from the Poconos and being a middle child, and now you're kind of part of something that's bigger than yourself. And and what was that like for you?

Johnny Raushi 45:10

Yeah, um, I went to school. Rebecca would visit me every other week. It was like a six-hour drive to um Richmond, Virginia from the Poconos or something like that. So she would drive down and stay at a hotel. I would request leave, go, we'd hang out, go to the movies. Um, the the mall there was great. They had a panda e, so eat panda express, go to the movies. Um, but then I graduated school and she came down to see me graduate and um found out that she can drive me to Camp Lejeune, which is not a far drive, you know, a couple hours. So she drove me to Camp Lejeune. In my mind, she had to drop me off. Like I was gonna be saying goodbye again. It was a whole it was another thing that was just gonna happen. And I was at this point, I was kind of tired of just saying goodbye. Like I was like, just stay, find a way to stay. And um I went to go check in. I remember I was like, I was crying. We had uh Red Robin or Outback or something like that for dinner. And my latest check-in was by 9 p.m. I checked in at fucking 8 59, bro. Like I spent every moment I can with Rebecca and um I checked in and the the the guy on duty was like, Man, you're really pushing it. And I was like, I just want to spend time with her. He goes, Are you married? I was like, Yeah, he goes, Well then you just go back with her. And I thought I was gonna go to a barracks room. Like I thought that she was gonna leave and I was gonna check into a barracks room like I had previously, like every other moment. Um and uh because you know, Marine Corps combat training, and then you have uh uh the schoolhouse. So every time she dropped me off and she would leave, and I'd have to watch her leave, and I'd be checking into the barracks room, the smelly barracks room, you know, and meeting new guys and you know um knowing that she's just right down the road, but I can't contact her, you know. That was really, really difficult, you know, because we were inseparable. We still are, um, obviously. Um and uh the guy said, Well, you you where are you staying? And I'm like, She has a hotel room. He's like, just go back to that. Dude, I was like, I hit the lottery, man. I was like, Yes, we get to stay together. And then he was like, Yeah, if you guys are married and she's here, just go like a qu like go like on base housing, go apply to be on base housing. I was like, We get a house together. He's like, Yeah, dude, like what are you weird?

Host 47:20

Yeah, well, you're 18 though.

Johnny Raushi 47:21

I mean, yeah, it was like the first time that they I wasn't getting yelled at and told to go run over here, and I was by myself with her in Sibi's, and this on duty marine was like my age, and he was like, Yeah, man, welcome to the fleet. It's you're a grown-up. Like, I was like, I am wow, cool.

Host 47:39

It feels the same, but yeah, and it is coming out of like basic and advanced training. You are indoctrinated, dude. Like it becomes like, you know what I mean?

Johnny Raushi 47:46

Yeah, just do what you're told and be okay with it. And it and I was, it was just a little hard because I had this poll with Rebecca and um went back to the hotel room. We stayed at Extended State Hotel for about two weeks, and they told me it would be about two months to find on-base housing within two weeks. They were like, Hey, we got you on terror terrence two, which is reserved for like staff and COs. And I was a PFC, yeah, it was a whole nother thing I had to go through, but that was fun. Um, I had superiors bringing me cookies, like a movement thing. It was weird, man. But I was like, Hi, sir. He's like, dude, chill out, man. I'm gonna have a barbecue on the weekend. You want to come over? It's like, what are you doing? I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how to behave, man. Like tell me, help me. Um, but we got we moved on to base housing, and that was it, man. It was like like we didn't talk about it. She was just there, and we were both like just going with the flow of whatever happened. It was we were there together and we would do it together. And did she get a job? And um, at first, no. I think her first job, dude, she worked miserable jobs. Um, and she didn't need to work, you know. She she we were raised to to work, like that was who we were as um, you know, watching our our dad's work. And her dad was uh in the union, he did uh like blue-collar work, sheetrock, tobacco, like actual building of houses. Um, so we always thought like do it yourself, you've got to do it yourself. Um don't ask for help, just do it yourself, which is not right, by the way, and we'll talk about that later. But um, she didn't want to, she she didn't want to be this like stay-at-home person. She wanted to go and like pull her weight, you know. Um, so I think she worked her for one of her first jobs was like working at Amex. She worked for like the Amex, which is a full circle, but she was the person you'd call when you want to redeem points for like travel or something like that. And she dealed with some dickheads, man. I'll have some dickheads, Amex point people. Oh, yeah, bro. Yeah, full circle, I'm that, but that's how I got here. We called Amex to use our points to get here. But Rebecca has that experience, so she knows how to talk to them, you know what I mean? So um came full circle, but she didn't work right away. She got a job maybe a year after. Um, we actually found our first cat on base layer. Somebody left him there, so she needed a companion. Yeah, I was working in the armory, bro. I was up three in the morning, I didn't come home till six, seven at night, you know. I did not mean to say the six seven shit. Sorry, man. My kids would love that. I know, I know. Yeah, it's what it's everywhere. But um, I it would really be that long of day where you know I'd come home at 6 p.m. or 7 o'clock at night, and she'd be like, she'd have dinner ready and we would spend a couple hours together, but then I'm right back in bed to be up at you know two in the morning because now I live on base, so I have a 30-minute drive to get to my armory all the way in the tucked of you know, Camp LeJan French Creek area. And um, we never really saw each other that much. The weekends were cool, but it was like back at school. It was almost like school feeling again, where it's like Saturdays are like freedom, Sundays are like a drag because you know Monday's coming up, and then Monday's just like back to work. Fridays are like the weekend's coming, and then it was just this like wave, and you you know, we all as a society we think that's normal. That's not normal, man. Like to feel that way is not normal for life. Like, there's a saying that you should be pursuing a life that you don't need a vacation from. You know, when people say I'm going on vacation, it's like, well, are you living a life that you need to get away from? That's miserable, bro. Like, find a way to live life where you're not taking vacations, you're just living life and you're taking holiday, you know, change your words. Um, and we did that for a while on base, where it was just like you didn't see each other. And then she got a job because I'm sure she was just bored, man. Like living on base, like uh a PFC's wife next to staff and CO wives, and um just you know, I don't have that perspective, you know, that's her experience. But um, for me, I would just come home and I would just be like, How did my dad come home? We came home kind of grumpy and frustrated from work, so that's what I knew. You know, and then that took a toll on us because I was just not I wasn't being the man that she needed me to be, nor that I needed me to be, you know. I was just being this numb, hardworking marine. And it was like, shit sucks, man. Like, I I want to feel things, you know.

Host 51:52

Well, and then you come up on on deployment orders. Um, what was that conversation? Did she stick around the base or did she go back to the she went back up uh uh up north.

Johnny Raushi 52:02

Um it was uh it was a shorter deployment. Eight months maybe, I think. Um I had pre-deployment training, so we knew it was coming. I just didn't know what part it was gonna be on, the Black Sea Rotational Force. Um we my unit deployed, we were in uh Combat Logistics Battalion 2, and we got kind of like separated and dissolved into different parts of Tutu. Um some of us went to Maroon, Spain, some went to um Italy, and then some went to Romania. And I thought I was gonna get put on the Spain or the Italy. I think I was just hoping for that. I didn't want to go to Romania, man. It's cold, Eastern Europe, different culture. They got gypsies out there, which I'm a firm believer in now after experiencing those things. But um I went to dude, I went to cold weather training. Let me just talk about this real quick. I did cold weather training to prepare me to go to Romania in the winter at 29 Palms, California. Yeah. Yeah, not Norway. I went to 29 Palms, Death Valley, California for cold weather training. Don't know how that makes sense. They gave me uh Is it cold there? No, no, it was 108 when I got off the bus.

Host 53:19

It doesn't.

Johnny Raushi 53:19

I I don't know. I don't know if maybe my papers got shuffled out. I don't know, man. But I spent uh two two um rotations on 29 Palms um as armory, as like armory chief, taking care of the armory, making sure that things were good, um, and then going out for gun ranges, troubleshooting guns, um, and feeling that flow of just you're in your you're in armor 24-7. Now there is no loss. What year is this? 2014.

Host 53:48

Yeah, Iraq's Iraq's probably starting to wind down, I think.

Johnny Raushi 53:50

Yeah, we actually had a unit come back from um either Afghanistan or Iraq, and they were um they got dissolved. Their unit got dissolved. Uh, I think CLB 8 got dissolved into our unit, so we took over their armory. Um, that was crazy, bro. Having to like take inventory from guys that just deployed to Afghanistan. One, they're filthy, like you got moon dust everywhere, man. But it's everywhere, bro. Like, like their weapons are over there, their RCO scopes are over here, their PEC 15s are over there. One guy's missing half of his PEC-15 somehow, and I have to take inventory and report this to Dermo. Like, it was a whole thing, man. It took me months to get that done, but um we can talk about that later. I've always kind of taken pride in my job. I've always, always done the best I can with whatever I have, no matter what. Like when I worked at a gas station, I made sure all of the rappers were facing the right way. There was nothing upside, like I made sure I did my very best at no matter what it was. Um, so when it came to the armory, I read every procedure, I read every policy, I read every TM, I read every single thing because I wanted to be the master of that craft. Um, and I took great, great pride in it. Um I went to Twin Nine Palms, I did that for two rotations, and then um when I finally got the orders to go to Romania, um I went under a gentleman named Captain Stuckey. I'm sure he's much higher of a rank now, but that that man changed my life. He was somehow always happy. Always happy, and everybody always loved him. And I was like, You're a Marine. That's weird, man. You're not leading by fear, you're leading by love and respect. Like it shifted my life. And up to then I only had leaders that led by fear. Yeah, fear of being like punished, you know what I mean, or or being picked on, you know, something like that, or or hazed at some manner. Um and I I talked to him about deploying, and he asked me, he said, Do you want to deploy or do you want to stay home? And I was like, Um, I don't want to leave Rebecca. And then he goes, So you want to stay home? And I was like, No, I want to do my duty. Like, I I do I signed up. Like I want to fulfill my commitment, but I want you to know that I'm not I'm not gonna like it. And he goes, None of us do, man. I love my wife with everything I have, I love my kids, but that's not life. You don't get to get everything you want sometimes. And he's like, This is gonna be a short deployment, and I got you. And I was like, damn, him saying, I got you, like one-on-one like that was so powerful, bro. And all of a sudden I was like, I'm going to Romania. I get to do this, man. This is really cool. Um, got on the plane, he took care of me.

Host 56:27

Um, yeah, what was that like, man? I mean, you grew up in Jersey in the Poconos, never really left the country, and now you're yeah, going with the Marine Corps to like a foreign lands in Eastern Europe.

Johnny Raushi 56:36

I tr I left the country three times before with my father on mission trips to Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil. So that was my only experience with leaving the country, but it was I was like 10 to 13, so not real, you know, experiences. Um, this was different, man. I mean, it was I had to, dude. Um, armorors have a bad rep because people are like, your weapon's dirty. Like, yeah, bro. Dude, we worked all the time, all the time. And like, there are a lot of times we're just sitting around, but like the bus left at four in the morning. That means Marines have to pull weapons at three in the morning, which means you know, the armory takes about an hour to open with the safes, there's like giant vaults that you have to open and timing and all that. I have to open it an hour prior. So now I have to be at the armory at 2 a.m. to open it, which means I have to wake up at 1 a.m., which means like I have to pack two days prior. Like there's a whole thing, like I'm at the armory four hours before we leave, which means and Rebecca's not allowed in there. So while everybody's spending their morning with their wife and their kids, I'm in the armory making sure the weapons are good. Like, and I don't get to spend time with my wife, like the those little tiny things stack up over time, obviously, you know, and and armorers have a have a bad rap of dirty weapons. But I said bye to Rebecca. There's actually a really cool photo of her and I somebody took um of us holding each other. I have my pistol on my side, and um, she has our like face tucked in my chest because she was sad and she didn't want her photo taken. And um, that was like right before we deployed. Like I after that photo, I got on the bus, and it was a 13-hour flight. Um, of course, just like always, flights get delayed, and you know, we had to sit and wait, sit and wait, and then rush over here and sit and wait. And um, as soon as I landed in Romania, I was like, I had like this surreal feeling that I wasn't actually in Romania. It was a very strange kind of like conflict I had in my mind. I'm like, out of everything the Marine Corps can do when it comes to like like we went to Mount Town, which is like connexes, they they make it look like Iraq and Afghanistan. We train there, and they even train interpreters like to speak the language and act as a like as if they're native people. So then when we're walking around town, there's kids playing soccer, and like it it feels like you're in another country. And I'm like, is this that? Like, I'm walking up to Romanian people, and I'm like, Are you an American and you're pretending? Yeah, are you pretending to be Romanian right now? Like, I had that feeling that this wasn't real. Like, it would bear with me. When I was on the flight, I'm like, dude, what it wouldn't be that hard out of everything I've seen to put us in an airplane, put us on like stilts or something, and shake the plane and change the windows so it looks like we're flying, you know what I mean? Uh-huh. And then get us off, and we're they just wheeled us into this other town that people are pretending to be. And dude, I was like, is this like, am I still in Camp Lejeune? Like, is this like what? Like, I realize I wasn't because I left town and we traveled up to um Transylvania and and Ukraine and all that area up there. But um, it was like almost maybe denial is what psychologically it was doing, but uh, it was just strange to be in a different land. The air felt the same, the sun felt the same, the people felt the same, the ground felt the same. So it was hard for me to be convinced that I was someplace different. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It took me a while to realize that you know, I'm I'm definitely I'm far away. Yeah.

Host 59:59

Was it a cool experience though?

Johnny Raushi 1:00:00

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. I traveled a lot. Um, I had a lot of experience out there, actually. Man, I had my job stripped from me, I had my MOS taken from me. I didn't even know that was a thing, man.

Host 1:00:11

I didn't know that was a thing.

Johnny Raushi 1:00:12

Yeah, apparently you piss off the right people, they can take your MOS and you are listed as a non-MOS Marine.

Host 1:00:18

What happened?

Johnny Raushi 1:00:19

I talked back to a CO. Uh yeah, it was a That sounds like a good story, bro. No, it definitely was, but man, it sucked because there wasn't really anybody there to witness it with me. It was like I suffered by myself, man. Um, no, it was uh I was in armor, and I was the only armor actually attached to this unit that was going on these like operations. Like we were on in Romania, MK Romania. Um, it was like a flight line and everything. Um, and it was like the middle point where people would fly from Germany to Afghanistan. They would stop in Romania, so they would stop at our base and call us mayhem, and then we'd have to clean it up, and it was a whole shit show. But I got voluntoled to go on almost every operation that went out in town, Transylvania, Ukraine, all these places, um, Bulgaria and like Operation Lynx, Operation African Line.

Host 1:01:11

Like they were training or something, yeah.

Johnny Raushi 1:01:12

It was like training, um, uh making sure the border was safe. There was like a bunch of things we did out there that I wasn't really keen to. Like, they did like a trial thing, it was weird. Um, it was actually really fun, though. It was close quarter combat training. Um we went into like this cement Romanian building, and they were like bad guys with hostages, and we had to like time. And it I didn't realize like SEAL team was there and the sniper team was there, and I I guess they were like checking people out to see their skill sets, and I had a lot of fun, man. It was it was really, really cool. Um, learning how to how to pie and how to walk upstairs and clear buildings and learn communication and um what happens if someone goes down, uh timing. That's where I learned every second is a life. So I I live that that thought now. Um, and we'll talk later about that, but it's kind of shaped my life there. And then um all of a sudden I just ended up on all these operations with these guys that were like standing by the VIX watching us train. Now I'm standing with them, and that was my first introduction in the hair. Like these guys style their hair really well. Like, I got picked on a lot. I still get picked on. We have a viral um video that goes around where I'm talking about I'm a marine and I applied hair s hair product seven, eight times a day, and people are like, He's no marine, that's a fake marine, wussy, whatever it be. And I'm like, dude, you go talk to some like SF guys and you talk to sniper teams, like, no, EOD guys, they they're combing their hair and they're looking at it.

Host 1:02:41

Baby seals use a lot of product, bro.

Johnny Raushi 1:02:43

Yeah, man, like they're acting like I'm I'm the sissy in the Marine Corps. I'm like, no, dude, they introduced me to that. You're misunderstanding. Um, so I was hanging out with those guys, and we would share palmades and what we were doing for hairstyling and stuff. Traveled all over the place, and uh, I was the only armor attached to this one operation, and um, I don't know if the CO didn't like me, and we had a master guns there who was like he was like the gunner, like he had mastered the armory MOS so well there was only like five of them in the Marine Corps that were like as mastered as him. Like he could tell you the shade of gray on the barrel of uh an M321 grenade launcher, like he could he like knew every single little thing. Um I was talking to the CEO because I love Marines, I love all people, but grunts do not take care of their weapons, man. Like that, like, and that was a point of pride for me. Like, I was I was very prideful in my MOS. I want to take my job very seriously. And I walk in, I have photos, bro. I walk in, I'll send them to you. I walk into the armory, this makeshift armory, and like there are operating like policies when it comes to having an armory in the field because there has to be safety protocols on like locks, who has access to them, windows, the height of the windows, um, all of this stuff, and how to store weapons properly. And I walk in and it's like a shed with broken windows, and all of the rifles are just piled together. Granted, the grunts put all the barrels in this, like a TP, so you know, at least they're all in some sort of organization. But that is not, this is not an armory. This is like this is a shed, and I have live ammunition ammunition right next to a bunch of weapons that I've watched these guys, they just go in and grab a weapon. There's no serial number checking, there's no nothing. And this was like a point of pride for me. So I'm watching it and I'm like gagging. I'm like feeling nauseous because I'm like, oh my god, they're just like they're just doing it, and I'm responsible for this. And I'm like, how am I supposed to get 300 grunts all in? Like, you know what I mean? This is insane. I got rocket launchers next to the ammunition, next to uh the broken window that it has like fire hazard next to it. I'm like, this is not safe. So I went up to the CEO and he said, Hey, I'm putting um a custodian in charge of the armory. And a custodian is just somebody like a grunt who has some experience. Normally, um armorer assistants is like a custodian, somebody who's there who's like it's a b-billic type of situation where they get, you know, um temporary assigned duty to get put in the armory to assist. Um, and he was gonna put one of them in charge of me. And I said, if that's what you think is best, sir, saying that got me fired. Saying if that's what you think is best, sir, got me fired. I saw the gunner's face, he immediately whipped up and looked at me and did not blink, and then he was terrifying. His eyes were like bulging out of his head, veins popping out by just looking at me. And um, I this custodian had no experience in this. Like I knew the policies, I knew everything, and I don't I guess the CO didn't like me, or I don't I don't know the backstory to that at all. Um, I was a Lance Corporal the time, maybe that was it. I don't know. Um, so this custodian went in there and he was just like he didn't give a shit, man. He was like chewing tobacco and like spitting on the floor the armory, like they were just they were acting as if it was like we were there for a Couple days. I was like, we're here for like four weeks, guys. We need to like create some sort of system for organization. Like I don't want to wait till shit hits the fan to take care of this, you know. Um the gunner pulled me into there. The custodian is sitting right next to me. The gunner pulled me in and shut the slammed that little like shed door and just started going at me, man, saying, like, who the fuck are you? Like, you piece of shit. Like, you speak to a CEO like that, you're superior, you know your place. And I remember I was saying, I gunner, I gunner, and he got in my face and said, Shut the fuck up when I'm talking. Do not even acknowledge the fact that I'm speaking to you, you fucking piece of shit. And I was like, okay. And but he made me keep looking at him. He was like looking me in my fucking eyes. And I was like, This is like like do it talk about intimidation and and like fear and shit like that, right? And he said, You are fucking nothing. Literally, you are fucking nothing now. I'm taking your MOS. You are not an armorer. Fuck you. Get out of here. And I was like, I'm just gonna go to my bed. So I laid in bed. The cooks came over to me and said, Hey, we heard what happened. Do you want to help us? And they were cool, like cooks are cool, culinary is cool. So I just helped cook. I just helped early in the morning. I just got up and I would just help heat up the meals, the hot meals for the Marines. Um, I watched the custodian leave on my op and take all the guns, like pieces shit, like you know, and um I just helped with Chow nonstop. And then Captain Stuckey drove all the way up, and it was like an eight-hour bus ride, like long bus ride up the Romanian mountains through Transylvania. And um he came over to me and he was like, Hey man, I heard what happened. Can you tell me like your side? And I told him, and he's like, Can you show me the armory? And I was like, Yeah, but I'm not allowed back there. And he goes, Can you show me the armory? Like, I'm your guy. Remember, I told you I got you, so let's go. I showed him and he goes, This is unacceptable. And he's he took photos, and I guess he sent them off to somewhere. And like 30 minutes later, the gunner came up and apologized to me. And we were on a range. I remember we were going to a range immediately after that, and he said, Can you please come to the range with us? But you're gonna sit ammo. I'm just sitting on 50 cal ammo. We were teaching um NATO, we were doing NATO um you know, teaching of the weapons and stuff, and um I'm not sure how familiar you are with 50 caliber, you know, machine guns, but head space and timing are very fucking important. Doesn't work, yeah. You get it wrong, yeah. Um, and I'm sitting on the on, and I did, I did take great pride in my job. So I knew the rate of fire, I knew what sluggish fire, I knew of the weapon type. Like, even to this day, if I hear a gunshot, I can tell you the caliber. Like I took pride in like knowing the ins and outs of this thing. I was called the gun doctor. I had a little bag of like every single tool I needed to fix any weapon. I had like certain specific screwdrivers and um I uh CLP, LSA, I had all of that on me all the time for anything. And um, I heard sluggish fire, and then all of a sudden a giant explosion. And I was like, Oh shit, what was that? And I heard someone scream, medic, and I'm like, I'm on ammo. Watch, I can't leave the ammo. Like the uh like I'm doing the best I can with whatever I'm given. And I was told to stay here. I cannot leave, even though something is happening. Because like, what if something happens over here now? I'm just gonna add to the fire. So I stayed there, and two guys came running over and they said, We need you to go check out a gun. Something happened. We'll watch the ammo. And I was like, Cool. Um, one guy was a staff sergeant, so I was like, Staff NCO and tell me to go somewhere, I'm good, I'm got it. So I ran over there and there was a NATO guy on the ground, and um um, I guess a team leader didn't head space and time properly, and the in the the thing shot off and hit him in the helmet. And um, the gunner was like, I need you to diagnose this weapon for me, please, real quick. And I was like, Okay, cool. Um, I immediately pulled the bolt out and I noticed that there was uh like shavings on the right side of the bolt, and I was like, sir, uh without diving into it too much, I believe this wasn't headspace and timing, but there it is possible that the bolt swole. It just got swelled up and it just was rubbing the side and it caused back pressure, but uh, I can't diagnose it here. If we can take it back to camp, I can diagnose it more. And the dude like was like full on invested. He was like, Whatever you need, like let me know. I will make sure. I was like, I need this weapon loaded up in the Humvee, I need a driver and a and a watch, and I'll get to base real quick. And he's like, I gotta take care of this before the embassy finds out and and blows this out of proportion. And I went back and it and it was a failure of headspace and timing that there was too much back pressure from the back of the the barrel, caused the face blade to pop off, and um he came up to me and he listened to me. Like this dude knew he knew everything in and out of the weapons, like he knew, so I feel like he was kind of just testing me to see how serious I was about my job. And I I guess I passed and he hugged me, and Captain Stuckey was right there, and Captain Stuckey gave me a thumbs up, and I was like, bro, fucking roller coaster of emotions over the last three, four weeks. Um, but I I at that moment I realized that my pride in my job, my knowledge, pursuit of knowledge, and my willingness to do my very best with what I have and adapt to the situation earned me what where I was. Like it got me to where I was at that time.

Host 1:11:08

Is that weird for you to go to have somebody tell you like workless, I'm taking your job to now that dude's like like hugging you.

Johnny Raushi 1:11:13

It made it, dude. Honestly, it felt like it was more like drill instructor shit, like where one drill instructor like berades you and beats you down, and another one comes in like good cop, bad cop shit. It felt like it was good cop, bad cop, but the same dude. Like it felt really weird. Um, but dude, I walked around with my pride, and I still helped the chow guys until that op was over because I made a commitment to them. Um, but it was like it felt like I had this like the the man in the Marine Corps that could give me a pat on the back to tell me I'm doing good and actually mean it, just did that. And it was like, fuck yeah, bro. Like, this is cool, man. I went back to base. I volunteered for every other op that we were going on. One was on the Ukrainian border, which was beautiful. It was it was uh Russian, you can actually see the the border. It was cool. It was like you like dirt and then grass, and there was a road, and we were up on the mountain looking at them, and we saw the sunrise, and it was like, This is why am I here? Like, what happened, man? We're digging trenches and living in this, and I remember we saw a seven-ton, like a like a shitty ass seven-ton coming up, and we were like, All right, is anybody expecting anybody? Like, we're on the border right now. What who is this? And um, there were some sketchy guys that came up. I don't know why they were there. None of us spoke the language really. We had a turp that was able to like kind of shish him off, and he's like, We gotta we have to leave. Like, apparently, like everyone can see us right here, and the the sniper team's like taking cool photos with the sunrise and stuff. And I was like, dude, where am I? Like, this is so strange. It was a very this is on the Romanian-Ukrainian border, no Ukrainian-Russian border, like up there, yeah, yeah, on the Black Sea. Yeah, it was really cool. And around that time, the Russian um military actually fired test missiles at us on on the Black Sea. Yeah, we had US uh ships on the Black Sea and they were test firing missiles, and it was like a crisis like about to happen. It was like fucking tense, man. And then Afghanistan was super tense too. Um, I remember like Obama threatened to send us into Turkey at the time. He was like, if you guys don't calm down with the gas, uh, we're gonna send the Marines in. And I dude, honestly, I was like, fucking get some. Let's go. Like, I was obviously sphere, you know, you fear, but all of the Marines in the barracks are watching on the news, like on a little TV laptop. And I'm like, oh shit, we might actually be going to war. Oh shit, I might be here for longer, you know.

Host 1:13:33

With Turkey?

Johnny Raushi 1:13:34

Yeah, Turkey had to be a good one.

Host 1:13:35

Yeah, Turkey had a coup too. Uh yeah, they almost overthrew the government there, and then I think the Russians, I don't was it 2014 that they invaded Ukraine and took uh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Johnny Raushi 1:13:46

It right over the border. They did, they ended up um getting pushed back off. But I mean, I got to watch a lot of that from the teams that were doing it. It was really cool, man. It was really unique. And I learned that um there was um something happened politically right before we got to Romania, too. They had a dictator and they like drugged them out on the streets and beheaded them, like the family, the kids, and everything. Like they killed the people, we're just done with them.

Host 1:14:07

In Romania?

Johnny Raushi 1:14:08

Yeah, man. Like I don't know how recent to where I got there, but I felt that tension when I got there. So I don't know if it was like still still happening. But the older generation, very communist, they looked at us and like spit on the ground at us. And like the younger generation was like just watching us, like we were superheroes. It was really, really unique. And one of the things we learned, we learned some of the language, you know, Romanian to go over there and kind of like blend in. Bro, you cannot tell an American Marine to blend in anywhere they go. We look and walk like Marines, man. So um we're walking around in collared shirts and stuff, and like the fresh face, like like white as hell. Um, and we all are shaved perfectly. Like it was I grew my beard out a little bit for a couple to ops, but not enough that it like stuck. And um that's where I experienced gypsies, man, for the first time. We went on an op. I forget what it was called, but we um the military took um land from these gypsies. Like we had this field that we wanted to operate on. And I remember when we were rolling in, um, there were like shepherds like with cattle and and sheep and like gypsies that were leaving the property, and they looked like gypsies. Like, like I'm sure when I say the word gypsy, you're imagining. I'm just gonna say yes, like that is what they look like.

Host 1:15:21

I've seen Peaky Blinders, bro.

Johnny Raushi 1:15:22

That's my experience with gypsies, just old like gypsy ladies, you know what I mean? And dude, they were like staring at us hardcore and just mouthing things, and I was like, crazy gypsies, get out of here, man. I'm a marine. Your curses ain't got nothing on me. Bro, we spent a month, almost six weeks, on that property. If you name anything that could go wrong, it went wrong. We had brand new Humvees that would not start. The lights were like exploding, like light bulbs were just popping in the casings. Um, it rained for three days straight, and there was mud up to our knees. Guys were losing their boots. You would step into mud and then you'd step out and your boot is gone, and then the mud would just enclose gone. Your boot is gone. It was, dude, it was absolutely insane. We leaked, I probably shouldn't say this. We leaked a um, you know, a decent amount of fuel. Um, the EPA had to get involved because we leaked so much on there. Uh JP 8's everywhere, bro. All in this field. If it could go wrong, it went wrong. Very, very wrong. And I at that moment I realized that I I do. I'm full down. I don't know if it's magic, I don't know, wizard, something like that. That is real, man. Like it was beautiful, sunny, and then when we got on that land, it was not for six weeks. It was miserable, it was cold, but then when we went off the property, it was warm. It was like they cursed the land for us taking it from them. And then um after that, whenever I walked the streets of Romania or or Bulgaria, Ukraine, whenever I saw gypsies, I literally would stop and cross the street. I'm not walking near them. Like, I'm not doing anything like that. Even to this day, I'm like, nah, man, I don't fuck with that. Like, there's nothing. It was an experience, I'm gonna say like the Black Save rotational force that that deployment was experienced. I got um to this day, I have a good friend, uh Shaq, who I still talk with every once in a while. And uh uh dude, we we bonded over there and it was just amazing. And we we lost a lot of good people from um and we'll we'll talk about this later, but I had a lot of suicide experience um up until this point in the Marine Corps, and then shortly after, it was just like it I heard about suicide, but I never experienced it. And then all of a sudden it like I experienced it all at the same time, like 18 cases all within like a couple months. And I was like, I know all these guys, weird.

Host 1:17:38

Yeah, that's that's really interesting, man. I I I want to talk to you. I I didn't I don't know that I fully grasp that when we did our podcast prep, but you and I were talking about that last night. Came up last night too. You had to deal with some suicide stuff while you guys were in the Balkans, right?

Johnny Raushi 1:17:52

Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna try and not get emotional on this part, but I'm gonna feel my feelings, man. And it's like I I never really in the Marine Corps, man, when we dealt with suicide, our our the way we dealt with it was humor. Like we had a guy in our armory and he shot himself with the duty pistol, which I thought was like weird. I'm like, dude, that's a duty pistol. But he in his perspective, it was his way out. He didn't give a shit where it came from, you know. And he he he failed to kill himself. Um he ended up shooting, I think he shot his cheek and his ear. Um which looking back now, man, is so incredibly sad. Like I I have a place in my heart for I d I don't know why, blind people and suicide. I like there's something I've always felt a calling to those people. And um I remember when we heard the armory got shut down and um we heard he he didn't do it and uh he could he he you know he missed or whatever. And um I remember we fucking laughed, bro. Saying that he sucks. He couldn't even do it, couldn't even shoot himself, you know. So he probably a probably a pizza box on the range, not a sharpshooter, you know, something stupid like that. And um that was our way of dealing with it, man, saying that he's a failure and he couldn't even do it. And I remember um Did you know him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We knew him, yeah. Um there were a couple situations. There was a guy who um who was gonna shoot the place up, actually. He was gonna take himself out and shoot a couple other people with him. And he went around and he gave out tourniquets. So I I got a tourniquet um from him and a couple other people did. And I thought it was weird. I'm like, why is this guy handing out tourniquets and saying to keep it on me? That's weird, right? And um he said, Do you know where I can get uh 776 rounds? And I was like, Yeah, the armory, man. Like that's where I work. And he goes, Do you think I can come take a look at them? I I'm uh you know, I'm I'm writing up a paper for them. And I was like, Nah, that's weird, man. Like he was already kind of a weird cat, but um, I didn't report him, but he disappeared. He went away. I don't know where he went, I don't know what happened. To this day, I still don't know. I asked a couple of my friends and they they don't know either. So um I don't know what happened to that guy, but we we had some we had some situations out there, man, where people were just like I don't know if they just couldn't in my mind at that time they just couldn't hack it. They were just weak, you know what I mean?

Host 1:20:18

Being in the Balkans though? I mean, was it was it like just being away command issue or just being a bigger one?

Johnny Raushi 1:20:22

Yeah, just being away from you know, there's certain people, and I felt that, you know what I mean? Like we were a nine-hour difference, right? Or something like that. I can't remember, but I remember I would wake up and it was like 4 p.m. on Rebecca's time, and um being away for you know, it wasn't that long, man, nine months max. And it was like, I mean, we spent Christmas there. Um there were a lot of a lot of people that just didn't want to be there anymore, I guess.

Host 1:20:48

And were these guys combat vets from previous deployments?

Johnny Raushi 1:20:52

Not that I was aware of, no. Um the dude, honestly, the combat vets are the fucking strong ones. Like though in my mind at that time, I'm I'm speaking from that time. Knowing what I know now, it's it's I I think very differently of everybody, um, as a human being, you know, not just as as men or marines, but um the combat vets were the ones that were like leading everything, like they were leading the ops, they were like leading the the schedules, they were leading the PTs, they were like the guys, they were like the adults, and the non-combat Marines were like the kids that were like learning how to walk on deployment, you know what I mean? Like it was like it was like that type of situation. And um I actually tore my ACL on deployment too. So I say tore, I ruptured. They could not find it in my knee. Yeah, I don't I guess it like retracted. We were running PT, and um I know I'm changing topics here, but um I had a my essentially my knee reconstructed because I stepped off a curb in the pavement. I guess had a pothole and my body tensed up for it, but then released and I landed and my knee like bent the wrong way, and my ACL ruptured um and my meniscus flipped over. So, like the back of my kneecap, you know, you have the the figure eight meniscus, I guess it dislocated, and my meniscus literally flipped and sat on top on top of the other side of it. So the back of my knee had no meniscus and the front had two meniscuses, and one of them was just shredded to pieces. I don't know what happened other than that. Um, so I went home and got a whole, like they took my hamstring out and made a whole new ACL. It wasn't long enough, so I guess skin graft. It was a whole thing, man, or cadaver. And um, it took me like a a year and a half to recover from that, but um, it wasn't until we got back from deployment where it was like the suicide rate increased. It was very strange. It was like we had some guys that had some you know adultery cases and whatever, like normal, you know. Um I say oh I say normal, it's not fucking normal, but yeah, but like the the 50% average, or I think it's 40% now or something like that for um married couples to perform adultery. I think it was like we had a high case of it, but most of the guys kept to themselves, you know, they didn't do anything. We had one guy, his name was Mike. Um we were like checking into all of our units and stuff like that, and then we all of a sudden got called to the barracks like courtyard, and then they told us that he had a baby girl. Um his wife gave birth on deployment while we were on deployment and he didn't know and it wasn't his. Oh yeah. So he came home and found out that another man was in his house, another man was with his wife, and had a kid with his wife, and he came home from deployment on that. And um he chose to end it and and his perspectives and his experiences right then and there. Um and we all learned that right then and there too. That what he was going through. And I was like, fuck, dude. That was like my first time I ever experienced where I was like, I wish he just came and talked to us, man. Any one of us. Um and we knew him, you know, well, but I guess not well enough that he felt comfortable coming and talk to us about that. He I he must have thought he was like the only man to have ever suffered and dealt with this type of situation, you know. And he I'm sure there was a point of pride, like, I don't have my house in order, so I don't want to go, you know, talk to other guys about it. But um then there was a um maybe like three or four months later, a pretty heavy experience I had, man. That that almost shaped my life to this day. Um I don't know if we talked about this before, but we were in the armory and um a guy knocked on the window and it was around lunchtime. Um and Marines come and go, like they to they come, they take their weapon, they give me their serial card. Um 1098? Is that what it's called? I think I might know it. 1098 cards, the serial limber card. If that's right, I'm fucking brainwashed still. I just remember because of repetition 1072, 1070, whatever. The serial limber card that had their rifle serial number, and then they gave me another one for their RCO. I had to check, you know. And um, it came to clean it. They're cleaning the rifle, whatever. And not a big deal. Maybe he's going on leave and he he's gonna miss the next cleaning and he doesn't want to get pinged on the radar for dirty weapons, whatever. Um I go and check his rifle, you know, I pull it out, hand it to him, shut the big window, I turn around and I hear a gunshot. And I'm like, what the fuck was that? Did he drop his weapon? I opened the window and he decided to end it right right there.

Host 1:25:34

In front of your armory?

Johnny Raushi 1:25:35

Yeah, right there, right there, right. And I remember thinking like all of these things like all at the same time. Uh not only did, you know, I gave him that weapon, but I was like the last person to talk to him, the last human experience. What could I have done different? Could I have saved him by making him laugh? Um there's so many things that just happened all at once, and NCIS showed up and they bagged everything. Um and something that most people don't know is they don't clean the weapon for the investigation, you know. So when they gave it back after the investigation, after it was closed, um, it still was covered in his blood. And um that weapon had to be, you know, reissued to another Marine, so it had to be cleaned. And I can't call the Marine to clean his weapon anymore, you know. So um we had to clean it. That was really rough. And I remember um I was like numb to that for a while. Like I just was like, no, it wasn't my fault, blah blah blah. And I was doing the right thing by saying that. Um but then I I got on um I'm not I'm not trying to fast forward too much, but I got on Accutane for back acne. I've always dealt with um cystic back acne for a while, and um a good friend Mel Chansey said that Hulk Hogan did it and a lot of the guys did it out there. Um so I was like, well, if Hulk did it, I'm gonna do it too. Um and he said, Man, it like makes your back, you get all new like backskin, like essentially like reprograms your back, so you won't have acne. And I was on testosterone hormone replacement therapy um uh because I have low testosterone and I had a testicular injury when I was young skateboarding. So um I had low testosterone just from the traumas, the TBIs, the all of that stuff in the Marine Corps, plus the testicular injury. My testosterone was like below 300 and I was 23 years old. Like, yeah. Um, talk about like emotional, I was overweight. Um, so I got on testosterone replacement therapy. It was great, everything was going good, but it exacerbated my back acne, you know, which is a very natural thing. And it was something I'd I was getting ripped, but I wasn't happy taking my shirt off. And I was like, this is like I'm still in the same boat, like you know, I'm embarrassed to take my shirt off. Um, which is all ego based, it's all egocentric. But so I got on Accutane and I did not know this. And it's not the doctor's fault, but I feel like somebody should have told me 18% of people that get on Accutane commit suicide. Yeah, it's that high. And I learned that firsthand. Um I'm I'm I'm gonna share something that I've only told one human being, and it was not Rebecca, it was my good friend Brendan. Um I'll get to that, but I got on back acne and I was six and a half percent body fat. The doctor told me that it's a lipid medication, so it sticks to fat cells. So if I get up to 30% body fat, I'll be on the drug longer or shorter, I mean shorter, because I'll have more fat cells, so I'll stay in it. So I'm not going from six and a half body fat to 30%. Like I'm not doing that. That would be so uh like no, I don't even know how to do that this quickly. So I was on Accutane for almost like 18 months. The most, the average is six months. So I was on it for 18 months, man. Triple the time. Um and about three months in, I started having very, very vivid suicidal dreams where um the Marine who pinned me corporal, his name was Jesse, um, he decided uh to not choose life right after I got out, and that hit me pretty hard because he had multiple kids and he had one coming on the way. Um and it was just like one after the other, and then all of a sudden, as soon as I got an Accutane, I started seeing all their faces again, very, very clearly. And uh they were at my front door and they were crying. And this is my dream, and they were crying, and I remember in my dream them begging me to not make them go kill themselves, saying, Why are you making me do this? I don't want to do this, I want to go see my family, I'm sorry. And I would hand them a gun and say, Go. Like, I'm the guy that's telling them to do this. And I would wake up and I'd have this dream four or five days a week, and I'm I'm trying to build the business. Like, this is like I'm I'm building Johnny Slicks, I'm trying to become a leader, I'm trying to like do my life, and I'm waking up and I'm taking this drug that on the packages shows you a deformed womb of a child because you're not supposed to get pregnant while you're on the drug, and I'm like taking this pill, and then I'm having these suicidal dreams, and then all of a sudden it stopped being the people that actually committed suicide. It what it started to be the people that were in my life that I loved. So I would see Rebecca, I would see Nick, I would see like my team members, I would see random people that I met at the gas station or the grocery store that day, and they were just crying, begging me not to, not to make them go and do this. And it got to a point where um and this is this is the part I I haven't shared with anybody really, but um I've never been suicidal. I've never wanted that for myself or the people around me because I know that pain doesn't go away, it just spreads out to everybody around you. Um I've never wanted that for me or or the people around me. I I've I've always been somebody that would choose life um over their alternative. But I had a Glock in my house and I remember for like eight months, about twice a week, Rebecca's making dinner, or she's maybe sometimes not even home, and I would go in there, I would clear the pistol completely, like six times clear it, clear it, clear it, make sure there's nothing in there. I would clear it, dry fire it, everything's good. I'd be playing music, and I would literally cock it, put it to my head, and pull the trigger. And I remember the point of that was for me to try to experience what my final moments would be. What what would be the last sound I hear on earth? What would be the last sensation? What would be the last feeling? And then on the opposite side, if Rebecca's cooking dinner and dancing to Grateful Dead or something, I'd put the pistol down and I would walk out into the kitchen and I would see her dancing, and I'd be like, this is exactly this is what I would be missing, man. And I did that for probably like I said, like eight months, where I tried to I don't I don't know what the point of it was, um, other than the fact that I just wanted to see what would what would it be like? What would it actually what like I walked through the steps and then immediately saw what life I would be missing. And then I thought about all the times I've walked in on somebody else's commission of suicide and and what it looked like and how it's not like the movies, it's not like that at all. And I thought about if I did that right here, right now, Rebecca would be the one to find this, and and that tore me apart, man. That feeling made me feel so incredibly low. Um and I didn't want that. I didn't want that at all. And then I'd see her dancing and I'd be like, This is what I'm missing, this is what I would have chosen to miss, and I would ruin her life. Um and then I got off Accutane, and all of that shit stopped, man. All of it, like it was like black and white. Like I've never I don't have those dreams anymore. I don't have that that pull to put the gun to my head anymore. I don't have those like thoughts. It's black and white now. Where it was like on that drug, it was almost like I lived in a gray world where suicide was an option and it was easier than ever. And it was like painful to live, to think not my life. My life was great. My life has always been great. The physical world, the reality I live in, but the reality in here was the one that was driving me nuts, man. Just those thoughts of death that were looming everywhere. It was always miserable, everything was bad, and I wasn't a victim.

