Episode 63 | Jon Klipstein | From Combat Veteran to Building a Mission Driven Supplement Brand

In Episode 63 of the Rain Brings Growth Podcast, Matt sits down with Jon Klipstein, Army combat veteran, entrepreneur, and founder of The Die Trying Company.

Jon’s story starts in Billings, Montana, where he grew up around sports but eventually fell into partying, drugs, alcohol, and the wrong crowd. After moving around, building success in sales, losing everything during the 2008 housing crash, and realizing his life had no real direction, Jon made a decision that changed everything. He joined the Army.

What started with barely being able to pass a PT test turned into Jon becoming one of the fastest soldiers in basic training. Through discipline, running, fitness, and military structure, Jon found purpose, identity, and a mission bigger than himself.

In this episode, Jon opens up about his time in the Army, deploying to Afghanistan, the brotherhood of combat, PTSD, anxiety, veteran suicide, and the difficult transition back into civilian life. He also shares how fitness became one of his strongest forms of therapy after the military and how that passion eventually led him into the supplement industry.

Jon breaks down the story behind building his supplement company, why safe and effective ingredients matter, the death of a fellow soldier after taking a dangerous pre-workout, the lessons he learned from starting a business with only $10,000, and why mission matters more than money.

This conversation goes deep into military leadership, entrepreneurship, veteran mental health, fitness, supplements, TikTok Live, building a brand, mentorship, taking ownership, and what it really takes to keep going when business gets hard.

Jon also shares the evolution from UXO Supplements to The Die Trying Company, why the name change mattered, how the brand became more than supplements, and why he wants every product they launch to be one of the best on the market.

This episode is for veterans, entrepreneurs, fitness lovers, supplement users, and anyone who has ever had to rebuild their life from the ground up.

Watch Episode 63 now and subscribe to the Rain Brings Growth Podcast for more real stories of adversity, faith, mindset, business, fitness, and growth.

Topics discussed:
Jon Klipstein’s childhood in Montana
Drugs, alcohol, partying, and finding direction
Joining the Army later in life
Failing the first PT test and rebuilding through discipline
Basic training and becoming one of the fastest soldiers
Deploying to Afghanistan
Combat, brotherhood, and military purpose
PTSD, anxiety, and veteran suicide
Fitness as therapy after the military
Starting a supplement company
Dangerous pre-workouts and banned ingredients
Mission 22 and veteran support
Building a brand with purpose
TikTok Live selling and social media growth
Mentorship, leadership, and entrepreneurship
The switch from UXO Supplements to The Die Trying Company
Creating safe, effective, high-quality supplements

Follow Jon and The Die Trying Company:
Instagram: Jon Klipstein
TikTok: Chopped Unk
The Die Trying Company: Instagram and TikTok @dietrying_co

Rain Brings Growth Podcast
Real stories. Real adversity. Real growth.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I was a partier. I was a drinker. I was into drugs and stuff. When I locked in and went in there, the recruiter, and he was like, I need to put you through a PT test. I think I did like 15 push-ups. He had me run a two-mile, and I think it took me like 24 minutes and I threw up like three or four times. It was bad. I was in bad shape. They're like, if you want to get promoted, you have to be able to pass the PT test. So, dude, every day I ran. I worked on push-ups and I just did that consistently. Every single day I did pass my PT test. I got promoted to the Pv2. Went to basic, was actually like the fastest kid there.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

John, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. We've uh I don't know, we've been trying to get something set up for like a year, just different schedules and crazy. I didn't think I was able to see you at the the bodybuilding show here in in Boise and Yeah. It was sweet, good timing and all that good stuff, man. We have a lot to catch up on.

unknown 1:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah, you were what is the one of the interesting things you were telling me was it like that there's a shortage with protein right now, which is the crazy thing I never even thought was a thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Dude, yeah, so and a lot of people aren't aware of that, but um, I mean it's been coming, it's it's out there, they've talked about it in the news, but a lot of people aren't aware, and it's like we're seeing a lot of people with like sticker shock when they're looking at like new pricing and stuff like that. Like even we're in sticker shock. So to be like transparent with you, I think two years ago, like a two-pound jug of protein would cost us $18. And so you'd mark it up, you have like 50-60% margin. So we'd sell it for $42, we're we're good. Now, our cost, like my cost to have it made buying in bulk is $38 a jug for protein. So it's over doubled in two years. So and it sucks because yeah, it's all you know, all these people on GLP ones, like you know, Ozempic or Reticrutide or whatever, doctors are you know telling them, hey, you gotta go buy protein because that that's the biggest thing. Like I even I'm on reticrutide and I've lost like 40 pounds in four months. And it is, it's difficult to get your protein in through your intake because you're just not hungry. So first thing in the morning, I I take two scoops of protein right off the bat, just so I can get 50 grams in me. And it kind of helps me, you know, set myself up to where I can get my protein macros in for the day. Yeah. So you got that in combination with like Starbucks. Starbucks entered the protein market. So now they have their protein coffee or protein foam, I forget what they call it. But um, and that's become huge, and there's a Starbucks on every corner in America, you know. So they they're taking up a huge consumption of the allotment of protein that can be made. And all the other coffee companies are following suit and they're chasing Starbucks with their protein coffee. And so the the demand's just super high, and there's just not enough supply to where they're just jacking up the prices on protein.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, you see that even in like all the grocery stores too, like just like Pop Tarts got like protein pop tarts and like Cheerios protein and like all these different things, they just slap protein on there, which I'm sure they're not putting a crap ton of protein in it, but enough of that on the market make huge mass numbers being produced, then yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah, you see that because like even the government, I think they I don't know if they were given funding or what, but they made that huge, you know, uh shift in like the the the nutrition and like the big push for protein and saying like they they want more protein out there, and so companies, all companies are making more protein products. Um, like I said, I don't know if there's some sort of break they get from the government by coming up with these new protein ideas, but yeah, it's just been wild. So yeah, you you got that mixed with the the combination of like just supplements in general under a lot of scrutiny. Yeah. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

That's crazy. Well, dude, I want to hop into your story and like what your background is and everything. And you know, I know you got a military experience, and I want to hop into all that. So where are you from, dude?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Montana. Yeah, originally, yeah. Right on what part of Montana? Billings. Okay. Yeah, the bad side. Is it? I don't know much about Montana, but so people are always like, Oh, you're from Montana, it's beautiful there. And like there are like Missoula Bozeman, there's beautiful areas of Montana that are like up in the mountains and stuff, real beautiful. Billings is like uh just nothing but flatland and oil refineries. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's real shitty. I couldn't wait to get out of there. I was born in the middle of Montana. Yeah, yeah, dude. If you go, go, go to the west side, that's where Missoula and Bozeman is. The east side over there by North Dakota, uh, you know, okay. It's garbage. Yeah. Gotcha. So as soon as I turned 18, I got the hell out of there and yeah, got the hell out of there.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yeah. What was it like uh growing up there as a kid? Were you like into sports and all that good stuff or what?

SPEAKER_00 4:48

I was. Um, yeah, you know, I was into sports, but then I got more into drugs and oh really? You know, yeah, yeah. So like sports was great, but um, I just I think I just got connected with the wrong crowd there and you know, started going down a bad path. And that's another reason why it was great to get out. Like I when I go back to Billings, I'm sure like some people might be able to relate to it, but I I get like anxiety going back there every time, even now. Like uh went to go see my parents a couple months ago, and it's like you just I hate being there. Yeah, just the memories and like the people, and like you run into somebody you know from back in the day and they haven't done anything with their lives and you know, in and out of prison and stuff. It's like, man, you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah, isn't it crazy how most people don't even get out of their small environment? Like it's some people that have never even left Nampa. I had the guy on the podcast where he works with uh the kid, like troubled youth at Breaking Chains, and he just took a kid to downtown Nampa and he had never even been to downtown Nampa, thought it was the the wildest thing. So then and he lives in Nampa, he's just never gone across the bridge. Like Oh really? Yeah, so we took him to downtown Boise, and he was thinking that like the state capital was the White House and like just never even got out of an area, and like what? Yeah, like a high school kid, but they were just like in that gang life where they just stuck to their neighborhood, and so I mean that's on a really niche, small market, but but yeah, most people wouldn't ever leave and leave, you know, Boise or the Treasure Valley, yeah, and then they never get an explore. Yeah. Cause I was just had talking to someone too that was from Twin Falls, and they were like, Yeah, there's a bunch of drugs down there, and and so the only thing that helped them get off of it was moving up to Boise, like getting out of that whole environment. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, I see that one hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yeah, yeah. So when you turned 18, then you wanted to get out of there? Is that when you went and joined the military or no, no, I actually joined the military way late in life.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Oh really? Yeah, yeah. So I moved uh, you know, when I turned 18, I moved down to Texas and I I got into sales and I was just I I was doing real good for my age. But again, I you know, down there I was still doing like drugs and drinking all the time and stuff like that. I was a young kid making good money. So I got it's like I got away from the environment and the people in the environment, but that I don't even want to call it addiction. I guess maybe that lifestyle kind of just followed with me. And um so yeah, so I was down in Texas doing that, and then I got real homesick and uh moved back because you know, you're young, you you separate from your parents because I I grew up, I had great parents, like they're amazing parents, they were great like role models, so it wasn't their fault. I just got mixed in with a bad crowd, you know. So I ended up missing my family, moved back, got a sales job in Montana, was doing well with that too. Um ended up moving, I actually moved out here to Boise with that sales job. And again, like the drugs and alcohol kind of followed me here. And uh but I was crushing it like in my sales role. So it's almost like I was living this double life, you know, working hard during the day, making real good money, and at night I was just partying my ass off, just being wild out of control, you know. But I was also young. And then um, you know, I moved around with this job because I was really good at it, and they kept sending me into different markets. And uh then during the housing crash, when was that 2000? Yeah, yeah, I ended up losing my job, uh, lost my house, and um, you know, I had all these toys because of how much money I was making. I I like lost all of it. So like I had to like start over. And I realized my life was a mess, like I was doing drugs and alcohol and stuff like that. And it's like I was interviewing with all these other companies, and I was like, man, I'm I'm just I'm gonna be in the same if if I keep jumping around and doing sales, like I have these bad habits that are following me, it it doesn't break that chain, it doesn't break that cycle, and I and plus I didn't feel like I was doing anything important in life, and that's when I joined the military. I was like, you know, I gotta do something with my life. And like 9-11 had occurred years before that, but I always felt like I maybe maybe that's why I was into drugs and alcohol, because I didn't feel like I had any meaning or any purpose. So I went down to the recruiter station, I was like, hey, I really want to do this. And he was like, Oh yeah, we can get you into like military intelligence, we can get you into this, we can get you into that. And I was like, no, like I want to go, I wanna go fight. Like, I want to be infantry, you know. And my wife at the time was like, hell no, you're not doing that. And uh, so they were like, Hey, why don't you become a cannon crew member? You could be artillery. Like, they're far enough away from the action, they shoot into the action. And I was like, All right, I guess, you know, join the military, and then come to find out, like after I made it to my duty station, like we weren't firing a whole lot of artillery because of the rules of engagement and stuff like that. So they had us do dismounted patrols, so I got to do what I wanted to do, rucking up and down mountains looking for bad guys, and it was amazing. But that I feel like that that's why a lot of like my life now though, because the military really did like get me away from the drugs, the alcohol, that party lifestyle. Um and it really changed my mentality about like I think just monetary things and like relationships and life in general. You know, I had a lot of like life-altering or life course-changing things happened during the military that just helped make me become a better man. Which branch did you go into? The army. The army, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