Host 1:34:00

It was just what do you think was compounding that? I mean, obviously, there's the Accutane, right? And that's the the big thing with the SSRI industry too, man. I mean, you know, one of the main side effects of SSRIs is suicidal ideations. Yeah. But I mean, do you think you were wearing a lot of those experiences as well? Do you think like each one of the dude watching opening your window and seeing, you know, somebody you just handed up a weapon to, you think they're gonna clean it, and they, you know, they're off themselves, man. That's that's gotta be hard.

Johnny Raushi 1:34:28

Yeah, it's been it's been it definitely was compounded. And then, like I said, like when we joked about suicide in the Marine Corps, like our buddies, they couldn't, they couldn't hack it, they couldn't do it, they couldn't even kill themselves, right? That shit doesn't just go away, man. Like you are, I say you, me. I am a creation of every experience that I have ever experienced. I am I am a compounded like factor of everything I've ever experienced. Good, bad, ugly, beautiful, it does not matter. I am me. And every time I picked on something for something, I was hiding, I was playing a character, I was putting on a mask, I was pretending to be someone I wasn't, that gets compounded. And then that resentment and that that fear of actually talking about suicide to the people that it's affecting, actually having a grown-up conversation about life and death. And that didn't exist, and then all of a sudden, when I'm separated, I'm by myself, and those feelings like uh like a train, Nick says it often, like he, I think he wrote it in his book as well. Like when you get out and you go through a transition, you're on a freight train going 300 miles per hour and then it comes to a dead stop. All of that momentum hit me, man. And in my in my experience, it came in the beautiful world of suicide. Like the best thing you can ask for when it comes to overcoming trauma is like I dealt with that. That was my experience. You know, it wasn't like it wasn't overcoming drinking, it wasn't like spousal adultery, it wasn't something like that. Like, and I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I was not ready, not ready to deal with all of that compounding of that freight train momentum in the avenue of suicide. I was not ready for that, and it all came at one time because of that drug, and it just and like you know, I love who I am, so I love every experience I've ever experienced. I'm not resentful for going on Accutane. I needed that, dude. I needed it was hard, it was not fun, it was simple, but it was not easy. I needed that experience to overcome all of that suicide that I've been building up inside of me, and I needed to go through and walk every single one of those steps in order to become the person I am now.

Host 1:36:44

Yeah, and we're gonna revisit that that later kind of in your story, but I I kind of want to go back to to 2015. You blow your knee out on deployment and you come back. Now you have like full-blown knee surgery. You're kind of you know a runner and somebody that was progressing through the Marine Corps. You you liked what you did. What happened in that surgery and and and how did that affect you?

Johnny Raushi 1:37:05

The surgery was um fine. Actually, the first thing I I when I woke up from the surgery, the first thing I asked was was how my how my hair was. Like, does my hair look good? I'm not even joking, Rebecca was laughing. Um, my experience with the naval hospital, surgery was good, recovery was terrible. I did not have a good recovery. Um, it was like my PT kept getting rescheduled, I kept getting changed to doctors. Um I was essentially told to just go in the corner and do these exercises, and then they just left. And then I'm like, where's my doctor? And they're like, Oh yeah, they left for the day. Like, I feel like I'm the only one taking this seriously, and I don't know what I'm doing because it hurts, and I don't want to, it's really hard to rehab yourself. You know what I mean? You need somebody to assist you and tell you, keep going, two more reps, keep going. I know it sucks, it's supposed to suck, it's strength. Um, I didn't have that, so I I couldn't work out anymore. Um, I mean, I could have. Like, I'm not you at the time I was using it as an excuse, but I've seen motherfuckers with no legs working out. Like, it's very fucking possible. If there's a will, there's a way. Um starting to gain a lot of weight, and um, I didn't really know how to rehab myself. I walked with a cane for like a year or two. Um, and I was I was on my way out of the Marine Corps right before that when I got back from deployment. Um, I was checking into actually I was checking into the the the medic, I was checking into Medbay, and um to for my knee, I was going through the process of you know doc um getting documents and everything. And um there was a Marine, I saw the back of him, I was walking down the sidewalk. There was a back of a Marine and the front of a gunny or or a Safencio. I it was some Safencio. And um I saw many rockers and I was like, okay, good morning, gentlemen. I'm ready to say it. I got this. So I walk up and I go, Good morning, gentlemen. And he lost his shit, bro. He was like, he like was like an unchained pit bull that was just caged. Like he it was he was on me, and he said, This is a fucking officer. You're gonna salute an officer and give him the grid in the day. And I looked and I was like, Oh, it's a lieutenant. Good morning, sir. I was like, gunny master art, whatever it was. Uh I I can only see the back of him. I didn't see that his rank. And he goes, I don't give a shit, you piece of shit, blah blah blah. And I was just getting berated, man. And this is after like a gunner just gave me my job back, told me I'm like doing great. I had this pride. My uniform was like like fitted, tailored. I was like fit, I was good looking. I had my hat like like I dude, I my uniform looked fucking perfect. I took a great pride in that. And then this guy's just yelling at me. I'm like, dude, I just got back from deployment, I'm checking in. I have to have massive knee surgery. Like, I'm just saying good morning, gentlemen. I didn't know he was an officer, like, what is this going on? And he continued for like the next three or four minutes, just like berating me, telling me I'm a piece of shit. I just got promoted to corporal too, so he was like, You don't deserve that rank, you piece of shit, whatever, whatever. And um the lieutenant was just standing there like smirking the whole time. And I was like, I walked away and I was like, fuck this place, man. This sucks. Like, I didn't get like I don't get and granted, they're they have their their operating system. Like the Marine Corps operates a certain way, they're very good at making killers and making Marines, that's their job. They're very good at it. But then when it came to moments like that, I was like, nah, I want out, I want to do something else. This isn't this isn't what I you know. I signed up for this, yes, but that is not what I signed up for. You know, I did my duty, I did my did my job, and I did it damn well. Um, I I have certifications of awards, I have, you know, I did all this, I have letters of appreciation from COs and uh commandants, I like all this stuff, and then that happens to me for a gold bar, a lieutenant. And I was like, I'm getting out of this, man. Like it sucks. So when I had the knee surgery and I was kind of already on my way out, man. Mentally, I was out. Physically, I was still there, but I was gaining weight and I couldn't really run, I couldn't PT, I couldn't do all the normal marine stuff, but I could eat like a marine. So I was eating like 5,000 calories a day and burning none of them, you know. So I started to gain weight, and by the time I separated, I was like 230 pounds.

Host 1:41:12

During that kind of period, I think right after your surgery, too, you got hit up by a grooming company um that reached out to you to kind of model their products. How does an active duty marine corporal at Camp Lejeune end up modeling hair products?

Johnny Raushi 1:41:23

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you ever see the movie uh Zohan? Don't mess with the Zohan. I used to love that movie. That I'm I am the Zohan now. Like he was in the military and he got out and he wants to make everyone silky smooth. You know what I mean? And um, yeah, I'm probably it doesn't matter. I'm gonna say the company name. It was Layright. Layright Palmade. They reached out to me. Um the barber I was using at the time resold their pomades, and he was really good at hairstyling. Um, right on uh Western Boulevard or Lejeune Boulevard, I can't remember. And um they did like a they did a thing where they were like, we're gonna do uh guess the palmade type, and they covered up my eyes with their logo, and then they just had the hairstyle, and they were like, Can you send us more of these photos with different types of pomemades? And I took Grey Pride in my hair and I wanted to be like ready to get a haircut and be up to get a photo taken at any time. Um, and then I took a photo of or a buddy of mine took a photo of me outside smoking a cigar in my uniform with my hair, and they reposted that. And I was like, Oh, this is cool, man. Like, this is a big company, and like, you know, um now they're reposting my photos, and I'm like doing photos for them and stuff, and then um, and I'm not blaming it solely on them, but I was applying too much product too often, and then I started using like I was using a bunch of other products, and um this is this is the part of the questions where I'm not gonna use the business name because I've been slapped for doing so by the big companies, um, which we've spoken about, but there's certain companies that you know kind of rule everything and they make the decisions, like they make you feel like you have choice, but whether you pick up this one or this one, it's owned by the same people. Um, those people are watching me now all the time. So, um, and they made it blatantly aware. So I'm not gonna use any business names, but um, I was using some products that come in big white bottles with blue caps. I can say that. Um, and uh other other products too. And I was using them a lot because when I would style my hair, I would wash my hair a lot. And I would style, I was washing my hair three or four times a day, like a lot. And um around the time, like maybe summer of 2016, um, I was jumping out down off the loading dock of the armory, and one of my buddies was like, Yo, you're going bald. I thought he was joking, man. And I was like, Yeah, shut up. Because like, you know, it's banter, you're just picking on the guys because they knew I took my hair seriously, so I was like, Yeah, just fucking with me. And I went home that day and I looked in the mirror, like I looked in a mirror of a mirror and I saw the crown of my scalp. Like I could see my hair up there, and I was like, Oh my god, it's serious, like he's serious. Like, is this real? So I washed my hair, I got out and I looked and I was like, oh no, it's like actually happening. Um, and then I did that for maybe like two weeks where I was just like panicking and I wore my cover all the time. Um I would style my hair, kind of like did the the Trump comb over, you know, to kind of hide it a little bit. And then um it it dawned upon me where I was like, what is in these products? Like, what is actually in these? Because it like everybody knows. Like, you remember the show? Um, what was that documentary? Uh, the the McDonald's. You remember when I'm talking about the guy that ate McDonald's? Oh yeah, dude.

Host 1:44:42

You had to live on it for he had that's all he ate for like 45 days or something like that.

Johnny Raushi 1:44:45

Yeah, yeah. Something that unfortunately they supersize me, yeah. Supersize me, yeah. They actually debunked that too. I don't know if you know, like they debunked it. He like fixed the experiment or something like that, anyway. But we knew from that the the experiment, whether it was good or bad, whether it worked or not, it convinced and showed the American people that nutrition is very fucking important, you know. So I knew to look at what I'm eating, but I never looked at what I was putting on my body. And I was like, the skin is the largest organ, depending on you know the doctor you're talking to, it's the largest organ. Um it absorbs everything, everything that you touch, it's absorbing it. Um, so I was like, what am I putting on my body? And I was like, dude, I can't read half of these ingredients. Methylchlorosine 26, blue seven. Like, obviously, I can pronounce blue seven, but why do I care that the palmate is blue or the shampoo is blue? Like, that's gonna like me, it's gonna affect my emotions. Coloring does that. Um, and then I was like, I can't pronounce any of this stuff, man. I'm just gonna go to healthy, like beeswax, coconut oil, like organic stuff. And around the time I was going to barber school, I just entered into barber school. Um, and I was like, I was like the end of the Marine Corps, my contract was right there. So I was like, I can't really afford like organic things, like you know, and um they all smell weird, like it just smells I'm not I'm not into that. I wanted to replace my current product but a healthy version. That's really what I was looking for, and I didn't find it anywhere on the market. Um I remember one day, it was like June or July of 2016, I woke up at like 2 a.m. and I was like, bro, if like if it's organic, I could make that. Like, what what did our ancestors do? Like the beeswax, coconut oil, like why can't I just make that? Like I can go in my backyard and forage all of these things that are formed by nature. That's what organic is. So what makes them special, and why do I have to pay $60 for it when I can just go make it for myself? That kind of thought led me on the solution train.

Host 1:46:50

Are you still active duty at this time when you start making these things?

Johnny Raushi 1:46:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was still I was like maybe three months out from separating. Um, so I would go to barber school at night and then Marine Corps during the day and then cook and experiment. And really, this was like a a research stage where I was just researching ingredients, finding what I liked, finding the benefits of the human body with certain oils, aromatherapy, chemistry. And I started just kind of like reading textbooks of from barber school, from um the internet really was a big, big factor when it came to like aromatherapy. Because there's go to any any mom of four, uh they have a blog article about aromatherapy or something like that. And I'm very, very grateful for them for writing all that stuff. Um so yeah, I was I was in the Marine Corps, I was still super unhealthy, man. Um, I didn't start drinking yet. It was about 230 pounds, really pale. Um, my hair is falling out. Like, I just was falling out. I didn't like who I was anymore, you know. I mean, I didn't feel like I was myself. I felt like I was walking around and like almost living the version of me physically and mentally that I was trying to avoid. It just happened. I just became like this, like uh what I saw as like a middle-aged, like I'm not picking on um him, but the guy from Seinfeld, the the the the bald fat dude from Seinfeld. Yeah, that's what I forget his name. That's how I've looked at myself in the mirror. I was like, that's become I'm becoming that, and I don't want that, man. Like I have in my full control to become more.

Host 1:48:23

And have you made a decision at this point that you're done with the Marine Corps, or is the Marine Corps pretty much made the decision like because of your injury?

Johnny Raushi 1:48:29

But kind of both. I don't know which happened first, you know, but the injury happened. Um, I could have recovered and maybe stayed. I just it would have been really hard. And then that Marine brand um, you know, berating me for not saluting the back of an officer. That kind of like set me over the edge where I was like, I'm not I'm not doing this anymore, man. But I knew two things. I was not doing the Marine Corps anymore, and I did not want to move back home. The whole point was to get away from home, what I deemed home, you know, Poconos, yeah, and become my own person, like grow up through my own experiences and not have to go back and rely on um because you go, you do, you do separation, like you know, and that's one thing I think the all military can do better is transition. Um, I had three months at boot camp to transition from being a kid and a civilian to becoming a marine. I have three months to do it, and it worked very fucking well. But I had a two-day class on how to transition back. That didn't do shit, man. It taught me how to write a resume and um really convinced the other guys in the room that I had my shit together when I didn't, you know.

Host 1:49:36

So you start you you start going to to to barber school, you're going at night, you make the decision they're transitioning, and you know, you're kind of experimenting with with holistic stuff. If you take me back just a little bit, what was it that you were finding in these products and what was that research finding about what you're putting in your hair, what you're putting on your skin? Yeah what what where did that really take you? Because I think that's a great, I mean, that's the foundation of why you built. You built.

Johnny Raushi 1:50:00

Yeah, I realized um, and and we spoke uh briefly about it last night as well, but I I found that um one of the biggest things was alcohol um was a big thing in cosmetics, and whether it's like an emulsifier or anything, um, it was alcohol. And like if you um most people Rebecca was one of them, and it actually led me to this thought where um products are like medication where you use it when you need it and you put it down when you don't. It's not supposed to be something you bring and use all the time. Like obviously, shampoo is a daily thing because you need to wash your hair and stuff, but you're not using it six times a day, like you're using it when you need it, just like a medication, right? And she was carrying around a lip balm since 15 years old, and we were about 22, and she was still carrying it around, like it was a phone, wallet, keys, lip balm. And she always had chapped lips, and I was like, Can I see that? And I started to take my experience from that M9 pistol class where I can kind of dissolve things. Like, I dude, I'm not special by any means at all. I don't believe anybody is special. I believe we're all experiencing the same thing and just kind of keeping to ourselves and not talking about it, and that's where big communication comes in, miscommunication comes in. But I have this like passion for picking something up and like identifying the pieces of it, troubleshooting if it doesn't have a problem, it could be more efficient. How can we make it more efficient, right? Taking it apart, finding something that can be improved, changing it, putting it back together, and seeing what happens. I've had this like calling and passion and knack for that. So whether it's a pistol, whether it's a stapler, whether it's a street lamp, whether it's a a problem in my life, lip balm, lip balm, I pick it up and I can look at all the ingredients and and I can almost feel the ingredients based on my experience, right?

Host 1:51:50

So, what'd you find in the lip balm, dude?

Johnny Raushi 1:51:52

Alcohol. And what the problem was was that it was causing your lips to stay just a tiny bit dry. So you need this product every single day. You think by design? Oh, yeah, dude. Come on. Have you ever used my lip balm? If you haven't, I gotta use the lip balm, though. Yeah, I gotta send you the lip the slick lips, man. It's one of our best products. Um, it's so small, too, man. So I'm excited you guys are coming out with deodorant, but that's a whole other story. I do deodorant's gonna be awesome. I just finished that too. But um in my mind, I'm like, okay, lip lip balm is supposed to solve your dry lips, and then that's it, right?

Host 1:52:24

So did you take the lip balm, separate the ingredients in your mind, and then start researching what the ingredients were and to come to your hypothesis? I didn't need to really.

Johnny Raushi 1:52:30

I just saw alcohol, and I know alcohol is a drying agent, so I knew that the problem was her lips were always dry. So I was able to take the problem, dissolve it, find the route through the lip balm, find alcohol, literally take everything that I like out of this lip balm, take everything out that I don't, and then recreate that. And that is my slick lips. Like I can take a product off a shelf, look at the ingredients, feel each one of them in my mind, weigh the benefits if it's a pro, a con, if it's natural, if it's not, if it's synthetic or or uh you know preserved, um, and then take what I don't want, toss it out, take what I do want, buy the ingredients, start experimenting, see if it works. And that was by design how I formulate grooming products. That's essentially I take everything I like about a product that I've used, I take all the flaws out, I throw them out, and I just experiment. And sometimes it takes me fucking years, like deodorant. It takes me years to develop a formula, but it started really with the problem of my hair falling out. I needed to find a solution, which was creating a pomade and a wash that I knew I liked that was healthy, clean, and beneficial. Like we talked before from hair loss, I realized that you don't need these. I can't say the names, man. It's so hard. The regrowth serums that you find on the shelf, um, you don't need those, you know. Uh well, it's minoxidil, is the is the pharmaceutical name, whether it's rebranded or not. Minoxidil.

Host 1:54:05

Which has side effects.

Johnny Raushi 1:54:06

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, dude. Yeah, they all do. Um you're no longer treating the root problem. You're now treating a symptom, right? And I believe by design it is set up that way. So there's these big corporations that are setting aside their time and RD to develop formulas to make the American people just feel a little more sick today than you did yesterday. And in five years, 10 years, you feel so sick, happens so slowly over time that you don't know what to blame. You go to the American hospital, American doctors to get prescribed American pharmaceuticals who also push American nutrition and American diet. Once you're in that, I'm now, you know, by by design, you're you're talking about a circle. You're in a cycle where you feel like shit, you go to the doctor, the doctor is paid to give you a pharmaceutical, that pharmaceutical provides you symptoms, you go back to the hospital, you see the doctor, you get more drugs. And in 20 years, you develop some sort of cancer that is not genetic or you know, something. But as an adult, you probably made a bad choice that resulted in some sort of form of cancer, right? Well, guess who you go to to get the cure for the cancer? The same people that sold you the product, the same people that sold you that pharmaceutical drug to help you with your symptoms of hair loss, of um gastrointestinal diseases or illnesses, or it's all designed, man. And it's all these big companies that are doing that. So as soon as I realize that, I've always had this rebellious spirit in me, and I'm like, how do I opt out of that? How do I get out of that? Like, I don't want to do that, and then all of a sudden, subscribe, dude. Yeah, dude. And then all of a sudden you're talking about like I dude, not once have I mentioned anything when it comes to money, but that all revolves around money. You pay for the product, you pay for the disease, you pay for the cure, and you're paying the same person, man. And I've used an analogy where essentially you pay me five bucks and I'll punch you in the face, and then you pay me another five bucks and I'll sell you an ice pack. But don't forget to say thank you to me. You know, I'm doing you a favor. Like I just punched you in the face and sold you an ice pack. I just made ten dollars on you to cause you pain, but also relief. How is that not a like a roller coaster? You know what I mean? And then you're supposed to be grateful. You're I'm supposed to thank these companies for sh for solving a disease that they caused.

Host 1:56:29

So, what was the first kind of product that you wanted to tackle? Palmade. And it that was born out of your kind of your hair loss, yeah, kind of thing.

Johnny Raushi 1:56:36

Yeah, yeah. That was the biggest thing, mainly ego-based. It was like my I need to style my hair. I want my hair to be styled like it was when I was in. Um, how do I continue styling my hair? I'm gonna make a palmade. Um, and then I wanted to make a wash, something to replace my my current shampoo, because I knew the shampoo, dude, shampoo's a worse, man. Really, if you want to talk about it, pick up any, if you have a woman in your house, pick up any of their grooming products and you will read words that you have never known existed. Like there are words that have like 38 letters. There's like X's and Y's and dashes and numbers in these words. You're like, what the fuck is that? And why are you putting it on your face? Like it's insane. The women's products are petroleum-based, too. Oh, yeah, for sure. And petroleum isn't even really used in the medical field anymore, it's used more in the test tattoo industry. It's not healthy, man. It's not. It's but we know so much about plastics and ethanols, like we should be avoiding those types of things, especially when it's sitting on your skin. And unfortunately, one of the biggest cancer causings and one of the biggest, I believe, brainwashings in our society when it comes to cosmetics is sunscreen. Oh, yeah, dude.

Host 1:57:43

Sunscreen, I haven't used sunscreen in like four years, bro.

Johnny Raushi 1:57:46

Dude, I haven't used sunscreen in 10. And I love it. I, for the first time, can actually feel the sun on my skin, and it is the greatest sensation in the world. Like feeling the sun is so incredibly powerful. You get so many vitamins. So these companies convinced us that we need to block the sun because the sun causes cancer. However, there are companies that are making a decent amount of their revenue. I'm talking about a decent amount over their revenue on cancer solving cures that their sunscreen is causing. It's wild, man. And like in reality, here's the thing. In my world, we can simplify it. You have two options to wear sunscreen and or to not wear sunscreen, right? We know the sun causes cancer, but we also know sunscreen causes cancer. If I had to boil it down, would you, and you had to get cancer, would you prefer cancer from nature or cancer from man? Cancer from nature, man. Like that's the way it's natural, not cancer from some overdeveloped synthetic man-made ingredient. That's gross, bro.

Host 1:58:44

But they're but they have found too, like zinc.

Johnny Raushi 1:58:46

Like there's zinc is great, it's a mineral. You can wear it, yeah.

Host 1:58:49

And that really helps against the sun because some people are just like fair skin.

Johnny Raushi 1:58:52

Oh, yeah, for sure. You talk about an Irish person, like you're you're talking about the sun and they're getting sunburned. I get it. There's many altern, and and it goes back. What did our ancestors do? Our ancestors did this stuff, man. They found zinc naturally, they broke it up, they made it into chalk, or uh how dude, look at nature. Horses roll around in dirt. Like, there's so many obvious examples of what we as men and humans should do to solve the issues that we think are new.

Host 1:59:18

Well, it's the whole thing with with um with sunglasses, too, right? Like your sun needs or your eyes need the sun, which helps with the vitamin D. Like, I stopped wearing sunglasses. I mean, I don't I don't really wear sunglasses. I know some people have sensitive eyes too, but like I don't know, man. I I I don't use any of that stuff.

Johnny Raushi 1:59:36

The first, I think one of the first cases of sunglasses was found in like the Arctic or something because of the sun reflected. And that would make sense, right?

Host 1:59:44

Why the the being in the mountains or like skiers because the reflection can probably fry your eyes at some point, but on a day-to-day basis, man.

Johnny Raushi 1:59:50

Like, I I no man, you meet someone who has who wears sunglasses non-stop, they take off their sunglasses and they can barely see anything. It's like you're it's not natural. You do things as our ancestors did. Like, I am a firm believer that there is nothing new under the sun. I believe we are constantly on repeat as humans. We believe that technology is new, but dude, you're talking about just a factor that has changed.

Host 2:00:12

Like there is people and it's funny how the science is going back now to like your circadian rhythm, right? Because you go back to even like the 1800s, man. I mean, you'd get up when the sun got up, you'd work all day, and then like you'd get this burst of energy an hour before the sunset. And that was really supposed to be so that you could find your way home before it got dark. Yeah. And then you know the sun sets, and that tells your body it's time to go to bed. And, you know, now we're trying to like, you know, people are getting red lights and trying to, you know, duplicate that effort because I can't sleep. Well, you can't sleep, dude, because you're exposing your body to all these, especially like blue lights, and I mean that's a whole rabbit hole in and of itself. But you know, if you try to set your body, because we go to bed early, I get up early. Um, but I found that that has helped my my sleep cycle. And which, you know, we just had a dietitian, our most recent podcast that's been released, you know, he talked about the importance of sleep, right? And how you know they're finding that you know, seven hours of sleep is just unbelievable for your brain and and and and regeneration. And so, you know, it's it's really cool. But as we as kind of as we go back to your building Johnny Slicks, I mean, so you're building your first pomade uh formula, and you know, you you you finished barber school now you're I think you're working at a barbershop, right?

Johnny Raushi 2:01:21

I worked at a reception in a barbershop, but I also um you mentioned it during the intro that nobody wanted to hire me and I had this big ego. Um, dude, I remember I went to um second and Charles, Barnes and Noble. I went, dude, everywhere, everywhere that I could um in my local area, and I literally told them I will work for free. I will sign whatever waivers you need me to for insurance or whatever. I will work for free for a week. I just want to show you that I literally apply all of me, a hundred percent of me, into what if you want me to sort books, I will make sure they are all perfectly aligned.

Host 2:01:54

So you ETS out of the Marine Corps and you're really having like you're struggling to find like just employment, period, right?

Johnny Raushi 2:01:59

They I thought for some reason in a military town, Marine Corps town, I thought that people would be like, You're a Marine, come on in, you're hired. Yeah, here's awesome pay. And nobody really gave a shit, bro. Like, I had people ask me, like, have you ever deployed? And I was like, Yes. And they were like, Have you ever had trauma? I was like, Why is this applicable to my job application? You you sell secondhand goods as a pawn shop. Like, what do you think I'm gonna like shoot up the place or something like that? Like, they didn't understand, and I was like, This is such a weird experience. That only happened a few times.

Host 2:02:31

Do you think that was because there was stuff going on outside of the Marine Base?

Johnny Raushi 2:02:34

I don't know, but it was like, dude, there was a small shop. It was like a mom pop shop. So I was like, this is so strange. I don't I don't know what what they want from me. I don't know. Like I felt like I had to be someone I wasn't just to get a job. And I was like, if I have to be someone I'm not just to get a job, then I don't want that job, truly.

Host 2:02:51

So where did you find what was your first job that you actually found?

Johnny Raushi 2:02:54

Uh a BP gas station. I worked um midnight shift. I worked from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., I think. Um almost pretty much every day, which gave me time to organize the shop, make sure it's like fucking perfect, like all the candy wrappers in the same direction, all the beer can dude. I went into the fridges and I made sure every can was facing the right way. Like and I didn't by color. Like I dude, OC talking about OCD and perfectionism. Um, but it was quiet, no one could bother me. Um and during the nights when I would finish that, I'd walk out into the parking lot, I started smoking, I started drinking, um, not eating great. They had nachos at the gas station, so I would just eat those and like full sugared coke, like in the by the leader, and um making choices that I grew up, like my father would do that, you know, eating Ben and Jerry's every single night, um, doing all that stuff, and I was like continuing that, and I felt terrible, man. But I didn't have any money, dude. Like we had no money. Um so I would walk around in the in the gas station, pick up change in the parking lot, and I remember the feeling. If anybody's ever done this, you know what I'm talking about. When you find a quarter, you find a dime, it feels good. You find a nickel, normal, penny, normal, but you find a quarter, bro. You just like you hit the jackpot right there, man. You start looking around for more, you start flipping over rocks and stuff like they're underneath rocks. You do you find a quarter, it's like a four-leaf clover. It's like awesome feeling. Because like you just found a 25 cents, man. Um, you find three more of those, you got yourself a solid bill, man. That's cool, you know. Um, I remember I used to, dude, I used to like really help out the guests. There was this guy, uh, long story short, he won a uh court case against the Marine Corps because they sold him a con X that had a bomb in it. And he bought the connex, and the mil the Marine Corps came back and was like, hey, give us our bomb back. And he said, No, it's mine now. You I bought it fair and square. Here's the receipt. So they went to the Supreme Court and it ruled in his favor. So he got like $20 million payout from it or something like that. Um, so he came in every day, 11 p.m., as soon as I started my shift and would buy like two grand worth of lottery tickets. So I took it upon myself to learn the odds of every ticket that was on the counter. So I would write down the name of the ticket, I would Google the odds, how many people have won. If it's a one out of four, I know he needs to buy at least four tickets to make his money back. So I would tell him these things. I would have my notes back there and he'd be like, What when's the last time someone won this? And I kept tallies of somebody just came in and won $20 on it. It's a $5 ticket. And he's like, I don't want it then. I'm like, I know, I got you. Uh, how about this one? So I would sell him like high odd tickets. Like I had the game fixed, bro. And um, meanwhile, I'm picking change up in the gas station lot and that is so you, man.

Host 2:05:32

I love that.

Johnny Raushi 2:05:33

I know, yeah. And um, he would give me like money from winning. Like, if he won, I would cash him out. And like, dude, looking back now, the manager actually went to jail for embezzlement. Like, if they saw that, that probably is not okay for me to be doing. But like, I dude, I'm picking up change in the gas station parking lot. I'm trying to do anything to get my life back. You're making minimum wage working at the gas station anyway. 725, bro. Like, I'm making nothing there, you know? And um, yeah, man, it was a it was it was like that for a while. He would give me some cash for for helping him win, and and uh he treated money like it was just like a a secondary thing, and I was like, that dude's lucky. No, man, he he put himself, he made choices to put himself there, and I never really I didn't feel that perspective for a while, but once I made my beard wash, um, which is called beard wash now because I was separating my beard was grown out and I needed some to wash it, but it's really a a hair wash as well. Um, castle soap, castor oil, peppermint and tea tray oil. Um, I learned the benefits in school, uh in barber school about hair anatomy and the chemistry behind it. Um I'm not you know changing topics too much, but once I solved and I made palmade that worked, um like I said, we had no money, man. Um my product worked for me. I was at barber school and I noticed other people losing hair too. And so I started working on my sales pitch, like with everyday people in the chair. And um I realized like when I was writing the recipes for everything and it worked well, and my hair started to grow back, it was because the peppermint oil and the tea tree oil, and then obviously the the the like nourishing oils of hohoba and argan oil. Um peppermint increases blood flow to your sebaceous glands. Um your sebaceous gland is located right next to your hair follicle and it produces oils and nutrients to your hair follicle. Um that's why when you don't shower, you look oily. It's sebum oil, sea bum oil, um produced from your sebaceous glands. And normally with hair loss, it's genetic, right? 90% of it's genetic, or your diet, your water intake, there's so many other factors that go into the human body that I am by no means the expert on. I focus on products as you know, grooming products. Um but my hair was falling out prematurely due to alcohol in the products I was using. It was drying my scalp out. And at some point, like normal person, if you start doing something constantly, the person's just gonna give up. So if I say to you every single morning, you suck, at some point you're gonna be like, I'm not coming around, right? Your hair essentially does that same stuff, it's like a plant. Um, and it actually, if you look at the hair anatomy, it looks like a plant growing out of the ground. Your your scalp is the ground, and the nutrients and the roots are underneath, and that's where everything, that's where the action happens, you know. Um, so if you're drying your hair out every single day, it's essentially gonna say, I'm done. Like I'm tired of spending energy trying to grow this hair if it's just gonna keep getting dried out and looking like you know, whatever. Um, and that was what's happened in my hair. Um, the the chemicals and the groomer products were causing my hair to dry out and just stop growing. So I gave um nourishing oils and then I increased blood flow through peppermint oil. So it promoted healthy hair growth and prevented future hair loss, which is what peppermint is incredible for doing. It's what our ancestors have always been doing. It's great for sinuses, it's great for uh gut bacteria and gut health. If you if you put a couple drops in your water and drink it in the morning, um it's also great for increasing blood flow anywhere. That menthol feeling, it's blood flow. That's all that is. And if you can cause that to go directly to your hair follicles, you can produce healthy hair growth. And it worked for me. And it worked like quick within like a month, six weeks. My hair was back to where it was supposed to be. And I was styling my hair with my own product, with my own name on it, with ingredients that I knew came from other American companies right down the road: beeswax, coconut oil, hojoba oil, all these companies that were sourcing were like right down the street from me, and I could see them in their raw materials. Like the coconut oil, I picked it up and it smelled like coconut oil. It wasn't like a synthetic ingredient. The beeswax, I can see the beeswax, like it looks like beeswax. I'm putting it in a pot, I'm melting it, making pomade and styling it, putting my hair, and my hair looks like better than it worked or looked with the other products, but I felt my scalp again for like the first time. It didn't feel like my scalp was like covered in plastic, you know, like I could actually feel my scalp. But like I don't know how to explain it other than that. I felt like a piece of plastic was like like a piece of uh um cling wrap was like taken off of my skin. I could feel my skin again. And it was like, this works, it works. It it took about a year for me to make that recipe, but it worked and it started working really well for me. Um, and then I started working on my sales pitch, like I said, in the barber shop, because I noticed guys were putting on their clients' hair, like grooming products that were filled with chemicals. And I was like, hey, don't you want your client to have hair for the rest of their life? That would like if you're causing your client to go bald, they're gonna stop being a client, you're gonna lose money, right? My product can promote healthy hair growth, which means they're gonna be in their chair twice as often because their hair is gonna be growing faster and healthier, and it's gonna last longer. So you're gonna have intergenerational clients rather than just one client. And they were like, Okay, but I'm not paying you for it. I need to try it. So I went uh I went beyond broke because I would just go sell plasma at uh biotest in Jacksonville. Rebecca and I would do that. Um we found out we can sell blood for money, and because I was in the Marine Corps, I have all these vaccinations, so they gave me $35 a session. You can go two sessions a week. Um, so I got $70 a week for selling my plasma, and um I would use that money to buy ingredients, to make product, to give away to people because I knew it worked for me, so I knew it would work for them. And I knew part of my problem was I never talked about it was a confidence thing. I didn't want to talk about my hair loss to anybody because it was embarrassing. I didn't want them to judge me. I didn't want them to think less of me. Um, so I solved the issue quietly in my own house, but then I realized that we're all dealing with the same stuff, man. We're all as men, we're dealing with it. Women too, we're all dealing with the same stuff, but we're doing it quietly in our houses thinking we're alone. So we deal with it for years when it could have just been solved with a simple talk with a friend. You know what I mean? Um, so I started giving it out to everybody, and um, I'm by no means a good salesman. Like I just know what I know and I just talk. That's it. And if somebody wants to buy it, they buy it. I'm if somebody is they're happy with what they have, we'll by no means try to talk you away from it. You got what you got, cool. But I'll be here if something goes wrong and you need help. That's it. I'm not gonna push my product, I'm not gonna Your product's shit, mine's better. That's not that's not how it is. I can show you the transparency of the stuff in your products, but I can't force a horse to drink water. If you want to use that product still after I tell you about the chemicals and what they're doing to you, that's you, that's you, man. You got the right to do that, and I love you for it. That's cool. I'll be here to offer you a solution if something goes wrong. Um terrible salesman. That's not a good salesman, man. You're supposed to be pushing your product, right? So um we were selling plasma. Um I would sell we so do we had weekend yard sales every day or uh every weekend, I mean, uh, where we just sell everything we had, like everything. We moved into a mobile home. Um, it was like 400 square feet mobile home. Um, that was a stove I would cook everything on, but I could only make like eight palmies at a time because the counter was tiny. And um every every weekend, man, we just sold every single thing that we could. Like if we weren't using it, if we didn't use it last week, it sold. We don't need it right now. Um there was a app called Letgo back in the day, uh like Facebook Marketplace now. But I would dude, I was big on LEGO. Like I would just everything, get it gone, um, trying to make money, trying to do everything. And then um selling plasma twice a week. That was our date night. We would go and do that. Um, I'd pick up gas in the gas station parking lot, or pick up, I'm sorry, pick up change in gas station parking lot, and then put it in a jar for the week, and then come Monday and Thursdays when we donated Monday come. I'd bring that jar to the plasma center. She would come from Chucky Cheese. She worked double shifts at Chucky Cheese as a manager, which I am like if you work at Chuck E. Cheese, I'm so sorry. Um, I I know you're not happy. It's okay. There's hope, I promise you. Um, she would come from Chuck E. Cheese in her in her uniform. We'd go in, sell plasma, get the it was like a little green dot card or something like that, like they'd a prepaid card. I would immediately in the parking lot buy ingredients that way I didn't spend it anywhere else. I would just buy ingredients, containers, labels, caps, uh beeswax, whatever it be, get a ship to the house. We'd then drive right on the other side of the parking lot to Walmart where I'd use the coin star and just dump all the change and we'd have fun. We'd guess how much money is in it, like $12.30. And no, it was 11.30, but it was close, you know. We would take that that ticket, go and buy ramen noodles and water, um, and then just cash out the rest. And we did that, was our date. Like that was our date day. Um, we would just do that, and we did that twice a week, and it was miserable, but that was the time we got to spend together because we didn't really see each other other than that. After that, I would go to barber school or I worked nights at the gas station still, so I would just go and do that. And I'd when I would come home, she would be getting up to leave, and that was like our we would see each other. And then it was like that for a while, man. Um but I did realize that there were other people that were suffering silently, and I didn't, I didn't want it helped me. So I wanted to help other people with that solution as well. It'd be very selfish for me to keep it.

Host 2:14:51

So I mean, that's kind of like at the crux, man. You're kind of, you know, I wouldn't say at the bottom, but this is kind of like where you're you just make this decision, like you're all in, and that's kind of who you are. And I think that's that's kind of what I love most about you. You know, you just you really believed in what you were doing and you believed in kind of what you were you were making, and but you guys were, you know what I mean? Like it's always kind of funny to talk to entrepreneurs because people see where you are now and how far Johnny Slicks has come and you know what you you and Nick have done with that company and Rebecca and everybody. But it's like, I mean, you guys have very humble beginnings, and I I think that's kind of why I love your story um so much. So what was that transition point? I mean, you're you're barely making ends, mate. You're selling your blood just to get kind of just stuff to be able to make it, and you you're kind of you're not you're not making money off of it. What what was the like what was the decision point?

Johnny Raushi 2:15:41

Yeah, there was um I remember very specifically um the most I ever made in a month was $364. I remember that very specifically. Um and that obviously had to go back into ingredients and all that stuff, which I then gave away, you know, so really lasted very little. Um there was a moment where um you know we were selling blood and that was like normal. That was like a normal thing for us to do twice a week. Um, which honestly I tried to do more, and they tell you you can't. Like there's a health thing that you can only do it twice a week. I'm like, dude, you can do twice a day? Is that a thing? Like I need money, you know? Um we joked about selling like a testicle, selling a kidney. I don't know where to do that. So I would have if the opportunity presented itself, but I didn't like you know, whatever. Um, but I was at the bank and I remember driving, and um I I remember I was like, I'm just gonna file bankruptcy, man. I I hear a lot of people just file bankruptcy when you know things are going hard. I had um at this moment when I was at the bank, I was in the parking lot, um, our electric got turned off, our phones got turned off. Um we were selling blood. I was picking up change in the gas station parking lot. I had $12,000 of charge off credit cards, which if you don't know, that means that the debit like the collectors gave up on you, like you don't have money, so they just charge you off, which you can then go and and like appeal for um like a settlement, you know, payment and stuff like that. Um but essentially your credit is fucked. Like you are black, your credit history is black, and that's no good. Um and then uh my car got repoed. I remember I I was getting ready to go to barber school. I walk outside and my there's a guy towing my car. It was a $196 car payment, and I missed a couple payments, I think three. And um Nissan was like, We're taking your Centra. And I was like, dude, I need that to make money. And they're like, You're not paying us, so we're taking your car. The guy was cool. I know you're not supposed to let them in the car, but he let me get my barber gear and all that stuff out of the car, which is really rad. And um I remember I was so embarrassed, man. I I called Rebecca and I was like, Hey, the car got repossessed. And she goes, Are you not making the payments? And I was like, No, I might have missed, you know, one or two or six. And she's like, she was disappointed, but I was like, as a man, I thought I needed to have my shit together, and I didn't, you know, and it was really embarrassing. Um, because she's always had her shit together, you know. And I was like, Man, I I let her down, she's gonna want to leave me. I was like, please don't leave me. And she's like, I'm not gonna leave you, idiot. Let's figure this out. How much money do we need? So we immediately went to the biocenter, the biotest to sell plasma. Um, we went to Walgreens or CBS and we money ordered, money wired, whatever to the impound Sydney Sand. It was like 10 o'clock at night. Like, nobody's picking up their phones. I'm like, my car is in the impound lot right now, I need money, and then the impound charges per day. So if I wait till tomorrow, it's gonna be more money, and I don't have any money, so like I need to figure this out. Um, so I'm sitting in the bank uh parking lot in her car. My car is still impounded. She's pulling some cash out to pay the fee. And um, I was like, How do I file bankruptcy, man? Their word bankruptcy has bank in it, so maybe I have to go to a bank to do it. I was like, but they probably have a photo of me behind their booth to not serve me because I have charged off accounts and they don't like me, you know. Why would they why like what do I do? So for some reason, uh to this day I don't know, other than the universe just being the universe. I opened up Instagram and one of the suggested posts was um a beard championship. Like I didn't know that guys get together and they like it's like an official thing. They have judges and they grade your beard on natural and styled and all this stuff, and in the world, like world beard championships. So in my mind, I needed one thing to take my business, you know, to the next level, my my business, my palmates that I'm making in my kitchen. Um, I just needed one of those guys that have this like notoriety to hold my my jar up next to their beard, and I can post on social and people will think my product is the shit and I'll be a millionaire, you know. It wasn't the goal. I just needed money to pay my mortgage, you know. And uh actually the trailer, which was $250 a month, I couldn't afford my car was $196, I couldn't afford electric, it was I don't know, $100 a uh a month I couldn't afford phones I couldn't afford, so I just needed something to cover. I need my bare ass minimum, right? Um I by no means ever wanted to be a millionaire, I never even thought about money in that in that avenue. Um I grew up thinking money was the root of all evil because that's what I was taught in the church. Go and find out the love of money is the root of all evil, which is a very different situation, but I was indoctrinated to think that. So um I just needed enough money to help me get by. And um uh so I'm sitting there and I reached out to first, second, or third place in a world beer champ. First place, I think he was in the UK, um, so I couldn't afford the shipping to get the product to him. Second place was in Florida. Scott, um, he liked the product, he took a photo next to it. Very awesome dude, but um he said that uh he didn't really like the product. And I was like, Oh, that feels dishonest. That if I post this and try to sell it, like he loves the product, you know. Third place, his name was Owen. Um, he loved the product and he said it was great, except he doesn't use product, he uses coconut oil uh because his beard is huge and he just uses plain coconut oil and it works for him. And he said, but you can reach out to my family member, um Nick, who is a Marine and he's a business owner and he lives right down the street from you. So maybe if you can hit him up, get through his people, um you can uh give him this product and see what he can do with it.

Host 2:21:19

And how did this guy know Nick?

Johnny Raushi 2:21:22

Um, they were relatives for a short period. Um their family dynamic goes back and it's by no means my business, but um they were they were relatives for a little while. Um and there's no hard feelings at all, it's just not my business to talk about.

Host 2:21:34

So I'm just curious as to what the connection was.

Johnny Raushi 2:21:36

Yeah, they lived in the same household for a little while, and um um he was a rad dude. Um, and he he essentially was the bridge to get me to Nick. So I reached out to Nick a couple times, um more than a couple times, and um Owen did tell me that I have to get through his people um to get to actually talk to him. And then he went live on Instagram and I just joined and I just spammed that heart button and I and then I commented, I was like, I live right down the street, I make pomade and beard oil and beard wash. Can I just come and give you some? And um in the live, Ali, his his wife was uh reading it and said, Hey, this guy lives down the street. And Nick was like, Yeah, come on down, here's my address. And then um he was doing like a 90-day vlog where he vlogged every single day. Um, so he was out filming, so I stopped by the office, our current office, and um our manufacturing facility, actually. It's it's not a manufacturing facility, it is now, but it was offices, and we knocked down all the walls to make it manufacturing. Um, shout out to the landlord for letting us do that. But um, I dropped the product off. It was Rebecca and I's anniversary, um, January um, early January. So I remember the date. It's January 9th. She does not remember the date. That's a whole thing. I got like a get out of free jail card. Do you have one of those? No, dude. She forgot our anniversary and I remembered it. I got a jail, get out of jail free card for the rest of my life, man. January 9th. She saw it, she thought it was the 13th. She's gonna hate I'm saying this by the way. Um, so on January 9th, actually, we're driving down to uh Wrightsville Beach to pick up some megalodon teeth. There's a guy, a diver that was selling them, and I love Megalodon. I love teeth, I love fossils, you know. And um, Nick hits me back on the way. I'm driving down there, he hits me back and he's like, Hey, it started raining. I'm in the office now, I see your product. You want to come by and talk? And I was like, Fuck yeah, dude. So I hooked up a uh hooked a UI, drove all the way back up, sat down with him, and um he was kind of like like there were some people in there I didn't really know, and it was intimidating, you know, because this is his business.

Host 2:23:33

And and set the scene for Nick. Nick's kind of like I I can never say his last name, but Nick Kumalazzos. Yeah, I mean, he's kind of you know, he's a former Marshock dude. People know him, he's kind of like, I guess, an an influencer, even back then.

Johnny Raushi 2:23:46

Um, yeah, and he was doing public speaking, he did a lot for um uh uh veterans separating. He wrote a book about transition. Um, and these were all things that I like that's an adult, you know what I mean? I'm just a kid trying to figure out his shit. Now I know everybody's just trying to figure out their shit, like everybody is. We're all trying to figure it out, right? Um, but I walk in and he's there, Ali's there, um, another raider is there, and then the customer service woman is there. And dude, the first thing Ali says is, you guys want to bang? And I was like, the fuck? Bang energy drink. But she meant to put us on, like, like, what the hell? And it works. I was like, I immediately became blood red. I'm like, what the fuck did I just walk into? Like, I don't know, I'm intimidated already. Like, you have my products. I'm I'm very vulnerable because I created that and I'm I need help. I have no money, you know. And I'm on my date with you know, my wife on our anniversary, and I'm just like, I don't know what to expect here. What am I what? Why did I come back? Like, you know, and um we were sitting down talking about the product, and Nick goes, What's your infrastructure like? And I remember specifically, dude, I started sweating. I didn't know what an infrastructure was. I I literally said, I have a not for structure, I don't have a structure at all. I just I sell blood, I buy ingredients, I make product, I give product away. Sometimes I sell them, most times I don't. And I just repeat that cycle until I have nothing. I have less than nothing. I have negative 12,000 in my account, and hope is fading. Like I have, I don't know what to do, you know. And um, he was like, All right, I'll try out the product. And actually, you could see his live reaction to it because on the 90-day vlog, he's vlogging that morning and he opens up my package, and that's my logo that was on the package that he saw. And um, he goes, Johnny Slicks, this is a cool name. The logo kind of could use some work, and we did. That was one of the first things we fixed. Um, he tried the product and he loved it, and then he hit me out on Instagram. And um, I remember I was at my um, I was paying the rent um in the parking lot. I'm sitting in a parking lot in Jacksonville, like I just got done selling blood, I'm about to pay my rent, and I can only pay half. So I'm like hoping the guy doesn't beat me up. And um Nick texted me on Instagram, he said, Hey, let's talk. Here's my phone number, call me. So I called him and he said, I'm in Joshua Tree, or he was in California somewhere. He was like, When I get back, let's talk. And I was like, I fucking hate when people do that. Why don't you just tell me what it is? Like, why are you you're I'm not gonna be able to sleep for a while. Like, uh I'm gonna go a week without sleep, wondering what you want to talk about. And I have no fucking money, and I'm hoping I don't get jumped for not paying my my rent right now. So, like, can you I need something, you know? And he goes, I want to partner with you. I don't want to answer right now, but I want to partner. Um, I this can be a million-dollar product. We can make a million dollars on this product alone. And I was like, as long as I can pay my rent, I'm I'll be fine, I'll be happy, I'll be good with that. Um, and then we met like the next week at Chipotle, me, Rebecca, Nicanale, and then we shook hands and we partnered. Um, and then three days later, uh actually at that table, he said, How much money can you guys come up with? And um, and I said, We can do three hundred dollars. And Rebecca kicked me under the table. She goes, The fuck, bro? We're picking up change in a parking lot. You're not gonna find $300. We have nothing. Like, I have maybe four pairs of t-shirts, like t-shirts, socks, shorts, like one pair of shoes. I've sold everything. We have nothing else, and you can only sell blood twice a week. So, like, we're not gonna be able to do that in a week. We're gonna need more. Um, we ended up coming up with 200. So started it with um, he put $200 cash in, I put $200 cash in. Um, he got all the paperwork done. He uh I bought the domain like months ago, johnnyslicks.com. Um, I bought it from like GoDaddy, like an extension off of an extension of GoDaddy. So, like trying to find where I bought the domain from was a shit show. Like, like it was like, where did you buy this from? How do I get access to this? So confusing. So we started a G Suite admin account. So we have JohnnySlicks.com, the Johnny Slicks emails. Um, the IRS is good, uh, state's good. We have everything documented, Johnny Slicks incorporated, filed, um, corporations all good. And then he was like, How much product can you make? And I was like, Oh, I can make a lot. I made 22 palmates and I brought it. And he goes, This is all you can make. I'm like, dude, this is fucking everything. This is everything I've this isn't more I've ever made in my entire life. This is a lot. And he's like, dude, we're gonna sell that in an hour when we launch on the website. You need more. And he's like, Well, how do we how do we get more money right now? Um, we ended up making about 44 more or 45 more palmaids. We launched on um early March. We launched early March on uh YouTube. Nick did a video. Um Ali shot like a documentary style of him and I talking about the Johnny Six story, who I was 2017 or 2018? This is 2018, early 2018. Um, 2017 was kind of dark. It was dude, it was like a black hole for me. Like, I dude, all I did was like sell blood, avoid creditors, and like on the run, selling everything, giving away Pomade and that on repeat, man. It was just like that. 2017. I saw more fires on my stove trying to make a formula than I saw Rebecca's face. We did not see each other for like a whole year. She was working double shifts at Chuck E. Cheese constantly. She would bring home the fucking stuffed cheese pizzas, and we would just devour those. Um around that time I started to drink land shark pretty heavy. That was my introduction. I couldn't afford Corona, so I got Land Shark and Campbell soup, and that was my diet, bro. I would eat that like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and uh two land sharks and a and a Campbell soup, and um then ramen noodles if I couldn't get the soup. But um, thank God for the Dollar General, bro. The dollar right down the street, I could walk to it. So, like yeah, not a shout-out to them, but I saved saved my life there, man. Um, and then um once we got up with Nick in in you know March of 2018, we launched on YouTube. Documentary got shown about like it was like a little documentary interview style of um what the product is, the benefits of it, how I started it, how I maked it, made it, and when Nick's belief in it and what he uses and why he likes it. And within that first hour of launching, we launched at like 6 p.m. Um Nick told me to download Shopify, the app, and turn on notifications and put my sound on. So he launched, and I just hear ding, ding, ding, and I'm like, is that those are sales? We made $600 in the first hour, which is almost double what I made any previous month. And we made that a first hour. So I'm in the kitchen, like dancing, and Rebecca's sitting there like sweating, and she's like, Okay, but now we owe them, like we have a commitment. Now there's shareholders. Now there's like, are we gonna be able to keep this up? Like, your product is great and it works, but like, like, how are we gonna convince people that? And and like, how are we gonna keep this commitment up? Now we owe people something. It's not just you her and I anymore. Now we have them. And she was really really worried for a while, and she kept it to herself um for like a year, and then she brought it up. But by that time it was solved, which is like most problems in our life. We think it's like gonna crush us, and then in a year's time we forget it. You know, I mean, it wasn't nothing, but um I was still working at the barbershop at night, um, or I'm sorry, on the weekends and some weekdays, depending on if they were busy or not. And times I weren't, I would drove down to Holly Ridge. I lived in Jacksonville, shop about a 35-minute drive. Drove down to Holly Ridge and worked in a little eight by eight, like little room where I made the pomades and I wrote the thank you notes and I packed the orders. And um, Nick already had like a ship station fulfillment type of situation with the customer service rep. So um Johnny Slicks didn't pay any bills. Like Nick was like, I'm gonna eat all of this. You can stay in here and cook it all for free. Um, his company would pay the customer service rep, and she would ship out the giant slicks orders just to kind of like because he believed in the product truly, like, and he showed it through his actions. Um, so the cut I would hand it to uh her name was Jamie, hand it to her, she would ship it out, and then I'd go back to making products, making media, uh posting on social media, uh writing emails to send out to people, the subscribers, which I thought was a lot. We had like 120 at the time, and we have like 800,000 or something like that. Like it's ridiculous. So um kudos to Ali for writing the emails and stuff and sending it out to that many people. It's intimidating, bro. Um, but I remember doing that for a while, and then um I I at some point, like every entrepreneur, when you start really entertaining your quote unquote hobby as a job, you have your real life job, that your corporate job or whatever it is, your prior commitments, you start to get pulled in that direction, right? Um I felt a lot of tension there where the barbershop owner was kind of like hounding me for leaving and saying that like it's a pipe dream that I'm running and chasing and it's not gonna work out, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I wasn't happy there. And so I called Nick, and Nick was like, dude, what the fuck do you want to do? Like, what do you want to do? And I was like, I want I want Johnny Slicks. And he's like, So fucking act like it. So I left the barbershop, and um, right around that time, actually, um, Hurricane Florence came by, and the mobile home we were living in. I remember the fire department sent me a text and said, Is this your house? Because the front door was underwater. Like you could not see our house number because it was underwater. And we were up into Poconos for the evacuation, and um, they say when the storm washes everything away, it washes away the bad things too, and that you should be grateful for that. I learned that lesson right then and there. Um, so all the tides, the ties I had up in Jacksonville of like prior commitments and stuff, all got severed pretty clean, pretty easily. I didn't have there wasn't any like fighting, there wasn't any like resentment or relationship issues.

Host 2:33:27

It was just like the storm did it, you guys had to go, and then it was like fresh start.

Johnny Raushi 2:33:30

Yeah, and but we didn't have any place to go. So um Nick said, Um, when are you guys coming back to work? And we were like, Well, we don't have a home. Like, we we're at this moment right now, we are homeless, and we lost about 99% of our stuff. We have no clothes, we have no nothing. Everything was in that house. We drove with our two cats up to Pennsylvania with the clothes we had on our back because it was an emergency evacuation, and we came back to nothing at all. Um and he was like, All right. I have a guest spot on my upstairs. You guys come live there. Um, and for as long as you need. And um, fast forward, we stayed there about two years. He put it in.

Host 2:34:10

I I remember when you told me this. Uh, and look, man, I don't I don't know Nick, but you know, you sometimes you see people online and you have this idea of who they might be for whatever reason, good, pattern, different.

Johnny Raushi 2:34:18

Yeah.

Host 2:34:19

So I kind of had my own idea, you know, of just somebody I'd seen online. And, you know, so to really hear you you talk about Nick and how him and his wife like not only invest in your business at you're at your lowest point, or you know, you don't know what you're doing from hour to hour type thing to to survive, to you know, to to get you off the ground and then opens up his house and lets you live. I mean, you guys live there for two years.

Johnny Raushi 2:34:44

Yeah, yeah.

Host 2:34:44

I think that speaks a lot about somebody's character.

Johnny Raushi 2:34:46

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll even I'll double down on that. He never brings it up, he doesn't talk about it publicly. Like, I if if I did not talk about this, no one would know. He does not talk about it, him or Allie. They don't talk about it, they don't ever bring it up in our conversations, and and we have some very difficult conversations, you know. Um, we're driving an eight-figure business together. Like, there's gonna be pull. And Nick and I are when it comes to business, very yin-yang. Um, both very similar when it comes to the human aspect, but when it comes to business, he's very CEO integrator, and I'm very visionary, um, shiny object syndrome type situation. So I'm the creator and he is the structure, and we support each other in that process. Um, he'll he'll probably he still will not talk about this at all. But we lived there, we ate breakfast together, we worked all day together, we went to the beach together, we came home, ate dinner together, we had bonfires together, we had movie nights together, Christmases, birthdays, um, trick-or-treating, like Easter, every single thing for two years straight. So, if you're ever wondering how to pick a partner, I always say just live with him for two years, man.

Host 2:35:54

You know every you know everything good, better, and different, man.

Johnny Raushi 2:35:56

Everything, and it was his house, and it was it was incredible that he put us up there. Um, and it was never intended, I'm sure, to be that long, but we were 1099 contractors for the business. And to get a mortgage, dude, we had people that we were applying to get a mortgage, me and Rebecca buy a house, a townhouse, across from the manufacturing facility now, and they said that we were evading taxes by being contractors, and we were like, no, we just don't have an established business. We're entrepreneurs building a business. We don't have W-2s yet, we don't have that capability. And um, here's my tax return. I'm paying taxes, you can see it. Um, and Shopify allows you like to show that pretty easily because it pulls and takes taxes for you, um, state and federal. So nobody would work with us unless we were W-2 for at least one year. So we were like, okay, let's switch to W-2 and you can live with us for one year because they didn't want us to get into another rental, like they wanted us to buy a house, you know, and um always kind of supporting us as humans in that in that avenue. And while doing so, I mean, dude, we had to get to learn each other in and out. Like we learned each other's like everything, like diet restrictions, like everything, man, sleeping habits, like, and there were a lot of difficult conversations, and he was willing as a man and a human to have difficult business conversations in his own living room with me. Do you know what I mean? Like we did Christmases and birthdays, and then hard conversations about business, about what where we're taking the business and how we're gonna do it. And um, to this day, when we have a hard conversation, it's just normal. It's like, hey man, I have this building up inside of me and I don't want it to be resentful and I don't want to lose sleep. Here's what I'm thinking. And he'll be the same way, and we'd be like, I love you, man. And we hug each other and we go our separate ways. Like it's very simple, and I believe it's all because he was willing to open his doors for Rebecca and I when we needed it and put us up in his house, you know.

Host 2:37:43

So you started off with the pomade. Is that all you guys were selling for quite a while?

Johnny Raushi 2:37:47

Yeah, pomade and beard oil. I did beard oil as well. We had two fragrances, really, one when I just started original. It was our first fragrance, original beard pomade and original beard oil. Um, and then I um launched, and a customer actually, his name is Gavin, was like, You guys should do something with uh Janooperberry. Janooperberry. I'm like, that's so specific. I don't know anything about Janooperberry. So I started looking it up and I loved it. Um, pine has always kind of been my nemesis when it comes to it. Um going on a little tangent, I was born with what's called synesthesia. It's where two of my senses are combined. I did not know this for like years after Johnny Slicks. When I smell something, I see colors. I'm not walking around like tripping on acid. Like I like I can, when I smell anything, like a pure form of anything, I immediately see like a hex code color from Photoshop in my head. And I can take the color wheel. My grandma was um a pretty famous painter uh for David Rockefeller, so paintings to him. She saw taught me the color wheel, analogous colors, complementary colors. So I can take a red and mix it with a green in my head. And I'll take Jinu Prepary with Cuban tobacco and kind of create a scent palette that will like invigorate your senses. So I kind of take my aromatherapy into like the art world, and I've created scent profiles based on that artistic ability to see colors, you know.

Host 2:39:09

Um I got in early, bro. So I had just taken on a new job where I could grow my beard out, and so it was 2018, and I needed a beard oil because I didn't want my beard to be all nasty. And you guys were the first, it was the first builder all I bought. You guys must have just started because I I found it on, I think it was on Instagram.

Johnny Raushi 2:39:24

Yeah.

Host 2:39:25

Um, and I because I've been a I've been buying since 2018.

Johnny Raushi 2:39:28

So it was original. It was this one then. Yep, it looked a little different. We got barcodes now for retail and all that stuff.

Host 2:39:34

No, and I and I remember like the box I got, it had again it had a handwritten note. It was like super personalized. I remember thinking, ah, this is this just this is cool, man.

Johnny Raushi 2:39:42

Yeah, um yeah. I've always loved anybody who dude coming from where I came from with the businessman. Like, if you buy one order, say it's a uh one slick lips for three dollars. I fucking love you. Thank you. You know what I mean? Like you deserve my attention. I don't care who I am, where I go in life, like I am very grateful.

Host 2:40:02

Well, and your and your founding story kind of makes sense, and we're still kind of cracking the lid on it. So you know, go back, you guys, you guys you sell your opening, you do 600 bucks the first night. Yeah, like what was did you guys like shut down? You got no more product, then it's what like oh we're on to something, now we gotta buy more stuff. Like, how did that look like in those early days of trying to grow this thing?

Johnny Raushi 2:40:24

No, honestly, honestly, it was um Shopify has been great. I we took a Shopify loan. I don't recommend it. There's a lot of uh it worked for us at the time. We get we couldn't find fine funding anywhere else. Um, but Shopify noticed we had money coming in, so they offered me a Shopify loan. They do the good, better, best with the interest rates, the paybacks, um, daily buyback or paybacks. I mean, so it was like 18% daily paybacks plus 13% interest, whatever it was, but it was $300. And Nikos, they're offering us a $300 like loan. Do you want to do it? My first instinct was fuck no, because I've had bad experiences with loans. Like, I got people like still chasing me. You know what I mean? Like, um he also helped me pay off those charge-off credit cards, too, which we don't talk about ever, but he was able to get me to go to the bank with settlement numbers that I didn't know was a thing, negotiate with the bank, and then he helped write a check. He did write a check to pay off the banks, and then I paid him back. So we did that, so then we can open a bank account for Johnny Slicks. So we paid off all the the creditors and everything. Like it was it, it was like a like a godsend, you know what I mean? Like it was incredible. Um so we ended up um I'm sorry, what was your question?

Host 2:41:42

No, just like you know, you guys you you you you you talk about how you made those pomades and you guys sell out your first night, Rebecca's nervous, can you keep the funding? The $300 funding. How did you guys build build steam, build momentum? You took the chop flying on, obviously, to get you know more product, and then well, because we make it also like the margins are great.

Johnny Raushi 2:42:00

So it cost me five dollars to make it at the time, and we were selling it for 15, I think. Um, and that's like five dollars. We didn't really have overhead, you know. Nick was Nick was paying for that. So I could take that funding, put it right into our bank, and then just buy ingredients. And we were always bootstrapped that way. Um, we didn't take any money, you know. Nick asked me what I need to survive. It was very little because we lived with them now. You know, I didn't have rent, I didn't have these things to worry about. Um, they would buy food and feed us, like it was great. Um, so I didn't really have much, I just had my car payment, you know. And uh I told them about the repo, and he was like, You're knucklehead, man, but how much is it? We'll we'll make sure you get that monthly. That way you can pay off your bills. Um, but we were living on nothing and um other than everything they gave us, which was plenty. It was more than what we had before, you know. Um, so we were funding the business bootstrapped with the funds that were coming in, the revenue that was coming in, and then we got a Shopify loan, so I was able to buy um a bigger melting pot so I can make more pomade, and thus started my world of efficiency and analytics and manufacturing, which has become a great passion of mine um to build manufacturing from nothing. I had a seven-pound wax melter, candle wax melter, and I used to use out my stovetop, and then I had to buy a $60 from eBay, a melter that you plug into a wall and has like a little heater magnet thing that sticks to it and it heats up. It's like a crock pot thing. And um, going from that to an industrial wax melter um has been my passion, just scaling, you know. I mean, but it all started by just buying product or buying ingredients, making the product, selling the product, using the margins to buy more ingredients to continue that process. And then all social media and everything was organic completely. We didn't have any ads running at all. We were just maybe doing $5 on like an Instagram daily spend on a post if it did well and never really, really went anywhere. Um, I would go live like every single day just to talk to like the three people that joined and stuff, just trying to sell them product and talking to them, showing them behind the scenes and everything. Um, and then we did that for I mean shoot, we're still doing that, um, bootstrapping and everything, but um obviously the numbers have grown drastically, but so has the the pull, the need, the demand. You know what I mean? It's all been matched. It's all I truly believe that there's nothing new under the sun. There's no problems that I'm encountering now that I haven't encountered before. Like, there's just a couple more zeros behind it now. You know what I mean? Like, I still need funding, I still need bigger machinery, I still need more space. It's the same problems, it's just bigger now, you know.

Host 2:44:28

What what was Nick bringing to the business back then that you needed uh so much? Obviously, you know, structure. Um, and he kind of had a business sense. I think he'd already had a couple businesses, right?

Johnny Raushi 2:44:38

Yeah, he had um he was doing the nonprofit for the veterans. Um, he had his main company, Alexander Industries, and then he had a coffee company. And shortly after uh we started Johnny Slicks and we started to have some revenue, he bought um into a franchise, a gym franchise, um, and then another shipping company down the street. So he's always kind of been like juggling a bunch of a bunch of businesses, yeah, leveraging different experiences to build those businesses up.

Host 2:45:03

Were you able to learn from him? Is that kind of what he was teaching? For sure.

Johnny Raushi 2:45:06

Yeah, definitely started out like mentorship. Um he was really big into obviously in YouTube, Instagram, influencing, like he had a he had a following there. Um so learning marketing and um social media management, all of those things helped a lot. But really, the biggest thing was he brought was structure. Um, I didn't have structure, I didn't have uh I didn't understand until I read the book uh Rocket Fuel that I'm a visionary. Um I I see the world differently in my head than I do in real life, and my passion is to create my reality the same way I see it in my head. And I need somebody like Nick as an implementer, as as somebody who can take my vision and put it in reality. Like I don't have that skill set. I it it I can do it with product, but then that's I'm I'm at a stopping point. Like I don't know what to do after that. And he has this magic touch of being able to take the product and then market it the right way, use the right keywords, the SEO, the ads, put it into manufacturing, fulfillment, the media team, um, timelines, deadlines, working backwards, sourcing. Like he has this ability to kind of like take my product and kind of like put it into the world and allow it to spread and touch as many people as possible. And my goal, it's beautiful to watch actually, but my goal is to just come up with ideas, visions, create a product or create something, a concept, and then he just is like, Yes, that's good, or no, that's a shit idea. Let's do it, or let's not do it. And we have this understanding and love that I know he's not doing maliciously when he says it's a bad idea, which he rarely does. Um, but there are times where I come up with a good idea that I think all my ideas are great. I'm a fucking genius, you know what I mean? I'm joking, I'm joking. I get so many bad ideas. Um, and often I create things that have already existed. Like I create things and I'm like, oh, that that yeah, you're talking about Uber. Okay, nice job done. You know, I'll get back to work. Um, but I'll bring up ideas and he's like, that's a banging idea, or like that's a great scent. We should launch that, and then we launch it and it works, man. But I don't I my brain cannot comprehend the implementation process of something into reality. I see it and I am a perfectionist, so I see it all the way, and I pitch it, and then he create he he makes it happen, you know, he creates it in this reality. So he brought that, and that's why I say we're the yin-yang.

Host 2:47:37

Like, so you're kind of the visionary, all the ideas. He's not more on the creative side, he's kind of more on the implementation, he's a getting it, getting it to market.

Johnny Raushi 2:47:46

Incredible implementer, incredible at doing that. That's why he's the CEO. He is incredible at structure, policy, implementation, um, troubleshooting, um, opening doors and opportunities for the business to thrive. And I, as a visionary, I'm like, I want to make cologne. And he's like, Cologne is a three billion dollar industry, go for it. And I'm like, cool, I want it to be this way. He's like, go for it, man. I say, I want to come out with toothpaste, I want to come out with candles. He's like, that's a terrible idea, man. No, that's not gonna make us any money. I do it anyway, made us no money, put us 30 grand in a hole. It's not my strong suit. My strong suit is creating and pitching. That's that's what I do. I vision, create, pitch. And then he knows the purpose of the business. We're rowing in the same direction, we're very vulnerable with each other all the time. And he's like, that's a great idea, or that's not gonna work, bro. Let's go someplace else.

Host 2:48:42

You've kind of been a lone wolf. I mean, it was just you and Rebecca grinding.

Johnny Raushi 2:48:46

What made you trust Nick enough in six days to hand him, you know, the keys to what you were building or what you built, or I I I think the quick answer would be desperation, but I think it was something more, man. I'm like, I'm fully in tune with the universe, man. When some when an opportunity is presented, if it aligns with my values and aligns with my goal, then I'm gun four like I'm on it, man. I'm like, like, let's let's do it. And at this point, it was like rock bottom for us. Uh, we had nothing, and hope was fleeting, like I said. So when the opportunity presented itself like that, it's not random. Like, it ain't nothing random or consequential like that. Like, it's just like coincidence that I just met up with Owen and Owen gave me Nick, and Nick's a marine, and he's right down the street and he owns businesses and he's entertaining my attention. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna squander that opportunity. So um it was that that's why I say I think short answer would be desperation, but I feel like that's not true. I feel like that's like if somebody was hearing my story and they didn't feel what I feel, that might be what it sounds like. But honestly, it I go with my gut. Like it's my sixth sense, it's all of our sixth sense. And when it speaks, I fucking listen, man. If it tells me to turn right on the street instead of a left, I I go right because it's and if there's something down that road that is bad or hurts me, I was meant to experience it, man. That's it. So when this opportunity presented itself, I just couldn't pass up on it and it it paid off. And I think that the biggest thing is just I saw an opportunity and I took it, like there was nothing, nothing else, you know.

Host 2:50:19

Yeah, uh, you've talked about Nick telling you things that you didn't, you know, want to hear, pushing you to let go of like old chapters in your life. What's the hardest thing he ever told you um that he that he turned out to be completely right about?

Johnny Raushi 2:50:31

Dude, I have issues with letting go. So, like he wrote a book on transition, right? Um, all time and all mankind is in a constant state of transition. We are constantly changing, right? I mean, shoot, man, you were you were like we were standing in your living room, you know, what feels like a couple minutes ago, but it was a couple hours ago, I'm sure. But like, if you were stuck on that part of your life, then you would be upset to be here now. But we're in a constant state of change, you know what I mean? Like time is constantly changing, man is constantly changing. I have issues with letting go, and it ties in with my perfectionism in my OCD. Um, and I was raised to believe that if you want something done right, you do it yourself, which is the biggest fucking lie you can ever tell yourself. That is just a you're setting yourself up for failure and frustration.

Host 2:51:20

Explain that.

Johnny Raushi 2:51:21

Dude, um, we talked about it briefly. Like you are, you, me, whoever's listening to this, you are the very unique combination of all your experiences. And there is a part of you that is unique enough to be the best in the world at something. If you are doing everything, you will never find that. If you are cutting your grass, if you're cleaning your house, if you're changing your oil in your car, if you're paying your taxes, if you're doing your business, if you're um making your own dinners, if you're doing all these things, you will never find your best 5%. The thing in the world that your 5% of your day that you are operating at your best, and you're the happiest and you're the most fulfilled, and you're serving your people the most because you're busying yourself with other stuff. So the Tiger Woods story about him getting into PGAs, like he was really bad at putting. So his old coach said, Let's get you good at putting, let's get it so you're good at putting, right? Never got into the PGAs because he was so shitty at putting.

Host 2:52:20

Yeah, he it uh you were telling me it took Tiger Woods like seven, I'm not a golfer, seven years or something like that.

Johnny Raushi 2:52:24

Not long, like, dude, people would have given up in the time that he did, right? Um, so he hired a new coach, and his coach said, You suck at putting. Let's focus on your long drive so you never have to putt again. And that year he got in. Focus on the thing that you are good at, not everything. You cannot be the best at everything. That doesn't exist. That's the lone wolf mentality. That's the thing I can do it myself. So when I said like cutting your own grass, cleaning your own um house, making your own dinners, there's a reason why successful people, like we all picture a successful guy, right? There's a reason why he doesn't cut his own grass. Because somebody out there not only is good at it, but they love doing it. You don't love doing it and you're not good at it. So why are you doing it? Why don't you go focus on the thing that you are the best in the world at, that you can make the most money and feel the most fulfilled and serve your people the most, and then let other people do those things that fall behind because they love that. Let find people who their unique ability, their zone of genius, and their best in the world is the things that you are terrible at and offer those opportunities for them. So we don't clean our own house. We have a single mom who is passionate about cleaning, and that might sound crazy to people, but the things you're passionate about are other people's dirty chores. You know what I mean? Yeah. So if you continue to do everything yourself, you will never provide those opportunities for people to be fulfilled. How great does it feel when a k your your child comes up and says, Dad, I need your help. Imagine providing that opportunity to everyone in your world. Why? Why would you why would you take that from them? So call your landscapers, call your house cleaners, call your your chefs. And I know like we're talking about money, right? Focus on what makes you money for the start, right? Like if you make money with carpentry, say you're a carpenter, right? You should not be spending time doing your laundry. You should be focusing on carpentry. It makes you money and it feels fulfilled, and you love doing it. How can you take the hour and a half it takes you to do laundry, outsource it to a woman down the street or a man down the street that loves doing that? So, and you spend that hour and a half doing carpentry. Now you're making more money for it to pay them and for yourself, and you're living an extra hour and a half in your zone of genius feeling fulfilled. So that kind of like he opened that world to me. Because in my mind, like, no, I'm gonna check my own HVAC, I'm gonna change my own oil, I'm gonna clean my own house, I'm gonna cut my own grass, and then all of a sudden I'm spending four hours a day on Johnny Slicks, and then four hours a day doing other things like that, like chores and stuff. And he's like, dude, I need you to be in your zone of genius. You need to be doing Johnny Slicks stuff because that's gonna make us all a lot more money. And I was like, no, man, I'm not gonna pay someone to change my oil. I'm a man. What are you talking about? He's like, dude, there's a mechanic down the street, he's been doing it for 40 years, and he truly loves doing that. And you look at it as a task, a chore, a burden, he looks at it as purpose. Why would you not pay him 130 bucks and you in that same time make 230 bucks? You just pocketed 100 cash. So it's finding those parts of your life, switching it out, and realizing that it does take a community to live a life. One life takes a community to live. And if you understand that, then now the community is an ecosystem where now you can operate together and fill in each other's blanks. You could be the yin to someone's yang. And it's just as easy as being vulnerable and understanding you can't be the best at everything.

Host 2:55:58

Early in Johnny Slicks, you were the Formula maker, the shipping department, customer service drop, social media manager, the driver, the team all at once. What does operating at that level of intensity for that long actually do to a person?

Johnny Raushi 2:56:11

Oh, dude, man, honestly, you ever hear of shadow behavior? So there's like personality tests, and they they'll they'll break down like your personality, who you are at the root, like who it is. If you were to get broken down to just a basic human, how you would make a decision. That's who you are at the root, right? It shows you your loving self and your shadow self, your shadow behavior, and what causes your shadow behavior. I believe operating at that level brings out your shadow behavior. It shows you exactly who you do not want to be, but who is naturally at your root because we are both yin-yang to ourselves. We have a positive and negative, we have love and fear inside of us. Working at that level, operating in a world where I am doing like every task, especially the things I'm not good at. Like I am not good at any of those things you just listed, except for formula making. I create, I don't do shipping, I don't do uh I'm good at analytics, but I don't like it. I like operating in a world of efficiency where I'm actually taking the things apart, finding the problem, putting it back together, and experimenting. I don't like reading all the numbers and all the data, but I'm really good at it. Umperating in a world where you're good at something, but miserable at it, that is where you go to die. That is where I believe people go to die. That is where you are um entertaining drugs, you're numbing yourself with alcohol, you're cheating on your wife, you're pursuing other realities to get away from the life that you are living now because you feel like you are abusing yourself. In the book of the Four Agreements, it talks about how there isn't a single person on earth who's abused us more than we have abused ourselves, and we continue to abuse ourselves. Um, when you're operating in that world for a certain amount of time, and some people can do it for years, 20 years, you know, some people can do it for a couple years, some people can't do it for a week. Everybody's different in that avenue. But um, your resilience to building something, I was willing to do it for five years if I needed to, because I was passionate about my product and helping people, serving people with this product and solving their issues. Um, however, when I would not do it, I was snippy. I was making assumptions everywhere I went, and I would get frustrated when somebody didn't take my problems as serious as me. I was acting as if I was the main character and everybody was just a like a B actor on my on my set and they didn't get the script and they're not opera in my avenue. Um that's my shadow behavior is to almost ignore. I'm very empathetic as a human being. I can connect with people instantaneously. And like I said earlier, I used to abuse it and get what I want out of people, and now I use it to connect and become vulnerable and transparent and love people. Um that almost gets turned off when I'm a shadow person. I'm just like triggered constantly, I'm upset. Um, I snap at people, and it's not it was the same way when I had low testosterone, actually. Um, when your hormones out of whack, you you start acting in your shadow behavior. You start acting like the person, you know, like they say testosterone makes you angry. No, man. It just amplifies you. If you're angry as a person and you get on testosterone and you become angry, it's not Roid rage or testosterone rage. That's just who you are, amplified. So for me, it's the same as shadow behavior. I just became really short. I became um probably miserable to be around. I had headaches constantly. I was drinking a ton, trying to numb myself. I didn't want to deal with any of it. I just wanted to head down and work. Um and uh then we started well, we hired a first person, and I felt that relief. I felt that like I can I can go out to lunch and not worry about you know, orders getting packed out or or a shipment getting dropped off, like I have somebody watching me now. And that was kind of like my first break into um hiring a team, being a part of a a team, um, and being the leader of that team, being being somebody that people are relying on to lead them, inspire them to believe in what I believe in, but also have my back and I have their back. And it was really, really rad. But doing it all myself. But it was necessary, you know.

Host 3:00:17

How long did it take you before, you know, when you you know Nick takes you guys in, you guys start sell your first products to getting to the point where you're you're you're hiring a team and starting to it took about a year, about a year and some change.

Johnny Raushi 3:00:32

I think we start we started March of 2018, and I think I brought um his name was Tom. We brought him on June of 2019, I think. Um it was a it took it took a minute, you know, um to hire somebody. It it's hard for me to let go. Yeah. Because it's my baby. You know, I I created um I created our own internal analytics software. I use Excel. Um, I became a nerd at Excel and I have down to the hundredth of a gram of every single ingredient and the price it costs to make that based on the formula. So if we if we need to make four million dollars next quarter, I can take the products on the percentages at which they sold in the last three, six, nine months, year, run that percentage into my document. I want to make four million dollars. It'll tell me exactly how many of each skew I need to make, and then every single ingredient that I need to buy and how much each ingredient is gonna cost me. So if I want to make four million, I need eight hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars and I need to make this many of these products. Um I I created that from scratch. So for me to let that go into someone else's hands so they manage it was very difficult for me, you know.

Host 3:01:51

Yeah, and I I think it's hard too, man. Like I was talking about this with Rebecca last night, too.

Johnny Raushi 3:01:55

It's nobody's gonna care about your thing as much as you, you know, and but that's the main part of leadership is to do the opposite of that. My job as a leader is to not only serve my people, but to inspire them to believe that their work matters and why. Why am I doing Johnny Slicks? Why, why did I create Johnny Slicks and why did I make these products? If I can inspire somebody to believe in that why as much as I can, my job as a leader is good. And then I will know it's good when they train somebody and that person believes and is inspired in my belief as much as I am. It's like as uh we were talking about it um last night as well. Grandparents and grandchildren, you get to know your parenting style or your leadership style based on your mentees or your child's becoming a parent or a leader. So when I train my first guy, I train him really well, right? I won't know my training until he trains somebody else. And now I get to see that person and how they operate. Because if they are shitheads, that's not my leader's fault. That's me. That's my fault. I did not train my manager well enough, and that's why he didn't train his person well enough. So you really know by the generation of leadership how your leadership works. And I learned that. And my my job as a visionary and the founder is to inspire people to believe in my why. And that comes down to me, man. Like, I need to learn how to communicate to each individual person the exact way they need to hear it in the way and scenario and words they need to hear it.

Host 3:03:31

Where do you think that was born out of? Was that like was this born out of kind of your own negative experiences in the Marine Corps, your life experiences, business coach, mentors? Like you have a very unique that was something that I I learned about when we were uh preparing for your podcast. I mean, you just have a very unique leadership style. Um you know, you're just a unique individual to begin with. Thanks, man. And and I I mean I generally get the fact like you and your wife both, like you guys really care, which isn't always common in business, right? I mean, sometimes it's the bottom line and that's the only thing that matters. And so I I think it's cool that you have such a a unique business approach. But where where where do you think that was born out of this um this this care and compassion for those that are under your care?