What was uh what was your experience like first time going to basic training?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Oh well, dude, it was wild because yeah, I remember I went and so like I said, I was a partier, I was a drinker, I was into drugs and stuff. So when, but but I'm also like a very motivated individual, I'm very determined. So when I locked in and went in there to the the the recruiter, he was like, All right, you know, we had all these things figured out, and he was like, I need to put you through a PT test. And so they had me, I think I did like maybe 15 push-ups. Oh, really? Maybe, yeah, not you know, and then he had me run a two-mile, and I think it took me like 24 minutes, and I threw up like three or four times. It was bad, I was in bad shape. And they're like, hey, before they're like, if you want to get promoted, you have to be able to pass the PT test, or else you're gonna go in as a PB1, like basically a fuzzy. There's no you don't have any rank on you, right? He's like, You're gonna go in as a fuzzy, and he's like, I don't recommend that. And so um, so dude, every day I ran. Every day I ran, I worked on push-ups, and I just did that consistently. Every single day, it's like I gotta pass this PT test. And before I made it to basic, I I did pass my PT test. I got promoted to the Pv2, right? And uh went to basic and um was actually like the fastest kid there at basic. Oh, sick. Yeah, so it was like, dude, um, yeah, I remember because when we first got to basic, you had to run one mile. They didn't give you the full two, but you had to run one mile, and I did the one mile in like six minutes, two seconds. Yeah, yeah, I was the fastest dude in my basic training class.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

What was your training like looking up go before you went to basic?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Like were you just running every day? Every day. And so I found this great program. I don't remember who whose program it was, but it was a lot of like um interval sprints and like that helped build up your lungs and your leg strength, but a lot of interval strengths, and then you'd have days where it would be longer runs, so you'd you'd you'd you'd flip-flop. But I feel like the interval sprints, like anytime after going into the military, if I had guys that were slow at running, that's why I'd make them do like last man ups or or hill sprints, stuff like that. Um, that's great for like building your lung capacity and like your your leg strength, the uh I don't want to call it leg strength, leg endurance, you know. But um that and then mixing in like the the slower pace, like longer, you know, being able to do like a a very slow, even if you're starting off like an 11-minute mile pace, but you're just keeping that slow, steady pace, you know, to get your distance in. Combination of that was great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, that's really impressive to go from a 24-minute two mile to six-minute mile.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I was delayed entry though, so I couldn't deploy or not deploy, I couldn't go to basic training after I signed. It I think it was like three or four months. So I had four months before I could go to basic. And so, but all that time I spent still a lot of determination to get better.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Like, especially the well, it's like like he said, it was like, yeah, I don't want to go into basic and be in a PB1. Like you're at the like lowest chain, the lowest of the low. And so it's like I gotta get my Pv2, and I was determined and went after it. And then even after reaching my first duty station, like I was consistently like in the army, you can get an APFT badge. Like if you can max out your PT score, okay. Consistently got that. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

And what year were you going through the through Army?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

So that was 2009.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Okay. Yeah, yeah. You said right after the crashing market, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

2009, and and that was difficult because I had a two-year-old daughter at the time, and so I had to separate from her, and it was difficult like leaving her behind. And um, but it would dude, it was it was totally worth it. It was life-changing for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah, it sounds like you got your habits on track then. You weren't got rid of your your vices and yeah. That's cool because uh a lot of times I hear two people like pick up drinking from the military, so it was my opposite for you.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Well, no, I mean I mean that that that part's kind of come back, and I'm working through that. Okay, like, yeah, there's definitely no, and it's true. Like, yeah, I I you know, after you deployed Afghanistan a couple times and uh like I have PTSD, I have anxiety and stuff, and you do, you tend to self-medicate, right? And for me, it's like um I'm not hardcore into drinking, like I'm I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider myself alcoholic, but but definitely there's nights where it's like I have to have a drink to help like it feels like it helps calm me down, level me out, but um yeah, I'm not getting blackout drunk like I was before I drunk in the military. But it sucks, man, because I I've seen guys go through that and and it's something that I I I struggled with. I tried to understand the mentality because you you hear about PTSD and like veteran suicide and stuff like that, right? Yeah, and it's interesting because I've had multiple buddies take their own lives, and and I've always like replayed that in my head, trying to understand like we all went through the same shit, right? Like we're in the same unit, we're in the same deployment, we we experienced the same thing. So why is it so much harder for some over others? And like I thought about that a lot, like it's played through my head, and I realized that um like me, like I came from a good home. I came, I had a great support system. Like my mom, dad, they're still very loving and caring. They've always been there for me, and they're amazing, you know? And uh, so I came from a loving environment and I've always had support, even though I had bad vices, I've always had good support around me, I feel like, right? The bad vices were always that was always my bad habits. I was the one that that did that shit. Right. And I I realized that like I started looking at the guys that like took their own lives and stuff, and it's like, man, like that that dude did not have the same life coming up that I had. You know, they came from a broken home, they came from they they were in a bad spot and they joined the military because there really was no other option for them. And so they go from a bad environment to an even worse environment, and it's like I feel like that's a big issue in the military today, you know?

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah, just the way that the people are raised and then not having a support system when they get out.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, you know, like even when I got back from the deployments and stuff, it's like I had my wife there, I had my daughter, I had a good support system, I had a loving family. Like some, like I said, some of these young kids that that come in from a broken home and broken family, they're coming into the military at 18, 17, 18. And I even look back at that, like I joined, I was 30, you know, I was twenty, yeah, I was 29. And it's like I I had lots of life experience before that. And I even thought back, like, if I would have joined the military at age 18, I don't know if I would have had the mental fortitude to to make it through, you know, because of my mindset and like having drill sergeants in my face yelling at me, I probably would have lost rank, like got disrespectful, you know, done some stupid shit. But yeah, these young kids, they come in from a broken system, they get broken home, broke broken system, they go into a worse spot, they come back, they they don't have a support system like I had. Like the mom and dad's not there, they don't they don't have a significant other because they're young, they're fresh out of high school. So what do they do? Like, what do they do with all that negative energy, all that pent-up anger and anxiousness, you know?

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Do you think there should be more vetting like for people's backgrounds going in, whether they have a good support system, or maybe they need longer on the streets before they go in?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Or no, I I just think the military needs better systems in place to help them when they come back, you know? Yeah, because that's the other thing. I I feel like and I don't know. I've been out of the military now for a while, so I don't know what they're exactly doing for like these young soldiers, but I know it's always been kind of a talk topic of conversation within the military, is like how do we reduce these suicides and stuff. Um so I don't know what changes they made, but like when I came back um and you're a combat soldier, it it always had a stigma to it. So like if you came back and like if I went to my chain of command and was like, hey, I'm having I'm having issues, man, I need to go see like um mental health or something like that, or mental health department. It's almost like you got branded. Yeah. You you looked at weak, you were like, Oh, you know, he's a little bitch, you know? You're a combat soldier, you're expected to be tough. You're expected to, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

I've also heard one of the worst things is when you come back from a tour, you're not allowed to work or do anything for like 90 days, you just have like a rest period.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Uh it's 30 usually.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Is it 30? Okay. But then there's like nothing to do, and then you have all your you're just stuck with your own thoughts, and especially if you don't have a support system, you're just alone. Like that's gotta be.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

You've been with the brotherhood for like the last. You're right. Like that could be um, because it was after our first deployment, Dad, we we had to have a safety stand down because it was, it was within the first 90 days. Like that you have the first 30 days where you don't have to come in or anything, they let you go on leave, you can go see family. So, like you could if if your family was like, you know, in a different state or something, you could leave and go see them after coming back from deployment. Um, but yeah, within that first 90 days, we had like four suicides within our brigade, and we had to do a safety stand down, we had to go through resiliency training and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you guys would be a brotherhood for the whole time you're deployed, and then you come back and you have nothing then at that point. If everybody separates their own ways, it'd be really lonely. Could be, yeah. Especially if like you hear about some of those people that like their wife leaves them or something during deployment, and then they come back to absolutely nothing, and then their brotherhood is also separated because they all went their own ways. Like that's like the the worst scenario you can have is just being lonely in that in that time, especially if you have PTSD or things happen during that deployment, and now you're thinking, reliving these things of like what could have gone differently or whatever, and you're all by yourself. Like, that's gotta be just such a mental toll. I I can't even imagine, but like that's maybe they maybe they should have like buddy systems or something for people that don't have to.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, and they do have stuff like that in place, like you know, battle buddies and like check in with your brother, and like you have like they they had different things like that, but I don't know. And and maybe they have made changes within the ranks, who knows? I I've heard some things, uh some of them kind of frustrate me, though, right? Like I've heard about stress cards now. I don't know how legitimate it is, but like basic training if a soldier gets too stressed out, they have a card now that they can flip up. Oh, really? And it's like a timeout for the drill sergeants where they're they can't push it harder.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

And to me, I'm like, I don't know if that's the right answer. Yeah, that's probably not good. Yeah, you you need to be able to put them in stress. Right, exactly. That's that's exactly what I'm saying. But I don't know how true that is. I've heard that from like multiple accounts that like they were doing stress cards.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

I'm like, oh yeah, because usually the idea of the drill instructor is to like push you to a point where you want to quit and you just gotta keep pushing through that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

So it's all about like, yeah. That the biggest part of basic training is more mental than it is physical. Like there is a physical aspect of it, but um, but the mental stuff is more yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yeah, that's that's uh I don't know how I feel about that either. That's yeah, the whole idea is to make you stronger mentally and and uh and push past that quitting point.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Right. It almost is kind of like brainwashing, but at the same point, it's like that that's what's required, like when you have that fight or flight. They need to instill that fight into you. So, you know, so you're ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah, I'm sure it also looks you're looked at differently if they do have these stress cards by like the other people that are on your on your unit, and they're like so, yeah. Well, that guy just raised his stress card when he got stressed. Is he is he gonna be having my back? In in this time of need. Right, right. I wouldn't trust that. Yeah. That'd be something always toying in the back of your mind. How long were you in for? Um huh.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

I think was it six uh six years? Oh wow. Yeah, you don't really hear a lot of people going in like in their 30s. No, no, I went in late, and my goal was I won I did want to stay in. I wanted to make it a career, but it like breaks your diet body down pretty quick. So um in the six years I was in, I at one point I did the math and I figured out like six years, I was away from my family, um I think half of it, total of three years. Yeah. Just a bunch of active duty then? Uh huh. All active duty pretty much. Yeah, yeah. Did all active duty and I even had to extend my um contract to meet the demands of our um last deployment, or I wouldn't have been able to go. So I had to extend. That's why I was either six, maybe it was six and a half, because I had to extend to be able to go on that last deployment. And then, you know, you factor in all the training you do. Like I went to air assault school where they train you how to repel out of black hawks and stuff like that. Um, and that was like a month and a half. You had your your your advanced training, which was like six months, you had the basic training, um, yeah, all these trainings that you go through, and it's like that's time away from your family. You had SLC, ALC, which is like the leadership courses after I got promoted to like sergeant, and I had my own my own team. Then you have to go through even more training. Um, so you have a lot of time away from your family. And then even my first deployment, my first deployment over to Afghanistan was um I extended to stay there to rip out the new guys that came in. So, like our deployment was supposed to be 12 months, ended up being, I think, 11, and they shipped everybody home, and me and like three other dudes elected to stay back for an extra month and train the new guys that were replacing us on the area of operation and go out with them on missions. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

And you said you were married and you had a two-year-old at this time when you had gone in. So, how was that playing on your relationships and all that?

SPEAKER_00 24:09

It was tough, man. You know, yeah, yeah, the military definitely like took its toll on the relationships, and um, and that's what's crazy, is because like when you are in, like I said, I've always been a determined individual, and so like when I had the mindset I wanted to do it as a career, it's like I I was trying to advance through the ranks as fast as I could. And they look at stuff again, like your PT score, you have to be a PT beast, which I was, and you had to be uh an expert in uh uh rifle marksmanship, and I was, and so I was doing all these things, so I got promoted really quick. Um, I made it to sergeant within two years, that's the fastest you can make it there. And then after that, I wanted staff sergeant, and the fastest you can make it to that is four years. I made it there. Um but um but because of that, you know, it's like I I I loved being in the fight. Like I loved, I I loved, like I felt like I I had purpose now in my life and what I was doing was important, going over there fighting Taliban, fighting the bad guys. And it's like when we deployed, I I wanted to be over there. And like if I could have gone on another deployment, like I I would have, I would have signed up right away. You know? Yeah, it sucks that you're away from your wife and kid, and it sounds horrible that it's like, yeah, because I didn't want to be away from them, I loved them, but at the same point, it's like this is my job, and I think that's translated into the rest of my life too. Like, even with the business I own now, it's like it's my heart and soul. Like I put 110% of myself into that. So, same thing with when when you're in military, like being over there with with the boys is like the best time ever. It's like the most stressful time, but it's also like you know, you're over there with dudes that you know are gonna lay their life on the line for you, and you do the same for them. And uh you go out, you do your missions, and then the rest of the time is yours. Like I would spend my time in the gym outside of there, and then I was also doing like college courses online to try and better myself because military was paying for it, so why not?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

So I love being over there, but the bad side was you're you're separated from your loved ones. Yeah. But being here in Garrett, like for those who are thinking about signing up, you know, and want to go over to the military, like the garrison life sucks. It's the worst. Yeah. Like when you're in the military and you're here stateside, like whatever base you're at, I I was stationed at Fort Knox, like they always had you doing stupid shit. You know, you're always training or you're, you know, cleaning weapons. Like if they didn't have anything for you to do, that was the number one thing that they'd always say, like, go to the bay and clean your weapons. It's like shit, that thing's clean. I've cleaned it for like the last eight hours. Yeah. Four days in a row. Like, what are you talking about? Like, if they didn't have anything for you to do, they would make you do stupid shit. So it was better to get deployed than oh, yeah. You wanted to be deployed. You wanted to be over there because, like, literally you go on your mission, and someday it's some days it sucked. Like, we had one mission was supposed to be like a four-hour mission, and ended up being like we got stuck on a mountainside for like three days. Like, they had to come drop water for us and like MREs, so we had food. Like the helicopters that come in, they'd drop like little frickin' so we had supply. Did it just get pushed back what you guys were supposed to do or something? You just had to keep going? No, we we had multiple things happen, but yeah, we got like ambushed and stuff. Oh wow. Like we had an ambush attack on us and it forced us up the mountain, and then we had to like, yeah, it was crazy. We had to call in like Kiwa helicopters and stuff, and it was nuts, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

What was some of the funnest training that you got while you were in the military that you liked? Funnest training, or like the the you know, yeah, I guess the funnest one because I figure some of that stuff's gotta be kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah. Um man, no, I mean funnest training, I yeah, I would say air assault. Because that one was like physically demanding. Like they had and it was kind of cool because like there was a lot of boring stuff in it, like you had to learn sling loads, like how to hook up a uh howitzer, how to hook up like sling loads, like cargo and stuff like that to a Blackhawk. Um, but they had different stages you went through at the school, and every stage had like a crazy um kind of fitness challenge you had to do in order to pass. And so, like when you first land there, the first thing you do is lay out all your gear and you have to go through this obstacle course. And the obstacle course was difficult, and you had to pass each station, and if you failed one, you only got a second try at it to pass it. And like I remember I can't remember what obstacle it was, but I failed it the first try, and I was like, oh shit, and like then you're stressed out because you're like, I got one more try at this obstacle, or else I'm out. And I got it on the second try, and then when you when you you get to the end of it, like they have you bear crawling and doing this stuff, and you're like soaked in sweat, and then they get up and you have to run two miles in your full gear with like they they give you a water bottle, a canteen, you had to put it in your cargo pocket. Oh gosh, and they're like, you cannot take and that was probably the most difficult thing of the run because you're running and this thing's flopping and it's beating up your leg. Yeah, and they made you run with it in your pocket. So surprisingly, like a lot of we lot, I can't remember how many we lost off of the obstacle course, and you just arrived at the school, and you see so many people are like they didn't make it and they they had to go, and then you you go through some of the stupid courses, and then the midpoint to me, the midpoint was the most difficult because you you had to do a six-mile ruck, um, and it's a timed ruck, and you had to complete it in an hour and a half, which that part was easy, it felt like, but then they had you do a four-mile run with your plate carrier on, your your armored vest. You had to do a four-mile run with that on. And they mentally, and it goes back to the mental side of it because we ran it, it was Sabolowski Air Assault School. So that you run this two-mile lap and you come in and they start bringing you back into the the parking lot of the Sabolowski Air Assault School. So you're you're running in, you're like, oh, cool, we're we're done, you know? And then the the guy that was leading the run, he turned us all around. He was like, psych, and they ran us back out and we started going back again. And it's like, holy shit, we're doing another two miles. And that mentally mind fucked even me because I was like, dude, like I'm I was done. You know, I was like, I was done. And I fell out of formation. And anybody who falls out, you're done at the school. And I fell out. Like, I was like, nope, I'm I'm done. And some dude grabbed me by the back of the the uh plate carrier by the back of my vest and like forced me back into formation. He's like, You ain't fucking done, keep going. And I thank God that he did that because like that would have sucked. Like looking back on it, I would have felt like a failure if I would have done that. But he forced me back in and I was able to complete it. It was all mental, you know. Like mentally, I was checked out. Like I was like, dude, what the hell are they doing? I was pissed off and it's like, no, we're done. You know, you you took us back into the the parking lot. We were done. But yeah, that dude forced me back in and uh I was able to complete that one. But yeah, I should have should have failed because of that run.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

I feel like everybody needs someone like that in their life, even just in the military. But someone's like, no, dude, I expect more out of you. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Yeah, I don't even know who he was because like I was the only guy there from my unit at that training, so nobody knew anybody. We were all strangers, so it was just some dude that was like, Nope, he forced me back in. I was like, Thank God he did. And then uh at the end, you have to do a 12-mile ruck in under three hours, and that was crazy because but I was I was training for because rucking is different, it's uh it's different than running than anything else. Like rucking is it uses, I don't know, different muscles, I want to say like it's like a whole body, yeah. It's pretty difficult, like especially if you're carrying a heavy load. How how heavy was your load? 55 pounds. Oh, jeez. Yeah, and then you you're in full kit, so you're wearing your heavy helmet, your you have your vest on, and then you also have your rifle that you have to carry with you at a low ready, and you have to go 12 miles. And so, in order to hit that time, you have to run some of it. So, like I had these, like I had like a little timer on my watch, and I would like run, and then I would fast, you know, walk with it, and then you'd run, then you'd fast walk, and you had to do that for three hours. And um, crazy thing is they have a ruck march champion, like whoever does it in the fastest time gets like a badge for the school.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

And they're seen as like the the badass, you know. It was a female. Really? Yeah, she did it in like an hour and a half, like half the amount of time. Like she ran like the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

She still had the 55-pound pack and everything.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

It wasn't like just so people, yeah. You hear these dudes are like, ah, women shouldn't be in combat. Like that chick. I was like, fuck, she's a beast.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Do you have a lot of combat, like higher combat chicks in there? Like, I know you're really about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

No. That's awesome. Good for her. Uh yeah, yeah. She crushed it and it was like, that's that's dope. And then um, but I remember I finished it and I finished it in like two hours, 35 minutes, and I was sitting on the side because like you get back and they give you like a little sandwich and some orange juice to drink, and you're just soaked, like you're in your uniform and you're soaked with sweat. And um, I remember watching they had the big like countdown clock there at the end, and you see it. I was like, it's approaching three hours, and I'm looking, and there's some dudes still like running in. There's still a lot of people that hadn't finished. And I watch this one guy, and he's like kind of trotting, and I'm like yelling at him. I was like, dude, run, run, run, like you're right there, bro. And uh see him cross at three hours, two seconds. Yeah, and the cadre at that school, they were like, hey, take a seat. And he took a seat, and everybody behind him they had to take a seat right there. They all got DQ'd. Wow. Last event, like that's the last thing you do before you graduate, you know. Before you graduate the school, it's like you fell that. It's like shit. Yeah, two seconds is two seconds. Yeah, there was no, there was no like gray area for it. There was no mercy. It was like two seconds, nope, you didn't make it. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Man, imagine being that guy. Like, you're not you're just replaying that in your brain the whole way. Like, where could I have just like ran for 10 seconds? Exactly. Exactly. It's fuck more of that mind, you know, that mentality. Gosh, that would be so terrible to go through. I don't know what you I don't know how long you said it was that whole course, but then to miss it by two seconds, like missed the yeah, probably what, a week or weeks long course, like six, six, seven weeks.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