Johnny Raushi 3:04:11

I think um I would say negative experiences are very important, right? Like we go through negative experiences and you choose to be the victor or the victim, right? I believe that that there's no such thing as a problem, only opportunity. So I've had a lot of terrible leaders in the Marine Corps, and I read in um the Huahu Ching, Ba La Zhu, actually behind me here. Um, why do we thank our good teachers and not thank our bad teachers when they provide us what not to do? And um, I'm paraphrasing, obviously, it's translated over thousands of years, but that kind of forced me into a mindset of I should be grateful for every single person that has ever come across my path in my life. And that's very ego. I'm talking about my path, but my father and how he treated me, my mom and how she treated me, my teachers, my my marine leaderships. I need to love and be grateful and thank each one of them for providing me experiences. It's like going to a restaurant you've never been to, and the menu has 500 items on it. It's overwhelming, man. Where do you start? A lot of people just don't start. They wait for the world to choose for them, and then they are victims because they didn't get to choose and they didn't like it, right? Me, I'll pick number one or ship, number 50. I don't know. Something weird, right? I like it. Cool. Circle it now. I know that I like that. So, in worst case, I like number one, right? I go back the next day I order number two, it's terrible. Does that mean I hate the restaurant now? No, it's my choice. I chose number two. Also, I cross it out. Now I know I don't like number two. Don't order number two. I look at that same way, and I know it's a weird analogy. I look at the same way for my leadership. I know from bad leadership what not to do. I know just saying, what would Jesus do, right? What would Satan do? You can flip it. You can do the opposite. If you had a terrible father, what would my dad do? Okay, you have an answer, do the opposite. Use that as your south point. I had somebody tell me a while back on a compass we have north. True north, go true north. But what is north without south? You need south for north, right? You need good for bad, you need fear for love, you need bad leaders to have a perspective of good leaders. If you just have one leader, how do you know if he's good or bad? It's all you know. You have to have a bad one to know what a good one is. Same way around, you have to have a good one to know what a bad one is. So in my mind, what would my bad leader in the Marine Corps do? We probably snap at this person. Okay, do the opposite. Give them a hug. Fuck it. You know what not to do. So do the opposite. I don't know what will happen, but we'll learn from this experience. And over time, reading Taoist novels, Zen books, Buddhist books, other cultures, old, old um scripts of of like religious texts and whatever, I learned that leadership is not about me. Like I thought it was. It's about them. It's always about them. It's about how do I help them. You can lead, it says um the best leaders are the ones who the people never know exist. Those are the best leaders. It's like your body. You don't know it's doing its job until it doesn't do its job. How great would what's the difference between our president and the city sewer sewer team? You don't know the sewer team is doing their job unless something goes wrong, right? The president, you all like everybody has an opinion. He's always doing those conferences, there's always opinions on it. What happens if a leader in a company, you never see them, and you never know that things are operating? Like your digestive system. You don't you you don't know it's doing its thing unless there's you like you're not supposed to feel pain. When you feel pain, something's wrong, right? But you go about your day, you're breathing fine, your heart's fine. Like, I know you have traumas with with your heart, but you know when it goes bad. It's very obvious. You only have that dualistic because you know what it feels like when it doesn't go bad. So in my mind, as a leader, I always constantly ask, what would my bad leaders do? Do the opposite, learn from that, and how can I help them lead by love, lead by fear, or not by fear, lead truly with love and respect, and do my job as if the people don't know I'm there. That's the best. I do my job, the people, uh I think it's written in the Dao Dijing actually by Lao Tzu as well. It says the master does her job and then leaves. Let's go. And she goes off to do something else, and all the people say, Yay, look what we did. We did it, as if they take the credit. That is leadership for me. How can I do my job so well that the people that are assisting me to do my job feel like they did it themselves and praise themselves and feel good and live in fulfillment because of that? That's my job as a leader.

Host 3:09:05

You've talked about making fear-based business decisions early on, acting on what if this goes bad instead of what if this goes right. Yeah. Can you give me an example of what a fear-based decision kind of looked like maybe early on?

Johnny Raushi 3:09:17

Yeah, I actually learned about fear-based decisions maybe a couple years ago. Um, I thought it was like normal to have this conflict in your head. And um, however, it is, it's very natural. Um, Nelson Mandela says, May your decisions reflect your hopes, not your fears. So powerful, bro. Like, I gotta get that tattooed on me somewhere. You know what I mean? Like that's brilliant. May your decisions may your decisions reflect your hopes, not your fears. And I have flight anxiety, which I know a lot of people do. Um when situations would come up where I have to leave, I have to fly, I would say no because I'm scared. Like there's a 0.0001% chance that my plane goes down, right? But there's a 99.99999 that it doesn't go down. So why am I making decisions based on the fear of it might go wrong and not my hope that it's gonna go right? And then eventually you make those fear-based decisions, and now your life is filled with resentment, grief, and fear. But if you keep making hope-based decisions, like shit, man, we're all gonna die. All fear comes down to death. We're all scared of death. Whether it's like social injustice, you're gonna be ostracized by your society, or you're scared of snakes because they can kill you, right? You're scared of the dark because um, and they have recently, I don't know if you've read the study about rats and fear. Um, they tested rats. It's super unique, man. I'm I'm going on a tangent, but it comes down to fear. Um, they tested rats, they put them in a cage and they would shock them. Um if they like they would scratch the cage, have the rats smell it, and then shock them. They took blood from those rats and they injected it into other rats. And I'm like, I don't know the ins and outs of the experiment, but but essentially, in in theory, what happened was the rats had two generations, up to six generations afterwards, and they noticed that if they scratched the cage, the at the rats acted as if they were being shocked, which is showing intergenerational trauma, which is why um they can even link um the fear of kids with monsters under their bed to depending on their ancestral being on a ship with like cats and rats and stuff underneath the bed. And our ancestors experienced that and it's in their DNA and it's being passed down, and that's why people some people are scared of falling, some people are scared of snakes, some people are scared because their ancestors actually had a trauma with that incident and it got passed down. Very, very like groundbreaking for science, and I think it's a genius. But essentially, what that brings up in our everyday lives is maybe our fears are generational. Maybe it's not me. Like, why am I scared of flying? That's not realistic. Like, how many people are scared of flying? Like, we have social anxieties, we have fear of this, we have fear of that. Why? Where did that fear come from? Maybe it's not us. I've always been that way. Does that mean you always have to be this way? So, in my mind, I'm going to find a fear and do the complete opposite of it. I don't want my life to be constricted around being scared that something may happen when all of my experiences flying have always been fine. I mean, shit, I flew here and I'm fine. Everything went fine. I could have dove into my fear of flying and said, no man, I can't make it. Like, we'll do this on Zoom, you know what I mean? Yeah. And miss this opportunity. But decisions based on hope will always leave lead you to live a happier life. And in business, dude, it's so easy, man. You like imposter syndrome exists for entrepreneurs. You have like, who am I to be living this life? Who am I to be inspiring these people? What kind of leader am I? I'm just a dude. You know what I mean? Like all of those things. Um, but the universe doesn't provide you opportunities that it doesn't think you can bear. So for you to take an opportunity and live it fully and then serve your people through that opportunity, there's nothing greater in life, man. Simplicity first, embrace it. Simplicity, put others first, and desire little. Like those are like the mantra I live by. If I'm in that, and what would Jesus do? Always, always like imitate Jesus and Seneca, if you can. So like when a decision in in business comes up and it's like, oh I'm kind of scared to do that. Now I have payroll. Now I got team members that if I fuck up, they lose their jobs, man. Their families will go hungry. Like, uh granted, they'll find another job, but from my perspective, no.

Host 3:13:38

Yeah, especially with your humble beginnings, too, right? Like that's that's very real to you. I I've noticed about that, you and your wife both, you guys are both very grounded. I mean, you guys have obviously become successful and and you've and you've experienced success, but I can tell like it hasn't changed you, and that's that's rare. I mean, I I can say that wholeheartedly. That doesn't happen to everybody.

Johnny Raushi 3:13:58

I appreciate that, but to me it's normal. Yeah, like I don't know no different, you know. And I say constantly, I'm not I'm not something special, man. I'm not unique. We all have our unique abilities and stuff, but I'm just a dude.

Host 3:14:09

But maybe that's the special point about you, because I feel the same way, man. I mean, people, you know, this podcast went from from zero to a lot, and it's you know, people make comments sometimes, and I'm like I'm no different than I was.

Johnny Raushi 3:14:20

Same person, man. You know what I mean?

Host 3:14:22

Like, I'm still this I tell my friends all the time, like, I'm still the same idiot you've always known.

Johnny Raushi 3:14:25

Yeah, I'm gonna I say I'm still the same knucklehead. My first palmade was actually called Knucklehead Palmade. So, like, I'm still the same guy. I just have different perspectives of life, and I'm not scared to change. Um I embrace change, I enact change. I'm I love adaptability, I love problem solving, I love efficiency, I love serving people, I love helping people, I love loving people. And if I can revolve my life regardless of whatever I'm doing, if I can do those things, then that is success to me. I don't need to be making, I can go back to Ramen Noodles, man. Rebecca said when we got married, like cardboard box, and you and me. As long as we got that, man, like a shelter, it doesn't need to be something fancy, we got it, man. We're we're good. And I I still am that way.

Host 3:15:06

Take me from the official launch in March 2018 to April 2020 when you guys hit seven figures. What was that actual daily grind of that? What what broke, what surprised you, what almost killed you? I mean, because that's that's some zero-to-hero, you know, stuff in the in the business world, right?

Johnny Raushi 3:15:21

Yeah, I remember when 2020 happened. Um, we opted out. We said, nah, we're not doing we're not doing that, we're not playing that game. And obviously, political parties and government was like, no, you're playing this game, and we're like, we're not, man. Like, I'm not playing this game. I'll pay my taxes. How about that? And uh it worked, you know. Um, the daily grind was rough, man, but it was like it went it went from like hanging out at the office and making products to like okay, we gotta, we gotta work now. Now we have policy and structure, and I have a system and we have other people involved. And I remember 2020 happened, and up to that time we only were really making six figure, really, like high up, high up in the six figures, almost seven. 2020 happened, we operated in like a no-go, we're not doing that, we're not playing that game. And we made, I think, 2.6 that year, like skyrocketed, man. And um it started to get simpler because we had core values, we had our mission, and we had a team of people now that were kind of underneath. I think we had like three team members at that time. Um, but it wasn't just me anymore. It wasn't me handwriting notes and sending out the packages and posting on social media, and and it wasn't me doing that anymore. Um, Ali took over social media and marketing, and Nick did ads with me. We him, him and I would meet all the time and run uh Facebook ads on Meta and Google, and then uh he ended up taking that, and I kind of just stayed in manufacturing, and then Rebecca did fulfillment for a while in customer service, and then we kind of like when you're dude, when you're starting a business, you're wearing every hat, you're in every single seat, right? And then eventually those seats get a little bit bigger and your butt can't cover them, and then all of a sudden you have to pick and choose are you manufacturing or fulfillment or marketing or customer service? Like those seats all grow, and you eventually have to either shift and put your full butt in a seat, or you have to find somebody, you know, in their unique zone of genius to put in that because I'm not good, like this is where it comes down to like your time is a huge commodity, right? You only have 24 hours, you're not special. We all have 24 hours, right? You minus sleep, you have eight hours, you minus food, you have um 12 more hours, 13 hours in your day. You got an eight-hour job, now you only have four or free hours. What are you gonna do in that time, right? So for me, I have 10 hours a day to work, 12 hours a day to work. I can spend two hours a day in every department doing every single job. Or what do I not like doing the most? Customer service. I don't like emails and all that stuff. I don't like social media, I don't like fulfillment. Is there somebody out here that Likes fulfillment. You do? Come on in, man. I uh yep, come on. You got this. I'm gonna teach you my core values, I'm gonna teach you my why, and then you're gonna do it. And then their product that they produce matches my why, which means I did a good job as an a leader inspiring them to believe in my why. Because now they're handpacking it with care, just like I would, because I care. Can't you can't teach care, but you can inspire caring, right? Um, and then eventually it gets to a point where I'm now in manufacturing, Rebecca's in customer service, fulfillment, and Nick and Alley are in marketing, media, advertising. And in 2020, we had like little departments underneath us, and we slowly building an accountability chart um of where we want to be and empty seats on how to get there. So org charts, I'm I'm sure you're familiar, they they place you, they take a screenshot of the company, where your company is now. But what happens if you want your company to grow 130%? Does it does your org chart work? No. Okay, in 130%, we'll be producing another $15.5 million. In order to get another $15.5 million, that's another 31,000 orders. We're gonna need three more fulfillment team members. So on the fulfillment accountability chart, put three empty seats that we will need to fill in the next year. That's the difference between an accountability chart and an org chart. It's accountability chart is taking you fire everyone from the business and you put the seats and then you fill the seats based on people's do they get the job, do they want the job, and do they have the spiritual and mental capacity to do the job? And you put them in and then you see the vacant, and then you start in the job postings to fill those vacant seats, and it gets you to where you want to be. Not a problem of where we are now. Like you can't get where I always say if you want to get someplace you've never been, you're gonna have to do things you've never done to get there, right? If you want an outcome that you've never experienced, get ready to experience some stuff you've never experienced before. That's just a part of life, that's how the universe operates. And it's gonna test you along the way on how bad you want it. How bad do you want this company to grow? How bad are you willing to learn to let go? Because I'm gonna put opportunities in your face that are gonna force you to let go. And it's gonna keep happening. Those lessons are gonna keep happening until you get it. So, how many times do you need to pull a push door until you realize you should push it? You know? Um the the once the business started growing, 2020 happened. 2021, we were actually listed in um the in no no uh Forbes was in 2021. Um, listed us as one of the um best grooming products, men's grooming products of the year. And business just started taking off, man. I started talking more about my story, my origins, because I wasn't doing the the work anymore, like the fulfillment customer service. So I took I could spend more time talking about my story like this, knowing my team back in North Carolina has got it. Like they I'm not even concerned because I know that they're carrying the core values the way I would.

Host 3:20:53

What did it take to get you to that point to where you didn't have to micromanage, where you felt like you had people in place that would hold those company core values of you know Johnny Slicks, whatever, be it whatever their job. What was that like as somebody who built this thing with your bare hands, picking pennies off the ground, you know, making this thing, giving your blood, right? Because, you know, we talk about building things with blood, swat and tears. I mean, you literally that you literally built it.

Johnny Raushi 3:21:19

Yeah, based on sanitary, I legally have to say that there is no more blood, swire, tears in the product. Like legally, it's sanitary now, so I don't have to worry about that. Um, I think it comes down to self-awareness, man. Um, this is where your ego comes into play for you. Um, you don't have to worry about your ego taking control and making decisions for you, but being aware of who you are and who you want to become. Like we have a friend, uh Kirk Weisler. He says, We're not human beings, we're human becomings. Um, and I'm sure that's plenty of other places, but I heard it from Kirk, and I love Kirk's for it. So um I had to become self-aware of who I am, who I truly am, not who I was. And this goes into the four agreements, the book. Um, am I taught to believe this or do I truly believe this? Becoming self-aware of who I am. Is this me or was I taught to believe that this is me? Is this my decision, or was I taught to believe that this is the decision that's right for me? Realizing those two forks in the road, that fork in the road and choosing the the side that I believe in made me self-aware and then talking with my team, man. Transparent communication is one of our core values. Vulnerability is something that is my personal core value, and loving kindness and empathy and compassion, those are like my core values. If I operate and every breath that comes out of my mouth is in those core values, then I'm not only fulfilled, but I'm doing a good job. And business is nothing different than life, man. I don't believe there's a work-life balance. Um, corporate America has convinced us that there is, but you go to work and you're the same human being. You come home and you're the same human being you were at work. It's one person, it's one life. Um, and if you're talking about a work-life balance and they don't touch and they can't connect, you make money at work and you spend it at home. So there's already mix. So there's no it's one life. It doesn't if you have marital problems at home, you're gonna come to work and you're gonna be a you're gonna be a miserable person to be around, right? Or you had a shitty day at work and you come home. We've all experienced that, and it doesn't feel right because you can't talk about what you're going through at home at work. It does you can't bring that to work. That's your personal issues, leave that home. But bro, you spent how much time at work with all these people?

Host 3:23:28

More time than you're at home, right?

Johnny Raushi 3:23:29

Unless you're sleeping unless you count sleep. So what happens if what happens if you come to work and you talk about your financial issues to your team? What happens if you come to work and talk about your health problems with your team or your marital problems or your family problems, or you talk about anything that you got going on, man, and you're not bitching, you're complaining. There's a difference between bitching and complaining. Complaining is how some people communicate. They complain about stuff, but they're open to feedback. Bitching is just bitching. They don't want any feedback, they don't want nothing, they just want to complain about something, right? Complaining is okay. I call those toxic. Yeah, right, exactly. Complaining is okay because that's how some people communicate. And you just have to learn that every person has a different way to communicate based on their upbringing, based on their culture, based on who they are as human beings. I learn their communication through my empathy connection. How do they need to be communicated to, and what scenery do they need to be communicated to? I adapt to that communication and I communicate my why and my inspiration to believe in that way that they need to be communicated, so it's received. And I do the same thing to them. I'm I'm uh my personality is deemed a bridge. I'm I'm a bridge between people. So when I have multiple people in a room, I can bridge them together to understand each other. I'd make a great therapist. Like I'm I don't want to be, but I could do that um because I understand people and I can translate it. And I love metaphors, so I can connect. If you're a car guy and you're talking talking to a military guy, I can take his military experience, make a metaphor out of a car, so it's the same language. You know what I mean? I have that talent. Um, and I bring that into communication. So it started with okay, I can't teach and inspire people if I don't know who the fuck I am, you know? So um going off on another tangent, I did a lot of acid, man. Like I did a lot of acid, and it I think we have a whole section on your psychedelic experience. Yeah, you're gonna need it. Um, becoming self-aware of who I am and who I want to become allowed me to, and dude, I talked to my team about this stuff. Like I was like, hey guys, I learned the definition of forgiveness, how it's internal and not external. And I forgave my father and my pastor and my Marines, and I forgave all of this stuff because I realized that it's not on them. We're all doing the best we can with what we have. I'm no different than that. I'm doing the same thing, so how can I be mad at that? Marcus Aurelius says the same thing. How can you be mad at a human who's the same as you? We all operate in a system. How can you be mad at another part of the system? You're the same. Um, and psychedelics have gotten me to that point to be self-aware and who I want to become. And then by doing so and being transparent and vulnerable with my team, I'm able to knock down those walls that they have put up that most people walk around with, these calluses to society and judgment. Like most people go throughout their day and they're they're nervous that they're gonna be judged and ostracized from society for not knowing what's going on in the political landscape, what's pop culture going on. Will smacked Chris, who do you agree with? If you don't have an opinion, you're gonna be ostracized from society. That is a fear a lot of people walk around in. So they put on a mask when they go in public, they put on their best clothes to impress people they don't know. And then they go home and they look out their blinds to see if anybody's looking at them because they're scared. When you have that wall up for so long, you're you forget who you are. You have this calling to be someone more. Like no one could be you better than you. So why are you trying to be someone else? Why are you trying to impress other people? Be you. That's there's nothing more impressive than that, man. I don't care what it is, just be you, man. Who cares? It's your life. So when I realized all that, and I went to my team with that stuff, um, and it was reciprocated, and it was like, damn, Johnny, I'll take the double whatever you're having. Like, that sounds freeing, that sounds fun. And I'm like, it is. It's called Taoism and Zen and Zen and Buddhism, and don't follow the rituals, just follow the the concepts. Think about life as a as something to be lived, not something to be paid for, you know? And um, the team that reciprocated that was like, hell yeah, this is awesome. I get to come to work and make money and make products that this guy created by his blood, and we get to sell it, and I get to see feedback from the customers, and we get to talk about acid at work. This is cool, man. This is rare. This is is this real? I've had team members that came on and it was like they asked our managers and they're like, Hey, when is when is like this facade gonna go away? And um, the manager's like, What are you talking about? Like Brendan, he was goes, What are you talking about, man? He goes, Johnny, we're back up. They're like putting on an act, right? Like, they're when are they gonna drop the hammer or something like that? There's no way they're that nice. And he's like, Nah, man, I've been here two years. This is it, man. There's no different. And I'm like, people are not used to kindness. It's oh no, bro.

Host 3:28:07

And your wife, you know, obviously she's your gatekeeper. Um, and you know, I think that's who initially I got and put in cut. I I I think I found you on Instagram, and then I don't know if it was you or Ali. I think it was you. You put me in touch with Rebecca.

Johnny Raushi 3:28:19

If it was it was my personal, then it was me. I don't remember.

Host 3:28:21

I didn't manage it's uh I got connected with Rebecca, and dude, she is, man. She's like just the friendliest mother trucker, dude. And at first I thought, oh, all right, you know, whatever. And then you know, I talked to her on the phone and you know, even texting her to get you like, she just and then you meet her in person and she's just as nice as and it's and it's real, and it's it's very genuine. But I say that because man, in this world of social media and being fake and phony, like, you know, again, man, when I first talked to you, I I remember, you know, I was talking to my wife after we did your podcast prep. I'm like, he's a good dude. But then you you wonder, like, is this real? Is he just saying this because he's gonna come on a podcast? You know, is this who he is? And then, you know, the more I got to both to know to know you both, like, it's real and it's cool, it's refreshing. Like, so I can only imagine how it really must be like a cool environment.

Johnny Raushi 3:29:05

Um and it's it but to me, it's simple. Like, like I said, embrace simplicity, put others first, and desire little. That is like the biggest thing that I wrap my round uh my life around. And then, you know, what would Jesus do and what would Seneca do? So it's like kindness, empathy, compassion, and love, man. There's nothing more than that. I don't believe love is a core value. I think all core values stem from love. Um, like adaptability, or if you're if um you're obviously fit and you go to the gym, so you love yourself, right? So your discipline stems from love of yourself in your in your life, right? Your willingness for addicted to growth or health stems from love. You love yourself, that's why you're taking care of yourself.

Host 3:29:46

So I believe love is that I've never thought like I don't go to the gym because I'm like, oh, I love myself. I want to go to the gym. You think that's something like subliminal?

Johnny Raushi 3:29:53

I I don't know. I don't know. I just I I mean it could be. I don't know. We can talk more about that offline if you want. But I believe that love is everything, and there's nothing wrong with love. And it took me a while to realize that I deserve love and that I can love myself. Um, and you're supposed to love yourself. Like, how can you love others if you don't love yourself? Then that's fake. You should love yourself because you deserve it. Um and Marcus Aurelius says when you're judging yourself, leave the vessel and the tools that came with the vessel out of the equation. Which means when you're judging yourself, when you're thinking about you, take your body and take all your senses away. Because sensory organs are just tools that your body uses for survival, right? So if you're gonna judge yourself, take out the vessel away. Because that's all your body is, it's a vessel for your spirit. So take that away when you judge yourself. Don't look in the mirror when you're judging yourself. Judge yourself with your eyes closed, in the complete silent when you're talking to yourself. And that's beautiful, man. Because you're not you're not your body and you're not your uh senses. Like you are more than that, much, much more than that. So it's like when you strip that away, it's beautiful. And I think that stems from love. So it's easy to be nice. It truly is. I go to the DMV, it's dude, it costs you nothing to smile. It costs you fucking nothing to smile and be nice.

Host 3:31:12

Yeah, I've got a couple friends who've gotten older, you know, become old, salty veterans, and it's kind of you know, they're they're like really angry. Yeah, it's hard to be around. You get to the point, especially when you start letting go of some of that yourself, because you're on a mission or a path to to grow, to be better, get depth bit, get better, do better, be a better example, better husband, better father, whatever. And then to like be around people that are like committed to misery. Yeah, it's hard, man. And but you, you know, half of me wants to help, especially my closest friends, you know. I want to help them be better. And the other half is like, dude, bro, do you hear yourself? Like it's really hard to listen to you all the time, just sit in this constant state of negativity. It's like I tell my kids, you you you make a decision to be in a bad mood, whether you think about it or not, for sure. Yeah, you know, but like that's a choice.

Johnny Raushi 3:31:56

You get like you say that I say this constantly, like, and it took me a while to talk to Rebecca about it because I've done I've done acid more than she has. Um not comparison, but when she goes out of town, I always trip. Like, I'm just like, I'm gonna take too much acid and see what happens, you know. And there is such a thing as too much acid, I'm just saying. So I have experienced that. Um, but I had profound experiences on it. It's just uh I just wasn't prepared. I was sweating, I wasn't hydrated, I was dead anyway, side tangent. Um I think after you live life a certain way, you choose you realize the choices. You don't, you don't, nothing happens to you, right? The moment I think I did like four or five tabs of acid, and I came to a realization that no matter where I'm sitting, I chose this. And then I pictured myself like driving out of my neighborhood and getting T-boned. And then being like, How easy it is to be a victim, right? The universe did this to me. Uh you did this to me, right? But you chose to sleep in, you chose to uh leave your house late to go to work, you chose to run that stop sign. So is it really their fault solely that you got T-boned because you put you there in front of them as well? So I think about it when I used to have road rage, I think a lot of people do.

Host 3:33:20

Oh, dude.

Johnny Raushi 3:33:20

Yeah, yeah, because everybody's in your way, like it's around you, the world revolves around you, right? But I realized that um actually it was I've done dude. I'm not trying to say anything, but I think I've done enough acid where I have trips midday, not like psychedelic, but like brain wire, like re reprogramming midday. I was driving to work and there was dude, this old lady was driving me nuts. It's 45, she's doing 30. Oh, dude, come on, man. It's a back road, single lane. I'm trying to get to work, right? Inconveniencing me. Well, you didn't get my script. You don't know that I'm supposed to be on my way to work. Move over, right? So we're coming up to a stop sign stoplight. The light turns yellow and she fucking guns it. I'm like, so you do know where the throttle is, you do know where the gas pedal is. That's wild because I just followed you eight miles and you didn't know where it was. So I got stopped at that red light. I saw on the news that there was an accident that morning, like 20 minutes after I drove by at that stoplight. Now, granted, time, whatever. What happens if I didn't get stuck behind that old lady and I was rushing to work and I got in an accident at that next red light? That old lady just saved my life. Shouldn't I thank her? Shouldn't I be grateful? What if you get stuck in traffic and because of the traffic you missed something and you could be dead or paralyzed? You know, like what happens if that bad situation that you're in actually was life-saving? If you start looking at everything in your life like that, dude, there's nothing but love and gratitude. We were on our way to Severville. We take, you know, we were talking about I go to Smoky Mountains every year. Um there was a hurricane two years ago. Um, or maybe it was last year, dude. Time is wild. I don't know.

Host 3:35:04

I think it was two years ago up in Asheville.

Johnny Raushi 3:35:06

Yeah, in Asheville. The highway got washed away.

Host 3:35:08

Oh, yeah.

Johnny Raushi 3:35:08

Dude, I was supposed to be on that highway at the time it started to degrade and fall apart. I don't I don't know what could have happened, but I was supposed to be on that highway at that exact time. We were driving through Charlotte and a giant chunk of metal flattened our tire. Now a hurricane, no power, no gas, and I got a flat tire with 50 miles in my truck, like of fuel. Now I gotta try to find someplace to fix this tire. I'm on the first day of my holiday going to you know the Smoky Mountains. And I remember at that moment, I hopped out. It was so easy to be a victim. Like it was the easiest thing in the world to be like, fuck, everything's working against me. The universe sucks, blah, blah, blah. Be pissed off, right? I hopped out and took a selfie thumbs up next to the flat tire, and you can see a chunk of metal sticking out of it. And I was like, we get to do this, bro. I've never experienced having a flat tire this bad in my life. Now I the universe has provided me a lesson where now I know what to do. And it's going to be my luck that somebody is gonna come up in my life that say, I don't know what to do, I got a flat tire, and I'm gonna have this experience from this moment right now to help them, and that is what life is about. I started to realize that, and it's completely shifted my entire life from we get to make the choices, and we might not choose what's happening to us, but we get to choose how we respond to that. And Marcus Relius said it, Lao Zhu said it. Everybody who has been influenced in shaping the world and fixing the misery with perspective has all said, you get to choose this. So when I encounter a negative situation, like bro, I got that shrapnel in my tire because I chose to be in the right lane. I chose that, I drove over that. I chose to leave at that time. If I left later, maybe another truck would have hit it first. I chose that for a reason. But am I just gonna bitch about it or am I gonna be grateful that's happening and find the most out of that opportunity to be happy and filled with love and thank people? And the guy who towed our truck um was from New Jersey, from the town I was born in. I got to connect with him and he was teaching his son how to take over his job. I almost got to see what my life almost was like. Like father-son raising him to be from Jersey, to take his job, to follow in a generational thing. They went hunting as kids. Like, dude, I got to see like this experience and get to interact with these people. And they also were having a shitty day because a hurricane was coming through. So they were working overtime, and we got to take 30 minutes out of our day to connect to each other and be vulnerable and transparent and got to experience that, bro. And I get to do that, I get to live this life, you know?

Host 3:37:46

Dude, I just I love that that outlook, that that that glass half full outlook. We just we don't have enough of that. Like, that's I and I think that's it's just a small snippet of like how cool it is to sit in the seat across from you and to hear these things. Now we get to put this back out into the atmosphere. Cause again, man, how many people need to hear what you just said, right? Like all of us, all of us need, and even if you've heard it, it's always great to be reminded. So thanks for that analogy. Um, you made a decision, and I think this is super important that people should know this about your company because you know, uh, Rebecca and I were talking about it last night too. Um, you know, there's people that kind of gripe sometimes. Well, Rebecca said that people have griped about kind of some of the costs at Johnny Slicks, but I think a lot of people don't realize that you guys made a very conscious business decision to source all of your products in America.

Johnny Raushi 3:38:31

Yeah.

Host 3:38:32

Um what was that decision like, you know, the vendors, the process, because it's much easier and it's way cheaper to get stuff overseas.

Johnny Raushi 3:38:40

Oh, yeah, for sure. Well, honestly, it came down to a pain point. Like I couldn't afford minimum order quantities, MOQs, right? I couldn't afford China's MOQs. They were like 50,000 units, and I needed to fork up like 15 grand for them or something, something like that. Um and a lot of um companies in America are small and small businesses are willing to work with each other and make sacrifices, which China is not. You meet their MOQs or you don't buy from them, they have other vendors. Um when I hit up a bee farm in Ohio or Illinois or or Texas, um I'm like, hey, I can't afford your 50 pound 55 pound boxes. Can I get 45? They're like, Yeah, you can't do that in China, man. You can't do that anywhere in the world. Like like they are so numb to negotiations and deals. I love Americans. I love the American people. I don't fall into politics because politics are outside of our house. How are we inside our house and how are we with our families? You never talk about politics. Like it doesn't even come up in conversation because it's so fucking useless. It doesn't matter. It's ever changing and it's all opinion based. And it's all negative, bro. All of it, right? It's always a problem. But how has that put food on your table? It's always been you that put food on your table. It's always been you and your community. So unless you're Welfare. Yeah, of course. And then it's something else. But um in my life, I don't have that. So it I don't have an opinion on it. I don't have an opinion on any of that stuff because it doesn't affect me in my day. Now there might be come a time and place where that does affect me, and then I can acquire an opinion, but I'm not gonna waste my energy on that. I'd rather give my time and energy to the people in my life right now. Um you ever hear the show Adventure Time? There's a show called Adventure Time, and I'm I'm sure people are laughing at me and ran me off now because it's a kid's show, but there's a character in that show that kind of like had me like a trip moment. He was talking to his brother, and his brother was going through something, and he took his cup and he said, This is my favorite cup in the entire world. I love nothing more than this cup. And he threw it out the window and he said, But now it's gone and it doesn't exist anymore. It's just you and me. And I was like, damn, that's fucking deep. And Rebecca's like, What are you talking about? Like, from you and me's perspective, right now, your wife, my wife, my business, my car does not exist. You cannot prove to me right now that it exists without just memories because you can't show me, you can't do anything. So right now, our reality is just this right now. That's it. Like, there's people listening to this and they're in their car, or they're in they're sitting on the toilet, or they're in bed, or they're watching on their TV. Like, you cannot convince me that the country China exists in this reality because it doesn't not hear. You can only do it through memories or something on your phone, which is not reality, it's something else, right? So, in my mind, I want to live in not only a place that is reality, something I can visit, but people that are willing to sacrifice because you know, being a Marine, being military, um, the biggest difference between a military business owner and a civilian business owner is I think the willingness to sacrifice. And when I talk, and there's nothing like small business veteran-owned businesses, man. There's like the willingness to sacrifice and go above and beyond to make sure that that one person gets taken care of is otherworldly, man. And that's something that helped us get to where we go. There was a guy who um he placed an order online and I didn't put a slick lips in his order. Um he messaged, he emailed and said, Hey, I didn't get a slick lips. Nick goes, Why don't you just drive it to him, man? Like, fuck yeah dude, that's awesome. I knocked on his door, the guy was blown away because I brought him three slick lips because I fucked up and I was like, I'm so sorry to take your time, bro. But you live right down the street from me. His name is Tom. He brings his son to every slick day event, every event we go to, uh, catering event, anything. Awesome human being. But I'm not special, bro. There's other business owners that are willing to do that, but I cannot find those type of people outside of this country. So I want to support our community, serve our community, and work with people that are willing to sacrifice just as much as I am, willing to sacrifice for them. You don't find that outside the country, so we just made the conscious decision to stay American, stay American-made and have pride in that American-made businesses. And then obviously the political landscape always shifting kind of started supporting that. Kind of started to be like, let's go back to American manufacturing, let's be Americans, let's have pride in this American-made. Um, actually, uh around that time too, they took uh they stopped producing American flags in China. There's like a big thing about like I remember that. Yeah, there was a country or there was a city in China called USA. And it was like a whole thing, man. Like, this is just talking about why you shouldn't work with those people, right? Um, I say those people as an out of country, not not the Chinese, right? Like, I have no I love all people. I'm talking about like if you're an American, stay in America. It's so much, there's so much power in it. But there was a city or or some sort of town in China called USA. So they were able to legally put anything made on there, made in USA. So they started producing goods out of that town and putting made in USA. Dude, talk about like getting one over on people. That's scummy, that's so scammy. I don't want to work with anyone who does that. You know what I mean? You read on it on um ingredients and stuff, not ours, obviously, but others, made with natural and artificial flavors. Bro, you just described everything. I see products that say made with uh ingredients from USA and other countries. You just described everything. What are you talking about? That's so vague, but you wanted to put made in USA on that.

Host 3:44:10

That's so disingenuous, man.

Johnny Raushi 3:44:11

Yeah, man. They're just trying to get words for marketing on a label. It's like, dude, like you just wanted natural flavors on your label, but you're not natural, so you have to put and artificial. It's just things like that, man. I just wanted to avoid. And it was easy and simple for us to stay in America. Obviously, it costs a lot more um to spend, you know, raw goods buying them in America, sourcing American in-house, doing all that. But dude, it's so worth it, man. I'll get um there was a a a little couple of years ago, um, I think 21 or 22, one of the um plastic farms out here in Texas was seized for something, some sort of like operation. So our beast bottles were seized. They're PET like recycled plastic. They weren't making them anymore. They were like shut down for two weeks. Um, so my guy hit me up and he's like, Hey, there's a there's a place up in New York, a production up in New York where they actually make them. It's 20 cents more per bottle, which is a lot.

Host 3:45:08

Yeah, especially when you're talking scale.

Johnny Raushi 3:45:09

Yeah, you're talking about you know, two million units. So 20 cents on that, you're talking about a big investment for no change at all, other than the location. Or we can go to China and you can save 35 cents per bottle. I'm like, dude, that's not even like he's no he no longer works with us because I was tired of him offering that. That's not that's not who we are. I don't want that. If you're offering me that, it's because you can make more money on that. There's a selfish gain. I'm not in on that. So you're no longer in with us, you know what I mean? Type of situation. But um, it was constantly like, this is shut down, go up here. And I'm like, well, can I have that company name? I want to give them a call. I call them, they're awesome people, they're humans just like us. The guy who started it was in Vietnam, and he was a hardcore motherfucker, man. And he taught his son the business. And I'm like, dude, I want to buy from you. I don't care if it's 20 cents more, I'll buy from you. I still do business with that company today. Um, it's those things. I want to be able to call them up, drive to them, see them, meet with them, see their production, see the families that they're feeding. So for us, dude, it's so beautiful, man. We have like 30 team members, 30 families, right, that we feed that the Slicksers feed. I I say me. I have no fuck at this point. I have no fucking part of it. Johnny Slicks customers buy a product that this that the team makes, and the team gets paid for doing that. And I'm just a guy standing there with a thumbs up saying, I love you guys.

Host 3:46:28

Yeah, but you're also they're also supporting a veteran-owned business. They're of course they're supporting families, and then they're supporting all these local these other local businesses, right?

Johnny Raushi 3:46:36

So the company in New York, the companies in Illinois are beeswax farms that we get from the coconut farms, the pub oil, the the uh shea butter, all of these places that they're sourced from the containers, the labels, the caps, uh, the liners that go on the caps, the people that make our uh machinery, the assembly lines, they're out of Texas. Um when you buy a Johnny Slicks product, you pay for the product. Obviously, it's fucking good. It's good stuff, right?

Host 3:47:02

It's awesome. We haven't even got to that part.

Johnny Raushi 3:47:04

But you you're paying the team member, the American, who took the time to craft that product with his bare hands. Well, he's wearing gloves, but bare hands, and then you're paying the farm I get the bees from. So you're supporting the farmers of that beehive. You're supporting the coconut farmers, you're supporting the assembly line guys, you're supporting all of these families, and it goes, dude, it just spreads. And that's what's beautiful about sourcing American made and American manufacturing is you can actually see that spread. Like I reach out to my guys who make um the beeswax, right? And they have 15 team members on their, on their um, on their team. Two of them are husband, wife, and they're bringing in their son to learn how to be, he loves bees, and he he's going to take over the business eventually, I'm sure. I get to be a part of that, a small part of that, man. And it's not just me, it's the Slicksters. Like, if you buy a Johnny Slicks product that has beeswax in it, you are supporting that farm and that family and that son who's enjoying his passion and getting to live a life where he gets to pursue something that he actually loves doing. You don't see that anywhere else. If you go outside the country, like you saw how they made the COVID masks, like you ever see those photos of like, dude, you want to support that? And like, granted, that that's a whole nother culture that in a society that needs to be supported, but let's do it to ourselves. If we if we focus and say, I love me and I love you, that will spread. And then that love doesn't have borders like that. You know what I mean? Like that there'll be people that are passionate about going to India and helping them with that manufacturing facility in China and helping with that manufacturing facility, but it starts here, and it starts with where you invest your money in. It like voting happens not at the ballots, it happens with your dollars. Who are you buying from? Who are you supporting? Who are you paying? And that will trickle, and you can see that spread, and you can see the growth of anybody who has ever supported us with giant slicks, um, vendor-wise. You can see if you go to their companies, you can see they're smiling, man. It's like it's a beautiful thing. I drive down to see the vendors, and it's just I have lunch with them, I take them out for dinner, we have conversations, we talk about Marcus Aurelius. Like, it's just a beautiful thing, man. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I know it costs a lot more for everybody, but life is just way more impactful, and you get to serve your community much more when you're making those type of decisions.

Host 3:49:20

Yeah, and I mean, early on, dude, I mean, I I needed something for my beard, and you know, you guys were a veteran-owned company, and then I mean, of course, I got the product. Well, I've been a customer since 2018, long before I ever had a podcast, because it's a good product, dude. It smells good, like you know, you you can read the label to your point, anything that you guys sell, because I use it all. Like, you can read and pronounce everything that's in there, and most of the stuff, there's not a lot of shit in there, yeah. You know, versus you pick up, you know, the shampoo bottle from company X, man, and you can't pronounce most of the stuff, and then there's like 40 things, dude.

Johnny Raushi 3:49:50

I'm like, also show me who like when you buy that, where does that dollar go? Show me the face, show me the people. You can't, man. They're all hidden behind entities or all decision makers that don't actually have any impact of your life other than the negative and paying. They care more about your wallet than they do about you, and that's disgusting to me, man. So, and like I said earlier, man, I I have a lot of TBIs and the doctor said I can't read so good. So, if I can read it, I bet you you can. And that's the point.

Host 3:50:15

When did you transition from I have a hair problem and I solved it to I'm fighting a war against companies that are poisoning America?

Johnny Raushi 3:50:22

Oh, I opened a can that put me on that path. Um, I'm not big into political marketing or any type of policy politicals. Like, I believe like if there was a political like perfection scenario, each person would stand on stage, talk about their beliefs, and then later talk about their color. Are they red or blue? I I think that the fact that they come up and say I'm a Republican and then they pitch is fixed. I think it just forces people to think a certain way. So I don't like that they bash each other. I don't like that blue will come up and talk shit about red or red will talk shit about blue. Like you should be able to sell me you by talking exclusively about you. You should sell me your product by exclusively talking about your product, right? However, say your opponent is actively hurting people and those people are unaware that they're being harmed. Is it your duty to help people? Right? Isn't that all of our duty to serve and help people? Would you watch your loved ones drink spoiled milk if you knew it was spoiled? So those type of thoughts came to mind. And I said, This company, company X, company B, I started to look at the the big circle. You ever see those like diagrams of who owns what companies, and you see it's like three companies that own millions of products across the grocery stores? Like you're walking down the cosmetic aisle and you see this product over here or this product over here, and you're like, hmm, this product's better, and this one's cheaper. Dude, it's going to the same person. They're harming people without the people knowing with those chemicals, death by a thousand cuts, slowly giving you an illness or a disease, and then convincing you that they have the cure, that they also didn't give you the disease. So you buy the cure from them after buying the disease from them and then saying, Thank you for solving my issue. And that's happening. And I'm watching it happen. And I was in that. And I believe most people are still in that, whether it's American nutrition, American pharmaceuticals, or American cosmetics. I believe that a lot of people are stuck in that cycle where it's just you're forking out money, man. How many people do you know live paycheck to paycheck? Like it's miserable, bro. I don't think that that's the way to live. And if you really look at who you're giving your money to, it seems to be the same people, man. It seems to be the same shareholders that help go to the same meetings, whether it's fast food company X or Fast Food Company Y, the same guys own that, man. And they'll sit in meetings for Company X and talk about how they can convince the public that Company Y is worse than Company X. So then Company X makes more revenue this year, and then they'll flip-flop it the next year. And then they'll put a news article that says horse meat was found in Company X's burger. So everyone's going to Company Y now to skyrocket those shares. Dude, like, why do you want to play that game? So I opened up that can. You know, the company's been slapped. Nick and I have been slapped for doing so by by Company X and Company Y. Um what company is it?

Host 3:53:14

And I'll beep it.