It was like a month, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Yeah, I think missed it by two seconds. What was some of the leadership stuff that you took from the military that you've been able to carry over into the business side?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Um, I think like mostly they're you know, God, what'd they have? They had the acronym leadership. So loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, uh, personal courage. And like we've incorporated that into like our mission statement for our business, right? So like duty to our customers, um, loyalty. Uh loyalty both goes both ways towards our customers and also the people that work for us, right? Like we look for like there's a lot of supplement brands out there that like let anybody join their group as an ambassador. And we're really like, like, even today, I had two phone calls with people just to see if they're the right fit. Like, we're very like strict on who we allow to join our our team. Yeah. So we look for loyalty. And um what do you look for in like an ambassador? Well, I think uh, you know, God, because dude, it's it's crazy. Like I said, uh, if you go to like Bucked Up or Oh yeah, you know, Redcon One, right? They have like join our affiliate program. And I even Mountain Ops or any of those, yeah. It's like I signed up for I think Redcon One just to see like what the process was like. I was like approved immediately. There was nobody talked to me, nobody anything. They're just looking for, you know, um they're looking for like strength in numbers. You know, like the more ambassadors we have, the better. And I don't like that, right? Like for us, it's like we look for people that like quality, not quantity. Yeah, and I have a I have a call, me being the owner of the business, I have a call with every single person that I feel like we get the applications, a lot get automatically deleted. And if there is someone that's like, okay, this person might be a good fit, you review their social media and stuff, it's like they they need to have a call with me first, right? I want the final sign off on whoever's joining the team. And uh, you know, and a lot of people, it's like, can they even tell me like what I'll ask people why why do you why us? There's so many different supplement companies, like, why would you want to join ours? And if the answer is anything like, oh, you know, I want some free product and this and that, it's like, can they speak to like, dude, I love what you guys stand for? I love that you're veteran owned. Like, do they even know who we are? You know, or are they just signing up because they think that it's the next thing that they need to do because all their buddies are with the company or something, right? Right. So it's like we look to make sure that they're a good fit for us and make sure we're also a good fit for them, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

So yeah, I mean, that's I've heard a lot of great things about leadership in the military that carries over. I'm I'm a big Jocko fan. Yep. So like I've read a lot of his his uh extreme ownership and and uh leadership books. I think I got a few over there, but but it's cool how he can like relate some of the stuff from like Fallujah and different things like that. Then he takes it over to like the corporate sort of civilian side, yeah, corporate side, yeah. So it it's always interesting to talk to people about the leadership side and what they've learned from the military.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

I don't think um, yeah, I don't know if there's any one thing I I I just feel like a lot of what I take in from the military has translated over to, you know, the business that we have now, like from leadership aspect, from everything. Like I know I do know, like I am very and I probably have like a bad name, I'm sure that there's like bad things that are being said about me out there, but like I don't know, like coming from the military, you you learn to be very blunt with people, right? Like I'm not gonna sugarcoat shit, yeah, and I'm gonna tell people how it is, and like I feel like I do catch some hate from that, you know, from some people, which is like whatever. I don't care. Like if they're if they're not, you know, tough skinned, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

But at least everybody knows where they stand with you.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Right.

unknown 37:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

I'm not gonna bullshit and um you know, if I'm saying something behind someone's back, I can guarantee you they've heard it to their face first, you know. Right. I like that. So um yeah, so I feel like that's translated. Like, I you know, my wife's very afraid of conflict. Um, she hates it, and like with me, it's like I don't welcome it, but I'm not afraid of it. So like if there's issues, I'm not afraid to like point it out and let someone know.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I've picked up from just the the books that I've read from Giacco is just the ownership side of it. Like if there's anything failing in your company or on your team, yeah, it's you somehow. Yeah. And I've had to like just take that, I've never had military experience or anything, but I've just had to take that into like just the things that I do. Like, if you know, we we make a mistake on even just being a parent, like if my kids aren't doing something they're supposed to do, I probably have failed somewhere along the line of explaining why it's important for them to do that. Yeah. Like just taking that ownership of like, all right, well, you didn't clean your room, that's probably my fault because I didn't explain you why it's important for you to do it and why it's lettered on. It's you're still you're still gonna be in trouble, but like I need to do a better job. And um yeah, I think ownership's just huge because everybody's just always blaming someone else for taking like the the victim side of it, like exactly like and whenever you like blame someone else, you give them all the power. So it's like if you just take that ownership and be like, no, I'm I've fucked up, you know, and then it's like all right, well now I have control to change this. Every time I'm blaming my wife because we're getting in fights and it's her fault, like I'm giving all the power to her. Like, what did I do in this whole situation? But no, I think it's cool, man. I think it's um, you know, I I always have tremendous respect for people that were in the military because I know it's like you know, one, it's not forced, you're volunteering to do this kind of thing, stuff to protect our country, and it's not easy. And just to just to see all the values and stuff, and especially the mission 22 stuff that you do all the time. And um like that's huge. I've had a few people on here that have had friends that have passed or you know, commit suicide from the military and stuff, and that's it's so sad, man.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Yeah, yeah, it's an epidemic, you know. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

At what point, at what point was it that you decided that you wanted to start a business once you got out of the military?

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Well, that's the tough part, and that's why a lot of our you know, our business is influenced by the military as well, because when I got out, like even though I joined late, like I did have life before the military, like the military, um, it just gets ingrained in you, you know, like the lifestyle, the uh you know, um, I can see why some people get in the military and they fail at it and they get kicked out because it's not probably the right fit for them, you know. But in order to enjoy it, like you have you really have to embrace the lifestyle and everything that comes along with it. And like I I loved it, you know. Um so when you get out and you take your uniform off for that last time, it it kind of like mind fucks you, you know? Like you you just kind of lose your identity. So when I got out, it's like I I knew I wanted to get out, I knew I wanted to do something else with my life, and I knew that my body couldn't keep going. And like, you know, I I I've got two herniated discs from the military, I've got a bad knee from it. And so it got to a point where they're like, oh well, you you can keep going in the military, and they'll just put you on the desk job. And I'm like, no, screw that. Like, I'm not gonna be a desk dude. And um so you take your uniform off and it's like, okay, but that that purpose, that that drive, you know, my the meaning behind my my job, like what I was doing, like you lose all of that. So it's like, what's next? And so when I got out, I joined corporate America like right away, and it hated it, you know, hated it. And again, it's like I went back to the old me before joining the military. It's like I'm not doing anything important with my life. Like, what am I doing? So um you get back into sales in the corporate area, or was it something? Yeah, yeah, I was a sales manager, so I got hired for HP and I was a sales manager for them. And uh, and again, you know, it's like what am I doing? I'm just I'm helping people become better at selling computers, and we're selling computers, and yeah, I mean there's importance behind that, right? Like companies need computers, tech companies, and we're probably selling computers to companies that are doing great things and they wouldn't be able to do it without our computers. But to me, it's like I need more of that. I don't I don't even want to call it validation, like I just needed more purpose, and so that's why we got into you know supplements because uh you know, going back to me, joining uh going down to the recruiter station, I couldn't even run two miles, it took me 24 minutes, and I I fell in love with fitness, and I fell in love with fitness through the military because it was part of it. And again, you get out and it's like I have PTSD, I have anxiety, and the VA's quick to throw medication at you to try and fix everything. Like, you know, going in and talking to the therapist after being out of the military, like they they prescribed me multiple different depression medications and um which was supposed to help with anxiety and stuff like that. And all of it just made me feel worse, like while I was on it, or else like the next day I would be super lethargic. Like it's almost like you're crashing after uh after taking a drug, you know, and it was horrible. And I was like, man, this is not it. So um for me, I always found like what helped me was just getting in the gym, releasing endorphins that way, like going pushing myself harder. Like you always feel better. The days where I skip the gym, like even on my rest days, on my rest days, I still try and do something physical, whether it's like I go for a run or I go for a walk outdoors, or I just even still go into the gym and just walk on the treadmill, it just makes you feel better, you know?

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I've seen that even just working in the prison was like whenever somebody had something mental health, they were so quick to put them on antidepressants. Yeah. And then you see them go back to their cell and they're, you know, eating all this crappy foods, getting fat, not moving their body at all. And it's like, dude, like your natural, your natural medicine is just waiting for you right outside. Just go walk the track, go, go, you know, make yourself sweat. Like that's the best, best medication that you can get for any of your your uh you know. Depression or anything else, but they're so quick to just here's some drug pills.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Yeah. Dude, the VA's the same way, and I hate that. Yeah. Dang. Yeah. So that's why we started the supplement company because um the other story, like while we were in, we had a sergeant that um I mean you remember supplements back in the day, because this was my first deployment was like 2010 after going through basic and stuff. Like right when I got to the unit, it's like, hey, we're being deployed, and I was like, cool, I couldn't wait. So we'd go over there and uh we we'd go over to the um Afghanistan. And it's like again, like I said, we go out on mission, you'd go through all that stress, and you kind of needed that dump that that just like adrenaline dump dump. So we come back off mission, and most of us would go to the the gym we had there. We had the big like makeshift gym on our fob. So we'd go there. So we were ordering in supplements from you know wherever we could get it from, bodybuilding.com. And back then the big thing was Jack 3D, and um craze was another one, and like uh nanovapor, like all these crazy supplements that weren't good for you, you know. And uh we actually had a dude that he was Sergeant Aaron Scales. I remember we got back after our first deployment and he went to officer candidate school. He wanted to become an an officer. And uh and one of the tasks they had to do was run a timed five mile, and they had to run it in under so much time. And so he took that craze pre-workout beforehand, thinking it was gonna help him with his run, and he had cardiac arrest and died out on the track. Oh shit. And I think he was 31. Yeah. So he took that craze, which had back then it was like, I don't know if it was DMAA, I can't remember what it had, and if it was just raw Fedra, you know?

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

But yeah, he had cardiac arrest and died out on the track. I was like, fuck. So that was part of like the reason for wanting to get into supplements, is like we remember that stuff. Like going on my second deployment, we'd order in supplements again. And because of how many soldiers were like dying on like pre-workouts they were taking, um, they had a they came out with a military ops ban list. And so basically they had a list of ingredients that were banned that soldiers couldn't take. And so, like our cadre, not our cadre, but our our uh leadership, you know, our our chain of command would come in and they would do inspections on our supplements to see what we were taking, and uh they would confiscate uh products from us if it had any of those ingredients on the list. And so that that that's really what got me into the supplements, like trying to understand like you know, what should I be taking, what should I be avoiding, why are ingredients on these ops ban list? Because, dude, I want shit to be confiscated from me. Like, you spend your hard-earned money being a soldier to have supplements shipped in, and then it's gonna be taken by your chain of commands. Like, screw that. So I started like making my own pre-workout concoctions with like raw creatine, and like back then it I think it was like arginine, which is like an outdated pump ingredient, and like trying to flavor it with Mio Energy. Do you remember those old things? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Oh, dude. The little squeezes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Yeah, yeah. Tasted absolutely horrific, but it's like at least I knew my shit wasn't gonna get confiscated. So when we got out, going back to the original story, like that's why we I knew I wanted to do something. I knew I wanted to be involved with an organization that would help with veteran suicide, hence the mission 22 relationship that we had. And um, and at the same point, it's like we wanted to offer supplements, a good quality product that could, you know, encourage people to get in the gym and find their therapy through there, but also formulas that were safe and effective and met like the military ops ban list that were safe for drug-tested athletes to take, that you know, you wouldn't have you wouldn't have to worry about, you know, the negative side effects or taking something that's unsafe that would have you know repercussions potentially.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Yeah, that's amazing. I think most people don't even know what they're taking, they just know it's gonna give them like that tingly feeling, and that's what they're looking for, and then they don't know what the heck it is, or you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

A lot of people don't even know what they're putting in their bodies, right? Yeah, just whatever's the flashiest label, whatever, like you said, whatever feeling I got. Oh, yeah, I love this pre-workout. I got all cracked out of my mind and stuff like that. And that's what they chase, is like that that feeling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

So yeah, that's that's amazing, man. Um, because I I think that if you could be getting into that market, especially with a good um, you know, a good reasoning behind the company instead of like we just want to make money, but you have like a good purpose behind it, like people can get behind the story of the company rather than just because of the product. Now you become start building a a brand and a like a purpose, and that's um that's that's pretty sweet. What was the what was your first product you came out with? Uh it was a pre-workout.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Yeah, it was called UXO pre-workout. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Were you able to spread that throughout the military and just start giving samples and like get feedback on it?

SPEAKER_00 48:54

Or no man, we we jumped in head first. So surprisingly, it was uh when we first started out, it was UXO supplements, and it was me and my combat medic Petty. Um he was on my first deployment with me, and he was he was our combat medic that went out on all the missions with us and stuff. And um we started the company with 10,000 bucks, that was it. And we started with that pre-workout and like a BCA, you know, and yeah, the branding was horrible, like it looked it was dumb. We didn't we didn't really know what we were doing, so we just went in on it, we were just operating out of our garage, and then it went through multiple renditions to where we got to where we're at today with the send it lineup, and you know, now we have a full lineup of everything. So we've been able to grow it. But to your point though, is like since since we've been around for so long, and now you know we started taking it seriously and we move into our own warehouse and we're growing it and we're adding more things to the lineups and stuff like that. And I I blew up on TikTok a little bit and I had all these people reaching out to me, and people were like, Hey, how you know I want to start a supplement company, like how do I do this? What how do I go about it? And I always tell them, you know, um, back to your comment, like if you're doing something that has purpose behind it and mission, like you're gonna stay grounded and you're gonna keep pushing forward, right? And a lot of people think you jump into the supplement game and you're gonna make a bunch of money quick, and you're not. You're not like it's a heavily saturated market. It's very, very difficult to build a brand. Like you could go have a supplement store where you're selling other people's brands, like that's much easier because people have heard of those brands, and okay, I know I can get this here, I can get this there. But when you're trying to build your own brand, like why is someone gonna want to buy from you when they can buy from Axe and Sledge or Raw Nutrition or you know, any of these big name companies? Like, what really differentiates you and why would they trust you? So it's difficult to get going. So the first three years of the company, we we lost money, we lost a lot of money. But when you have that mission back in it and you have that purpose behind the brand, like yeah, you could eat shit for a long time and keep pushing forward. But that's why you see a lot of supplement companies enter the market and they shut down within the first year because they realize shit, I'm not making any money, and they don't have anything really pushing them forward. So why why would they continue?

SPEAKER_01 51:15

Yeah, they're kind of in it for the wrong reasons. Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

They're in it just to make money, make a quick buck, it's like that's you can't do that, specifically not in the supplement space, you'll lose.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

That's one thing I've realized or that I've realized while starting my own like the fitness business was like stop chasing money, just give value. Because when you're chasing money, then you're you're focusing on yourself. But when you focus on like the customer and their experience, then everything else just kind of comes to you at that point. But you're if you're like to your point, if you're focusing on the wrong thing and you don't have any fulfillment or purpose behind it, like yeah, good luck, good luck lasting through the hard times because then you have nothing pushing you besides the money that's not trying to make money. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so I'm sure you've heard it a lot being a business owner and stuff, but people are like, oh, it must be nice, you know, having your own thing. But what are some of the unseen unseen things and struggles that you've had to go through just starting a business? Starting a business? And just I mean, just being a business owner in general. Because you've been in business now for how long with this supplement company? Got 10 years. Yeah. What are some of the like what's some of the yeah, like what's some of the struggles that people don't see? They just see like the oh, he's got a business, you know, but they don't see that any of the back end.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Dude, there there's all there's all sorts of struggles. I I don't I don't even know where to be. There's so many. Like you want to start, that's the other thing, too. Like, people are like, man, I want to, yeah, I want to start a business, you know, I want to quit my nine to five. I want to run, I want to be my own boss. But a lot of people understand that you trade in that nine to five for a 24-7 rule. Yeah, like it's it's more hours I've worked now than ever before. Right? Like there's like even yesterday, it's like I worked all day, but then you have so many other things going on. Like I didn't I didn't get working done working last night until like 11:30. You know? And and when you first start out, like now, now I have people on the team too. So I've got like an operations girl, I've got our um our um affiliate ambassador manager, we've got owner who's our SEO guy, and I've got web developers and stuff like that too, right? So I have all these people, but when you first start out and you don't have any money, like you have to do all that yourself. So like you're not only a business owner, you're you you wear every hat. You're you're the owner, you're the salesman, you're the the content creator, you're the you're everything, your customer service. So it's it's a nightmare like when you first start out until you start bringing in resources. But the other thing you have to figure is like as you continue to grow, it's like how do I compete with these bigger companies like First Form out there, right? And they have hundreds of employees. So they're they've got hundreds of people driving them forward. So when we only have five, like how do I amplify that? How do I make it because I'm never gonna I'm never gonna catch up to them or or beat them if they have hundreds of employees and I've got just five. Yeah. So it's like you have to amplify that message and find ways to to make five people do the work of ten people or to produce the the the amount of ten people.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Yeah. Andy for Zell has got a similar story too, where he said what he worked in a shop for like what was it, five, six years, and they didn't make no money at all. It was like $13,000 for like there, like a year or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Yeah. And then dude, that's how it was with us. Like we lost money our first year, and then we made big mistakes, like where we so there's a lot. Like being an entrepreneur is crazy because if you if you don't have a mentor or someone helping you along the way, there's lots of lessons that you're gonna get burned with, and you have to be able to take those. Like, dude, we got hit with uh an infringement case. Oh, really? Where an image we had on our website belonged to someone else. And yeah, they came after us and we had to pay. I had to settle out of court, and it was I still had to pay like seven grand. Jeez, yep, for one image. That's wild. I was like, fuck. And it and it happened like way back in the day. So I'm sure it probably was me unknowingly grabbing an image that I didn't realize was copyrighted or owned by someone else. Yeah. But it was like years later, too. It was like five, six years down the road. They're like, hey, this image, dude. And it was crazy, like they had it screenshotted, and they're like, and they they flat even told me when they reached out in the emails, like, don't try and go in there and delete it. Like, we have screenshots of like where it was at, you know, we had the the when it was downloaded, like they had everything. I was like, oh shit, geez. And they're like, Yeah, if we do take you to court, like we could potentially see upwards of like thirty thousand dollars in restitution and this and that. And I was like, holy shit. And so we we had to negotiate and we got down to like I think it was like six or seven grand that I had to pay them. Dang, but it sucked, man. So it's like you learn all these small lessons along the way, and it's like, okay, but you also you learn from those, yes, but make sure that shit never happens again, right? Yeah, so and to your part, to your point, like I could become a victim and be like, oh, you know, and talk shit, and or we could just handle it, learn from it, move forward, make sure that don't shit doesn't happen again.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

Fail forward, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Fail forward. I love that. Yeah, fail forward.

SPEAKER_01 56:23

Are you a pretty risk-adverse person? Like, are you good taking risks, or was that something that you had to like kind of learn?

SPEAKER_00 56:28

No, I I've always been good um at taking risks. Uh, what I had to learn was um taking educated risks.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Oh, like thinking it out before you took it?

SPEAKER_00 56:42

Yeah, well, I think it again, it just goes back to experience. Like, even today, like like I said, I had multiple calls and I had this guy that wanted to become an ambassador and he has a huge following. And like the old me would have been like, shit, this guy's got 200,000 followers. Like, yeah, let's do it. Let's fucking send him a bunch of product for free. And you you learn from that mistake, and now it's like, okay, cool. You want to be cool, you've got a great huge following. Like, let me I need to see your analytics, like, let me see your engagement. Let me see, okay, you've been involved with this company. I want to see what you were able to produce for them, you know, being smarter about it.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:15

Because we again we got burned with that where we had multiple content creators on the team that had like a couple hundred thousand uh followers, and you expect that's just gonna translate into money, and it doesn't. Right. Doesn't always not with not with some people. You have to have the right people that have an engaged audience.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

Yeah, no, that's that's wild. I didn't even thought of that. Yeah, yeah. I would just think, yeah, they got like a couple hundred thousand, that's gotta be good.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

Yeah. No, the old me would too. And that's where I, you know, goes back to just like learning, learning as you go. And um, and I do, I do recommend like if people are looking to start up a business that they find someone who's a mentor, you know, find someone who's done it and has been successful and can help guide them so they avoid those those huge pitfalls, those giant mistakes that are gonna cost them fortunes, you know.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah, I think mentorship is one of the best investments I've ever made. Is it? Yeah, yeah, even just even just um hiring my first mentor when I was trying to just go into business, but it was more like a mindset mentor and um just trying to figure out like things from my past traumas, like what was gonna block me from future success. And uh, but if I wouldn't have hired that dude for the six months that I had him, like I don't know where I'd be at.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

If you don't mind me asking, you don't have to answer this. How much did you pay him?

SPEAKER_01 58:33

It was like 3,600 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

It was like 600 bucks a month or something. See, and some people would probably be like, oh my god, that's so much. Like that's that's my car payment, that's my mortgage, you know?

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Yeah, but um, spending like 10 grand that year on different different investments. It was just like all from the golf club stuff. But I was like, I'm I'm gonna spend this money regardless, but am I gonna spend it on something that's gonna be close to my goals or something that's not gonna be close to my goals?

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Yep. And I think that's the big thing is like a lot of people they they don't look at like that that long-term, like, yeah, you could go spend your money on a car, right? But that's gonna depreciate and you're gonna lose all that money over the length of time. Or you go get a mentor, someone that's gonna be able to provide you knowledge, provide you, right? And that's gonna earn you more in the long run, you know.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Yeah, Alex Ramosi has a a really great saying. It says uh invest in the S me 500, not the S P 500. The SME. Yeah. Because if you can get more skills, you're worth more money per hour. Exactly. And so, like, if it's like you're gonna, you know, back in like 2023 or 22, I had bought like this $800 course to teach me how to sell on eBay. And that year, after learning that, I made like $20,000 on eBay. So it was like just from an $800 course, and then I was like, oh, well, what else can I learn? And then I bought a course on like how to podcast, you know, when I when I decided I want to start podcasting.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

You set this up, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

And then I wish I would have hired like someone to mentor for a podcast because it took me like eight episodes before I realized that my cameras were set up in slow motion. So my cameras were overheating at an hour because I'm recording in 60 frames per second instead of like 30 frames or 24. So it's working extra hard. And then when I try and actually take all that clip and put it into Premiere, it's like having a hard time to generate all the time. These files are so huge. It's so huge. And I'm like eight episodes in, nine episodes before I realized, oh, I mean, I was calling Sony, I was asking them like, hey, these cameras, the brand new cameras I just bought, like shit. Yeah. And they're like, well, maybe just up upgrade your SD card so I got new SD cards, like V V60s instead of V30s, and that wasn't doing it. And then I'm just like looking at a YouTube freaking video and they're like going over just basic settings, and I'm like, okay, 30 frames per second. Yeah, never had that issue again. Yeah. And then uh it's just stupid stuff. But if I would have just hired like a $500 person, like I'm trying to do right now for a day just to come in here and work on all my lights and my sounds and everything like that, set up the cameras the way they should be, like I would have avoided all that. Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, I always tell people, yeah, like invest in somebody else has gone through that because you can always make more money, but you can't get this time back.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