Johnny Raushi 3:53:17

Oh yeah. Um, I need you to bleep that. Oh no, I will. Okay, we've gotten documents, like paperwork that's sent to us. And um, they're super fans. They watched every video, they watched every podcast, they watch everything, and they put it all in a lawsuit, like a legal document, everything. And um so I opened that up and I started talking about it, and uh, we were doing good. I realized that there's a threshold to revenue and lawsuits. You can talk about that, but as soon as you make uh this is my experience, once your business starts making $10 million, you start to get attention from those people, from bigger people. They you start taking a chunk of their their pie, you know. Um, before that, I could say whatever I want, and no one ever cared. As soon as we hit eight figure, it started to like oh, I have to be, I have to be careful. There are people watching, and there's a lot on the line that these people can take away. And I'm gonna fight really, really hard. I'm gonna fight to every breath about this because I I believe what I'm doing is not wrong. I'm doing right, I'm trying to help people. Um and dude, uh that can got opened. I started talking about it, and um I wasn't saying anything bad, but I was saying the company name and that was the that was the issue. So I learned don't talk about the company, talk about the ingredient the company is using. So Minoxidyl is an ingredient that they're using, methylchlorosine, um, EDTA, DMDM, uh, or for their formaldehyde releasers. We literally embalm human bodies with that.

Host 3:54:45

Dude, Google the side effects from those those things too. People have no idea. I didn't know until a couple years ago.

Johnny Raushi 3:54:50

That's what I'm saying. Is like that's what made me be like, okay, this isn't a political landscape where I'm bashing companies so people buy my product. I'm going to show the truth about what those products are doing to you. And if you want to buy my product, that's cool. But I just want you to stop using that shit, bro. That's it. Because most of your health problems are coming from that.

Host 3:55:09

Yeah, you see these kids, man. Like, we my daughter has a friend, and you know, she's breaking out and hives and skin issues, and they're the same girls that are trying to, you know, then you know, they're going to the doctors to get medicine to help the breakout from the thing that they're using that's causing the breakout. It's to your point, it's just it's a vicious cycle.

Johnny Raushi 3:55:24

It's a cycle. That's all it is.

Host 3:55:26

And I think it's driven by, again, bottom line, but also marketing, man. Like people, you know, you see the words vegan or organic. Like I saw something that was like it was vegan on something that would have never been anything but vegan to begin with.

Johnny Raushi 3:55:38

It's like putting a vegan label on sugar, like putting gluten-free on water. Yeah, dude. It's like it's just marketing. That's unfortunately what it is, which is like a big deal when it comes to it. And I talked about this in lengths too. I don't think anybody who uses the word organic should have to use the word organic. I feel like, like at some point, you walk into a carrot farm, you go into a carrot farm, and you pull a carrot out of the ground. Why should you have to add the extra word organic when it's just a carrot? When did it become a normal carrot and now it's an organic carrot? Like our ancestors walked around and they never used the word organic. That's just how it was, as natural. And then all of a sudden, in like the 1950s, 1960s, companies started to, and you could really see a big shift in the 20s with the Rockefeller era and all of that, with the school system and the pharmaceuticals, like the money had to get funded somewhere. And we had herbal medicine and we had processed synthetic medicine, which was like more potent, more efficient, more specific, but it was processed, and money had to be invested into one of those avenues. So it's the same thing with um the moon landing. They needed to convince the American people that it was like this was a big thing for the American people for the Cold War, for all of that. So they sold it to the American people through Rolex or through the watches. I forget the company name and the But did they actually land on the moon? Right, yeah, that's a whole thing. But the American people were sold that this was the project for the Americans in the 60s, right? So they had to convince the Americans in the 20s and 30s that pharmaceuticals were the project of the Americans, so they started to bash herbal medicine, saying that that's witchcraft and that um it's you know Western medicine is new and this is all bad and Chinese medicine is bad and it's not real, it's all woo-woo taboo stuff. Um once once that you saw that shift, it really took place in like the 50s, the 60s, we started to really pump ingredients and stuff because uh the economy was shifting with war coming up, and um chemicals were really cheap and you could find them anywhere. Actually, you can see um it's a national security now to make more raid or bug spray. And if you look at the ingredients of bug spray, it's one of the highest cancer-causing ingredients. And if you look at where raid is made, it's actually like you could see a high heat map of cancer in those areas of people, civilians. So it's like you start to see like the nation shifting and convincing the American people that something is important and they just go with it, bro. And they're getting sick and they think it's something else, and it happens so slowly that uh it's easy for a doctor to say it's genetic for you because it's happened so slowly. Like the things you're putting on your body now might not ever affect you, but it might be so deep in you that it's gonna affect your kids, and it might not affect them, but now it's in your genes, so now it's like affect them, and now it's a genetic thing. Now the government and these big companies can just essentially say, No, it's a that's an issue, not an issue us. It's an issue. You deal with that.

Host 3:58:35

That company that you battled with, um, did you guys get sued or is that still ongoing?

Johnny Raushi 3:58:39

They sent a uh cease, a cease and says you have to stop doing this type of marketing, and we had our legal team look at it, and they essentially said, Yeah, the biggest issue is you saying their company name. You cannot say their company name is hurting people, but you can say that this ingredient that they're using is hurting people, but it has to be science-based. Um, they came after Beastwash, um, saying, because I say it's antibacterial and anti microbial, and they said that the FDA says nothing about that. FDA um has no proof that peppermint and tea tree is antibacterial and antimicrobial. And first of all, fuck the FDA. Like, I don't give a shit. It's all paid. Like you buy, you buy your way in, you you pay a commission every year to stay with that badge. Um also you trust the the government now.

Host 3:59:21

That's what I think I I think COVID really opened everybody's eyes, bro.

Johnny Raushi 3:59:25

Like for some reason, and our in our parents' generation had a reason to trust the government because they were actually like transparent, they were talking. Now there were bullshit, like always. Now we actually are understanding that there's a lot of there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff going on in and it sounds good, but then when I go home, my day-to-day, I don't feel good. My life is not good. So you're promising me something that isn't real, and these big companies are a part of that, you know, funding and these campaigns and whatever. Um, but I started to realize that you can't say the company name, say the ingredient, the ingredients are what's killing you slowly over time, and then you're buying the cure from this company, and they didn't want me saying their name anymore. Um, so we had to take those down, and we were doing really we really well with those ads because people were really locking in on them. Um, people connected with them. I was really making an impact. I mean, dude, I used to get upset with people's comments, like people would call me names all the time, right? Like the biggest thing people call me a clown, and I don't know why, man. That hurt the most. Like, if anybody's watching this and you want to hurt me, just call me a clown, man. I don't know.

Host 4:00:26

I'm over it now, but just don't read the YouTube comments, bro. The bots will be in there with the clown emojis.

Johnny Raushi 4:00:32

Man, that's cool, whatever. I don't care. Uh hey man, it's engagement, it'll help. Um, I know how the algorithm loves that shit, but um people would call me a clown and that I don't know what I'm doing. And I was like, Oh, I'm on to something. That was my evidence that I needed to know that I was poking a bear.

Host 4:00:47

Yeah, it's probably uh that same company that owns the chatbots that are running it, man. Like it's that's how dirty the system is.

Johnny Raushi 4:00:55

And I didn't want to be a part of that system. And essentially, I was pointing at the system on camera and saying, look at how fucked up the system is. Why do you want to be a part of this? I have a solution for you to get out. It's simple. Just stop buying it from them, find a way to make it yourself, talk to your community, go to a farmer's market, find a way to do it yourself.

Host 4:01:13

And there is, I I I really do feel there's a silent movement where people are waking up. I I do think, you know, the whole COVID thing really opened people's eyes to kind of what was going on and this, you know, misplaced trust. I think some of us had already uh got rid of that trust a long time ago. But for some people, that was a defining moment. Um, and then you know, it is a really cool time to be alive with health and science and you know, the pendulum swinging back towards, you know, the holistic. Because again, man, 10, 15 years ago, people who did yoga and you know, did all this kind of stuff, they were woo-woo retards that had no idea fast forward, they were all right. And oh, that stuff is super healthy for you. And you know, when you stop doing the mainstream whatever and and find organic and holistic, whether it's food, exercise. Um, you know, plant, whatever, man. Like your quality of life is significantly better. Really crazy.

Johnny Raushi 4:02:06

Dude, I truly believe that there's nothing new under the sun. I truly believe that when it comes to an elemental and a matter perspective, there is nothing new under the sun. Nothing is being created. It's all being evolved.

Host 4:02:16

Well, and then for those of us that that are believers too, man, it's like like, you know, God was too stupid, he couldn't give us everything we needed.

Johnny Raushi 4:02:22

Right. Like you're born, you're you're literally born with everything you need, and then you're shaped throughout your life, and that's called culture. It's it shapes you.

Host 4:02:30

And you know, we we're we're gonna get to that section, but you start talking about psychedelics ayahuasca and ibogaine, both you know, grown in the ground, and it's funny that the creator, whoever you believe that is, you know, uh you know, uh a boga is a ground up root from Africa, yeah. I mean, and you grind that and it can change your life. So the fact that we can't we think we have to invent things out of petrol chemicals that come out of the ground, God didn't provide us with enough.

Johnny Raushi 4:02:53

Like He we know what's better. We've got to synthetically make it's a downfall of mankind, which uh, you know, whatever. I uh if mankind will fall, I think it's fallen before, you know.

Host 4:03:00

Well, kind of as we wrap up Johnny's Johnny Slicks, um, I still have a couple more questions because there's a ton of other stuff I want to cover to you. Forbes named your pomade one of the best grooming products uh in 2021. You went from selling plasma to buy ingredients to bean and forbes. Was there a moment where that actually landed where like you and Nick and Allie and Rebecca were like, oh shit, man, like we did something.

Johnny Raushi 4:03:21

Yeah, I used to walk around in um in my manufacturing facility. Like I used Christmas break as kind of like like we give the team off for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I used to walk around like at night in the lab and turn the lights on, and that way there's like the windows are pitch black, I can't see anything, and no one's outside, and I would just look around, man. And it passes by so fast, but it also goes so slow at the same time. Time is is the most confusing concept for me. Um it's not linear, it seems to be scattered but also non-existent. Like you don't like the the past is only memories, and it's a very specific perspective you have of your memories. And then the future is a concept, it doesn't even exist. So all you have is right now, and right now is gone since I said it. You know what I mean? So it's like it's fleeting, but it's going slow at the same time. I don't know, man. It's super surreal. But I would walk into the lab and I would look around and be like, dude, I got wires hanging from here, I got compressor machines over here, I got pneumatic machines, I got assembly lines, I got totes of ingredients, I got con X shipping containers out there, and I'm like, dude. I remember all my ingredients used to like I used to lay out all of my ingredients on my counter of my kitchen table. Now I have six shipping containers, four climate control storage units, I have two bays with multiple units uh or multiple offices, I have a fulfillment office over there with a 40-foot connex, and then I have a media department, like it like I can't stop this ship if I tried, man. Like this shit is going, you know? And that was kind of the point all along is um, you know, granted, and success is just an extra on top of it. If I can if I can, you know, selfishly, I solved my issue. I'm good. But now on top, I get to help other people, and on top of that, we get to make money and pay people. Everything is just an added bonus on top of that, you know. I mean, it all started with just my hair loss and my problem and solving it for me, and then realizing that there could be much more than that. Um, I can help more people, I can serve more people, I can be there for more people, and we can keep making this badass product naturally, organically, and American made. Um but yeah, every time we hit a milestone, we always say it's it's hard for entrepreneurs and and guys who just keep going to stop and like smell the roses, right? It's really difficult because you're like, there's always something to do. I mean, you just said last night, like there's always something to do, man. You're oh yeah, dude. You're at your house and there's always something to do, whether it's like charging something or rearranging, or it there's always something. Like you can clean the TV screen. I'm not saying your TV screen's dirty. There's always something, man.

Host 4:06:08

You can vacuum the rug, you can do there's always and when you're a business owner striving for success, whether it's a podcast or a cosmetic company. I mean, like again, to your point, you could do that 24-7 and still never do that.

Johnny Raushi 4:06:18

There's no eight-hour workday, there's no vacation time, there's no perfect time, it's just now.

Host 4:06:22

And it's always funny when people see your success, right? Because they're like, oh, that guy's, you know, he got lucky, or oh, oh, you know, he's got a multi-million dollar business. He he just he he he got luck with or whatever, man. But they don't see the, you know, that's why it's fun to tell these stories on the podcast, right? They don't see the you eating ramen, you know, with your with your wife, you know, with 12 bucks, nothing to your name, you know what I mean? Like tomorrow's the gift, right?

Johnny Raushi 4:06:46

On Black Fridays, I would cook product, I would be in the lab until three in the morning cooking product to supply us for our 30% off sale, which in theory, I need to cook 30% more than I normally cook, which requires 30% more time, right? Um now with scalability, I can make 30% more with 5% of my time. You know, it's scaling, you you hit a certain threshold, but I would be in the lab until three in the morning um producing enough product to supply us for Black Friday based on my analytics and my and my um previous sales, and then I would be getting the website ready to launch and launching the products at 6 a.m. to be live for Black Friday, sending the emails out and stuff. And like Black Friday is Thanksgiving, so guess who didn't get Thanksgiving? You know what I mean? Like people don't see that stuff, but it's what it costs to build your dream. It's the universe is constantly asking you how hard are you willing to work for what you want? Constantly. How much are you willing to give up? How much are you willing to let go? And how much are you willing to do for your vision and your reality to become how you want it to be?

Host 4:07:47

Well, one of the things that my wife and I were talking as we left dinner with you guys last night is you guys embody the American dream, right? Like you had had an idea and a vision, and you relentlessly went after it with everything you had. Yeah, that is the American dream, right? If you work hard. So we tell our kids. That's what I tell my kids. Like, nobody's gonna give you anything, dude. No, yeah. Work for it. But if you work for it, you know, if you um, if you put your you know, your your effort into it, and you know, look, man, there's always things that could go wrong. And you know, you look at Elon Musk, you know, he there he was hours and not moments away from losing Tesla, yeah, and then you know finally became now he's you know, fast forward, he's the wealthiest dude in the nation. But if you listen to that story, like his business story, and and it's reciprocated in other businesses. I mean, listen to your story. You guys went from you know, nothing, no, you know, uh giving plasma to uh you know an uh an an eight-digit business, but you worked for it, like nobody gave it to you.

Johnny Raushi 4:08:45

It's relentlessness, is something I've learned to kind of have pride in. It's you ever hear the analogy where they take a water bottle, it's uh a dollar fifty at the grocery store here, but six dollars at the airport. Same bottle of water, just a different environment. There was a social study done about a um world-renowned uh violist? Piano Violinist, violinist, yeah. I'm hey you're trying to make it a little more bougie. Just a guy, man.

Host 4:09:12

Trying to make it a little more bougie.

Johnny Raushi 4:09:14

Yeah, uh pianist, you know. Um he was a world-renowned guy and he just performed like a um like this massive choir. He'd be millions of dollars, like people paid a thousand dollars to take it to be there, ten thousand seats, whatever it'd be. And the next day he was on a subway in New York uh playing same music with a little hat outside, he made three dollars. Same, it was a two million dollar uh violin as well. And they said it doesn't matter the person, the skill, or the passion, it depends on environment. If you're gonna be reciprocated or not, is based on your environment. So that comes into relentlessness. You could be doing the right thing at the wrong place. And if you continue to do that, you're bashing your head against a wall, wondering why it's not opening. Like the door is over there, bro. You just gotta walk three steps down and there's a door. So, like, how long will it take you to pull a door that says push on it before you're like, I'm gonna do something different. So if you're doing if you're trying to start a carpentry business or trying to do real estate, and the universe is saying, How how how bad do you want this? How hard do you want this? It's relentlessness to be like, I'm gonna keep doing this. Okay, this isn't working. What can I do different? And it might just be your environment. It might just be we have ads that we spent like 60 grand filming this commercial, um, and we put it on Instagram, dude. Nothing, nobody saw it, nobody ever liked it, didn't do well. We put on YouTube, skyrocketed. Same piece of content, different environment.

Host 4:10:43

I've seen that with the podcast, man. And we don't even like right now, we don't invest a lot in social media, man. I've got like 9,000 Instagram followers. We've had that thing for well over a year, and I can't, but you know, no. Well, then you take YouTube, man, and you know, we hit we we went from 300 to 160,000 with 90 million views. Same content. Like insane.

Johnny Raushi 4:11:02

Yeah, it it's but it's so we are no different than that. Like it's all about where you are in your environment. Like you might not be happy in living in Missouri. If you move to Florida, you might be a completely different person filled with happiness. It's about your environment and where you are, not what you're doing, as long as you're doing what's right.

Host 4:11:20

I wanted to ask you this, uh, as as since you are such a small business uh business owner that grew into it now, uh, you know, a very big growing company. Um did you find that like there was a lot of naysayers when you started? Like people like, oh, that's gonna be, you know, don't do that, or or yeah, for sure.

Johnny Raushi 4:11:36

Yeah. I had I I mean, even my family members were like, you should do this, you should do that. All it always drove me nuts up until like maybe last year when people say you should do this. I always thought that was like I don't know. I still gotta let me trip on some ass and talk to you about that.

Host 4:11:54

Well, I mean, I think the thing for me that I thought was interesting, dude, is people, you know, I had a lot of people tell me, hey man, there's 3.6 million podcasts, nobody's, you know, you're you're you're going into a niche where everybody's at.

Johnny Raushi 4:12:03

Yeah.

Host 4:12:03

Um, and but then at some point, because again, dude, I think early on I was seeking self-validation, right? And is this worth it? Am I doing the right thing?

Johnny Raushi 4:12:09

Yeah, yeah.

Host 4:12:10

Is the universe really pushing me? But then I realized some of the people I was taking advice from, I don't know if it was even Vice, but I was listening to them, were people that would never have the guts to do what I was doing to begin with.

Johnny Raushi 4:12:19

That's where that came up for me. When people said you should do this, um, I had people say you should get on QVC, you should do this, you should do that, you should whatever, right? You should um cut your prices in half. You should. I think it was even my dad who said your prices are too expensive. If you cut them in half, you'll get double the customers. So where the fuck are you getting that information from? What does that exist? Like, you're telling me Ferrari should cut their price in half because they want their brand to be out there more? Like, no, bro, they pull cars back from people if they misrepresent their brand. I'm not trying to be the Honda, I'm trying to be the fucking Rolls Royce of this company, you know, of this of this industry. And um, they don't negotiate price, man. Like you go in, you don't negotiate a Rolls Royce price. There's a race to the bottom. And I heard um uh a mentor of mine back in the day, he said, those at the bottom compete, those at the top collaborate. I thought that was genius, bro. And the saying that I live by is if you don't want their advice, don't take no I'm sorry, I'm fucking this all up. If you don't want their life, don't take their advice. Good friend Cody Alford said that to me one time. He probably doesn't even remember he said it to me, he was just saying it in a conversation. Um if you don't want their life, don't take their advice. And I kind of scrutinized it a little bit. I wrote it in my book actually, um, and I put if you don't want that aspect of their life, don't take their advice. Because if you walk down the street in Las Vegas and you see a homeless man and he's happy, I don't want his life, but I want his happiness, I want that aspect. So if he gives me advice on how to buy a home, I'm not gonna take it. But if he gives me advice on how to find peace, I might sit and listen. So it's an it's about the aspect of their life. And when someone says you should do this, uh dude, I've had people, I've had unsolicited people come to my office, not joking at all. This just happened like a few weeks ago, and get with Brendan, the the head of manufacturing, and say, Hey, tell Johnny he should do this. He should get um his all of his cars wrapped, right? Um, it's a tax write-off, right? Get all of your cars wrapped with your with your marketing on it. Um he should do this. I said, Can I can I please see his business? It's like, and like a little bit my ego comes out, and I'm like, can I see where he is on the Inc. 5000 list? Is he on the fastest growing companies in America? Because you know, I am, you know. Um that ego survives for a second and then it's vanished. But I'm like, I appreciate him offering. He's trying what's best. It worked for him. I appreciate that, but that's not gonna work for me, man, because now I got people that are driving like assholes with my car with my logo on their car, you know? And I'm not saying my team does, but I'm not gonna have some random person driving with my logo on their car and they're cutting in and out of traffic and flipping people off because now people are gonna associate that action with my business. So no. And I can find better tax write-offs by buying equipment and writing it off on RD, which is beneficial for my business. That's not really beneficial. So I used to get that a lot. I used to get triggered by it, bro. I used to get, I don't know if you can tell, I used to get triggered by it, but um, now it's like I appreciate it. People are looking out, and uh there was somebody that said to me a while back, I went to um what was called strategic coach. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. I went to Strategic Coach, and um somebody said to me, it was pretty like mind-boggling to me. He uh he said, when someone says um you should do this, or you have a vision of an idea, um, and they say, Have you thought of this? Does that bother you? I said, Yeah, kind of sometimes because it makes me sound like they believe I can't do it. And he's like, Well, what if I told you that a carpenter can't sand wood without sandpaper? What if that person is your sandpaper? They're filing and sanding down your vision so it becomes perfectly smooth. And I was like, Oh shit, that's a really good idea. So now when I'm like, hey, I'm gonna come up with cologne, someone's like, Oh, you should do glass bottles, and I'm like, hmm, okay, that's a good idea. And they're like, you should do it in a tall, skinny bottle. Like, nah. They're just helping me fine-tune my vision because realistically, I didn't know what I wanted it to look like, and they're helping me right now in their own way. I mean, the the song Dude Looks Like a Lady from Aerosmith came out of an idea circle that they have, they just sit down and talk. There's no good ideas, there's no bad ideas, there's just ideas. And somebody said something and it led to Dude Looks Like a Lady, it's one of their best-selling songs. So it's like when somebody says you should do this, I no longer write it off or think of them as uh obstacle or hindrance or somebody who can't believe in me. I look at the universe, sent that idea to that person in my path to provide me some sort of sandpaper for my vision to get me exactly where I want to be, or at least think about potential problems I might encounter along the way.

Host 4:16:56

CVS is about to put you in stores. Is that publicly known?

Johnny Raushi 4:17:00

Yeah, we're in 120 CVS stores now, the higher end ones right now. Yeah. And then depending on how sales go, they're gonna put us in like 4,000 of them nationwide.

Host 4:17:10

Uh, that's a completely different kind of company than the one selling pomade on Instagram for your house.

Johnny Raushi 4:17:15

Yeah, tell me about it.

Host 4:17:17

Are you ready for that version of Johnny Slicks? What do you think that looks like?

Johnny Raushi 4:17:19

Oh, yeah, for sure. I've been waiting for it, man. I'm awesome. I'm ready for it.

Host 4:17:23

I have everything as I go back in my mind to your like Excel spreadsheet.

Johnny Raushi 4:17:26

I'm ready, bro. If they if they tell me they want eight million dollars worth of product and they want the top five sellers, I can tell them exactly within 60 seconds exactly how much that will cost me in COGS, labor, shipping times, the weight of it, I can tell them every single thing that they need. I I can even tell them what state are they going to and the taxes I'll need to pay on that. I have it all down to a T. So I am completely ready. If if somebody comes around a retail like that, comes around and they say they want X, Y, and Z, say they even say I want their bottom five sellers for some reason. Same answer. I have the exact same system to give them the exact number they need. Margin-wise, I can give them 50% keystone pricing. If you give me net 30 payment terms, I we have all of this ready, ready to go, man.

Host 4:18:06

Before we close out, Johnny Slicks, I just want to talk a little bit about, you know, the the products that you guys sell. Um, obviously, people can go to the website, etc. But what's kind of some of your favorite or what what what's done really well? I know you guys are expanding into deodorant, which I'm really excited about. There's so much shit in deodorant, and yeah, um and there's not a lot of good ones out there, especially natural ones.

Johnny Raushi 4:18:26

It's hard, man, because it's it's not natural for humans to wear something like that. You know what I mean? Like it's like think about our ancestors, like they wore oils and stuff to smell good. They're floral, floral oils. Floral oils. Yeah. I'm not the smartest guy in the room, you know. So um you just have to be able to say it.

Host 4:18:44

You don't have to spell it, bro. Yeah, no, thank you. I appreciate it. I can barely fucking say it, dude.

Johnny Raushi 4:18:48

Um, but they wore simple things, you know what I mean? And it's like like antiperspirant, for instance. And I'm not trying to go on a uh deodorant tangent, but your body releases toxins naturally, right? Especially with the American nutrition and things that are in our food, our bodies need to purge these toxins. And if you wear an antiperspirant, it's blocking, it's literally anti-sweat, anti-water, anti-moisture. So it's avoiding, it's clogging those pores so they don't sweat. If your body can't purge those ingredients, it's gonna stay in there, bro. That's gross. That's where cancer comes in, that's where all those diseases come in. So people are like, well, I have to wear an antiperspirant because I sweat a lot. You're supposed to sweat, man. It's very natural. Feet sweat too. Like everything sweats. It's okay. Our bodies are meant to sweat. That's why we're not like dogs and cats. Don't they release uh temperature through their pads and their nose, right? And their tongue. That's why dogs pant. We as human beings have you know adapted and evolved to be able to sweat to maintain temperature and purge toxins. You're blocking those pores just so your t-shirts don't get sweat marks on them. Like, bro, you're killing yourself. You're slowly killing yourself over time just so you look good today. Like, it's okay to sweat, man. Maybe look at your diet. Maybe your diet's mess what's making you purge so much, you know. Don't just cover up those decisions, find the root of it. Um, so I finally, finally finished the formula. It took me like four years to finish a deodorant formula. Um that's clean. I can pronounce everything, uh, sourced all American, and it's actually really fun to make. Like it's a mess. Like I use uh a salt-bonded steric acid, loric acid in it, and it's it gives it like that nice sudsy type of like soft feel to it. Um, kind of gel-like, you know. Um, but dude, it is like I it's gotta be lighter than oxygen because it fucking flies. It looks like it's snowed in the lab when we make it. Yeah, I have to make a whole pressurized exhaust room for it just because it's such a mess. But um we have fun doing it, you know what I mean? It's easy to make. But um, the products I have done the most, the the well, the best, um, the most well out of all these shampoo conditioner, body wash, or beast wash line, those are you know, everyone uses shampoo, conditioner, body wash. Um, some people don't use liquid wash, some people use bar soap. So we have a bar soap as well. Um, beard oil and pomade, oil-based pomade is what I started with, and that's what helped me. Um, we have a beard wash, which I use as a thinning hair wash. It increases blood flow through the peppermint. Um, but it's listed as a beard wash. But most people use it as a face wash, so I gotta do something when it comes to the label to kind of help. Um, I learned in business while pursuing my marketing degree, I learned confused consumers don't buy. Well, yeah, if you look at these products, um, a good friend of mine, he actually said they all look the same, man. I gotta read it to pick it up in the shower. And I was like, shit, I have to do that too. And he goes, So if you have to pick it up and see that you're using shampoo, and what do you think your consumers have to do? And I was like, damn it, bro, you're right. So we're working on using color as kind of like a identifier for you know consumers to make the original red and rugged green and paradise kind of orange, and then I'm gonna try to figure out something with like the caps or the label color to kind of help identify it. But shampoo, conditioner, body wash, oil-based pomade, beard wash, we have beard oil. Um, and then obviously I used oil-based pomade in the Marine Corps, and I thought that was like the most popular. Some guys use clay-based pomade. If you have like blonde hair, red hair, gray hair, or thinning hair. Um, I use bentonite clay, which is a magnet magnetically felt uh ingredient, which is why most people don't use it. But it cleanses pores and it adds volume to your hair by swelling the hair follicle. So blonde hair, gray hair, red hair, and thinning hair use a clay-based pomade to kind of like swell the hair follicle, make the hair look more full, and it styles it without a shine.

Host 4:22:30

So that that's the one that's made with like without the beeswax?

Johnny Raushi 4:22:32

It's made with beeswax, but it doesn't have an it doesn't have as much oils in it. I use bentonite clay to kind of absorb those metals uh or those uh oils, and it's magnetic. So it's really temperamental to work with. Most people use like C clay or candlelin clay, like big companies. Uh, I've I've found a solution from bentonite clay, and bentonite clay is like incredible for your skin. That's what I use on my beard, dude.

Host 4:22:51

That's why I need to style my beard because if not, my beard gets like pretty wild.

Johnny Raushi 4:22:54

Right. So it does, it's great. It has matte finish and a strong hold. So you don't have this crazy shine. You know, if you have blonde hair, you don't want a high shine, you want something matte and that provides more volume. Um, and then we have a water-based pomade, which is water soluble, it's shea butter-based and castor oil-based, and it gives you a strong hold and a high finish. So it nice shine and a strong hold. Um, so we have pomade types for every hairstyle, and you know, oil-based pomade works just like you said in your beard. So the pomades work in your beard, um, everything because, and I believe that the less ingredients you use, the more versatile it is. So it like coconut oil, you can use coconut oil to bake with. You can take a teaspoon of coconut oil to help your digestive in the morning. Like you can eat it. Um, you can use it to wax your floors. You can do it, there's so many things you can do with coconut oil. It's when these companies start adding 35 ingredients. Now it's specific to a foot cream. Don't use it on your hands, it's only for your feet. What the fuck? That doesn't make any sense. So, in my my mentality, is why should a product be exclusively for your head hair and not your beard hair? That doesn't make any sense. Or your forearms and not your legs. If it's a moisturizer for skin, shouldn't it moisturize all skin everywhere? Um, so the less ingredients you use, the more versatile the product becomes, which is our mentality. I mean, some of these products only have five ingredients in them: beeswax, coconut oil, argan, hojoba, beeswax, um, no, beeswax, coconut, argan oil, hooba oil, tea tree oil, peppermint oil. Like, if it's not one of those six, it's like shea butter, castor oil, like little castile soap, but they're all super simple, um, and versatile as well. So you can use them. Um, I get a question often can women use them? The products don't know gender, they don't know age, they don't know race, they just know what to do. So if you're a man, you're a woman, you can use them on your children.

Host 4:24:38

Um, I just say my son steals my pomad, dude. I actually buy a couple of them now because that joker.

Johnny Raushi 4:24:43

I just you're welcome because how hard is it to get young boys to actually take pride in their health and shower? Yeah. Um, we're slowly shifting the American youth into actually taking care of their appearance and smelling good, especially at that age.

Host 4:24:56

Yeah, because the stuff smells awesome.

Johnny Raushi 4:24:57

Yeah, yeah. I take great pride and like I mentioned earlier, that aromatherapy. Um, because I was born with synesthesia, I kind of like learned how to tap into that and make these unique scent profiles. Um, I'm a big fan of Gene Wilder and Willy Wonka. I love the movies and him as an actor, um, and a man in general, but I like to consider myself the Willy Wonka of aromatherapy and scent profiles because I like it to be kind of like your tongue, your nose has a first, second, and tertiary scent profile. So you smell things and sometimes it hits the tip of your nose and your eyes. It's like in the first phase of your scent profile. Then you have second, and then third is all the way in the back of your throat. So sometimes you'll smell things and you can almost taste in the back of your throat. My job and my passion is to make scents that do all three where you smell it and it hits the tip of your nose all the way to the back of your throat and comes all the way back. And maybe it smells a little bit differently when it mixes with your natural pheromones, which is why I legally have to say we're not liable for any injuries or pregnancies due to the aromas of our fragrances, because there are confirmed pregnancies where I had a husband and a wife message me and say, Omega smelled so good on him, now we're pregnant. And I'm like, I am not liable. I cannot afford all of these kids that Johnny Slicks is causing, but we're slowly repopulating the American people by doing this. Um, but you do get those next snapping looks from your spouse, which is the point of you taking care of yourself to attract. It's a very survival thing for us as men to attract our women. Um, and these products will help mix with your natural pheromones, and she won't be able to keep her hands off you.

Host 4:26:28

Yeah, and that was I mean, that's a big reason why I think I I I reached out to you um for for the interview. I've been using your shit for a long time. So it's not like we brought you in here, you're not a sponsor, you're not paying me to say this. Like, I've been using your products for you know what, since 2018.

Johnny Raushi 4:26:41

Yeah.

Host 4:26:41

Um, and and you know, I'm I'm pretty picky. And normally when I find something good, so I'm I mean, I've been with you guys for forever. So yeah, this isn't some like gimmick or ploy where we're talking about Johnny Slicks. I mean, I'm I get compliments on my beard all the time. People always ask me, like, hey, what do I use? And I'm always like, I've been using Johnny Slicks stuff since uh, you know, 2018.

Johnny Raushi 4:26:59

Yeah, yeah. And I appreciate that, man. Because of people like you and you, um, we've been able to continue growing this. Like, if we didn't have customers and slicksers, we I would still be in my kitchen, man. Shit, I don't know where I'd be, but I wouldn't be here.

Host 4:27:11

Well, it's cool, man. I mean, you're you're supporting a lot of other businesses as well as your employees, man. So it's it's cool to be a small part of that. Um, as we transition, man, I mean, there's so many different levels to who um who Johnny is, but you know, you wrote a book. I was actually reading it this morning. Um, 23 Virtues in in 23 Days. Tell me a little bit about the genesis. Where did the idea come from? What's it about?

Johnny Raushi 4:27:33

Um, my life changed when I discovered that I, as a normal dude, can have core values based on the culture I want in my life. And once I identified those core values and I started living in those core values, my life has been fulfilled, filled with purpose and love. And I want that for other people. So just like my thin hair, I found a solution for myself and I just want to serve and give people the opportunity to experience the little bit of experience that I have living my life. Um, and normally when I talk to people, I'll ask them about core values and they're like, I don't know anything about that. I'm not, that's not, I'm not into that. Everybody has core values. If you don't have them identified, then when a decision needs to get made in your life, you might not choose the right one because you're not in line with those virtues. So for me, like I mentioned earlier, compassion, empathy, love, kindness, um, those are my virtues. And then I have like certain other ones like transparency, vulnerability, communication. Um when a decision needs to get made or an incident happens in my life, or I'm going through something and experience, that is my backbone. Those are my those are that's my structure, that's my foundation. So when something happens, I always say, and I write it in the book actually, the first day is patience. So you should be constantly asking yourself, what would a patient person do in this situation? Do that. I took that concept from what would Jesus do? Jesus was very patient, he was very kind, he was very loving. What would Jesus do in this situation? What would a patient person do? So in my mind, I'm at the DMV and somebody snaps at me. The DMV lady, she's she's upset. She tells me I need form X, Y, and Z, and I need to go fill these out, and I need to pay $300,000 for this whatever. It's very easy if you're not structured on your values to just snap back at her. She's just living her life, man. It's not her fault that you got put here and you didn't fill out form X, Y, and Z. It's not your fault. She's just doing her job. She might be going through her own shit. Seneca said, be kind to everybody, for everyone is fighting a harder battle than you. Perspective, empathy, compassion. So in my mind, she's going through, she's yelling at me, she's telling me that I need to fill out X, Y, and Z. What would a loving person do? What would a patient person do? Probably ask her how she's doing. How I can help. What what smile? Like, you know what I mean? That's what that type of person would do. And it's all about becoming the best version of yourself, be being a human becoming. I want to become a patient person. Um there's a I forget who says it, but he says, in order to fall asleep, one must first pretend to be sleeping. That's very true. You need to do everything as if you're sleeping. Lay down, close your eyes, get comfortable, get under your blankets, have a little lavender diffuser. As if you were sleeping. Pretend. That's how you fall asleep. You can't fall asleep doing this. You gotta pretend to be sleeping to fall asleep. So, how do you become patient? Be patient. How do you become loving? Be loving. How do you become a good person? Do good things. It's not just gonna happen. Um, God doesn't create, like, you can't pray for courage and wake up tomorrow courageous. God will provide you opportunities to become courageous, right? That's like a very basic universal law. So, in my mind, this book, people need to identify what core values they they value, like what culture they want to value in their life. But if you ask a normal person the core values, they can name a million. Everybody can. There's millions of them. It's overwhelming. So in my mind, I'll just give you one that you're gonna focus on today. And there's a great saying that says the teacher will appear when the student is ready. I believe the teacher is always present. I believe the teacher is the universe, God, however you want to name it. I I believe we're talking about the same entity. We're just using different words because words are trying to be describing an experience or an entity. We're all saying the same thing. We're talking about the same thing, that energy. Um, but I believe that teacher is always present and always trying to teach us. But until we're ready to learn, you're not going to be aware of it. So there's that study that says next time you drive in your car, look for red cars. And you'll see red cars everywhere, right? Because the student is ready. The teacher appears. So in this avenue, the teacher is the red cars, and the student is your awareness for the red cars. In my book, the student is a person who is willing to find patience, find opportunities to become patient. And when you wake up in the morning, it's a daily devotional. So when you wake up in the morning and you read the word patience, where it originates from a quote about somebody who shook the world or or uh shaped the world about their perspective of patience, and then you read five internal examples of patience that you'll encounter, like you're injured, have patience with this with yourself to heal. Um, you you rose your hand in class, you raise your hand in class, and it was the wrong answer. Have patience with yourself. It's okay to be wrong. It's okay. Be patient with yourself. And then five examples external on, you know, you're sitting in traffic, you go to the DMV, your spouse um snaps at you. Those are all the teacher appearing in your life, providing you an opportunity to say, what would a patient person do in this scenario? Your job is to identify those opportunities. It's not to pass the test, like you're not always gonna pass the test, and that's okay. But if you can identify that opportunity, like you're sitting in traffic and you're like, this is a good opportunity to be patient, and then you land your horn and you flip people off, bro. That's an infinite amount more than you did yesterday. Because now you acknowledged that the opportunity was present for you. Then the next day, what are you gonna do? Maybe you spend five minutes listening to your favorite podcast or your favorite song and you're breathing, but then you flip people off and you're around your horn. That's an infinite amount more than you did yesterday. And our goal is to be 1% better today than we were yesterday. That's our goal as human beings. So every day you practice one virtue: patience, calm, transparent communication, perspective, tradition breaking. Um, I provide the the origin of the word, like calm, which we've spoken about. Calm originates from calma, which is Greek for the heat of the day, which was like I think I looked up the wrong thing. I'm in the wrong dictionary or something. That doesn't make any sense at all. Um, and then I learned about um, I think it's called siesta, when they take a break midday because it's so hot. Um heat of the day, where everyone would stand still. So the word originated in Greek meaning stillness. That makes sense now. Then think about the word calm. When I say be calm, it means be still. When someone says calm down to me, it means be still, just settle. That's what it means. So now that you know the word, the origin of the word, now you when you like find an opportunity, you're like, oh, stillness. And I'm hoping that the finding the origin of the word will help the person understand what the word truly means in their life, and then they can find the opportunity and grasp that opportunity and actually get something out of that opportunity. Because when you're sitting in traffic, man, it's not a problem, it's an opportunity. Everything happening in your life is an opportunity for you to gain an experience, learn, love, and help the people around you. So this first book, 23 Versues in 23 Days, is just a 23-day devotional. Um, I'm not a Michael Jordan fan, I'm not a basketball. I don't understand the shootings of the baskets and stuff, but 30 days. Oh, dude, I have issues with commitment. Like, I am like, I want to like commitment for me is like, I just want to change. I want to do something like today. I did something completely opposite from yesterday just to see what would happen. Like, I Rebecca is like exhausted by my change. I'm constantly changing. I'm like driving the car backwards to work just seeing what will happen. Like, I'm ridiculous with the shit. But 30 days is too long for me. And I was like, okay, well, I'll do a seven-day. I feel like that's not enough commitment. I feel like that's a really small book. Seven virtues is kind of simple. So I was like, okay, I'll do 25. And I was like, I don't like 25. It's too round, it's too like eh ugly. Uh so I wrote out all the virtues and I had 25. And then I saw that um perspective and perception are very similar, and a lot of people use them interchangeably. So I was like, I wonder if I can combine them and shorten it down to 24. And I was like, 24 is an even number. Oh, I don't know about that. I was like, fuck it, I'll just do 23. So I think I combined um tradition breaking and asking questions. I had one that was like question everything. Um, because virtues could be anything, man. Like Ben Franklin had a virtue as always carry a pen and paper. Just just a rule of his life. That's the virtue. Like when he goes about his day, he always has a pen and paper for whatever reason. He might not write anything down, but that was his daily like virtue. He believed in that and uh it paid off for him. That's why he wrote it. But 23 just stuck. Um, and then my hope and my goal is obviously I wrote it for myself. That's why patience is day one, because I need patience, I believe more than anybody. Um my my goal is that I identify the virtues that are valuable to me, and then I learn how to observe those opportunities, and then learn what a patient, calm, tradition-breaking, perspective person would do in that scenario. And then eventually I become that version of myself. So then I'm no longer even finding the opportunities to be patient. I'm just the guy that sits in traffic playing the drums on the dash and having a grand time in my life because I've practiced so much that I now I am embodying that virtue, and it's in every breath of my life.

Host 4:37:07

You wanted to write a book for years before you actually did it. The original idea was a gentleman's guide, etiquette, how to carry yourself. What stopped you from writing that book and why did it never feel right?