Yeah, and so people always ask me if there's one thing you would do differently. That's always my number one answer is I I would have found a mentor and someone in that industry too. It can't be someone because every industry is very different. So and then you know, I've mentioned that I think on BAM's podcast too, and I had people reaching out to me like, hey, you want to be my mentor? No, like this isn't me, like I'm not that dude, and I'm still learning as I go. I'm I'm not a mentor, and so uh, so I'm not saying this to try and pitch my services because I'm not that guy. Yeah, but find someone who is because it'll save you fortunes in the long run.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

I think too, just getting around other people, like your environment, when you're around other people that make you feel like you're uh just like not making it in life, you know, like you're if you're the smartest person in the room, I've learned that that's the worst thing because I'm hanging around too many small fish if I'm the biggest fish in the room, you know. I want to be around like once I got around Bam and he started teaching me about more podcast stuff, I was like, holy shit, you know? Or once I got around like different gyms rather than like at Planet Fitness, and then you're like, I would have never thought I would step on a bodybuilding chain stage when I was working at Planet Fitness, but then you change your gyms or you change your environment, and now all of a sudden you see what's possible and you're like, okay, well, I'm level up. Yeah, it's time to level up. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Like, I think the word I was looking for is deprived, like when you're you feel deprived, right? If you're around like a bunch of people that are rich and you're deprived of that money, you're like, I need to freaking get better. Or you see people that are like just jacked, and you're like, now I'm deprived of these muscles, I need to do whatever. But yeah, yeah, I think environments is huge. But yeah, if you can't get around that environment, hire a mentor for sure. That's 100%. I was just telling my niece the other day, she was like, I was asking her about college and stuff, and uh, I was like, you know, if there's like a business that you want to get into, just go hire a mentor that's in that business already rather than going to school for two years learning from a professor that's probably never even had a business. Or even even offer to do like an internship, right? Yeah, I'll work for free for you. Exactly. But to get around those people that'll just be like willing to pour into you or or whatever. Because I see all these people like, oh, I want to go into business. I'm gonna go to business school for four years. I'm like, or you could just do the business.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Dude, and that's what's wild too, is like, um, it's funny you bring that up, like college. I got my I got my degree while I was in the military. Like I like I said, they paid for it. So I went into business administration because I knew one day I wanted to try and own my own business, right? There's nothing I learned in that outside of maybe accounting, yeah. But um, there's nothing I learned from that that would have set me up for success. Like, because the business world is changing like constantly. Like you look at the development of AI and uh how AI is taking over all processes and how it makes things more efficient. Like, there's they don't teach that shit, you know. So um all the methodologies you're being taught in college is all old mindset or stuff that worked years ago, but that shit don't work now. Yeah, you know, you even look at like God, three years ago Facebook marketing was like the shit. Now it's not. Like now you gotta be on TikTok and now you gotta now you gotta be on uh uh augmentic, right? Which is like being able to make sure your stuff is searchable through Claude and Chat GPT and Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, so it's always evolving. It's always evolving. So you gotta you gotta stay ahead of that. Like, so I you're right. Like I feel sorry for these kids that are like going to school for business administration and stuff like that, because they're not gonna get shit out of it. They may get some leadership skills out of it, you know, if they don't have any leadership experience, but yeah, they're gonna they're gonna flush all that money down the drain.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

How's it been switching over and doing like TikTok live? Live has scared the shit out of me, man. Live, yeah. Why like I'll make content in the middle of a grocery store, but like just the thought of me going live, like it just scares the shit out of me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

Well, live sucks, dude. You have to, again, it's just like with anything else, you have to develop it. Live is like one of our best channels right now, TikTok Live. Um, and it's but it sucks because you have to be consistent with it and you have to do it. And that's why I hired a girl, uh Janelle. She does all of our TikTok lives every single day. And uh she's good with it, but you have to build it up. So when when we first started getting live, and I took this advice from Gary Vaynerchuk. Do you do you know who that? All right, so Gary, a huge follower of him. Like, if you if you follow anybody and you want to start a business, follow Gary Vaynerchuk. Like, guys, brilliant. And he's always been ahead of the curve and always like he's always been spot on with his predictions. So he was the first guy he first got into like Google Pay per click, you know, and he was getting it when it was like pennies on a dollar, and he made fortunes off of it. And then he was an early investor in Twitter, and everybody was like, That's stupid. Twitter, you can only do 200 characters. There's something out there called email. Why would anybody want to do Twitter? And like Twitter blew up, you know? And then he invested in, you know, I think Uber and all these other things. But he called out TikTok. He was like, hey, for all you and I was the same way. Like TikTok, I had a buddy that was on there crushing it. And he joined our team as an ambassador. And he was like selling boatloads of our product off of TikTok. And I was like, what the hell are you doing? And he's like, I'm on TikTok. And I was like, oh my God. Because I just saw it as like a platform the kids went on and danced on and shit. And I was like, Jesus Christ. And he was like, you gotta get on there. So he helped coach me and got me good at TikTok. And then TikTok Live became the new thing. Gary Vaynerchuk was like, if you're not on TikTok live doing live selling, you you're gonna be behind the boat. So we tried it and we jumped on. And the first like it sucked for like six months because you go live and nobody joins. You have like maybe two or three people in there, and it's like you're it's like you're talking to yourself and they're just watching you and you feel so awkward. But then the more you do it, the more people start showing up. And that you know, as long as you engage with the people and you know them by name, and when they pop back in, then they bring their friends, like, hey, you know, they share out your lives, like this is the guy I was telling you about, come join. Next thing you know, where it used to be you only had like one or two people watching you, you now got like 200, 300 at any given time. Yeah, and so then it's great to you know just engage with them, have conversations, answer questions, but then slide your products in there, and next thing you know, you're selling like $800, $900 a live.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

Yeah, that's sweet. I think I've heard him talk about two uh whatnot. Have you done whatnot?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:38

No, so but that's where so TikTok live matched them in the essence that they now do auctions.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:45

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

So I'm dude, like these shoes, whatnot. My shoe collection, I'm addicted to whatnot. I'm just not on there.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

Because I dude, I'll find I I get auctions, I get into these auctions, these shoe auctions, and I just go ham and I pick up Jordans for like you know, half the price of what you'd normally get them for.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:04

But yeah, my wife's my wife hates it because I have new shoes showing up all the time. But TikTok launched a live an auction feature. Oh. We started doing it, and it's been it's been great. Sick.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

So I have a buddy crushing it on whatnot right now, doing golf clubs.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:19

Oh, doing golf clubs?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:21

It's like single golf clubs, but then he doesn't make as much on the golf clubs, but now he's built up such a a following that he's got like his own merch, like his own shirts with his brand and stuff, and then like ball markers. And then he's making like huge margins on those and a little margins on the on the golf club side. Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, dang, but he's built that brand up for I mean, he was doing it for a little bit and not making that much money, but he's just kept being consistent every Friday night shows, or now he's doing like Wednesday night and Friday nights, and I'm like, man, yeah, we're like, why don't you just leave your job and do it? He's like, I just need the insurance. I'm like, bro, if you're crushing it like two days a week, imagine if you did like three or four days a week.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

Yeah, no shit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the tough part, you know, uh burning the boats. But yeah, TikTok, the their live auctions have been amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:06

Yeah, yeah, we still have to merch through them. I know my mentor that I pay for, they're like, you need to go live like three times a week.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:12

And I'm like, Yeah, you just gotta do it, man, and you'll learn. But it sucks because like we went through a big lull in our TikTok lives and we battled, we we had to battle out of it, but we we finally got back on the upswing. But you gotta be super careful with TikTok because they will um they'll ban you for everything. Really? Yeah, yeah. It's like we we were having discussions about peptides, and I'm pretty knowledgeable about peptides. We don't sell them, but people would hop in and they'd ask questions, and so it goes back to the value piece. Like we want to be able to provide value, so like we'll answer your questions about peptides and educate you. And uh, and we got slammed by TikTok and they like took away our our um our push on the for you page so people weren't getting notified when we were going live and like they wouldn't let us do DMs and yeah, and it struggled. So there for a while it's like we we'd go live and we would only have like 15, 20 people in our lives where we used to have like 200, 300, and then we had to battle back from that, and now we're back on the upswing like yesterday yesterday's was really good, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:13

Dang, I don't know what's a big craze about peptides, like like because I had another buddy, he's got almost 200,000 followers, and he got banned where he couldn't even post for on Instagram for a little bit because he was just talking about peptides just in his stories, not even like trying to push them or anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:27

Uh Instagram, TikTok, all of them are are cracking down hard on like the the peptide.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

Yeah, it's crazy because like I mean I've done the red, I did the red a little bit on my on my prep, and um I mean I never never talked about it just because I heard people getting banned or whatever, but I'm like, I don't know, it's it's not FDA, but neither is creatine or any of those things, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:48

Like well, it's the thing with peptides is yeah, it's gray market. So like like supplements aren't um supplements aren't so no supplement is FDA approved, but supplements are um what's the word I'm looking for? Um they're not restricted. Right? So there are ingredients that can be found in supplements like so uh FDA will release a list of like goddamn it, I can't what's the terminology they use? Not hazardous, um basically ingredients that like are not are found not to be safe, right? Like DMA or DMHA and stuff like that. And if a product has it in there, the problem with the FDA is they don't have the they don't have the resources to go after people who are pushing these illegal ingredients. Like first form actually got busted back in 2019 for some ingredients they had in their pre-workout, and they were can they were not can they were considered not a dietary supplement, they couldn't be used in a dietary supplement because they were augmented or um basic basically concocted in the lab. Oh, okay. Right. And so they got hit with a warning letter basically saying, hey, you gotta remove these ingredients from your product. That was it's very rare that you see that because they normally don't have enough resources to go after all these people that are breaking the rules. But I think when you get big enough and you were doing it like first form, then they're like, all right, that's a big red flag, and the FDA went after them. But um, but see with peptides, they are not they they haven't been researched, they haven't been, you know, except for like the Ozempic ones and uh what's the other one? Uh Manjaro or something. Yeah, Manjaro, right? And the reason that those ones have been tested is because those motherfuckers went out there and paid for the clinical testing, which is millions of dollars, and that's why it's so expensive to get those like 600 bucks a month. Yes. So because they paid for the clinical trials to get the FDA to approve them, and that's why they charge whatever the hell they want to charge, and they're they're just making a killing on it. Because right now, like I I get the gray market red at true tide, right? And it's uh 70 bucks for two months supply. Yeah, and redotrutide is like way more powerful than either GLP one or GLP two, yeah, or the Wigovies or the Ozempics or any of the things. Yeah, it was a GLP three agonist or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

Yeah, so you can get it super cheap through the gray market, but because it hasn't gone through the clinical trials, it's viewed as like it's not a safe ingredient, even though there is a company, and and that's why I keep telling people as people are like, Oh, GLP three is about to be approved, which it is, it's going through the clinical trials with some company, and people are like, Oh, I can't wait now and be able to get it prescribed. And it's like, What the fuck the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, you're gonna get prescribed, but it's gonna be 600 bucks, 800 bucks, yeah, probably for a month's supply. Yeah, where you can get it through these companies and the companies I go through, the the gray market companies, like it sounds shady, it's but they sell them, and the way that they fly under the radar is they label them as not for human consumption, only for they're called chemical research chems, yeah, they're for research uh use only. And you can buy it, but they all still come with like a third-party certificate. They've been tested, so it shows like the purity of it. They show that they're not contaminated, they all have like a barcode on the bottom of the bottle, so like they're safe, they're effective, they're compounded here in the US, right? So, and I get it for 70 bucks versus dude, it's like these big companies, man, it just drives me nuts. Like they're robbing American people blind.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:25

Yeah, the GLP3s are nice too because um it's just taking away from your fat, it's not even doing anything to your muscle. Where like the preserves muscle tissue, yeah. Whereosempic is like you're getting that sunken in face, it's taking away all of your muscle mass. They're like, Yeah, I'm losing a whole bunch of weight. And you're like, Yeah, well, if you look at your scans, you're probably losing 40-50% of your body mass from your muscles. Yeah, and then you're also weakening your bones and the density of your bones, and then because a lot of them are just like not still resistance training or eating properly, they're just right sticking themselves with a shot and then hoping that that does it all for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:58

And that's the downside, is like me and Chris Gethin have this chat about it uh a little bit ago. Um, it's like what's the end state for a lot of these people? Because a lot of people they they they get on it and it's like they're either gonna take it and never come off, and if they do come off, it's like they're not setting themselves up to better themselves by learning better habits. It's like I I hear these people it's like, oh man, I love being on Olympic. I eat whatever I want, and you know, I'm losing this weight. Yeah, and some people like I just don't eat at all, and that's why people are feeling that a lot of people are like losing their bone density because they're not getting enough minerals and stuff from their diet because they just aren't eating.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:34

You know, but it's like, what's the end state? Like, how do people come off of this? You know? And uh that that to me is scary because like a lot of doctors are prescribing it, but they're not given like a success plan, like, here's how you're gonna take this, here's how you here's how you eventually come off of it and live a healthy lifestyle. So people are just becoming reliant on these peptides.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:55

Yeah, they're not getting the habits to create the healthy lifestyle to get off of them, and then and then they just become reliant on it, and then just still keep their shitty habits of eating Burger King and McDonald's and all that, and just be like, okay, I can take a shot and I'm good. Yep. So what happens when they come off of it? Yeah, they'll balloon up and balloon back up and they get worse. Yeah, and their bone density is bad, so then they're getting injured and if they you know. It's fucking wild. It's wild.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:18

So I hope that they can I think there needs to be more education around that for people who do go on peptides, like success plans set up for how they get them off of it, and that is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:28

Yeah. Well, that's cool because I know both you and Chris are very strict about the ingredients that you put in your in your supplements. And that's like some of the cleanest stuff that I've seen out there on the market is between the unmatched and the diatrian company. It's really good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:42

Yeah, we have our we have our different mindsets like when it comes to sweetener and stuff, you know? It's like unmatched. Like I give Chris props, like his unmatched and he sends me product and to do reviews on on like my TikToks and everything. Oh, right. Um so we have a good relationship, but um he's hardcore with the natural flavoring, natural sweetener, stuff like that. Like monk fruit and stuff. Yeah. Uh I know he uses stevia. I don't know. Is he using monk fruit? I think he's using Reb M. Okay. Um, he might be using monk fruit in a couple of them, but like he's big on that. But there's definitely like a distinction in in taste, at least for me, yeah. Um, between like a sucralose flavored product and like the organic stuff. Yeah. So like we're we're the same way, like when it comes to like quality of the ingredients and like going with trademarked ingredients and making sure that everything's safe and efficaciously dosed and that um third-party tested. But for me, like I have to have sucralose. And I know it's sucralose has been demonized, but it just tastes so much better. And and like a lot of people, and I'll I'll argue with people all the time because like a lot of people are watching these like big-time influencers demonize sucralose, and a lot of the stuff that they're spouting off just isn't true, or else they aren't sharing the full story. Like the talk about sucralose and how it's genotoxic and it breaks your DNA, right? I don't know if you've heard that. Uh-huh. Break breaks your DNA strands, and it wasn't even sucralose. If you actually read the study, it was sucralose six acetate. Oh, okay. Which is not the same thing. Not the same thing, not even close. Um, but all the headlines read sucralose damage your DNA. It's like bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:17

Well, it's also like how much of it, because it's the same thing with people talking about like aspartame and diet soda. Then you have to drink like 24 cans of diet soda for it to even get to close to the FDA levels for like to even get close to it, though. But if you're drinking 24 cans a day, like you're you got other problems going on in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:32

So we'll always have people jump on like our Facebook ads, like where we're promoting, and they'll be like, Oh, I can't believe you probably can use a sucralose, absolute shit. And like, oh, you don't know it destroys your gut. And it's like, no, like there were studies out there too that said sucralose would damage your gut microbiome. But to your point, it like the devil was in the dosage, right? Right. It's like they number one, there are no human studies that show this. And um, all the studies that show it damaged your gut microbiome, they were done on petri dishes or on rats. And the amounts they used was equivalent to someone consuming was like 200 two-liter diet colas in one setting.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:10

Like you're just pounding them back to back. Right. Right. And it's like at that point you you die from like water intoxication before before the before the sucralose would ever kill you.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:21

Um, but uh, and people just don't get it. They just read a headline, they just go spout it off, and it's like you're an idiot. So they actually did recently do a human study on sucralose and the human gut microbiome. And again, they had to use elevated amounts to see any significant difference. And the only people it affected, even at like huge amounts, were obese people that already had compromised gut microbiomes because they're eating processed foods and just fatty, super fatty foods. And so it's like it's crazy to me. Like, and you see the hypocrisy with a lot of these people because they're gonna come yell at us and be like, you're destroying Americans because your products have sucralose in it. And I'll go to these people's feeds and they're like, fucking 300 pounds and pictures of them eating big ass burgers, and it's like that's the number one killer out there is these processed high-fatty foods. Like heart disease is the number one killer in America.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

And it's because our people's diets suck because they're ordering Domino's pizza every night and they're going to McDonald's. But you're gonna claim sucralose is the killer? Like, you're a fucking idiot.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:22

Yeah. I was literally just talking to a like a client call the other day, and she was saying, Well, I think that um, you know, using natural sugars and and sodas are better than like using aspartame. And I'm like, um, yeah, but like you're like like what are you talking about though? Because you're gonna just be getting all these calories, you're not getting any calories from these other ones. So is your body better off to have you know 300 pounds that your heart's gonna have to be trying to carry around, or are you gonna just take the aspartame and and still no calories? But yeah, it's it's the whole thing of they don't look into the dosage. My mom was talking, I was telling her, like, just drink some more protein shakes if you need something. You know, like I love the core power ones, and she's like, you know, those have sucralose in them, right? And I'm like, I'm like, mom, let me let me look at I looked up the dosages of how much sucralose and it was like, I don't even know how much it was, but in one in one thing of the the core power was like 0.04 sucralose.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:15

Yes. And I'm like, so what are you talking about, mom? That's but the thing that people understand is like sucralose, they immediately see sucralose and like, oh my god, it's the but sucralose is 700 times sweeter than actual sugar. So the amounts you use in anything is minuscule. Yeah, it's tiny, and it but it it's gonna taste damn good compared to like uh an organic alternative. And that's the big thing for me, is like I'm I guess maybe I'm bullheaded, but like a product for me needs to taste good if if I'm gonna be taking it. Yeah, like I don't want to drink like people are like, oh, it's all about the performance, but fuck that. Like I've had some horrible tasting organic stuff, and like you try and pound it, you're like, ugh, like I don't want to have to deal with that. Yeah, you know, like I want my product to taste good, I want to get the effects from it, yeah. And I'm not gonna be in uh fear of my life. Like, dude, I look at all these studies out there, man. Like there was a study that said drinking milk caused cancer. Like, that's fear-mongering. Like, that's what all these studies are. Like, I choose to live life not in fear.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:14

I'm pretty sure you can look up the anything you want on the internet and find what's gonna kill you. Oh, dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:17

You know, that's a problem. People can manipulate any study to any outcome they want. Yeah, you have to look at the study too and who's funding it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:24

You know? So it is what it is. No, it's it's true because like I I love all of like Jocko's books and everything. And so when he came out with his own line and like the drinks and stuff, he's like all natural, and I just drink it and I'm like, I can't, I I can't I love Jocko, but I hate this product. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:41

So Jocko sent me, they sent me some stuff too to do reviews on his protein. I was actually really I like the mulk, yeah. Yeah, mulk. I was like, damn, he did a really good job with this. Naturally flavored, uh naturally sweetened. They use Reb Em in theirs, Reb Emin Stevia, I think. Or no, it is monk fruit, but tastes good.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:57

Yeah, works good, but yeah, the pre-workout, I tried it and I was like, oh, yeah, it's not so like the the energy drinks I wasn't a fan of.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:04

You weren't having I've never tried the energy drinks, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:06

Yeah, I mean that was a while ago. Maybe they went through a a uh you know a rendition, but the first the first when it first came out, it was like some tropic tropic thunder, I don't know, some something it was like some kind of tropic thing. And so I was like, Oh yeah, I love mangoes and stuff, you know, and then it was just terrible. I was just dry scooping it and just going because I was just like I could just choke it down.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:27

Yeah, yeah. See, that's that's not the experience I want from my from my customers, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:31

Dude, the M777 is sweet. I love that stuff. Yeah, I mean that's like someone did like a half scoop or a a half serving, so one scoop, but I wasn't really gonna go for the whole 400.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:42

Oh, you bought that at the yeah, no, I didn't buy that at the bodybuilding.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:45

I used to buy it, I bought it when it was like the it looked like the the casino.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:50

Yeah, gotcha, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I love that stuff though. Yeah, because you were talking about earlier about when you were like mixing your creatine and stuff back when you were in the military. That made me think of the M777, how it's already got the creatine in it. Yep. Everything all in one.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:02

Yeah, that's been in our best selling, and that's the crazy thing. We launched that product, so yeah, definitely check out M777's the most loaded pre-workout on the market. Like it holds that title, won an award from Stack 3D as the most innovative pre-workout, one of the most innovative pre-workouts of last year. Um, but it's uh I was told by multiple multiple people, like respected people in the industry not to do it. Not to not creatine and pre-workout together or what? No, just not to make M777. Oh, really? Yeah. They were like, you know, price plow. Um, I was on their podcast not too long ago, but uh Ben over there was like, dude, don't do it. He was like, it's because I was excited, like we developed this formula. I was like, dude, this is nobody's gonna be able to compete with this fucking formula. It's loaded, right? And I was like, and it's got these new active ingredients in it, it's like it's gonna be a game changer. And Ben was like, dude, don't do it. He's like, people are price conscious now, they're not gonna want to spend $60 on a pre-workout. He was like, I'm telling you, it's gonna flop. And I had multiple other people, like people that were with other companies, like the VP of Salesfor Caged was like, dude, don't do it. And I was like, fuck it, we're doing it. Like, you know, I did have like that anxiousness in the back of my mind, like maybe they're right, like what if this flops? And it's our best seller, like consistently, every single month. We we sell more M777 than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:26