Johnny Raushi 4:37:17

I well, in my mind, the gentleman's guide was cool, but it wasn't it didn't feel right. I it's very specific to an industry. I never really liked specifically our society over other societies. Like, our country is super fucking young. Like some of these books I read, like Lao Zhu's, Tao Dijing, like it's 1200 BC. Like, that book is old, man, and it doesn't talk about anything that we value in this country. Like, we're we're like losing our hair and going into like fist fights over things that like do not matter at all. And we think that it's like the end of the world because of something that's happening in this country that's less than 300 years old. It's like, bro, these books are written thousands of years before Christ, and it talks very similar to Christ, and it's all about love and kindness and empathy and feeling one another with each other. And when I was writing the gentleman's guide, one of the rules was and this is the one that broke me, uh you know, pun unintended. It said, never cut bread, break bread. And I was like, What the fuck? Like, how like that's a rule, like from old England. Um another one is don't put your elbows on the table. It's a gentleman's guide, how to be a gentleman, right? And then I looked up why, which is the rebellious, you know, spirit in me to ask questions. You know why we don't put elbows on the table? Because back in the day, having a table, having a kitchen table in general was like royalty, man. That's where that originated from, having tables. But the way that the poor would set up the tables is they would take two saw horses and put a plaque of wood on top. And it was so unsturdy that if you rested your elbows, it could tip the whole table. So that's where the saying, don't put your elbows on the table came from. And it started to be a part of our culture, of our society. Bro, that doesn't exist nowadays. Your table ain't gonna crush, it ain't gonna fall over. Your table is pretty sturdy. Like I saw it, like you got stuff on it. It's a nice table. So when I was writing that, I'm like, that doesn't make any sense, man. It's the same reason why um um why do we say bless you when someone sneezes? Back in the day, during the black plague and all that, we believed that it was God providing you the opportunity to repel demons outside from inside you. Now we know that it's just a tickle in your nose. Your sinuses are being tickled. But we still as a society say bless you when someone sneezes. Not when they cough, not when they burp, not when they fart, only specifically sneezing, which I think is like the strangest thing. We're just carrying on this culture that's from you know hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, and we never question why we are doing this. So when I was writing the gentleman's guide, the one that's was weird to me is never cut your bread, break it. And I was like, Did that originate during like times where people just didn't have knives or something? Like, what where did this come from? And what if I so if I cut bread, I'm not a gentleman, and then it kind of like took it off there, and I was like, I'm not really passionate about this, man. And and if I write this, if it doesn't feel right, and do I have to like what if I what if I write this and someone sees me cutting bread? Now I'm a phony. You know what I mean? I want to write something that's for me, that's gonna help me. And if it helps other people, cool. But if I'm not gonna write it for other people, it's too much pressure, man. So that's when um Matt Vincent, a friend, he actually said, Are you writing this book for you or for for other people? I said, Well, I'm writing it for me. He said, Then fucking do it, man. Who cares? Publish it. If one person buys it, you're already well past. If it helps you, that's the goal. So it took me, I had it like a rough draft within four weeks. Really? Yeah, I was I was done. That was in February. By the end of March, I was already had like I dude, I'm a perfectionist OCD. I printed it out, collated, like double-sided paper, and I actually made a mock book that I stapled and I handed out to mall my team. And I was like, Can you guys please make edits, read it, let me know what you like of it? And um there's a part of me that's like they all said they loved it because I'm their boss, you know what I mean? Like they like their jobs, you know what I mean?

Host 4:41:17

But I'm sure that's at least half of them, right?

Johnny Raushi 4:41:20

But I I wanted really just feedback, and there were some people that were like, dude, this is fucking awesome. And I based the book off of um the design of the book and the layout of the book from the Tao Dijing by Lao Tzu, because that book was life-changing for me. It's really short, simple to read. I love the structure of it, I love the simplicity of it. And um, I was honestly debating not putting my actual name on the book. I didn't want it to be about me. And I, through the writing of the book, I actually developed a really tight relationship with my ego. Like I can identify it and put it to the side pretty easily. Um, I understand the the conflict and the duality between saying I separate from my ego because saying I is your ego, I understand the duality and the conflict between that, but I can make decisions based on the sympathy of others and the in the empathy of others through the writing of this book. So I was like, I'm not gonna put my name on it. I'm just gonna do 23 Virtues in 23 Days and um not put my name on the book at all. Um, I and I got the idea too, I think from it was I got a 365-day devotional from a friend. Uh, it was written by a guy, dude. It's gotta be fake, I swear. His name, uh he's Korean, his name is Day Lee, like D-A-E-L-E-E. And I'm like, there's no fucking way. The guy who wrote a daily devotional's name is Day Lee. Like, there's no way, right? That can't be real. He's hiding behind a name. He just wrote the book, and I was like, that's actually really fucking smart. I want to come up with something witty like that. So my name isn't on the book. And Rebecca's like, no, man, take pride in what you did. You did this, like, it's a big deal. Like, write it, finish it, write your name, um, and be proud of that. And uh to this day, I mean, I don't, I don't really honestly, I have not looked at the analytics. I it's on Amazon, paperback, and Kindle, and I don't know if it's selling or not.

Host 4:43:12

Well, there'll be a link in the description below. Okay. I've uh I read the first couple pages, dude. It's definitely interesting. I'm I'm definitely looking forward to it. Thank you.

Johnny Raushi 4:43:18

Well, wait for my next ones, man.

Host 4:43:21

How many of the 23 virtues shifted meaning for you when you went back to look at the root of the word?

Johnny Raushi 4:43:27

Oh, actually a decent amount. Um, calm was one that always stuck with me just because it's so strange. Like normally when you see patience, you see like like I and honestly, I I forget some of them because you know it was a while ago since I wrote it, but like there's some of them that like the word derives from like old French and old English, and it's combined, and it makes sense, you know, like uh patience. Uh let's say it's old French, old English. It originates from uh to give time, you know, or something like that. It makes sense, but then when I read Calm, I was like, the heat of the day that that can't make sense. That that stuck with me because of that, and I'm really hoping it sticks with other people too, because it stuck with me, and I know that we're all kind of the same. So I'm hoping somebody's like, no fucking way, and they look it up and they're like, damn, that's crazy. So now they use the word a little bit different than we use it now. Another big one for me was actually perception and perspective. I've always heard them interchangeable, like between each other, like that's your perspective, or that's your perception. I from looking up the word and learning the origin and everything, I actually learned that perception is the information your senses gather, and perspective is what you label those senses as, or that that those things as. So when you go into a restaurant and it smells bad, your perception is the smell. Your perspective is the bad. So change your perspective means shift your good ideas from bad ideas, shift them. Like if you change your perspective essentially means like give other things, give something else a try. Give it a try, give it another try, change it. You know, you can't change your perception. Your perception, what you perceive, is just raw material that you're gathering. You walk into a room um or you eat a cheeseburger, the senses that you gather through like the vinegar, the the char, the wet lettuce, whatever it be, those specific things you can't really change. However, you can change. I don't like tomatoes, right? Try it again, change your perspective, try it again, try it in a different form, try it in a different way. Um I now understand the difference between perception and perspective, which I hope will provide people insight to be like just label it differently. How can something be good today and bad tomorrow? Try to challenge that part of your life. Maybe it's still good. Like I didn't like dude, I hated pickles as a kid. Uh now it's like I dude, I I want to go to pickle festivals, you know what I mean? Because I Gave it another try. It's like those type of things, you know. Um, let's give it a try. Sushi. I never liked sushi. Pokeh. I don't like poke. I learned that. I went to Hawaii. Nick was like, dude, you gotta try poke. It's great. It's ahi. They just caught it out back here. And I was like, okay, today's perspective shifting. I'm gonna change my perspective. Let me try it again. I don't like it, but I tried again, you know, and maybe next year I'll try it again. There might be a point in time where I acquire that taste. And now imagine if you never do that. You're now missing out on how much of life. You know what I mean? It's a good reminder to be like, yeah, I still don't like this, or like, oh shit, I do like this.

Host 4:46:35

You know, the central premise of the book is that there is no good or bad, only what is. You use the Chinese farmer parable to explain it. Can you tell us that parable and then tell me this the story of why that became such the philosophical spine of everything you wrote?

Johnny Raushi 4:46:49

Yeah, in in that culture, they have what's called ko-ons, k-o-an-s, which is essentially just like lessons, stories, and lessons, which are so powerful, man. And the Chinese farmer, um, I heard it originally from Alan Watts. He did a seminar and a lecture back in like the 70s, I think. Genius. The guy's like a philosophical, spiritual, like like mentor. He is amazing. I have every one of his lectures, and he's just such a loving guy. So he told the story of the Chinese farmer, which actually I think you can hear him speaking the lecture on Spotify. They put like cool sound behind it, so it's like a nice meditation. But um, the story of the Chinese farmer goes like this there's a Chinese farmer who has a bunch of horses, and one of the horses ran away. The farmspeople and all the neighbors come by and they say, We heard what happened. It's such a shame. And his reply was, maybe. The following day, he wakes up and he hears a stampede coming from outside. That horse that ran away came back with three wild horses. So the farmspeople heard the news, came on by, and they said, That's such a blessing. You have three more horses now. That's such a blessing. Are you aren't you happy? That's such a blessing. This is great. And he said, Maybe. The following day, his son was trying to tame one of those wild horses, and during that taming process, got bucked off and broke his wrist. After getting inside and getting all situated and everything, the farms people and the neighbors came by and they said, We heard what happened to your son. It's such a shame. This is such a bad day for you. And he said, Maybe. The following day after that, the army, the Chinese army, came by. They were pulling people, kids, for the draft. After going through his house, they saw his son had a broken wrist and they said, We can't take him. He has a broken wrist. Have a good day. And they left. And after the commotion kind of settled, the farms people came by and the neighbors and they all said, That's such a blessing. Today's such a great day. Your son didn't get drafted by the army. He's gonna live and he's gonna stay here with you. Isn't this so great? He said, Maybe. The point of that story is the fact that what's good today can become bad tomorrow, and what's bad today can become good tomorrow. So why label it? Why not just understand that whatever's happened to you is just that? It's just is. There is no good or bad. Your good or bad is based on your perception. Your perception is based on your culture, which is based on your experiences, which is very specific to you. So if someone comes in here and does wrong to you, what happens if that wrong taught you a life lesson that will help you serve other people throughout your next forty years of life? Wouldn't you say thank you to that man after doing that wrong to you? Same thing. If you give a homeless man money, um, and I'm not going down a um a side tangent of karma, but you give a homeless man money and he uses that money to buy drugs and overdoses, you did a good thing, but that man just killed himself with the money you gave him. Now, is that deemed a bad thing? It just is what it is. All you can do is be a good human being and go with the flow of it, man. There's a big um Alan Watts talks about it a lot. He talks of life as a stream, a river, and we're just floating down the river, man. You can grab onto the sides to try to hold on to this moment, or you can just let it go and just love that it it existed. Um with the river analogy, there are a lot of people swimming against the current, trying to go back up to the bank that they loved, right? The moments of their childhood or their um the job they loved, or they're chasing some sort of previous experience and they're swimming against the current. Then you have guys that are swimming with the current. Not only are they going and enjoying it, now they have the full force of the universe, the river, behind them, pushing them along. And there's so much power in that, man. Um, knowing that things will transition, knowing that things will change. Queen Elizabeth II said, Grief is the price we pay for love. It's beautiful, man. You have to be willing to be okay with that. So understand that there is no good or bad, there is just what it is. Always be um Marcus Aurelius and Seneca, they actually said, when in doubt, refer to always being a good person. Just refer to being a good person. If you live life like that and just take things as they are, there is no right or wrong. All of a sudden, the form of suffering is gone. You don't suffer. In Buddhism, they talk about suffering a lot. Suffering stems from actually Buddhism as a religion is the absence of suffering, trying to avoid the suffering as human beings. But human beings that are ego-based centric beings, we suffer. Suffering comes from the unattainable love or desire for something. So say you lose a loved one. That's a terrible thing, right? Like I'm a human being, I know that there's grief in that, I know there's a lot of suffering in that. The suffering comes from your unattainable desire to have them back. You cannot attain that, so you suffer. Buddhism stems from the work to go away from that suffering, how to let go of those moments and understand time changes and it's okay. Don't it's the whole analogy, like the or the saying, don't be sad it's gone, be happy it happened, right? All of that is in the same kind of realm of what I'm talking about. There is no good or bad. There is no there is no form of good that will exist forever. Everything changes. If you're happy with your relationship right now, one of you is eventually gonna die, man. It's it's true. It's sad, but it's true. If we all know death is inevitable and immortality exists, and we're we we're living life like that, then we know that things can go bad. Like I had a bad day today. If you look back at all of the moments in your life, and I were to I were to ask you to write like pivotal moments in your life, and then ask you if they were good moments or bad moments. A lot of people would say, like, high school graduation was good, the day of my my wedding was good, um, the day I graduated college was good, the day I graduated the military was good, right? However, I would deem all of those as bad moments if we were going to talk about it, highs and lows, right? The day of your wedding was I would consider a low moment, but every moment leading up to that, all the hard conversations, all the hard work, all of all of those struggles were highs in your life. Because if knowledge is the pursuit of life, like your life should be pursuing knowledge, you learned more in those moments than you did on the day of your wedding. For me, going through with my with Rebecca, selling plasma, electra turned off, car repoed, if you asked me at the time, those were lows in my life. But if you ask me right now, those were the biggest highs in my life because I learned more in those moments than I can ever ask for. Those were tuition payments that you can't get at any college. And if life is the pursuit of knowledge, then if you have to label it, label it as good, man. Be okay with it, but be willing to let go. And the Chinese farmer has a great analogy of that, or the parable of Koan, of that of just it is what it is, man. Like he broke his wrist today. I can be miserable, I can be a victim, I can be frustrated with that scenario. But like I said earlier, when that lady cut you off at that stop sign or that stoplight, she could have just saved your life because the next stoplight, you could have been T-boned if she wasn't there. So she just saved your life, man. So how can something bad also be something good? It can't. That there's you're talking about a yin and yang, a duality that doesn't exist, a conflict of something. Our our human mind can't comprehend time as a very non-linear thing. We see time as very linear. But when you start to break it up and look at time like it's grains on a in a in a on a beach, and you're hopping from one sand grain to another, and it's not linear. There are moments that are left and right, all decision making. You choose to go this way or that way. Like as a free will human being, I have the right to just I'm not going to because that would be rude, and I made a commitment, but I can just get up and walk out of this. You can too. That would be a choice you make. Whether you call it good or bad is based on your perspective, and obviously we have our choices, but when we look at time as linear, we start to see things as bad days, good days, good for me, bad for me, good for you, bad for me, all of these things, and then we start to the biggest concept I think came from it of ego. There's me, and there's everything other than me. And then everything that works for me and my pleasure is good, and everything that doesn't work for me and my pleasure is bad. And then all of a sudden you start living in a life that it's competition. Things are competing for my attention, my pleasure. And then you're just living in a conflict, man. And now everything's an enemy, people are against you, universe is against you. Um, and you're just walking down a path of things that just don't really serve you and allow you to be fulfilled and happy.

Host 4:55:32

You've said the book sits at the intersection of stoicism, Taoism, and Buddhism, but you pulled back because you didn't want it to go too far in that direction. Where's the line from you, and what were you trying to protect the reader from, you think?

Johnny Raushi 4:55:44

Yeah, I don't want to um, I realize my readers are going to be um American people. The point. You know, my my second book is called Ego and You, Um, How to Coexist With Yourself. Um, there's a lot of other cultures that spend a lot of time sitting, meditating, and observing their ego in hopes. And most religions and spiritualities do talk about the removal of your ego to be unified love with all things around you. Your ego is what's preventing you from loving and connecting to all things. I mean, the fact that I can say I am me and you are you, and that we are not the same is an absence of love. But if I say me and you are the same, now there's a unified love between all things. If I can say that I love nature because I am nature, and I know I'm like I'm I might be losing some people here, but dude, hey, you want to read about it? The Roman Emperor, like Marcus Aurelius, wrote this in Meditations, which is his diary. He never meant for it to come out and get published or be read by anybody. And he wrote about this to himself. So he talks about this very same thing that the elements are the building blocks of nature, um, that the elements are what's living. And I, on one of my psychedelics trips, learned that if the elements are alive, then everything is alive around us. And I know that's a heavy topic for a lot of people. So I didn't want to write something that people would be like, I can't keep up with this. This guy's going off the deep end. I don't want anything like that. That's what's to come later. Um, but I wanted somebody to be able to read it and not be turned off by some religious ritual or scripture or anything like that. I wanted to be as human as possible. And I do believe religions come with rituals, man-made rituals, whether it's um, you know, performing the cross on your chest and forehead or or talking about communion or sacrificing an animal. Like, there's there's aspects that are religious and spiritual, and then there's a human aspect where like, why am I why am I doing communion? Why am I giving confession? Why, like, why can't I just talk to somebody? You know what I mean? I wanted my book to connect to the human, not the culture that the human was built upon. So when it comes down to it, I really just want to talk to the root person and talk to something real. Like, I want you to become a patient person. I think we can all benefit from being vulnerable with each other, communication with each other. But I don't want you to be transparently communicating with your religious rituals on board because now it's just getting messy. I want you to be a vulnerable transparent communication with you as a human. What do you got going on, man? Not like, oh, I gotta talk to my pastor first. Like, you know what I mean? I don't want that messiness. I just want the human. Just talk, just be patient. You don't need to like go ask your shaman, you don't need to talk to your priest. You just be a human being. And I think that if I add scriptures or add rituals into that, I one won't be connecting to everybody, and two, I'll be kind of muddying the water. And the best way to mud uh clear muddy water is to let it be. So in this avenue, I just kind of let it off. I was like, I'm good without it.

Host 4:58:44

You got another book that you're working on too.

Johnny Raushi 4:58:46

I'm writing two more, actually. Yeah.

Host 4:58:48

Uh how to put the cult in culture.

Johnny Raushi 4:58:50

Yeah, that's my third, uh, my third book. I'm gonna write. So I have a uh three kind of step process to fulfilling your life. And um, first one is 23 virtues in 23 days, which is identifying the virtues in your life, the ones you value, and then learning how to identify those opportunities um to become that person you want to be. Second book is gonna be called Ego and You, How to Coexist With Yourself, that voice in your head. When you're reading a book quietly, there's a voice in your head reading it. What is that voice? This book is going to help you identify that voice in your head, and you always hear constantly like, ego is the enemy, um, quiet your inner bitch, you know, these type of things. Dude, that's a part of you, man. It's not your enemy, it's not a bitch, it's you. And if you try to identify it as something different than you, now you're completing this ego separation inside of you. And now there's frustration, conflict, duality. It's you, man. There's different versions of you. Like you wake up today and you might not be energetic. Is that a weak version of you? No, man, it's you. There ain't no difference. There's no work-life balance, it's the same human being. So the side inside when you have to wake up and you have to take your pre-workout to go to the gym, there's a part of you that's like, ah, can I get out of this? Right? That's not a weak version of you, man. Use that as your south point. Use that as something to be like, okay, do the opposite. Because that version of me wants me to get fat. There's nothing wrong with being fat, bro. You can do whatever you want with your life. But if you have core values and you have a goal and the voice in your head is trying to get you away from those, do the opposite. Use it as an assist. Use it as like, like we don't listen to backseat drivers, right? You do the opposite of backseat drivers. Put that guy in the backseat. Just do the opposite of whatever he says. Use him as an assist, not an enemy. He's not an enemy. Your ego is not your enemy. It's what allows you to identify you and everything else. And then once you identify that, now essentially you have the acceptance of that. Now you can help tame it and become close to it. So the second book essentially is how to get that voice in your head to agree with you, how to identify it, how to talk well to yourself, how to love yourself, and how to get that voice to agree with you. So when you say I can do it, it says yes, you can rather than no, you can't. Um, and the third book is how to put the cult in culture, which is gonna be great because it's a whole black book, and the word cult is in white. So it's gonna be just a black book that says cult on it. But um, I love the pejorative term cult. I I think it's so fun, man, because people think of like Kool-Aid, they think of Manson, they think of all these things, but they never think about the NFL, they never think about the sports bands or or the rock bands, the sports teams, the bowling leagues, the the the church. They never think of how, by definition, the cult, a cult is a group of people that believe in the same thing. That's it. Like, if you look up, there's obviously because it's so pejorative, there's so many definitions of cult, like sex and money and all of this stuff that's controlled by one person who manipulates. Like, nah, man, those are specific things. I'm talking about like you guys get dressed up in the same clothes, you go to one event in one location, and you all feel the same feeling with the same energy, and you love it because you believe in it, right? You go to a sporting event, a football game, you go watch foosball, and all of a sudden you got people fighting because their team beat their team. It's like, bro, ain't none of those people from that place, and you're wearing jerseys that trade people like like sports cards, like the Pokemon cards, but they're passionate, which is what the cult is. You have people, a group of people that believe in a similar thing. So, with the cult, how to put the cult in culture, uh, really the basis of the book is built upon the law of attraction, which I don't know if you know, it's essentially when you do things, you'll attract things from the universe to be like-minded. So, uh, I mean, it's simple. Like, if you are a single man and you want to find a good girl, right, you go to church, you go to the library, you don't go to the bar, right? Like this, I'm talking about like I'm not talking specifics. If somebody's offended, that's on you. You have an experience and trauma you need to overcome. But if you want to find, for instance, you value health. If you want to find a potential spouse or mate, you don't go to um the bar, you go to the gym, right? Through law of attraction, when you go to the gym, you will find other people that value the same things you value. But you will never go to the gym if you don't identify your goals and values. You'll just think it's a burden of something you have to do. You don't have a strong purpose or a why. So, in my mind, you find the values in book one of things that you want your life to be like. In book two, you get your ego, the voice inside your head, to be in agreement with you that this is how you want to live your life, and you have a vision of who you want to be in your life. You start walking like that person because just like if you want to fall asleep, you have to pretend to be asleep. So you start walking and acting like that person. If you have a vision of I want to be Superman, every decision, what would Superman do? Superman would do this, and eventually you will become Superman. That is how life and change and the universe works. Book three, through acting those core values and being in agreement with yourself, through law of attraction, you will attract other like-minded people that agree with the things you agree with. You'll make decisions that are best for you to become the version that you want to be. And by doing so, you'll find other people that are in that same avenue, and you will now have a family that you chose, not a family that you were born with. So the saying, blood is thicker than water, it's actually a missaying. It's the the blood of the covenant is thicker than the wound of the womb of the water, which means that the blood of the covenant, the people that you choose from a cult, is thicker than the water from the womb, the family that you're born with. So it's actually the opposite from the saying, which is super crazy to me, because I always thought blood is thicker than water means you stick with your family. Like old Italians, like you stick with your family, like always, right? Um, you don't ever choose your friends over your family, but define family. Like, why can't my family be my team members at Johnny Slicks? And they are, man. We hug each other, we say I love you, we're there for each other. Saturday, Sunday, it does not matter. We have work hours, but we have life. Like, we call me up if you got issues, we'll go get coffee and walk on the beach. The blood of the covenant is thicker than water from the womb. In the third book, you will understand that because you'll start to encounter people in your life that value the same things your value, you value, and you for some reason want to spend more time with them and you want to get really close to them. And now all of a sudden you have a best friend and a family member, and now you have three more, and now you guys meet up to go play chess together, and that's a cult, man. And chess is cult, man. Like it is. You all believe in the same thing, and it's beautiful, man. So find your values and you will find your cult. And I believe as ancestral human beings, we all desire our little tribe, and we all need it, man. We all require this little tribe, and social media makes it feel like we we have to go on social media to find followers. And if you're a follower, you're that's a tribe. And it's not, man. You got people, you got people that need to come over and fill your gaps, be your yang to your yin. And my goal and purpose is to write a three-book series to help every single person who reads it and take it seriously, be able to find their cult and find their home and someplace that feels fulfilling and purpose-driven, you know.

Host 5:06:10

Super awesome, man. I'm looking forward to reading those.

Johnny Raushi 5:06:12

Yeah.

Host 5:06:12

I want to talk a little bit about leadership. You and I hit on this a lot in the podcast prep. I think I was super interested as a guy who's growing a business, and you're a guy who's grown a business. And I think there's a lot of entrepreneurial-minded people that, you know, may or may not listen to this, whether they have a business or whether they are thinking about starting a business. But I think, you know, business leadership is um, you know, there's so many different ways to do it, and you're having success. So it's cool to talk to somebody successful. So you've talked about hitting a wall around delegation, a self-worth thing, not a skill thing. You're asking yourself, what can only John do? And we talked about this, you know, I think last night too. And at some point you were kind of struggling to answer it. What what was actually happening inside of you during that period as you were growing and you realized, look, man, I can't do everything. I have to delegate this or that.

Johnny Raushi 5:07:00

Yeah. I started to realize that I'm not, I mean, talk about ego. I'm not the best at everything, man. And you can try to be, but you're gonna fail. Like you are. There's it's no such thing as a lone wolf. I mean, you look at um uh Walt Disney, he had a brother. His brother was like the CEO and the guy behind the scenes, and most people see Walt Disney and they think he was a lone wolf. Like he was the visionary man, his brother was this the implementer, the integrator. Um, it it takes more than you to accomplish your dreams. It truly does. And there are people that there are people out there that require and crave to make other people's dreams come true. And it's not subordinate, there's no hierarchy, there's nothing like that. It's just your purpose, man. And for me, once I became self aware and I identified who I was and I am a visionary, um I'm dude, I I cannot implement, I can't keep a calendar. Can't keep time. Like, it is not that's not my strong suit. I'm very visionary driven at around nine to one in the morning. So, like, I gotta be awake for those moments because that's the best version of me for my purpose. Um once I identified that and I found people in my circle, I talked to them about that. Um, they said, Yep, that tracks. That's 100% you. Um, well, this is me. And we got some personality tests on, we got some um plenty of communication done, one-on-ones, group talks about strong, unique genius, like vulnerability. Like we even sat down as like owners, um, me, Rebecca, Nick, and Allie, and we said, Um, what's the strongest part of you and what's the weakest part of you? And we wrote that for each other. Like, I wrote it for Rebecca, I wrote it for Allie, I wrote it for Nick. They all wrote it for each one of us, and we talked about it. And it was like, leave your ego outside, we're just gonna talk. This is the weakest thing for you. And for me, it was my airheadedness, the fact I'm all over the place, I can't let go, and then I get frustrated. I get frustrated with other people that for not taking things off my plate, but I'm not giving them anything on my plate. Um, and I was like, oh shit, man. And I had I had you know, some people tell me that um my vision is what built this business. People, I'm not taking anything from anybody, like there are people that are working their asses off to build this business still. Like, we are still growing, we're still rapidly, rapidly growing. Um, but my idea, my solution, my vision is the foundation of this business, and I need to keep doing that. So for me, it was really hard because I was raised to do things with my hands and do it myself and fix it myself. So for me to step back, I remember I had a um a Eureka moment because we were getting some freight drums delivered, like pallets of drums, and I had a really, really important shareholders agreement to talk about like equity. We were talking about something, and I needed my head to be cleared and leveled. But I'm a guy who like I'm not gonna see my guys working. I'm gonna go and help them. I'm gonna jump down in the trench and I'm gonna help my guys. That's who I am. Like, that's who I was raised to be, my work, my work ethic. But I realized that I can either clear my head by listening to my favorite music in the parking lot, smoke a cigar, and kind of just chill so I can be the best version, clear-minded to make these decisions for the business, or I can help my guides unload, get sweaty, not think about my decisions, and then go make decisions. So I learned a saying, heavy is the head who wears a crown. I never understood what that meant until I started to be the guy wearing the crown. And I'm like, shit, man, my job is to just have visions, have ideas, and then make decisions. And decisions that are gonna either make or break this company, decisions that have to be rooted in the core values and the best what's for the business. I can't be the guy like moving drums anymore and getting like heavy lifting and doing all this, and be that guy. There's a reason why the king's tower sits above the village, so he can see everything from a you know, for better or worse, 30,000-foot view, right? You need to work on the business, not in the business. So once I started to understand this in a in a realm of like the kingship, the heavy is a head who has their crown, his tower is above the village, so he can see all the operating pieces. I started to really understand what letting go was, and then I tried it for the first time. I let go. Um, it was really scary, man. I mean, I I gave access to my documents, my Excel documents to other people, and I had them pull things. And at first I was like, You're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong. Like it was really easy to micromanage because I built it, I know what's right. Um, and then I realized that it's not about how they get it done. There's a book called Who Not How. Um, it's about finding the right person to do it, not who's gonna do it perfect, not how they're gonna do it. So essentially I redefined it what I thought was micromanaging in my head. Micromaning managing is not just standing over their shoulder and watching them and and like micromanaging their tasks, it's telling somebody how to do something. That simply put, when you micromanage, if you tell someone how to do something, not advice, I'm saying this is how you do it. Go and do that. Exactly how I just told you to do it. That's micromanaging. So once I identified what micromanaging was for me, it was actually quite simple and it was really fun because I said, Hey, I want that table moved over there. Cool. And then the guys are like flipping the table upside down and moving it on wheels that they built. And I'm like, what the fuck are you guys doing? Just take the legs apart. And they're like, No, actually, that would take more time, and and we don't have the drill here, so we'd have to go to Lowe's and buy it. And I'm like, Oh, yeah. If I told you to take the legs apart, it would have taken two extra days to move this table. But because I told you I just want the table moved, I told you why. You guys are able to now figure out the how. And your how is way better than mine. So you guys figured it out. And I started to develop this concept of one three one, um, which helps every single person underneath a leader understand the leader's mind, which is communication, obviously. But um, for instance, let's use the table scenario. Um, hey Johnny, the table. We're trying to move the table, but we don't have the drill for the legs. Plan one is go to Lowe's and get a drill. Plan two is it's at Brandon's house. He won't be home until tonight, so we don't move it until tomorrow. Plan three is to not take the legs off. Instead, we just flip it over and make sh make shield some uh some wheels and we move it over. This is where the one three-one comes into. You have one problem, three potential solutions, and then they provide their solution. Which one would they choose and why? Why being the most important part. Hey, we uh here's what I would do. I would move the table, I would flip it upside down and move the wheels. It would just save us time, it would be efficient, and it gives the guys some some experience on how to move some stuff without you know the exact right scenario. Um, they give that to me. I read it, read the problem, read the three solutions. Actually, what I would do is I would go to Lowe's and buy the drill because we can't rely on Brandon's personal drill for the rest of this business. So let's go ahead and buy ourselves an actual drill. So I put my one through one, I write down, I understand the problem. Here are the three solutions, here's the one I would choose and why. I give it back to him, we talk about it. He goes, Oh, that's how your head works. That actually does make sense. Cool. So now, next time we have to move a table or a scenario happens, he knows where my head's at. We were using Brandon's personal tape measure. Let's just go buy one. That's what Johnny would do. So now all of a sudden it becomes you're telling people why. You're teaching them, inspiring them your why. So when a problem arises, they know they're in your head because you've explained it over and over again. One, three, one. They know exactly why you would choose the solution to this problem. So now when a problem arises, I don't even get one three ones anymore. They just make decisions as if they're me, and it fucking works, man. Obviously, they make decisions on their own behalf, and there's you know consequences to the wrong decision, um, which is its own separate thing we can talk about. But essentially, I my job as a leader is to inspire people to believe in my why. And if I can get them to believe in my why, they're gonna act as if they are believing in that why. So when a problem goes wrong, they're like, What's best for the business? That's my why. What's always what's best for the business? And now they're thinking that. So now I don't have any trust issues. Now when I let go, I know they're gonna do their best because they know that that's what I would do. So they're gonna do it too. So now I'm here sitting with you and the business is still running and everything's going good. And the best way I can know I did a good job as a leader is if when I leave they work and make more money. If for some reason I am the fail-safe or the fault of the business, I did a good job as a leader. I should go start another business. You know what I mean? Yeah. If that business can stand and make money on its own, then we did a good job, you know.

Host 5:16:00

Yeah. You operate on EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system. We talked about this last night, which I thought was super interesting. And specifically right person, right seat. A lot of people know that phrase. Walk me through what it actually means to you and your business in practice in practice. Rebecca and I were talking about this last night as well.

Johnny Raushi 5:16:17

Yeah, it's actually a super simple concept. Um, right person, right seat just essentially means um core value and skill set. That's it. Um we hire and fire, and um uh essentially the entire HR department for the company is based on core values, it's not skill set. I don't like I hire people based on are they the right person? And here's the thing when you're doing a small business, there's a lot of seats that are open, right? Like I had when I was manufacturing fulfillment, customer service, marketing, I did all of that. I brought somebody on, and if if they fit the core values and I jived with them, bro, I can have you doing customer service, I can have you doing fulfillment. Like, what do you want to do? You know what I mean? Obviously, as you get bigger of a business, you hire more strategically, like a specific seat. Like you're gonna manage only Instagram. That's a very specific seat. So I have to hire someone who knows Instagram. The thing is, you could teach someone Instagram. I can teach someone how to cook. I can teach someone how to pack orders. I can't teach someone to be transparent communication. I can't teach someone to be addicted to growth. I can't teach someone ownership. That's something that's ingrained in you. That's your core value, that's who you are, that's your culture, it's your society, that's your experiences all compounded to you. Um so when we hire somebody, when we do interviews, um we we hire and fire based on core values. Are you a Johnny Slick person? Are you uh are you are fit? And if you are, let's find you a seat somewhere, man. And then if there's an issue, it's never been about skill set. I've had people, multiple people, come up to me and be like, hey, I I know I was hired for manufacturing, but I I don't I'm not really I don't really like it here. I'm like, cool, and they're like crying, thinking I'm about to fire on them. And I'm like, let's move you to fulfillment. What do you think? And they're currently the manager of fulfillment. It's like the the seat is not the issue. It never really is. It's the person. The person, the right person is are you a core value fit? Because if you are, if you have ownership addicted to growth, uh adaptability, transparent communication, community, if you have these core values, I can put you anywhere in the business and just teach you how to do it, man. It's not that hard. There's really no job that cannot be taught to somebody. Most of our jobs were taught to us by something, but not the core values. That those are experiences that shaped up us. So EOS is really good at doing right person, right seat, and then you have what's called the GWC. Get it, want it, have the capacity. Do you get the job, the in and out of the job? Do you want do you understand the job? Do you want the job? And do you have the capacity sp spiritually and mentally and emotionally to actually do the job? Now you're starting to kind of like complicate a little bit, but now we're talking about human issues. So we have the right person, we have the right seat, but they're not happy and they're lashing out at people. Okay, do they get the job? Yeah. Do they want the job? I don't think so. Now we identified a pain point. Let's talk about that. So it's almost taking a symptom and finding the root problem. You're shaking it down to the root problem. And then we go and find out that they just emotionally don't have the capacity to be on repetition. They can't do fulfillment. Okay, let's talk with them. Hey, you're not happy. You're lashing out at people. Is it because of the repetition? Yeah. Do you want to do marketing? I think I'd be more fulfilled there. Complete shift in person. It wasn't a right person, it was a wrong seat. They had the GWC issue. So now we've identified an issue and helped them fulfill their purpose by putting them someplace else in the business. Because it's not a people issue, it was a seat issue. So EOS has helped us identify those type of situations where um it's not about just firing. It never is. I mean, that's the easy way. You can just fire people when they, you know, aren't behaving. But like that's gross, bro. I don't operate that way. There's a that's a human being, they're not happy. Why? Let's find it. And in this spot, you know, their happiness might be outside these doors waiting for them. And they might not just want to be here. So by letting them go, I'm letting them off into the land of opportunity where they can now find their happiness. So I've always, always tried to feel for the person empathetically and compassionately to find out what's causing this pain point in their life. Can we help? And sometimes, man, like you said, like there's just some people that just don't want to be helped. There's some salty old people that just don't want to be helped. You can lead a horse with water, you can't make him drink. Like Nick and I both see the best in people all the time. But you can't make them the best version of themselves, they have to do that. So we can provide the opportunity, but if they never drink the water, that's on them, man. And at some point you just gotta let them go because you got to think about the business too. Yeah. So we hire and fire based on core values, but it's all structured in um entrepreneur operating system, which has been life-changing for our perspectives for the business.

Host 5:20:59

You uh you and I talked about some business coaching. Um, and you guys have you have actually attended some business coaching. What what was that decision point? How has it helped you? And what are your thoughts on that?

Johnny Raushi 5:21:09

Yeah, um, the the best art schools in the world uh step away from the canvas every 45 minutes for 15 minutes. So um for us and for me personally, hiring a coach is essentially speed ramping your your tuition payments, your experiences, so um, or your decisions. So hiring the founder from Under Armour, hiring these people who have done this before. They've you know, they've had acquisitions of five billion dollars for their businesses, hiring them and asking them, you know, if you want their life, take their advice, right? They've grown successful businesses through bootstrapping from their garages to billions of dollars. They've experienced it, man. You know what I mean? They built manufacturing, they understand this. So when I go up to them and I'm like, hey, I'm having issues. One of the biggest things for me, um, I asked him, um, I'm having issues maintaining energy levels on the lab. I have 156 SKUs, and I don't really know which ones are the top sellers. And we come into the lab and we make one batch of each every single day. But then we sold out of this and we're sold out of this, but I got two weeks' supply of this. And he's like, take every single product, grab a Sharpie, and write down the amount of revenue that product made in the last 60, 30, 60, 90 in one year on the bottle, write it down, and then write the percentage of that sale. And then after I did that, it took me about a week. I wrote down all of that data on the bottles, and he said, Now separate into categories everything over 10%, everything five to ten percent, everything under five percent. And I did, I'm on the phone with him, and he said, Now push everything under five percent off your table. And I was like, dude, that's gonna make a mess. He goes, Yeah, good, fuck it, make a mess. And um, so I knocked it off, the conditioner broke, but um I was like, Okay, now what? And he goes, any of those products into five percent to ten percent um take you more energy than the ten percent. And I was like, No, they all take the same amount of energy. And he goes, Okay, now take those five to ten percent, push them off the table. I was like, dude, you can't come on, man. Like I push them off the table. I just made like banging sounds, and um he goes, see those 10 and over? Focus on those. Make only those products, cut everything out, focus on the 20% of products that are making 80% of your revenue. It's 80-20, Mendoz Principle, right? Like it's just a thing. Um I cut a hundred skews, I cut 110 SKUs out. We only have 46 cues now. Um, and now we've scaled, we've rocketed. So I used to make one or two batches of shampoo a day, which is like 70 shampoos. Now we can produce 5,000 and in the same space with the same machinery. It's just time and energy. Now we're focusing on the products that make the most that have the highest demand. And because of that, now I have the same amount of guys in the same space with the same machinery producing over 800 times more. It's just those simple things. But I never would have known that if I didn't hire a coach. If I didn't bring a mentor or coach into that, he wouldn't have been able to provide me that insight because he lived that pain and he found a solution. He actually told me to um find your biggest competitor and just copy the shit out of them, copy everything they're doing. Not trademark a patent or anything like that, but go on their website, copy their website layout. He did that for he used Nike as an example. He said Nike spent hundreds of millions of dollars having focus groups and scientists study consumer psychology to figure out where people hover their mouse and and where they're clicking and their time that they're spent on the website. And they spent millions of dollars on that. They then took all that research and made a website. Do you want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and take all that time, or do you just want to take their research and do it? He's like, just find the easy way, man. Find the simple path, just take that. Find your competitors. They're not enemies. They found it, they did the research, they did the work, they paid the money. Just do what they're doing, man. And it's gonna change. And I was like, fuck, dude, that's awesome insight. I appreciate it, man. They're not enemies. They're not. My competitor, my biggest competitor is who I was yesterday. But if I'm gonna focus on this industry, I have some people that uh you know I'm looking at that are well far ahead of us. What are they doing? Like you're walking through a um a minefield. Are you gonna walk your own path and essentially step on mines and learn the hard way? Are you gonna find some guy at the end of the field and just follow his footsteps? People are gonna call you copycats, people are gonna call you fucking whatever. You're safe. You're walking the safe path. You're doing what's easy, you're doing what's simple, and you're doing what works. And he shifted my mind into those type of those type of concepts. And like I said, when we started, um, when you started that question, the best art schools lift their head up from the canvas. Most of us, when you're working, um, you're cutting grass for a giant stadium. If you're looking straight in front of the lawnmower the whole time, your lines are going to be crooked, bro. Every once in a while, you have to like take a step up to the grandstands and look at the grass and make sure your lines are straight. You have to take a beat, take a breath, step away, get a 30,000-foot view of the business, look on your high tower at the village. But in order to do that, have a coach next to you, have a mentor next to you to give you insights of things you might be missing. Because you only know what you know. And you know, and to it from my experience, I know very little. I can either spend the next 20 years of my life experiencing all the hardships and learning for myself, or I can hire a guy who already walked that path, ask him his insights, and help me give me shortcuts through this treacherous path of this minefield that I'm walking. You know what I mean?

Host 5:26:38

I love that, man. Yeah, that resonates.

Johnny Raushi 5:26:40

It's it's dude, it's difficult, but it is. I mean, you hire uh a nutritionalist, right? You only know what you know. So if you hire an athletic coach, it's the same thing, man. All the best pros in the world have a coach. And if you want to imitate that life, do what they're doing. And if you can't afford it, if there's a will, there's a way. How bad do you want that? Get it, man. If that's your goal, then every decision should lead you to that. Like, if you can't afford a coach and you smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, I found a way. Cut that shit out, bro. It's gonna suck. It's supposed to. How bad do you want it? But that coach is gonna get you to be the version of you you want to be. And if it means quitting cigarettes for a little bit to save that money or quitting alcohol because it's numbing you and stopping you, then there's a will right there, man. You want it, and there's the way you can do it. It's just a matter of just identifying the value of it. And unfortunately, I do believe that there's a massive, widespread amount of brain fog in this country where people just are either taking some sort of drug or uh numbing themselves in alcohol or something, some substance that's avoiding their life and they're numbing themselves. And unfortunately, the fastest way to numb your frontal lobe, the decision-making and risk awareness um or risk analysis part of your brain is is alcohol, which is like run rampant in our country. We worship it as a society and a culture.

Host 5:27:58

I do think that there's a pendulum swinging though, man. I mean, there's a whole movement of the colour.

Johnny Raushi 5:28:02

I did see that too. I saw that the the earlier generation is like avoiding substance.

Host 5:28:06

Well, and I'm telling you, even those of us that are oldest, I mean, you and I were talking about this morning. Um, you know, I've really curtailed, I don't I wouldn't say that I'm completely sober, but I I've completely curtailed my use of alcohol, and so is a lot of my friends.

Johnny Raushi 5:28:18

Yeah.