Have you seen anybody after you guys come out with this try and start integrating like creatine and different things?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:31

Well, so we we weren't the first to do that, like there's other ones out there like Rise Godzilla, and theirs is like a fully loaded, but their formula is like 36 grams serving size. Ours is 50. Yeah, and then gorilla mode, theirs is like 40. Um so there are other bigger dosed pre-workouts out there like it. Yeah, but like ours, which is like the same price as the Rise Godzilla or the Gorilla Mode, um, you're getting more out of it. Um But we have seen there was then another company that came out and they were like, and they claim that theirs is the most loaded pre-workout now because it's a 52-gram scoop. But if you look at their active ingredients, like they just added more sweetener and stuff to it. So ours by active ingredient profile, it's still the most loaded formula. But you could see like, and you could also see similarities in our formula versus theirs, but they just didn't they didn't go all in on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:26

I love it when people do like the they think that you can't do anything, you have that bet against me mentality. You're like, all right, I'm gonna fucking show you.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:31

Yeah, you know, yeah, and it's kind of changed our mentality going forward too. Like we've already discontinued several products and we're replacing them, like we're going we're going hard on all of our products now. So like if it's like now we won't launch a new product if it's just status quo. Like a honestly, some of our formulas have always just been kind of been like, you know, it it's up there with now. We we won't make a new product unless it like is the best in the market. Yeah, it's like we have a new intro workout that we're launching here soon and it's loaded, and we're first to market with a couple new ingredients in it. Nobody else has, we'll be the first ones. But that's my mindset now with all the products we launch, is I I want every product to like dominate the industry.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:13

If someone wants to try the die hire the uh sorry, I can't talk. What's like your top four stack that you would recommend?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:22

Um well, I mean, obviously M777. If if if that one's too potent for you, because it is, it'll kick you in the nuts, um, then probably our send it 3.0. That pre-workout's kind of like the step down from it. We have different levels of pre-workouts. We have like four or five different formulas out there to meet different lifestyle needs. But like either M777 or send it. Um you said what like what's your top four?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:49

You guys got protein, you got BCEA?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:51

Proteins are you know, protein is like an essential. But I always tell people like you you want to when it comes to protein, try and get it from your diet for. Like try and load up on chicken steak. Yeah. Like use protein as a supplement. Yes, exactly. Like use that for when you aren't able to hit your your protein goals. And like I said, I start off every morning with two scoops, but I do that because when you're on Reddit, it's hard to get all your calories in in a day. So, but yeah, protein, always use it when you just can't hit your goals. And then um the third one, obviously creatine. Like create everybody should be taking creatine.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:27

And you guys got the flavored creatine.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:29

Yeah. We came out with flavored because like we understand there, because there's some people that want to take creatine and but they aren't necessarily like working out because of all the new studies with creatine, like what it does for like brain health, um cognitive support, like even sleep deprivation, like it'll wake you up better than like caffeine.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

Um so we realize there's people out there that want creatine, but if you just have an unflavored option, like what are they supposed to mix it with? Right. And if you mix it with water, it tastes like shit. Yeah, like unflavored. So we came out with some flavored versions so that way people can drink that.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:03

Mixing it with that create the create the flavor creatine with the EAAs was really good. Was it? I think we did that at the Memorial Day hike last year. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:12

Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:13

That was a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:14

Yeah, they it's become a bestseller of ours, the flavored creatine. People love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:17

Yeah, yeah. And then you got the EAAs and BCAAs, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:20

No, so we're we're retiring the EAs and we're retiring our current fuel point because the fuel point 2.0 that's coming, that's the new intra workout I was telling you about, and it's loaded. So it has excuse me, it has all your EAs in it, all your carbs, it has your electrolytes, it's got like glutamine in it, coconut water powder, taurine. Like it's a loaded intra workout. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:43

I'll have to try that because I have not added an intra workout to my my mix yet. Yeah. And I know I was just listening to what was it? Was it Zach or or Morgan? I don't know. One of the one of the people at the Mecca or something. I don't know. But they were talking about oh no, it was Chelsea. Chelsea was just talking about it. Oh, the fuel point. Yeah, she was just talking about the intra workout and how it's like huge for gains. So I was like, man, I gotta I gotta do something. But yeah, so I'll have to try that.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:10

Dude, it's been a game changer, but yeah, we're we're clearing out our current lot of fuel point. You're talking about Chelsea Rogers, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that video she just posted. Today, right? Yeah. It was yesterday, I think. Okay. But yeah, she we collabed with her on it because we're trying to blow those out. So we have them on the site like 12 bucks off right now. But um, yeah, the new version that's replacing it is just way more loaded. But dude, carbs are a huge like a lot of people are afraid of carbs. Yeah. Everybody's trying to lose weight, they feel like carbs are the enemy and they're not. Like carbs actually will probably give you more benefit than a pre-workout, to be honest with you. But everybody buys pre-workout because they want that energy, they want that pump.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:46

And carbs will give you a pump too, believe me. But carbs, game-changing for like if you train to failure, if you're training with any sort of intensity, you can amplify that intensity and get more out of your training with the right source of carbs. And I say right source of carbs because there's a lot of people that will go with like a cheap carb formula that they buy off of Amazon and stuff, and stuff that's not like fast gastric emptying, they'll sit in your gut, and then you get bloated and you get that stomach discomfort.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:12

You need a fast gastric emptying source of carbs, which ours, we have right now two of the fastest fast gastric emptying carb sources on the market. But um, and I'll also see other people that like they'll break out the rice crispy treat in intra workout. They'll be like, uh, like even the Mecca sells rice crispy treats, and they're like, hey, take this intro to, but it's like that's that's bogus. Like Sour Patch Kids, I've seen people keep those in their carbs. But same thing, like with those, uh, a source of carbs like those, it takes forever to get into your bloodstream. And so, like, you're not gonna get the carb benefit from it. You might get that that sugar rush from it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:48

You know, that sugar spike, that insulin dump, but the um the actual carb source isn't gonna actually convert into glycogen for like about 60 minutes. At that time, you're already out of the gym. So if you have a fast gastric emptying carb source like our fuel point, it can convert to glycogen with within minutes. Like we're talking like five, 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:08

I'm gonna have to definitely try that because I'm about to be in my building phase. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:13

It makes a world of difference. Like, like that ruck, for example, uh, the first ruck we did, the 100-mile ruck with mission 22 for veteran suicide. Yeah, when I hit mile 50, like I was completely done. Uh and I was pounding water because I thought I was dehydrated. I was just pounding water and electrolytes. And I was like, guys, I think I'm done. Like I just I had nothing left in the tank. And we took fuel point and because we had like a 10-minute break where we just sat down before we kept going, and um, I took uh like 50 grams of fuel point and was like within minutes, I was like, oh shit, like it's like instant energy. Like carbs are the body's natural source of energy. Yeah, and so it was like in and I was like, holy shit, I was like, this stuff really does fucking work. Like I was ready to go like within 10 minutes, and we continued on that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:59

But I'm gonna have to get some of that and just make it like little single pouches for my hunting pack.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:04

Yeah, dude, carbs, uh, even even if you can get those gel packs, like that's what I use going back to that uh 12-mile ruck we did for aerosol. Yeah, um, I just had those little gel pouches, they were carbs in gel form. Yeah, you just suck those real quick. I used those during my 12-mile ruck to help me, you know, crush that. Like any any good quality carb source would be great. Yeah, I'll make seconds up for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:28

I wanted just to touch real quick before we ended, just on um the the name switch from UXO to Dietrichon. So uh what was that mean for you, like the DITRI and company? Um what what does it mean for me?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:39

Yeah, like what was the reason you wanted to change it? Um, yeah, man, it was time like we went to uh, you know, we've been doing this for a long time. And at one point we actually were um we were at like the sales table. There was a much bigger fitness company that was looking at getting into supplements and they wanted to buy us out and absorb our brand, and um, which was smart for them because they're like a big apparel company. And uh having a supplement line would bring in that recurring revenue because people need supplements every month, but we couldn't come to agreement, and um so we backed away that we we both mutually backed away, but he told me the owner of the company was like, Hey, if I give you one piece of advice, he's like, You need to change the name of your company. He was like, To you, UXO means something, but to everybody else, it's just three-letter acronym and it doesn't mean shit. And I started seeing that over time. He told me that was like years ago, right? Yeah, so I started seeing that over the course of time and I was like, man, he was kind of he was kind of right. So um we decided at one point to make the switch, and now ever since making the switch, like it's it's been a grind because I didn't realize again, this goes back to making mistakes, right? We made this switch, but we were very thoughtful through the switch in the in the aspect that like we took the product to shows, like we took our apparel to shows before we ever made the change. I'm like, hey, what do you think of this? And we would sell out of the apparel, like people loved the di tryon moniker, the the branding, they loved the hard, gritty look of it. Yeah, and for the most part, everybody loved it. There were there were a few that were like against like, no man, keep it UXO, keep it UXO. But for the most part, like it was a resounding like people loved it. And so like we made the change, but we didn't think through like SEO and stuff like that, like search engine optimization. Everything was ditrion. So it's like we started from ground zero with search engine optimization and stuff like that. So it's been a lot of hard work, and then trying to get rid of the UXO branding and rebuying like the trade show setups you see with all of our new branding, like it was a huge investment. But now, like it's taken off. Like our supplement sales are back up beyond where they were with UXO supplements, and now we're selling way more apparel than we ever have before. Like people love the the apparel, because now it used to be like you had to be a fan of UXO supplements to buy a shirt. Now, like you could we have people that don't even take supplements but buy our shirts because they love the it's more of like a lifestyle. Yeah. Like die triangle, it's not like a supplement company. Right. Something they can get behind whether they take the supplements or not. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's been it's been good, it's been a good shift for us, and now it's like people can connect with the name. Like they hear the die trying company, it's like they automatically know can associate with it. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:17

You need an explanation of what it means. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:19

You know, and so it's it's been a huge, huge change, and um, but it's been great. It's been really good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:26

Where's a good spot for people to catch up with you and follow you guys?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:30

So they can follow me at uh I mean, yeah, for for the die trying company, they can follow us on Instagram. We're on TikTok as well. And it's just die triang noji um I think underscore co. I'll put a link in it. Yeah. Yeah. And then myself, uh, I go by Chopped Unc on TikTok or just John Clipstein on IG.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:51

Dude, I really appreciate you coming on. I know you gotta bounce, but I appreciate everything and the wisdom and we'll have to do this again.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:57

Yeah, absolutely, dude. I appreciate you having me on.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:59

Yeah, I love you guys' product, so I definitely recommend it to anybody. Like I gotta try the intro now though. I really I really recommend to add that to the stack.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:08

So cool. Yeah, hell yeah. All right, man. Well thanks for coming on.