Host 5:28:18

Um, you know, so there is a pendulum stuff. I again I think it I don't know if it's because of COVID where people became more holistic and and health uh conscious and aware.

Johnny Raushi 5:28:26

Yeah.

Host 5:28:26

Um, and I think people are waking up to marketing and and some of those things as well. So there is kind of this healthy movement, if you will, but yeah, for sure.

Johnny Raushi 5:28:33

Um and I'm I'm I'm only six years sober. I've met like 30, 40 year sober guys, and like we all think the same thing, man. It's like you do it to numb yourself so you don't have to deal with the problems of today, but those problems don't go away, man. They just go into tomorrow. Yeah, and then when you're sober, you gotta deal with it again and you lash out of these problems. But the first thing a drop of alcohol does is it affects your decision making. That's why you make great decisions when you're drunk, right? Dude, it's because that part of your brain is is is numb. And if the human brain doesn't develop until 25, 26, it's earlier for females normally than males, and we're allowing alcohol to be consumed at 21 legally, your frontal lobe is still developing. I picture a construction site that people are just running rampant in. It's like, yo, let us build this part of your brain first before you start destroying it. Hold on, like let us finish the build. And then you start drinking at 21, your frontal lobe never gets developed, and then you continue drinking to your 30s and 40s, but you're making decisions as if you're a 20-year-old or a teenager because your brain stopped developing at that point in your life. And then when you stop drinking around that time, it's hard, yes, but all of a sudden you start making better decisions because now you can think about the second and third order effects and shit, even five or six order effects down the line, where you're like, if I do this, it's going to affect my marriage, it's gonna affect my finances, it's gonna affect my job. Before, when you were drunk, you're like, fuck it, it feels good, fuck it, I'll do it now. And it's like, no, man, that's not how you get to be the person you want to be. So I really hope that most people, um, if you're consuming something that's altering your mind in that avenue and not allowing you to grow, then it's it's To really not doing you any benefit to becoming the version you want to be.

Host 5:30:03

Yeah. You describe reaching eight figures and suddenly realizing the game of change. Financial tuition, financial institutions calling you, a different level of attention. What did that moment reveal about you that you didn't know was there?

Johnny Raushi 5:30:14

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is like, you know, I I I thought of a I'm not trying to label people, but I I came to this like epiphany that you have five-figure people, six-figure people, seven figure, eight figure, nine-figure people. Um, and when we were a five-figure business, there was a certain type of person that you I needed to be and I needed to perform as as a leader. And um we had team members that were good at that. And then when we hit six-figure, the weight became different. Like, like if you want to go to the gym and you want to bench 300 pounds, you got to start at 100 pounds, right? When you get up to 200 pounds, that 100 pound plate is still on there, like it doesn't go away. So when you go from five figure to six figure, that 100-pound plate is still there. Now you just have extra. You know what I mean? You're still having to make five figure, and then on top of that, go to six. And then from six to seven, the same thing. Now you're making 10 six figures to make a seven figure. Same thing from seven to eight. And it requires a different type of mentality, a different approach, and a different workload. You hit ceilings differently, you have to adapt differently. Um, decision like like I was um saying to you guys last night, when you're when you're a child, there's rarely a decision you can make that you can't bounce back from. Like you're a child, the decisions aren't that crazy. As an adult, you really have to analyze your decisions. There's a lot of risk involved, there's a lot of um other factors that are involved, and it's hard to bounce back from things as an adult. The same thing. When you grow in a business, you make a five-figure poor decision. You can bounce back from that, man. There's you can go to a bank and get a thousand dollar loan and pay for that. You know what I mean? It's not that big of a deal. As an eight-figure business, I make a mistake that's equal to that. You're talking about a hundred thousand dollar mistake. I don't know a bank who's gonna loan me money just to pay off something like that. You know, I mean, I gotta work for that. It's a big decision, you know, it has to be weighed that way. And there are some people we had on the team that were with us for six-figure, and they were with us for eight-figure, but they were still acting like it was a six-figure business. They didn't adapt, they didn't grow. And it's difficult because you never really expect those things. And I never, I never really thought it would happen that way because I was like, it's our environment. Like, just grow to your environment around you. Um, and we had some people that were were not adapting to that environment. And it was really hard to um let those people go because it was like an anchor on the ship, you know. We're all trying to row in the same direction. It was like some people were rowing in the different direction, and you never really expect things like that to happen when you're growing a business. Um, so those are the things that really like came up. It was like we're hitting a ceiling. And now at this point, honestly, I don't know if it's self-awareness, I don't know if it's business awareness. I can feel when a ceiling is coming. I can feel when there's gonna be a break and a change in the business. I can almost sense it. Like my gut is telling me something's gonna happen. Going to the bank, um, one of the biggest things I think is I used to be able to go to the bank and get in like flip-flops and shorts, and they'd like look at me weird, but I'd still be like, Yeah, here, I made 4.5 million dollars last year. So you guys want to give me some money? And they'd be like, Oh yeah, cool, we got you. Now I can't do that. I can't you can't operate that way. It's like you gotta rate weight and sh in interest rates, you gotta weigh like the bank's relationship. Um, I can't show up in flip-flops and shorts anymore, man. It's like uh I'm asking for $15 million. They're gonna give it to somebody that has a low risk. And a guy who shows up in flip-flops and and shorts, even though that's who I am, it's or who I you know I'm comfortable as. Um it it just screams high risk for them. Like that I'm not taking this seriously. There's those time of like type of changes that occurred um where I have to like dress my best and and do all this and essentially show that I'm serious. And I had to cut my hair. Like I wanted to cut my hair, it was really long. Me and Nick both look like hippies, man. Um, but once we started to get more in spotlight, um, we needed people to take us seriously and not think we were just some hippie vets that were like creating a hobby. Like, no man, we're here for a fucking long haul. Like, we're gonna do this and we're gonna take it seriously, and we know what we're doing. Um, that was like the biggest shift from seven figure to eight figure, is just being more serious and more intentful with my decisions and who I was and who I showed up as.

Host 5:34:26

Yep. Um, one of the things you told me too is Nick has pushed you pretty hard, told you things you didn't want to always hear, force structure on a visionary who wanted to chase every shiny object. How has being pushed by someone you respect changed the kind of leader you are?

Johnny Raushi 5:34:40

Well, there's a lot of things that like Nick has his leadership style, and I have mine, and he's taught me a lot, and I'm I'm very grateful for pretty much any single human being that's ever interacted with me because I've learned what to do and what not to do. And um Nick's kind of pushed me to always be uncomfortable um because comfort is you know, you know, you're talking about the oldest text, like comfort is is good, it's not it's not a bad thing, there is no good or bad, but comfort doesn't cause growth. Um we all know from our earliest days of rem you know memory, growth spurts when your teeth are growing in, when your legs are growing, it's uncomfortable, man. Growth is uncomfortable, and when you're comfortable, you're not growing. That's just a universe law. Like that's how it is. When you go to the gym and you're pressing, wait, it's not comfortable, man. It's uncomfortable. Unless you're Arnold and he's like, it's like orgasming like that. Yeah, dude, he's on a different level, but it's uncomfortable, man, to get sweaty and and you know your muscles are burning, and it's but it's growing, that's growth, and it's comfortable to sit on the couch and eat Cheetos and Doritos and watch a movie. That's comfortable, but you're not growing. Actually, you're you're growing in a different avenue. You're growing body fat, but that's very different. Um, I'm talking about a mentality. Um, so he's kind of always pushed me to to grow through uncomfortable things, things I'm not comfortable doing, things I don't normally do, in order to provide me experiences for things I wouldn't ask for, like forcing me to get on a plane. Damn well knowing that I am anxious as hell. Like he watched me. We got on a plane together, and we hit some turbulence, we were on a smaller plane, and he goes, Look at let me see your hands. I showed him, and he saw water beating up on my palms. I was sweating, and he saw my face turn red, and he just was talking to me. He goes, So tell me about this Black Friday sale that you had an idea for. Go ahead. He got me to talk about my vision, about my passion, about something that I wanted to create. Next thing you know, we're landing. And he goes, It worked. The best case scenario happened, man. It happened. It's cool. So he kind of forced me into situations where I either had to let go, I had to swallow my perfectionism or my OCD, um, or I had to go into an anxious scenario in order to come out on top and feel confident about that decision. You know what I mean? Um, and he's never once was like, look at what I did for you. Never once was he like that. He was like, look at what you did, man. Always, every single time, even though he forced me to do it. You know what I mean? Um he showed me that that is is he's like a father figure in that avenue. He's he's forced me into positions that I never wanted to do, but I always was thankful for doing it afterwards, you know. And and as a dad, I'm sure you resonate with that a lot, you know. Um and then once I started to kind of like pick my legs up and and you know, walk for myself as a leader. Um now we're now we're peers more than anything. Like now he has other businesses, he'll ask my opinion on some stuff, and he knows that I'll come to him for fucking anything I need in life at all, and he's always there for me, and I'm always there for him. So it started out like father figure for me and Rebecca, and then a mentor, and then it just became peers, and now we're like best friends. And it it really is like an ever-growing relationship where it's like we're both growing in our own avenues. Like he's pursuing, he wants to be a family man, he wants to like raise a family and have a big family and have a tribe of like fucking killers, and he is doing it, you know, and that's not the way I want. I I don't want that for my life, and we both respect that and we um kind of leverage each other's experiences and and ideas and mindsets and perspectives to get the most out of life. On like my vision is only this way, and his vision is that way. I every once in a while I'll be like, Hey man, what's it look like from over there? And he'll tell me, and he'll be like, What's it look like from over there? And I'll tell him. And it's like, cool, you're doing what you what makes you happy. What can I do for you? You need more money? Do you need more time? You need you know, someone to watch the kids? Like, there's always something like that. And it's at this point now, it's just it's just family, like family of the covenant, blood of the covenant, you know. It's it's it truly is like it's love and and life at this point, right? You know, yeah.

Host 5:38:51

I love that, bro. Um, it's it's probably cool to have a business partner that you guys really seem like talking to you and Rebecca, you know, you guys speak very highly of of Nick and his wife, but it's it's gotta be cool to have collaborative partners, right? Yeah, as somebody who I mean, I'm I'm running several businesses now too, and I don't necessarily have that at the moment to bounce ideas. So it's gotta be cool for a visionary to have all these different uh things to pull from. So I'm I'm excited for for all you guys and for Johnny Slicks for that because it seems to be obviously it's it's really working, dude. So that's it's it's really cool.

Johnny Raushi 5:39:22

Yeah, it's those difficult conversations, man. Most people avoid difficult conversations, but uncomfortable, you grow. So having that difficult conversation with your spouse, having that difficult conversation with your partner, you grow from it every single fucking time, man. Whether it's grow apart or grow together, growth occurred, and that is change, and change is good because it's inevitable. But for us, it's like I'm dude, I'm constantly crating. I have shiny object syndrome, I have perfectionism syndrome. So it's like all these things that kind of like make me be like people want me to be a lone wolf because they're like, You're fucking miserable to be around, bro. You just want to create everything. Like, I'll create a product, and then halfway through I get the team involved, halfway through I change my mind. I want to do something else. And they're like, We came with our tools, and now you want to do something else, like it's whiplash, you know what I mean? So Nick has been really good at kind of keeping me online and be like, we do the American bathroom. We make products for the American bathroom. If it's candles, you can't justify. People have candles in their bathroom, bro. No, like, no, we focus on cosmetics, you know. I mean, like, this is the industry, this is what we're good at. And he's really good at praising me. Um, I'm words of affirmation. Um, I love language. So he's good at um telling me you're doing good. This is a great idea, great work. Look at the money we made. This is great. The business grew. We hired three people because of your idea. You just provided three jobs to American families because of your idea. That's fucking awesome. Keep at it. And then when I'm out of my lane, we call it lanes or um not in my field, and I'm focusing on someone else's job, he's like, hey bro, the business is suffering. Like, we can run net worth like Dave Ramsey's net worth. I'm worth like something stupid. Like it doesn't even resonate, like $3,000 an hour, $5,000, something like that when it comes to business. If I work an eight hour day, um am I making that value for the business talking to somebody about fulfillment operations? No. I should be doing what I'm doing, my best, my unique ability, my zone of genius. And he kind of makes sure I'm I'm staying in that. And if I'm doing something, if he's watching in a meeting and somebody says, Johnny, can I have your help with this later? He's like, No, no, go to him. You don't go to him. He's really good. Because I'm a guy, I'm like, fuck it, dude, I'll help you. I'm like, I'll jump in the trench with you right now, man. I don't give a shit. I'll do it because I'm willing to do it. I built a bit, like, I know, I know how to do it. I I fucking did it. I built it. Like, I know this. Yeah. And you need help, I'll help you, you know. And he was really good at being like, bro, at some point you got to watch you you're dressing your kid, and because they can't dress themselves, but at some point they got to dress themselves and it takes longer. And you're watching your son put his shirt on backwards, and you're like, oh, you're rolling your eyes, and you're like, let me just fix it for you. But if you do that, now you got to fix it every single time. You got to watch them suffer, you gotta watch them do that process, and eventually they can put their shirt on on their own and you're not even present. You don't got to worry about it. And he's like, it's strange, it's a weird sensation, but he makes sure that I remember that and how to kind of just be hands-off and watch them figure it out. And they do every single time. Napoleon actually had a really good concept for mail communication. He would receive mail and he would not respond to a single letter within two weeks. He would wait two weeks before responding to a letter. And his purpose of doing that is most problems solve themselves. They don't require him. So he would only have to respond to one or two letters out of hundreds he would receive in that time frame. Two weeks go by, people solve it on their own. It either no longer was a problem or they solved it themselves. And I was like, that's fucking awesome, bro. Like genius.

Host 5:42:41

Um, you've said that chasing money is on a is an unachievable goal, but you're building something at significant scale. And what does or at what point does I'm not in it for the money run into the reality that money is what keeps the mission alive?

Johnny Raushi 5:42:54

Yeah, no, I'm a walking contradiction. I know, like you're building a business, but it's not about money. Um, I mean, we are a for a for-profit business. You know what I mean? Like we want money. Money is the goal of the business to grow and to support ourselves. And um, I want to race cars, uh, GT3 racing, and that is not fucking cheap. So I need to, you know, make a decent life for myself. Um, and then help people. I I went to a coaching program and I was sitting in a room with all these people, and they were going around saying, like, what is your life goal? And um, the point of that exercise was to kind of just get vulnerable from like you're talking about 30,000 foot view, you're at a hundred thousand foot view. Like you're talking about your life goal. Like, you're never supposed to look at your life as a whole because that's how you become anxious. You know, you think about the past, you become depressed. You think about the future, you become anxious. It's only right now, you only have right now, so only think about right now. Um, but the point was to get us to think about our life and how to back plan your goal, you know. If you want to become which everybody was saying, man, which I thought at first was normal, you know, because I was trying to like fit into this. Do I was the youngest and the the youngest person there? And my business was the second business, biggest business in that room. There were like 60 people in there. There were people that were like, I was the youngest, everyone was in their forty mid forties or higher or higher. And I'm walking in and I'm like, they're asking me age and all this stuff, revenue. And um, I was like, Yeah, I'm at the time I was 30, I was like, Yeah, I'm 30. Um, and they were like, Holy fuck, dude. If I was you at 30, I'd be fucking taking over the world. And I was like, Yeah, that's not really my goal. I don't want to take over the world. Um, but I appreciate it, cool. I understand what he was saying. And um, they all thought that I was working up to get a seven-figure business, and I was like, no, we we're like, we're the fastest, one of the fastest growing companies in America. We made eight-figure last year, and they're like, holy shit, we just we just pushed the envelope at like 2.5 million, and I thought I was like hot shit. And I was like, Well, you aren't hot shit, bro. Who said you're not? Like, that's cool, there's nothing wrong with that. But I I went in there as just a guy who wanted to learn, right? And everyone was saying, like, I want to make a hundred million dollars in the next 10 years, or I want to make 300 million dollars in this time. And one guy said, I want to be a um a billionaire, and he was 55. Like, shit, bro, you got your work cut out for you, man. 55 years old, you want to be a billionaire now? He owned a coffee company that made $50,000 a month. And I was like, bro, you got some work coming. Like, you really want that? It's not unattainable. There's a will, there's a way, it's just gonna be fucking hard. And um the microphone came over to me and I was like, I want to be a billionaire. And I remember the the coach, he goes, dude, we can get you to be a millionaire in in the next couple years. And I was like, No, no, no, billionaire. Uh the business already makes many, many millions, man. And he goes, Oh, I don't know what you do. I don't know, sorry, blah, blah, blah. I was like, Yeah, I want to be a billionaire. And then um, I did the math with the fiduciary, and I could be a billionaire if I am smart with my money. I can be a I can have a billion dollars in an account, multiple accounts, obviously. You spread it out. By the time I'm 65, I can have a billion dollars. But then I was like, So then what? Like, do I change my life goal to be a multi-billionaire? Like what? Like, there is no end to that, man. It's like money is like time, it's a commodity, it's a resource, it's no end. You can always have more of it, and it always changes its value. So, like, like with um um measurements, inches, like go pick me up an inch. It's not real, it's a it's a measurement that man made up. You know, we give value to a thing, and then we're chasing that value. That doesn't, it's man-made, it's not a real thing. Um, so I was like, and I've always heard that when you lose purpose, you die. So when people retire within 10 years, most of them pass because they don't have purpose anymore. They lost their purpose and now they're just stuck home doing whatever they want, and it's not purpose-driven, you know? Um there's a saying too that uh dogs without purpose dig holes. I don't know if you know anything. You you have a dog, but if your dog is digging holes, it means it doesn't have purpose. So a lot of dogs are bred for specific things, and if they're not put in that specific thing, they dig holes in the backyard. And man is very similar, where if we don't have purpose, we dig holes in our life. We start to uh substance abuse, we start to uh cheat on our wives, we start to do things that dig holes in our life. And I was like, so at 65, I'm a billionaire. My life goal is achieved. Do I just fucking die? Or do I start digging holes in my life? Like, I don't want to keep chasing money. And then I I thought, dude, what would Jesus do? Oh, okay, easy. He would help a billion people. So I immediately shifted my life goal of I want to help and serve one billion people. One, because I'm very analytical and metric based, and there's no metrics to track that. Um, like I mentioned before, if I go to the grocery store and I say good morning to somebody, that could have helped some man. And that's not for me to know. That's not that's not the point. The point is to be a good human being every single moment of every single day, that fits my goal. If my core values are love, compassion, empathy, and vulnerability, transparency, and my goal is to help a billion people, then when I go to the DMV and shit hits the fan, or um the IRS comes and audits us, whatever, whatever comes my way, my goal is to help a billion people, and these are my core values. My decisions are simple. I need to act out of those core values and lead and keep rowing in the direction to help a billion people. So I don't snap at people, I don't flip people off. I say good morning, I say hi, I say I love you, I hug people, I give people um uh in Hawaii, there's there was a homeless guy. Uh dude, I never carry cash on me. Like I don't carry cash on me. I'm not saying that so I don't get robbed. I just don't carry cash on me. I think most people are that that same way. I opened my backpack and I found a $5 bill. Dude, I have not seen or touched a $5 bill in like a decade. It's wild, man. I found it. So I put it in my pocket. We're walking down the street. A homeless guy said, Can I have cash? Do you have any cash? I said, Oh shit, man, man. Oh, it's your $5 bill, man. I hadn't I found it earlier. And um, some people were like, Don't feed the homeless, don't get the homeless. I'm like, dude, that was his dollar. I don't know where that came from, man. That was not mine. It was his. I was just the the transporter of that. That aligns with my goals and my core values, and it felt good. And that's what I believe karma is. When you that sensation you get from doing good, that is karma. There's no bank account in the universe holding good and bad for you to get paid out later. It's when you donate your time, when you serve people, when you tell the truth, that feeling you get of good, that good sensation you get, that is karma. It's paid instantly. And when you do a bad thing and you're guilty, that's karma. You feel bad. So my goal is to help a billion people, not chase money. I dude, you can be poor, you can be the world's poorest man and still be smiling and still serving people. It costs nothing. So money is not a factor of purpose at all. And I think when people have a purpose that is coinciding with that resource of that man-made value, all of a sudden it fluctuates and they're chasing something that isn't real. It's really not real. The world can collapse, the economy can collapse right now, and yeah, there'll be some chaos, but it's anything saying that you can't smile and be nice and and laugh and love. No. So if if your life and your love and your purpose doesn't revolve around a fleeting value, now it's rooted in something real. Now you have something to help you make decisions and make you feel fulfilled in life.

Host 5:50:16

That's freaking that's really cool, man. I mean, your team page has over a dozen named employees with full personal bios. It's not normal for a company your size. What's the intention behind that? What are you trying to say about those people and who they are to you?

Johnny Raushi 5:50:30

Oh, the team bio, man. I've always wanted the team page. Um, I feel really it was a like a two thing. One was defensive, and one was I don't want to say offensive, but that's the duality of being defensive. People were like emailing us and acting like we were some big corporate company, like cursing us out in emails because we ship them an original fragrance instead of a rugged. And I I wanted to do uh, you know, I have a degree in marketing, so I have I understand consumer psychology. Um, I'm by no means a master, I don't like have any experience other than my own in this, but if you put a face to a word through an email, it becomes more personal, right? That's just a very basic thing. So, what I wanted was as a defensive um realm, I wanted anybody who was contacting anyone outside the company to have a bio and a and uh like a short title, their name, the phone number, and the picture of themselves um being kind of spunky, like being goofy. I wanted that photo at their um at the bottom of their email. They're the what is that called at the bottom? The photo?

Host 5:51:36

Yeah, signature block.

Johnny Raushi 5:51:37

The signature block. I wanted that. That way when our customer service rep is emailing this guy who is just going off on how we ship them the wrong product. One, always be kind, always be fun kind. Um, it's easy, it's simple, and it's feels good. So be kind. But then they're gonna see that photo at the bottom. And nine out of ten times, when they were ten out of ten, when they respond, sometimes people just don't respond back. It's strange. Um, I'm trying to help you and give you new product, and they just don't respond. I don't know. It's weird. Um, 10 out of 10 times when they respond, they're like, I'm so sorry for my behavior. Um, now that I see that there's a per person here, a human here. Um, I, you know, I thought this was like an automated system because I've done this with other companies before and they really don't take care of me. And it's totally understandable, man. Like we only know what you know and you make decisions based off of your previous experiences. There's nothing wrong with that. But I want to provide insight that we are human beings. We live right down the street from you. We have families, we have kids, we have animals, we have jobs, we have struggles, we have to pay taxes, we have anxieties, we have depressions, we have all of these things. We're just normal people, man. And if I shipped you the wrong product, I'm sorry. How about you keep that and I'll send you the right product? You know what I mean? Like we're human, we're cool. Um, and the team page kind of came and came from the avenue of I'm grateful for my team, man. It's just when I was doing this by myself, uh, we put out a job posting for like help wanted, right? Somebody came and knocked on the door and said, I want to help. How am I not entirely grateful for that? Like you said, you want to help me. I asked for help and you came to help. Like your story is just as important as mine, if not like more important. Let's make you a page, let's make you like your favorite products, where you came from, where what led you to be here at Johnny Slicks, and how has Johnny Slicks helped your life? And where do you see yourself after Johnny Slicks? Um, that story, the team story, is so incredibly important because they bring every experience they've ever experienced, it is compounded into that human being. And I love that human being, so I love all of their experiences, and I want them to come as themselves to the job, to the work, to the to the to the creation of the Johnny Slicks products. Um, and I I believe that they deserve a page on the on the website so our customers, the Johnny Slicks customers, can go on, get to know the people that are making the products, and get to know the faces behind the company because I think the biggest flaw in the big corporations that there's they're faceless. They hide behind an animated cartoon of a character as a brand. And like who owns Frosted Flakes, man? So, like, who is being held accountable? Who is who am I paying? Who am I feeding by by buying this food? You don't know, man. And it feels really numb. It feels really robotic, it doesn't feel real. I would love to buy a product where I knew the owners. Like, you see, the the modern companies, they're putting like photos of their family on the back and telling their story. Like when you buy that bag of chips or buy that product, you're like, dude, this is so cool, man. It was a grandma that started this company in Mexico, but it was a natural recipe, and now it's passed down and they're passing it out to everybody because they love it so much. Like, it's fucking cool, man. I'm buying like somebody's passion, someone's hard work, someone's idea. I'm not just buying this numbless, faceless company's product. So I wanted to kind of like approach our company in a way where it's like these are real people that deal with real things and they have real passions and real struggles, and you are part of this community, and I love you. That was kind of like the biggest part of the Johnny Slick's team page. Yeah.

Host 5:55:07

Super cool, man. Now I kind of want to shift gears completely and talk about something that I know you're passionate about. It's something that came up when we were podcast prep, and we definitely talked about it last night. And um it's it's plant medicine. I know I'm sure some of that's born out of your deep dive, right? With the products that you were making um and how they were unhealthy, and how you know big pharma hasn't necessarily done any favors for the you know Western civilization. So I mean, you've clearly done a deep dive on the history of pharmaceutical medicine versus plant-based healing. Walk me through what you found because I think most people have no idea how deliberate that split actually was.

Johnny Raushi 5:55:47

Yeah, it was definitely a financial. Um the government was mainly involved in the early 1900s in that decision where um plant medicine was seen as taboo or woo-woo type of medicine, and it was like it doesn't work right. It's based on rituals of ancestors, and it's not real, and uh um they worship false gods, and those people use that medicine. The same thing with um cannabis, how it was originally um like Mexicans, like the the South Americans, white Americans were scared of Mexicans in like early 1900s, um maybe in the 40s, 30s, I don't know the time frame. So they called it marijuana to intimidate the white folk to think that it was Mexican and that Mexicans were illegally bringing it over the border. So it made the American, like the white American, scared of cannabis, and then they called it devil's lettuce. They said little Jimmy smoked it and killed his whole family with an axe. Like there was a deliberate uh psychology with the media and with funding, financial funding of this country to go in certain directions. Um, and mainly it pushed us towards alcohol and pharmaceuticals, which you can see in everyday society. You turn on um any streaming platform, if you have ads, you see three types of ads. You see pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and fast food. That is our country, man. And all of those are set to put you in the American hospital, see American doctor, and get put in a cycle. That's just what it is, man. Never once will you ever see an ad for smoke weed when you're feeling anxious, or take acid if you can't overcome a trauma that's killing your relationships. Never you'll never fucking see those commercials, man, because that's that's taboo, that's woo-woo, it's uncontrollable from the government standpoint. It they can control alcohol, they can control pharmaceuticals because they produce it, they make it, they tax it, the lottery. Look at any low-income area, what is on every corner? Why? How is that something that is just bypassing everybody? It's clearly set up to make the American people submissive to the government through funding. So early 1900s, the Rockefellers had a big part of it where they kind of like funded pharmaceuticals processed synthetic uh chemicals because it was compounded from herbal medicine. Now, like all pharmaceuticals are not of outer space, like they're from the earth, they are mainly plant-based, but they're processed and thin set thin synthetic versions of the plant. So it works faster, it's more potent, and it's dosage, which in the the other culture with herb medicine, it was like you can dose it, yes, but because it came from Earth, if it had more sunlight than the last batch, it was more potent, you know, it it was uncontrollable in the avenue of that. Um, that's where shamans and and caregivers came in and sitters came in for the medicines. Um but I had a question like as a kid that never was answered, and I asked myself again when I was like once we were situated, um why can the hospitals like I go to the hospital and they give me heroin or morphine or fentanyl, they give me something and it's a medicine. But if I buy it on the street, it's a drug and I go to jail. It's it's the same substance, it's the environment. What uh what's going on? Because one's taxed and one isn't? I don't understand. And then it started to dawn on me that if it's used for a purpose to heal, it's medicine. And if it's used or abused as a substance to kind of numb yourself, it's a drug. And that goes for everything. It goes for alcohol, it goes for cigarettes, it goes for marijuana, uh, meth. It's a medicine, man. God created these things, it's not just something that appeared like God intended for that to grow.

Host 5:59:32

Yeah, I don't know. I I think we created meth though.

Johnny Raushi 5:59:34

Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm talking about like, but it's all from the earth, like God created the earth. Like we didn't get it from moon rocks, you know what I mean? And God created the moon anyway. So, like, what I'm saying is mankind found a way to abuse something, and we are choosing to numb ourselves to leave this reality with it. But God did create that, and he also created free will for man to do that. Whether we do bad or good with it is based on our perspective. But when it comes to actual medicine, I don't think there's a single like um parents give children whiskey for teething, right? I don't know if that's still a thing, I'm not a parent, but like alcohol can be used as a medicine, tobacco can be used as a medicine for people who have ADD, nicotine can help solve um people, uh tremors and shakes. Like, there's so many things that can be used or abused. Um, so I started to wonder that type of question, and then I was like, well, I've always heard acid, LSD, um, mushrooms, DMT, ayahuasca. I've always heard these things are like like you can get in big trouble for this stuff. And then I was like, I wonder why. Like, what's going on? And in my mind, I always saw like the beetles, like you're seeing purple dinosaurs and dragons everywhere on acid and stuff. And then um an opportunity presented itself for me to do acid, and I was like, kind of scared, man. I don't really know. I don't want like I don't want to see. I always heard that you're gonna let your demons out. And I always thought that was bad. And I'm like, dude, if I got demons inside of me, I kind of want to talk to them and like get them out of me, right? Like, why are they just locked inside of me? So I do want to see my demons. I want to talk to them, I want to solve that trauma because it's nothing other than me in here. It's me. And if there's demons in there, that means I have traumas I need to overcome. So I did acid for the first time, and it was like I was like 23 or 24 at the time, and my brain was still developing. And I have a theory with neurons connecting, because that's what you know psilocybin uh psychedelics do. They connect neurons and allow you to think in much different avenue than you would normally think, which is where you know tripping and psychedelics come into play. So my neurons were shooting and connecting, and I was thinking about all my past traumas and why I called them traumas and why I was a victim, and and then different perspectives started to force their way in, and I was like, what if that wasn't a bad thing? What if that was a good thing? And all these questions, and um honestly, I don't have any experimenting or science behind it, but I've done I've probably done acid like 200 times. It's my favorite type of psychedelic for healing. I have a lot of traumas I want to overcome, I have a lot of creative process, I want to get out, I want a lot of expressionism, I want out. Um, and LSD and acid kind of help me do that, especially with perspective, life perspective, healing perspectives, and then like service perspectives. How can I help people? How do I view people? Um, at this point in time, from all it could be all acid, I don't know. I look at everything as a living being. I I even look at the space between things as a living being, where I love the trees. Obviously, we know trees are alive, right? But why, in Marcus Aurelius sort of two, elements are the building blocks of life. So why can't I say that this chair is a living thing? And if it is, shouldn't I treat this chair really well? And if I do, won't it last longer? And won't it provide more for me? And won't it look prettier and be better? Um I look in my backyard and I see two trees, and I love the trees because they're alive, and I'm grateful for them. They provide shade, they provide roots for the mycelium and everything. But I also believe that the space between the trees is a living thing. Because that if that didn't exist, I couldn't hang my hammock. Um they say to snowboarders and skiers, don't look at the trees, look in between the trees, the space between, because if you look at the tree, you're gonna hit the tree. So we acknowledge that space between things is an entity itself, that space isn't void of things, it is itself a thing. And in my mind, all of that is a living thing. If there was no space between us right now, I'd be sitting on your lap. I don't know if you want that or not, but we can make it happen. But I'm grateful for the space between us. Do you know what I mean? And if that's the case, then we should treat the space between us like a living thing. And I know it sounds crazy, man. When you start to look at every single thing as a living being, you start to really love everything, everything is connected. Like right now, I'm touching the rug, and so are you. So technically, we're in contact, we're in contact with each other. Like that, all things are connected. And if I can love me and I'm connected to the rug, and I the rug's connected to you, I should love the rug and I should love you. And when you start to treat things like that, man, it really shifts your life. And I believe that that occurred during my neuron processing, like during the final development of my frontal lobe. So now I just like dude, I have deep conversations as if I'm tripping, like all the time. I don't know if the neurons stuck or something. Like, I'm not that smart of a dude, but I can get really fucking deep on some stuff. Like the blank of a I'll go to a gas station and talk to some guy and talk to him about life, and we'll be talking about like death and life and and religion and and purpose. It's just wild, man. I interacted with him for three minutes and they were already deep.

Host 6:04:34

But I do think some people operate at a different level because I like to have I I like deep conversations. I I like talking about a lot more than just use offering.

Johnny Raushi 6:04:45

So like you have that experience.

Host 6:04:47

I I you know, I I do think like, you know, there there's just I think a lot of people are craving connections, but we spend so much time at the surface with people. It's almost like some people have this faux pas of having of saying anything, like, you know, how many times you hey, how's your day going? People don't even really care about your response.

Johnny Raushi 6:05:03

Yeah.

Host 6:05:03

And if you say something besides, you know, good or bad, or like, hey man, you know, whatever. If you go into a deep response, I'm actually struggling with this, yeah.

Johnny Raushi 6:05:11

Yeah, like what a I wasn't expecting you to follow up with something, man.

Host 6:05:15

Yeah, or to actually really give a shit, you know, like actually before. Really cares about how my day's going and and and all these different things. Yeah. I think we live on this surface level, and I think you know, psychedelics are opening up conversations, they're opening up people's minds, their awareness, their it's definitely self-awareness, I think.

Johnny Raushi 6:05:32

I think it's it's more than because that's what psychedelics are, man. It allows you to take a trip inside. Like you only have so many, you have six senses. In our in our society, we teach five, but there is a gut feeling, the third eye. We do understand that. When you walk into a room after an argument, you feel that. It could be reading body language, it could be whatever it is, but you get that gut feeling that tells you to do something. That's your sixth sense. In our culture, we don't teach our kids about that. And I think that's a huge part of our decision making. What plant medicine does, it allows you to touch that gut feeling, that sixth sense, and overcome some traumas that you might have been feeling. So you do have like obviously you have visuals, you have like the sensations, you have all like your sensory organs are like enhanced, like you feel them, but you you're having these deep conversations in your head about life, about traumas, about the past, about your feelings, about your purpose, about all of this stuff. And then all through those conversations, it's almost like you're walking up to the mirror. And if you haven't, I I really recommend like get in a safe space, take some heavy psychedelics and just look in the mirror, man. A lot of people tell you not to do that. I find it fucking powerful. Like to talk to yourself in the mirror, um, to look at who you are and talk to yourself as if you're not yourself, and then really get vulnerable. Like we talk to other people nicer than we talk to ourselves sometimes. What the fuck is that about? So talk to yourself as if it's another person. All of a sudden you create that rhythm and you're on psychedelics, you start having conversations you never thought you'd have with yourself again. Um, it's very, very powerful. But once you once you become that aware and you start to learn how you operate and you start to gather experiences from your past and you're learning and growing from them, you become so aware, and then you, like you said, you start to crave those deep conversations because you've had those meaningless conversations and they're fucking useless. You forget about them an hour later, and then it's like there's no human connection, there's no brotherhood, there's no bond, and then you're just off to the next thing. You wait, you essentially wasted time. That's fucking useless, man. So you want to have those deep conversations. But I'm a firm believer in in using medicines, plant medicines for their intended purpose. Um, I get a lot of people that say all the time, too. It's like, oh, I did acid when I was a kid and it kind of fucking sucked. And so no, that you were abusing it, you were partying. Now you're trying to use it to overcome some traumas. Like whether you stepped on an IED or um your father abused you, or you were molested as a kid. Like you have all these traumas, man, and we're told as men to stuff it down and deal with it later, or don't deal with it at all. It just it's part of being a human. Bro, there's so much power in unpacking that and going back into those moments in a safe space and just being like, what can I learn from that and how can I help people with that experience? Because, like they like people say, like Batman and the Joker have the same origin story, man. You choose to make people suffer for your pain, or you choose to prevent people from ever feeling that pain again. You choose to be the hero of your own story or the villain of your story. And what plant medicine has helped me personally with my experience is become the hero of my story to be able to help people through their life and their journeys. And I'm, dude, I'm only 32. I by no means think I have it all figured out. I definitely do fucking not have it all figured out. But I have some experiences that I know other people are going through, and I'm also very aware that other people have experiences that I'm going through that can help me. And the more I talk about it, the more that we can take acid together or take mushrooms together and just fucking talk about that stuff, get like strip it down vulnerable with each other. We find out we're the same dude. We're dealing with the same stuff, we have the same insecurities, we have the same goal. We want to raise the next generation to continue our research, our studies to live a better life. Like, we all want that.

Host 6:08:58

What's your thought process on why like plant medicine helps break down those barriers, whether your own mental barriers, um, whether you know you're talking about dealing with trauma, and look, neither one of us are doctors, so this is just two dudes talking. So all you guys out there, like, you know, yeah you take this with a grain of salt, but you know, it's it's just experience.

Johnny Raushi 6:09:15

All right, it's opinion and experience is all I'm speaking from. But um, I well, I believe it's neuron-based. I believe that the human mankind has like our brain is fucking wild, dude. Like the amount of energy our brain puts off, like actual energy, can like like I don't know the science behind it, but uh power a light bulb for a certain amount of time. Like we have energy just in us, like radio frequencies and everything. Our brain, they say our brain only operates at 10%. That's not real. Like you use every part of your brain, but only a limited amount of it. Um, like the left side is used for certain stuff, the right side's used for certain stuff, the frontal lobe, the back lobe, all that stuff. Um, but I do believe that it's not being used all the way. I believe, like, you know, whether it's 10%, 15%, whatever the study science shows. I think what psychedelics do in in general is I think it powers the neurons to to spark. So you're using more of your brain. So now you're able to think more um like deeper, more spiritual. You're like the mind itself, the brain itself, like like where is your mind? Like nobody really knows where the mind, the cognitive, like thought consciousness, where is the spirit? Um, like if I were to pull away every single atom off of your body, when will your spirit go away? When will you die? Like they're like that's that's uncomprehendable for us. Um we believe it to be in the brain because that's where our reality is is identified. Um, our reality is based on our perception, the things we're perceiving, and how we're labeling it, and then we're labeling it, and that's our reality. Um, I heard Pete Holmes, the comedian, he actually said something really cool. It was really interesting. He said, There is no God here with us. We're all looking for God. There's no God here. God is the author of a book, and we're all characters. Harry Potter isn't walking around Hogwarts looking for J.K. Rowland, she's not there. The presence of her and the essence of her is present in everything. So if if we are looking for God, we have to look within, we have to look around us because the proof that God exists is here. God in J.K. Rowland isn't in Hogwarts. God isn't here with us, but there's evidence of God's existence here, like the author of a book. You're never gonna find the author in the book, but there's proof that the author exists because of the book. And Alan Watts said it too. He said, We're all looking for God, and we're looking at a paper cup, and we're looking like he says we're trying to look at we're trying to find God as if he's behind a curtain somewhere. So we're constantly searching for God. And he said, God is this paper cup. You don't move the pay, like he was pointing at a paper cup on a desk, and he was like, God isn't hiding behind the paper cup, God is the paper cup, God is your ability to see the paper cup. Do you know the intricacies of your eyeballs and vision and light spectrums bouncing off the cup to allow you to see it? That itself is God. He's not hiding behind anything, that is him, and I thought that was really unique. Um, and those type of thought processes, I don't think happen naturally. I think our brain has kind of like focused on developing for survival. Like Sigmund Freud said, he broke down the human psyche into three aspects. You have the id, the human, us, the ego, and then you have the super ego. I don't know if you heard any of this, but um you you know the image of like the person with the angel and the demon on their shoulder. So it's essentially the same thing where the super ego is your moral conscious, who you are and who you want to be with your core values and your ethics and all of that through moral. The id is essentially like your caveman version. It's it's your your primal instincts of hunger, sex, fighting, survival. And you are the ego in between that balances both. You want to eat, you want to have sex, and you want to um survive, but you have a moral code that you need to do that stuff by. You don't just go out and have sex with anything. You see, you have a moral code. Some people feel, and in their world, it is right to have sex with multiple people. So their id is the same where they want to have sex, but their superego or their moral compass is different. They're living in their right life. Some of us might think that's wrong because we disagree with it, but you essentially have this moral compass of how to live a balanced life because you have your id, survival, and your superego. And I think we're in an adaptation evolutionary state where our brain and our body is still in a state of survival, where we think about survival, we act as if we are still in survival. Like people are acting as if we have to, like, at least here, we have to fight for our food. Like They say we used to have tails, you know, to to do whatever for balance of climbing trees and hunting and stuff. Dude, I don't hunt. I don't need whatever is on my body for hunting, I don't need it anymore. They're saying um in the next I don't know, this is all science, in the next like two thousand years, we're not gonna have pinky toes anymore. Because we don't need to run and hunt food anymore. And our wisdom teeth are going. We don't need to chew nuts like we can break them up with our fingers now. Like there's so many things like that. I think our brain is still in a state of evolutionary adaptation for survival. It's not reaching the point of the superego moral point yet. I think over time we will stop thinking about survival, hunger, sex, fighting, primal urges, and start thinking about moral compass, ethics, and the superego. And I think that comes into how many neurons are connected in our brain. Being able to use the brain to its fullest extent will allow us to make better decisions and make decisions based on the future and the moral compass that we hold, not so much as well. You have more to you than that. And I think our brain is in a weird state where we just need more neurons connected, which is where psychedelics come in. Because you want to connect those things, like I personal experience, I've never wanted to have sex on any type of psychedelic. Like, I'm not even thinking about that shit anymore. Like, I'm not really hungry at all. Like those primal urges are kind of put away. I just want to talk about life, love, spirituality. I want to paint, I want to like watch cool colors on the TV, like moving around. Like, I want to enact those type of deep thoughts and have those conversations. That's only because you have many neurons connecting. So I believe if the human brain were to be focused on evolutionary and adapting with more neurons connected, that survival part of us for fight, um, flight, hunger, survival, and sex, that part will kind of get pushed away and we'll be focused more on like moral compass, doing what's right, being good people, and focusing on that. I know that was a deep question answered to yours, but I mean that's you're just a deep thinker.

Host 6:16:06

I I appreciate you have such a deep analytical mind and you think about things in a different way that I would. So it's it's very interesting. I find that there's a a lot of people that'll be interested kind of in your thought process. I mean, the veteran first responder community has seen a massive shift in the last five years around you know, uh psychedelics, psilocybin, ibogaine, ayahuasca for PTSD, moral injury, and transition trauma. Do you think the institutional resistance to it is the same playbook as what happened um to plant-based medicine a hundred years ago?

Johnny Raushi 6:16:36

I think I think that there's more resistance with the everyday person. Uh, here's the thing I've read plenty of papers about like MDMA, um ayahuasca, like all of these medicines when it came to veterans, combat veterans specific, people that had like no shit survival mortality experiences and having psychedelic experiences on top of that to overcome those traumas and having like phenomenal results, man. It's it's incredible. It's moving, yeah, man. And it's not just combat vets, like it, like if you have trauma, trauma, and trauma is a very self-perspective thing. Like, there's people, dude. I believe that babies cry so much. I don't have any evidence. Babies cry so much because the worst thing they've ever experienced was going hungry and being spanked by a doctor. But as you grow up, those traumas, that pendulum swings higher. You know, the more you feel trauma, the more capable of love you can feel. Like that pendulum swings. But as a small child, your worst day is when dad didn't say goodbye to you and he left for work. You know what I mean? And that you're just wailing and you're just crying and you don't know what to feel. It's like that's the worst thing you have going for you. As adults, we have a plethora of traumas that we can pick from and scale them from worst to best. But as a child, like you have these low traumas. So if you're I'm not saying anyone under the age of 20, well, I don't have an opinion, 22 should do psychedelics, but like a 23-year-old who'd never joined the military, who's never really like had any type of traumas, but witnessed a car accident, that sound can be entirely traumatic for them. Like the the the for me too, I I know the sound. Uh, if you've seen a car accident, you know it. There's a squealing of the tire and then a moment of silence before the metal clashes. That moment of silence is traumatic, bro. It's it's it's absence of anything, but it's so powerful. Um, if you've never been to combat and you've never had any type of trauma, you've never been in a fight, that could be trauma for you, man. And that could keep you up at night. You could have to see therapy for that. So it's all based on your perspective of your reality. Some people may call you weak and you're a bitch for thinking that's trauma because everybody's I've been to combat, blah, blah, blah. Dude, it's all perspective-based, man. Everybody has their thing, man. There's people who can see a dead body and be perfectly fine. And there's people that can that can completely derail their life. You know what I mean? Like it's all perspective-based. So it's individual, it's completely unique individual perspective. Um, when when these military and first responders are going and having these experiences, they're coming out and they're like, holy shit, like, I'm happy again. I'm not drinking anymore. Like, there is just overwhelming positive like experiences with these psychedelics, and it's not being abused at all. However, it's like happening on the Canadian border, it's happening in Costa Rica, it's happening everywhere other than America. There's some there's some like underground shamans that go around. I don't know if you've if you've been.

Host 6:19:32

Oh, I'm well aware of it. I don't talk about it on here because I don't want to jeopardize any of those things.

Johnny Raushi 6:19:35

Yeah, me neither, man. But like it it comes and go in waves, and and dude, it's always been around. Yeah, like you're trying to heal people, like it's always going to be around, man. Like Jesus was punished for helping people, you know. I mean, like people who help people are always ostracized and then eventually put down. It sucks, man. People who want to unite people are always put down, but the the rebellious spirit against that power is always present. Doesn't matter where humankind will always find a way to serve each other and help each other through traumas. Um, it doesn't matter how powerful the government is, there's always going to be some underground thing that's there to serve people, always in every country and every society, um, throughout all of our ancestral time. Um, but when these um military members are having these like overwhelming experiences of like healing and love and positivity, it like almost sparks a bud someplace else to start up. Like, like you'll start one up. You had an overwhelming experience, or you read a paper of this Canadian um clinic that brought Marines, combat Marines in from Iraq that had combat experiences who lost limbs, and they walked in depressed. They did a survey before with a brain scan, and they did one after two weeks after, and it's like completely opposite. And they're like their marriage is fixed, their kids are healthy, like everything in their life is now healthy. Um, and they are the root, like you are the root of your own life.

Host 6:20:54

I've watched people come back to life, bro. Right, like from like I'll almost you can almost see the death about to take them, and and watch them come back.

Johnny Raushi 6:21:02

It's incredibly powerful. So having experienced that, watching somebody experience that, it kind of influences and inspires people to get them on board in any way, shape, or form. They just want to support it in any way at all. Um, whether it's funding a clinic or starting their own clinic or becoming educated on a certain psychedelic and then walking people through that psychedelic um through their house, you know, because they built their house around this type of type of psychedelic, you know. Um it inspires people to help because they saw it changed lives. And I think that's beautiful, man. There's there's nothing beautiful, more beautiful to me than somebody who has the pendulum has swung the other way and it inspired like a like a virus in a positive way to help other people do the same thing and provide that experience for other people. It's so beautiful, man.

Host 6:21:51

Yeah, for the Marine or the cop or the firefighter or first responder, whoever listening, who has heard about you know psilocybin or psychedelics in general, but their whole identity is built around I don't do drugs. What do you say to them about the distinction between what they've been told and what it actually is?

Johnny Raushi 6:22:08

I don't do drugs either, man. Do medicine. You do medicine. The only difference is you go to a fucking doctor and they prescribe it to you, and they prescribe you fucking oxycontin and you think it's a medicine, but you go on the street and you buy oxycontin and you go to fucking jail. Why?

Host 6:22:23

It's because the medicine is considered drugs and the drugs are considered medicine.

Johnny Raushi 6:22:27

So what's the difference, man? If you're using it to heal you, it is a medicine. If you're using it to numb you, it is a drug. That is my simple definition of it. So if you have some sort of perceived notion of, well, I don't do mushrooms, I don't do drugs. Like, bro, I don't do drugs either. Just think about it like that, man. If you're using it to heal you, it's not. It's a medicine. And I'm not saying like the the guy down the street that you're buying mushrooms from is a doctor. Like, those are all labels that are acquired. And guess how you got that label? Fucking money. Like you go to school and you pay a certain amount of money. Like the guy that you got that oxycontin from probably got D's in school. D's get degrees, man. He did he brought he just got a doctorate, man. There's nothing like ultra special other than knowledge about that. But you find a guy that specializes in mushrooms or a clinic that specializes in MDMA, like, how are those not doctors in your mind, or shaman or medicine men? Like, they're all the same, they're just different labels. But as long as you're using it as a medicine, you're responsible with it, you're doing it, you're not affecting people in your life that haven't asked for it. Like, for me, I lock myself in my house. I go outside to get fresh air every once in a while, depending on the trip. If I'm having a you know a positive trip or a negative trip, I get some fresh air. Um, but I don't interact with people as long as you're being responsible, it's a medicine. And it's not like there's I always get the question, like, well, I don't want to become someone I'm not, or I don't want to, I don't want to see demons, and I don't want to say I don't want to like cut off my own fingers or something like that. Bro, I dude, I've never once ever experienced any of that stuff in my entire life.

Host 6:23:59

But I think that there is a responsibility, right? When we talk about psychedelics. I've always kind of like, I don't know, man. I mean, it's come up quite a bit on this podcast. And like you look at there was an army ranger that took a bunch of mushrooms up in Washington and pulled a gun out and killed a couple people. I mean, I feel horrible for that dude because I I know in my heart that that night when he did those, that's not what he set out. So there is, you know, I I think there's a responsibility when when when talking about psychedelics, dude, is set and setting. It's something I always for sure, I always I always talk about. Um you know, because I I do think there's a time and place for everything and and setting intentions and and and being intentional about kind of what you're doing. Yeah, um, I I think it's it's just an important uh in I guess in the context of this conversation, you know, like and that could be the difference of using and abusing, man.

Johnny Raushi 6:24:46

Like I don't know his situation, I don't know his scenario. He might have been suicidal, or that there might have been something in him that just kind of got turned on. I don't know the situation, man. And unfortunately, that's like you have one case like that, and it completely sweeps the nation for that for the medicine or the plant, and then you have 30,000 cases where men are healed, and it's like you'll never hear about those on the news.

Host 6:25:07

You hear about that one guy, and it's yeah, and how bad did the oxy pandemic had to get before people were ODing on fentanyl? Right, you know what I mean? How many people died before anybody actually cared?

Johnny Raushi 6:25:17

Before it became a problem. Yeah, and then you compare that to you know psychedelic um abuse or OD or how many people die annually from alcohol that aren't even drinking? Like drunk driving, they crash into somebody, some kid dies. Like, why is that not more talked about, you know, or the nutrition problem with diabetes and like heart heart failure? Like these are so many things that we don't care about, but we care about the fact that some guy is doing mushrooms in his own house on a Saturday afternoon trying to heal his body. Like, like there our attention span of what's going where and why it's going there is purveyed by power above us, the government, the big corporations, whatever it is. If they say that's a problem, that guy's a problem because he's doing something. We like as American people, we're like, he's a problem, and we shake our finger at him and not ever ask him, Why are you doing that? Are you trying to heal yourself from being molested as a child and you went to therapy and you tried to kill yourself and it didn't work, so you're trying plant medicine? Like, shame on you. No, man, fucking awesome. How can we help? You never hear about that shit, man.

Host 6:26:24

Yeah, and I, you know, I brought this up last night when we talked about it, you know, like I I always kind of run mentally, I get stuck in the middle of people, you know, who trade one addiction for another. So the guys that, you know, give up alcohol and then you know start dropping LSD in mushrooms, you know, uh as much or as rigorously as they were doing alcohol. Did they did they really heal from anything? Did they change one thing? That's a drug.

Johnny Raushi 6:26:45

That's still drugs. Yeah, because you're doing it to num yourself, you're using it to uh uh to leave this reality and enter something else. Um, however, they do say that in order to stop an addiction, you have to pick something else up. I really don't believe that. I think that's something that's very specific. Um, like people who are quitting smoking, they say you should chew on something salty or gum or something like that. I think that helps, but you don't need to. Like I and I've never had an addictive personality. Um, I think a lot of our traits are genetic, like whether you have an addictive personality or not, it's very genetic. Um, I believe my mom has an addictive personality, so is my dad when it comes to personalities in general. Um I don't really have an addictive personality, so when I want to quit something, um, however, coffee, fucking trying to quit coffee, man. Caffeine, bro. I did not know about the migraines, and I signed up and it sucked. It was bad, bro. So, like, I'm okay. I did it and I realized that um, you know, you can't be perfect, man. I don't want anyone to think that I'm living like a perfect life. Um like I have a monster right here. I know this shit ain't good for me, man. I'm okay. Something's gotta kill me. You know what I mean? I'm not scared of death. I'm not scared, I'm cool. Um, and I'm not perfect. I'm drinking that plastic here, too. I know about microplastics. I'm okay, man. Something's gotta kill me. Yeah, no, yeah.

Host 6:27:56

I mean, none of us are getting out of this sucker alive, you know what I mean.

Johnny Raushi 6:27:59

You see my t-shirt that says that? Uh-uh. No one here gets out alive. It's uh it's a uh a skeleton riding a bike and the grim reaper's behind him with his scythe out. It's like no one's getting out alive. Jim Morrison said, I used to be a huge Doors fan, and Jim Morrison said that none of us get out alive. And I was like, that's fucking cool, man. I love that. That's rad. Yeah, and if you have to live life and everyone has their vices and everyone has their things, as long as you're being safe, you're not hurting other people, fucking go for it, bro. But yeah, definitely be responsible with plant medicine. Set up your scenario so it's nice and safe and comfy. Make sure you have enough time, stay uh keep it away from kids, keep it away from animals, just set intent, set purpose, be safe, and then it becomes a medicine. You're using it to heal.

Host 6:28:40

Yeah, learn about it too, man.

Johnny Raushi 6:28:41

But if you're just popping it like mid-morning just so you don't have to deal with today's issues, like that's called a drug, man. You're straight up, you're doing drugs now.

Host 6:28:48

Uh, this is a cool question because I I know you you nerd out on analytics. Uh it's not something you love, but it's something you're really good at. So, I mean, you research everything, you you don't take claims at face value. When you looked at the clinical literature, the literature, uh, the Johns Hopkins work, NYU studies, maps research on PTSD, what was your honest reaction to what the data was actually saying about psychedelics?

Johnny Raushi 6:29:07

Well, I thought it was I thought it was great, man. And honestly, it's kind of hard to hide research papers, you know what I mean? Like, especially because they're worldwide. Like there's a lot of of research papers in this country. I don't particularly agree with the science techniques behind it. We do a lot of animal research. Um, and I dude, I understand like testing on rats, dude, everything's alive to me. And that's that sounds like suffering, you know. I mean, but when we came out with like human studies and people were testing and finding um positive research worldwide, not just in this country, about like how plant medicine was healing people and the science behind it, the brain scans. Because like I when you do a psychedelic, you feel it, you don't really see it. So when you get to see on paper the brain scans of before and after, and then you can link the person's emotions and their decisions to those brain scans, you're like, dude, fuck, this is really cool. So when I do a psychedelic now, I can picture those brain scans and be like, this is rad. That's what my brain looks like right now, man. That's really fucking cool. How do I capture this event, this experience? For me, it's painting, but um, it's just it's just rad to have people entertaining the concepts of psychedelics in the science world of the city.

Host 6:30:14

Well, they're I I think uh Joe Rogan just had Governor Perry and Brian Hubbard on again talking about Ida gain and man, the research, the study showing like it it physically heals the brain.

Johnny Raushi 6:30:22

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Host 6:30:22

So it's not only does it you can get rid of addiction and you can heal from trauma, it's literally physically healing that part of your brain.

Johnny Raushi 6:30:29

Like cell rejuvenation, it's happening, which is funny because like fucking thousands of years ago, they knew this shit, bro. And then we came full circle, and now we're like, hey, we discovered this. It's like, nah, bro, that shit existed. Like they write about it in these books, man, these Taoist books, Zen books about like healing medicines. And it's like we're thinking about like, oh, they're probably taking lavender leaves and sniffing it before bed. Nah, bro, they're talking about doing like mycelium mushrooms and psilocybin and all this stuff. Obviously, acid is synthetic and it was made in the lab, but it provides the neurons exactly what is a synthetic trip, and it about it uh allows you to open up those neurons in your brain. Um, but there's dude, nothing new under the sun, man. We're just discovering something that's already been here, that's been used, that's been talked about for thousands of years.

Host 6:31:14

Another topic I want to talk about is you and your wife, man. I mean, you guys, I was telling you guys last night, uh, and we talked about it today, man. You guys just have like such a really cool relationship. And, you know, in a in a world where, you know, divorce is common and you have dating apps, and it's just really easy to quit. You guys have been through like a lot. You guys found each other in high school, and yeah, like it's cool to see the way you guys talk to each other and the way she looks at you when you're talking, and you guys have like something that's it's real. Um, so you know, and you very, very rarely do either one of you talk without talking about the other. Even I was, you know, I was you were talking to my wife, I was talking to your wife, you know, she was still referencing you, and so it's it's just really cool to see. What do you attribute your success in marriage and and how you guys are are so close?

Johnny Raushi 6:31:57

Well, we've been together now longer than we haven't been together. We met at 15 and we're both in our like she's 31, I'm 32. So we've been together longer than we haven't been together. So we're best friends, we've grown together, we're essentially like I don't want to say siblings because that's some West Virginia shit, but like we're dude, we're the same person, you know what I mean? But we're different in our own way. But we both love the same music, we both love the same movies, we both love the same foods, we both enjoy the same type of comedy. Um, my comedy is a little bit darker from the Marine Corps, but she's on it, she's cool. Um, we have the same catchphrases, we have the same references when we talk about anything, whether it's a movie we saw when we were 16 years old or a movie we saw last week, we reference it, we joke. We both want the same things in life, we both feel the same way about spirits and spirituality and still aside, but we're just best friends, man. It's really easy, it's really simple. Um, obviously, that came with a lot of hardship. Um, I I came in a relationship pretty religious from my father um talking to her about that. She's always been kind of atheist, um, or at least believing that nothing existed. And I I didn't really like that concept, so um we talked about that. Those are hard conversations, obviously, like things that could separate a couple, so you know, you don't agree on some stuff. Um, do we want to have kids? Do we not want to have kids? Like those type of conversations, they're hard, they're deep conversations, and every single time it kind of ended up being on the same boat, and we just stuck with it. Um it was early days of uh Johnny Slicks actually. Um there was a veteran retreat and Nick spoke at it. And um Ali was right there too, and Nick said every relationship is built off of trust. That's the baseline of your relationship. Every relationship, whether you go to the grocery store or you hire a mechanic to change your oil, it's bas based on trust. Um and trust is not earned, trust is given until it's lost and then it's earned. I never really understood that until I started to have people in my life. When you hire your mechanic, he doesn't have to earn your respect, he already has it. That's why you hired him. He can lose your trust by fucking you over, and then he has to earn it back. But trust is not initially earned, it's always given. And when you start acting like that, you start treating people like fucking grown-ups. Like you don't have to earn my respect, bro. You have it. That's how you got here. You earned my respect. But if you fuck me over, I'm gonna give you a second chance, but now you have to earn that respect back, you know, or earn that trust back. Um, but he said every relationship is built on trust. The trust in a spouse marriage is that you do not want to ever cause that person harm purposely, maliciously. You have to trust that the other person is not purposely trying to make you feel bad. And that kind of sunk in for a little bit, and I was really thinking about it. I was like, shit, man, that's real, that's like true. And Kirk Weisler was there as well, and he said, if something your spouse says, after that baseline of trust, where um I trust that you're not gonna say anything to purposely hurt me, and you trust that I'm not gonna do the same to you because I'm not trying to, right? Everything else is a miscommunication. So when your wife says, Dude, these pants make me look fat, and you could honestly say, actually, yes, they do, it's a miscommunication. She got triggered, it's a miscommunication. Maybe she answered the question question or asked the question wrong, or maybe you answered improperly. It's not what you meant. You didn't mean to harm her. That's not your intent. So let's try this again. Do you think these pants look good on me? Hey, I actually really like those other ones on you. You look fucking awesome in those other ones. It's the same type of thing, but now it's said differently. The the situation didn't change, people didn't change, the question changed, and the answer changed. That's it. So words changed, and it all was based on the ability to give each other a second chance, based on the trust that you uh were offended and you did not mean to offend me. So when Rebecca and I had conversations, and it was so minuscule, man. Most most uh spousal agreements are just fucking stupid. It all starts with like I'm right and you're wrong, right? I did this and I'm right and you did this and you're wrong. You flip it and you say, I did this and I'm wrong, and you did this and you're right. And you start changing the words, and it's based on love and trust. You start to look at each other as giving each other second chances, where it's like, I know you didn't mean to hurt me, so can you reword that? And it's like, oh shit, my bad. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to trigger you. I didn't know that word offended you. Um, yeah, actually, let's do this, you know. Instead of saying, wow, that's dumb. Like some people are like, damn, you just called me dumb. And they're like, no, I didn't say that. I said what you said was dumb. It's like, well, I am I word, and now you're fucking not talking for days because you just called each other dumb and now you're gonna argument. When in reality, it could have easily been avoided by just saying, like, dang, that kind of sucked, bro. Why did you say that? That hurt me. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just kind of making fun of it. I was picking and joking on you. My bad. What I meant was this like, oh, okay, I love you. You're awesome. You want to go to dinner? Yeah. And it's like you could easily avoid those things by understanding that the person is not there to hurt you. If they are, that's a whole nother story. Like, if that's a whole nother situation, maybe you just need to avoid that person or talk more to that person about some pain that they're going through. Um, in the four agreements, it talks about one of the laws, one of the agreements is don't take anything personally. Um, when somebody is trying to hurt you or they're hurting you, they're just hurt and they're trying to push that hurt on somebody else. You know, no one wants to suffer alone. When you're late to class in high school, being late to class by yourself sucked. But when you're with your friend, it's okay. Why? Those who suffer together want other people. Misery loves company. So when somebody is trying to hurt you, they're really just upset with themselves and they're just trying to outsource that and push it out to you. And it's up to you to say, wow, that hurt me, or I don't fucking care. I'm not taking that personally. That's you. That's a you problem. Can I help you? Like, you know, I mean, I want to serve you. Um, and our relationship has always been built on that trust. Um, that we not we're not here to hurt each other, we're here to love each other. And if I'm hurt by any reason at all, it's a miscommunication, give it another go. Let's try to get back to love and kindness and the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment, you know.

Host 6:38:04

I love that, dude. Thanks for sharing. Uh Rebecca's now the director of operations of Johnny Slicks. It's not a ceremonial title. What does she actually do? And how do you separate being her husband from being her business partner?

Johnny Raushi 6:38:17

Oh, well, the answer to the second part first, I don't. We're the same person, and I truly believe that, and I live that. Um, we'll talk about life at work and we'll talk about work at home. Like there is no difference. It's life. You know what I mean? We get to do this for a very short period. Why separate it? Why, why treat it like it's not fun, first off, but also who we are. Um, she pretty much does like everything that no one else wants to do, man. She's like a like a multi-tool, she's rad. She'll do HR, um, she'll do customer service if there's a gap. She'll um the one thing she's never done is manufacturing. Mainly because I got that shit. I'm pretty fucking good at manufacturing, bro. But she was there, like, there's photos early days of Johnny Slicks where she's helped me label products. Like, I just I had too much demand and I didn't have enough time. And for us, what well, for her, I'm assuming her perspective was why just be mad at my husband for being at work all day building our dream and building our business when I can just go to work with him and help him and be together. And that's what we did, man. Whenever there was a gap in anything, we just worked together at it. And whether it was customer service, fulfillment, uh, social media, or um manufacturing, early days of Johnny Slicks, she would just come in and help me. And then if I didn't want to do something, we would just like I'd be like, Hey, I don't want to do this, can I go do that? And she's like, Yeah, but you have to go get me lunch. And I'd be like, Fucking solid, I'll go to public school. And we just made that work, you know? And now she's like, we're both learning to let go more. Um, she's learning to let go a lot more. She's doing more retail stuff, getting the CBS and getting all these big contracts signed up and um the demand planned out and all the logistics planned out for that. Um, and we have a guy that's actually in the COO seat now that she trained over. She has a lot of financials, a lot of bookkeeping, a lot of counting, a lot of taxes, a lot of like funding, a lot of bank contacts. Um, she's pretty much the glue between fucking everybody in the company to uh each other, and she's also the glue for fucking everybody outside of the company to stay on the company. Like she makes sure, like how she got us hooked up, and she makes sure that everybody is connected and accountable for what they're saying and doing. Because, like, rule number one, agreement number one is be impeccable with your word, do and say the same thing. My it's my one one rule be a dude who says and does the same thing. Like, there's so much power in that. Um, she makes sure that people in our circle are that you say and do the same thing. I hold you accountable and I make sure you get who you need and what you need to make that happen. So she's kind of like the jack of all trades, man. And she I I don't know where her I mean that shit might that might be her unique ability, man. I don't know. I don't know. And she's just fucking good at a lot of things. Um and she knows that she's not the best at envisioning things. Like, like I can tell you the size of your desk by sitting here, and she'll look at it and be like, it's either two feet or thirty feet. I don't fucking know. And I'm like, nah, man, that's that's clearly a six and a half foot desk. And it'll fit if you move it over there, it'll block that door, but you can you'll make it work with the frame. And she's not strong when it comes to like envisioning things and and creative thoughts, and um, that's my strong suit, man. That's why we're like yin-yang to each other. Um, I'm really, really fucking good at perspective shifting, obstacle removing, troubleshooting problems, creative problem solving, and envisioning solutions. Like that is my thing, you know. Um everything else I fucking suck at. And she is really good at all of that other stuff. So it kind of goes back to like you can't be a lone wolf, man. You can't do it all yourself. You have to have um I as me as Robin, I have to have my Batman. And me as Batman, I have to have my Robin. You know what I mean? Like we have to fill each other's gaps, and we have to be, we have to know our zone of genius, our unique abilities, and be okay with giving the other person our weaknesses. But in order to do that, you need to identify your weaknesses, which a lot of people do not want to do.

Host 6:42:17

This is gonna be a fun question, man.

Johnny Raushi 6:42:19

Okay.

Host 6:42:20

What would you want people to understand about what Rebecca sacrificed, not what you built together, but what it cost her specifically?

Johnny Raushi 6:42:26

Oh, dude, she had to put up with me. Yeah, oh man, I feel sorry. No, um, I mean, dude, honestly, like she had to sacrifice for something that she could not see, and I can't imagine that. Like, yeah, because it wasn't her vision, and like she is not a visionary person, so like she was just like, dude, she was blind, just being tugged by my bullshit. Like, I had a vision for a solution to a problem that I was dealing with, not her, I was dealing with. I found a solution, and then she was sacrificing just as much as I was to make that vision come true, and she had to be strictly based on trust. Like she believed in you, she believed in me, and she saw my passion and my belief, and she was like, Let's do it. Like, dude, I for me, I went and sold my plasma, and then I went on my card and bought the ingredients, and I knew exactly what I was gonna do 18 grams of this, 32 grams of this, 14 grams of this, and I could dissolve the recipe, and I'd be like, dude, my blood just bought this, and then she would sell blood and just get in her car and go back to Chuck E. Cheese. Like, she didn't like buy anything or build any vision of her sacrifice, she just went back to suffering in life. And I dude, I don't know. I honestly I don't know how she'd put up with me. And then at the same time, like I'm probably miserable to be around. I'm eating Taco Bell every fucking day. I'm like miserable, I'm fat, I'm like unhealthy, I'm starting to drink alcohol, I'm like shadow behavior through the roof. We're not having any conversations at all. We barely see each other. Um, we see each other at the plasma center, and then we don't really see each other at home. I'm crawling into bed when she's waking up. Um, it was just like really hard, man. And she was doing it with like at least for me, in my in my opinion. I had like a goal and I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, and she was just like fucking, I trust you, man. Like she was strapped in the trailer, back facing backwards with a blindfold on, just trusting I got it. That's dude, that's hard, man. Yeah.

Host 6:44:30

Yeah. What a good human name.

Johnny Raushi 6:44:31

And I'm a knucklehead, bro. Like I'm a goofball. Like, I I treat like fucking everything like it's a joke, even to serious shit, because it's a it's fun. Like life is fun, man. Not a lot of people. Um, I'm 32, and I know some people that didn't make it to my age, man. I'm very grateful that I'm 32 and I'm I'm still here. I'm still I'm still here. So why not have fun while I'm doing it, you know?

Host 6:44:51

I love that, dude. What did the Marine Corps give you that you still use every single day? Not as a talking point, but something that actually lives in you.

Johnny Raushi 6:45:00

I think um adaptability, man, especially coming from the Marine Corps. Like we got like every branch's like pieces of shit. Like they're the things that they like threw out in der mode, we got like the broken weapons, the broken gear, like having to learn how to adapt to whatever we were dealing with. Um, whether it was digging post holes with your hands, like the goal of the mission is to dig post holes. We ain't got nothing. Can we make shovels? No. Well fucking start digging with your hands then. Like it's uh the adaptability is like the willingness to do what you need to and sacrifice what you can for the mission. That is like ingrained in me. That's like a part of me that I don't remember ever being there before the Marine Corps, but I don't want to change in me. I think this has just become who I am. Like, if I have my eyes on the on the prize, eyes on a goal, and I have a vision, like what the only thing I'm not willing to sacrifice is my marriage. That's the only thing. I will not sacrifice Rebecca for my vision. It's not worth it for me. Like, fuck that. I'm not doing that. Um, but everything else can fucking go, bro. I don't care. As long as it's me and Rebecca, and and I have a pursuit for something great in my life and her life and our life together, like everything else is just meaningless, you know, at the end of the day. Um, that in me, that adaptation and relentlessness is like something I don't think I ever had before the Marine Corps. I'm very grateful the Marine Corps was able to indoctrinate that into me because it's helped my life so drastically. Where a problem arises and I'm like, maybe, maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing. No, it is what it is. How can I solve this? You know, and I I do appreciate that part of the Marine Corps.

Host 6:46:41

When you look at veterans coming out of service now, lost, ego bruised, not sure who they are without that uniform. What do you want to say to them that most people want?

Johnny Raushi 6:46:50

Turn the page, man. Like if that chapter is over, let it be over. Like the hardest thing I think is ego is um understanding your ego, identifying it, and then just fucking moving on, man. Like, life is bigger than you. Like, here's a perspective. In 100 years, there will be a whole new set of 8 billion people on this earth. A whole new set. Like, if you are alive right now, you will not be alive. And if you are here in 100 years, you are not alive right now. A whole new set of people. Meaning everything you care about, all of your problems, all of your awards, all of your labels, the house you live in will either be gone or someone else's. Why are you taking this so seriously? Move on. Like it's gonna be okay, no matter what. If this page in your life, whether you did four years, whether you did two years and you got medically discharged, whether you did 20, 25, 30 years, and you're a police officer now for 20 more years, and you're sitting in your 60s, bro. If you are fucking breathing, you can change. And it's not too late to figure out exactly who you want to become. It's never fucking too late. The day is too late when your obituary is posted. That is too late. But even that's changed because you were here yesterday and now you're not. That's changed whether you're here for it or not. But turn the page, man. You got this chapter of your life. Learn what you can from those experiences, be grateful for them. Um, overcome those traumas, identify what you loved, identify what you didn't love, replicate the things you loved, avoid the things you didn't love that didn't work, and just turn the page, find something new, try something different, you know? Like you tried a menu item at a restaurant and you they no longer offer it. You're just gonna fucking give up. How about you try something else, man? Try anything else and see what doesn't stick, see what does stick. But it's very important to transition and just be okay with the fact that that part of your life is is gone, it's over. And you know, grief is the pay you is the price you pay for love. So, like if you're grieving, if you're frustrated that the fact that you're that part of your life is over, that just means you loved it, and that's beautiful. So be happy it happened, not that it's over, sad that it's over, you know. Um, the biggest part of transition is the the moment you transition into understanding that something is coming, something changes coming. Don't wait for the world to choose for you, man. That's like the worst thing you can do, is just sit on your ass and wait for the world to choose for you. You have a choice, you can get up and make something of yourself, or you can sit there and wait for the world to force you to do something. Just get up and do it, man. Find something that you're passionate about and just fucking do it.

Host 6:49:19

Love that, man. I think sometimes people overcomplicate that.

Johnny Raushi 6:49:23

Oh, for sure.

Host 6:49:24

Like we build our own obstacles, we build our own barriers. I can't because I shouldn't because. Yeah. But instead of finding the reasons why you couldn't or why you shouldn't, find the reasons why you can or why you will.

Johnny Raushi 6:49:33

It's a huge conflict in our minds, man. We think that our problems that we're dealing with are complicated. And mathematically, if you have a complicated problem, it equals a complicated solution. So we think that our complicated, unique problems require some complicated, unique solution. Bro, your problems are simple. They're fucking simple. Honestly, if you say I don't like this, if you remove the ego, I the problem also goes away. Because the problem it was only your problem. I always had this weird conflict, and I thought it was strange. It's very perspective-based. Problems. If I'm walking down the street and I get mugged, me and one dude, we shared the same experience mugging, but I had a really bad day, and he had a fucking great day. So it's not a problem for him, it's only a problem for me. So if I remove me from the equation, no longer a problem. It's just an event that happened. It is what it is, and you can say that for fucking anything. And obviously, like you get people are gonna be like, Yeah, well, what about child death and all these other things? And it's like, dude, it's all a part of a big universal system. And to think there was um uh dude, I and I I don't want to piss anybody off, but I also kind of do. There's a story of the girl that helped she she a seven-year-old goes over to Africa. You were just over there, so you know she got bit by a mosquito, she died of malaria, and it was like devastating. People were like, This is such a sad incident. But this goes back to the Chinese farmer. That's so sad. Maybe because she was an American, American scientist got involved and found a cure for yellow fever, a vaccine for it, now saving hundreds of millions of lives. So, would it be impossible or bad to say that her life was worth saving hundreds of millions of lives? Is that now a good thing that she got bit by a mosquito and died? Is that numb or rude for me to say? But in my mind, you can't exist in this duality. It just is, man. And it's it's a huge system that we live in, and we are just here for a brief, brief single moment. And if all you can do in that moment is just be a good, happy, loving, compassionate human being, then just do that. That bare minimum, be a good human being. It it truly is don't complicate it. The Tao the Dao Dijing says, embrace simplicity, put others first, and desire little. It's simple, man. Just do that.

Host 6:52:04

I love that, man. Um kind of my last question before we we we close out. We've had a hell of a podcast, man. Just covered so much really cool information. Um, if everything you built disappeared tomorrow, the company, the brand, the book, what is the thing that would still make your life mean something?

Johnny Raushi 6:52:24

Rebecca. Yeah, I could lose it all as long as I don't lose her. Um, and granted, I do know like one of us will go first, you know, if we don't go at the same time. Um I think that the thing that gives me the most meaning is probably serving other people. Like at some point I'm gonna lose Rebecca, and it would be so devastating if a tree falls down in the forest and the whole forest decides to fall down, also. Like it my job as um uh you know, a spouse that lost somebody if that happens or when that happens, I don't know. I might I might go first. I might not even have to ever deal with this at all. Um, it's my job to stand as a tall tree and not let another tree falling knock me down. You know what I mean? So I gotta be here and live life for two people now. That's like you know, I'm living life right now for many, many people. There's a lot of people in my life that are no longer here, and it's very, very sad. But it's also very beautiful. Um, it's just a part of the big system, man. It served its purpose. Um I think that Rebecca is like my meaning, man. She is my she is my everything. She is like when I feel sad, I feel sad because dude, honestly, the the most sad I've ever felt. I was tripping one time, I was by myself, and I remember thinking this like profound thought that if I die, what music is she gonna listen to? What movies are she gonna? She's gonna have to change her. Everything is gonna remind her of me. And I was like, dude, I gotta do my very fucking best to never die. Like, I cannot die. And then I'm thinking about me. I'm like, if she dies, like what am I gonna listen to? What like do I move my house? Like, everything reminds me of her. Like, we have four cats. I can't, I'm not gonna be able to look at them. Like, you have kids, like, how would you look at your children? You know, and those those are actual things that other human beings on this earth right now are dealing with. And I'm like, dude, that is like oh so upsetting right now. But I think if everything was gone, including Rebecca, it would be my my calling to serve people, to help people, um, not with like money, not with like tasks, but with their perspective, with like understanding that we are something a part, we are part of something much, much greater than us. And it's so beautiful. And we just have to go with the flow with it, man. And it's it's so incredibly full of love and compassion. I think that pursuit of communicating with people, connecting with people, and serving those people with obstacles, removing obstacles, perspective shifting, um, and trying to inspire them to believe that life is only filled with love and only your perspective of that life in reality shifts you away from that. I think that would be that would be the thing that held me together if I lost it all.

Host 6:55:15

Yeah. Nice. Um, my my very last question, man. What do you say to the person out there that's grinding on the new business idea that has this this new product they think is great? This um they have something they've built, designed, thought of, planned, and they're struggling, dude. They're picking pennies in the gas station. You know what I mean? Yeah. Uh don't know where their next meal's coming from. You know, I see that old picture, you know, it's the two dudes mining, right? And the one guy gets up early, and what he can't see is, you know, the gold that's right behind him, and the and the guy right below him, you know, it's what he's one pick away from finding the gold.

Johnny Raushi 6:55:50

Yeah.

Host 6:55:51

And a society too, that it's really, you know, it's easy to quit. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Johnny Raushi 6:55:56

What do you say to that person? Um, or people. Well, you're not special, you're not unique, neither am I. Um, what you're going through is something that I believe mankind has always gone through. Um, I believe you're not the only one going through it right now either. Like the fact that, like, I was looking back, dude. I have no photos of me back then because I had no calling to take photos. I was miserable, bro. Like, I was at rock bottom. I didn't want to take photos of myself. So now I don't really have the photos to show people to be like, look, man, I was there with you. I know what it's like. You know, I only have my stories and my truth. Um, but you're not alone doing it, man. And I know you feel like it's hard. I know you feel like it's complicated. I know you feel like you're the only one in life that's ever gone through something like this specific. But I'll fucking tell you you're not, man. Like, like you travel out of this country for a little bit, you go to a third world country, and you see kids like that have half their face eaten off from rats because they're at an orphanage and their parents dumped them in a dumpster, and they're running around barefoot, smiling, kicking a soccer ball. You're like, hey man, you're supposed to be really sad. You didn't know that? I I was told that you were sad over here. Why aren't you sad? Yeah, dude, what you're going through is is not is not life like altering. By no means you are you unique in this avenue. There are people going through much worse, and that's where Seneca says, be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. Um, and that's perspective-based, right? And how bad do you want it? You know, like you talked about like the gold miners, like the the gold is right behind the wall. Um, that other miner might have had to do another two years of digging before he found that nugget. You don't know any anything. You could be that bottle of water at the grocery store compared to the bottle of water at the airport. The same bottle of water, but valuable, different. You might, if you're grinding away and you're not finding relief or you're not finding hope, or your vision isn't isn't coming to fruition, it could be the universe asking you how bad do you want it? It could be um maybe you're in the wrong environment. You know, it could be so many things like that. Um, if you're a car, dude, as specific as if You're a carpenter and you are passionate about carpentry and you're making nightstands and it's just not taking off. Have you tried making kitchen tables? It could just be a different industry, a different environment, and then that could just be it to take off. It's all about being aware of what you want, your willingness to get that vision to come to fruition, and then how do you serve people while doing it, man? They there's a Japanese saying called ikai gi, which is do what you feel fulfilling, and then the benefit extra sprinkles on top is how do you get it to serve your community? And then you put the American twist on it, and it's how do you make a living on it? Um, ikaigi essentially means purpose-driven life. So, how do you feel fulfilled in your life? The benefit is how do you help people with it? And the third benefit is how do you make a living out of it in our American society? Because you got to, right? You can't like if you love carpentry and it makes you no money, like you can be a carpenter and be homeless. That's cool. There's nothing wrong with that, but nobody really wants that. You don't want that, you know. You want a house, you want shelter, you want stable stability for your family and food. So Ikaigi, find something that you're passionate about, find something how you can help people with that and make some money while doing so to stabilize yourself. And dude, it might take time, man. The how long did it take Apple to take off? Like 30 years? Took them 30 years to actually have a product that sold millions of units. 30 years. That's easy to give up during that time frame, you know. So if you're going through it a year, two years, five years, like how bad do you want it, man? Because it's there. I truly believe that every human being has the right to create the reality that they want to live in. If you can see it in your head, it is based on this reality here, and you can make it happen. It could be fucking crazy, man. I want a yacht-sized inflatable water slide. It sounds nuts, man, but I guarantee if I exert enough resources, enough time, and have the right people in communication, dude, I can make that happen, man. It's possible. It's ridiculous, but it's possible. So your dream is not, I tell I promise you, your dream and vision is not ridiculous. It is very tangible and it is real. And if you deserve it, which I believe you do, then go after it and get it. And how bad are you willing to work for it comes down to your relentlessness and your ability to find the resources to make it happen.

Host 7:00:13

Awesome, dude. Well, um, I just want to say thank you, dude. You're an extremely busy person. You're running a massive company. Uh, you and your wife both are busy, but you found time to come out here and and sit with us and have uh just a straight up open and honest conversation. I mean, I I I could have asked you anything and I feel like you would have answered honestly. And that's very refreshing in a world of phony people and people, you know, who who have wealth, who've worked to get wealth, um, you know, kind of ignore everybody else. And so you're just uh you're just a a a great person to um to speak to, and you just have this great disposition about you know the positive aspects of life instead of focusing on the negative in a in a world where we're surrounded by negativity, and you could eat, sleep, and breathe out if you wanted to, and you've made this conscious decision not to, and it's infectious, man. I caught it the very first time that we talked. I've caught it last night at dinner this morning before we started and all through this this podcast. I'm always the first person that's changed by these messages from these people that sit across from me. This was an extremely powerful episode. So thank you for your time, brother. I really appreciate it.

Johnny Raushi 7:01:16

Thank you, man. It was great, it was a great honor to sit here, man. I you're an awesome dude, and I love you. I appreciate you having me out here, man. Love you too, brother.

Host 7:01:23

Hey man, thanks to everybody out there for uh for tuning in. I wouldn't have a podcast if it wasn't for you guys. Our growth this last year was has just been tremendous. I hope you guys go out there and support the shit out of you know, Nick and and and Johnny and Rebecca and and and Ali. Is it Allie? Um yeah, man, just support this veteran-owned company that's making awesome products that support American families and other American small businesses, and it's a great freaking product. That's why we had Johnny on this uh this podcast. That's why I wanted to do this. So um thanks for the the unrelenting support. We launched Top Light Nutrition, so our supplements are now live. You can always pick up merch. The Patreon is live. We'll have a uh a behind the scenes uh Patreon some outtakes from from this as well. So um in the meantime, everybody stay safe out there. And if you can't be safe, be violent out here.