February 4, 2025 • 57 mins
What motivates someone to leave a thriving career and jump into the unknown world of entrepreneurship? After surviving multiple challenges, how do you grow LIFEAID into a company worth over $100 million? Aaron Hinde shares his transformative journey from chiropractor to co-founder of LifeAid, emphasizing resilience through personal loss and unwavering commitment to quality health beverages.
What makes LIFEAID different from the other companies in the cutthroat energy drink business? Aaron shares insights on product development, the connection to CrossFit, and the lessons learned from overcoming adversity. Would he ever sell LIFEAID? We discuss the beverage industry and how Aaron's core values impact his decision-making process.
In a no-holds-barred conversation, Aaron also discusses the challenges facing CrossFit, how can CrossFit as a business can turn itself around, and offers insights into the future of the fitness industry
This intensely personal and inspirational episode explores the challenges of entrepreneurship, the evolving wellness landscape, and the importance of community support in recovery.
• Overview of Aaron's background and transition to LifeAid
• Early challenges in establishing the brand
• Role of direct marketing in LifeAid's success
• Commitment to clean ingredients and transparency
• Personal reflections on grief and community support
• Analysis of the current state of CrossFit and future potential
• Vision for LifeAid's growth while maintaining core values
@fitaid @aaronhinde #fitaid #entrepreneurship
#BotoxAndBurpees @crossfittraining @crossfit @crossfitgames #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #clean #fitness #ItAllStartsHere #CrossFitOpen #CrossFit #CrossFitCommunity @CrossFitAffiliates #supportyourlocalbox #crossfitaffiliate #personalizedfitness
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to another episode of Botox and Burpees.
I have with me one of my mostdistinguished guests, I think,
ever to date.
It's Aaron Hind.
Dr Aaron Hind, co-founder ofFitAid.
Dr Hind is the president andco-founder of LifeAid Beverage
Company, and their motto iswhere they reimagine what we
drink.
Lifeaid is a leadingmanufacturer of premium, healthy
(00:24):
and convenient nutritionalproducts designed to boost
performance and speed recoveryfor people pursuing active and
healthy lifestyles.
I am a huge FitAid consumermyself.
This is, as Aaron said, an OGshirt from years and years ago
that I got when I first starteddrinking FitAid.
I still drink it.
I probably go through about 20cans every two weeks or so.
(00:45):
I have the auto delivery set upso it just gets shipped right
to my door.
I love the and I want to talkabout the different flavors.
I'm a huge fan of the CitrusMedley Recovery one, but I would
be interested in hearing whatother products that you have
that you think are good, and Iwould also like to talk a little
(01:09):
bit about your personal life.
The reason why I reached out toyou to do this podcast was
because of an email that yousent at the end of 2024, at New
Year's Eve, about your brother,and it was such a touching, just
impactful email that I couldn'thelp but have to reach out to
you and ask to talk to you aboutit.
It was amazing.
(01:30):
It was not something I've everseen a company ever do or
someone who is ahead of acompany ever do, and it blew me
away.
But before we get to that,thank you again for coming and
joining me on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Thank you for having me Really appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So a little background.
You are a doctor ofchiropractic.
You got your doctor ofchiropractic degree from Palmer
College and you were a clinicdirector at your own sports
injury and pain center for over10 years.
That's before you got full timeinto your business and then, in
2011, you co-founded LifeAid,which is the company, and then,
in 2011, you co-founded LifeAid,which is the company, and you
(02:06):
have now a number of beveragesFitAid, focusaid, lifeaid,
travelaid, golfaid, partyaid andthe thing that I love the most
about this was and I relate toit as a student too was once.
Your company had a lot of upsand downs, but once it finally
got going, you were able to pay$240,000 in student loans in one
fell swoop, and I think that isthe dream of everyone who's
(02:28):
coming out of training to beable to do that, and that must
have been a pretty specialfeeling.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Oh, it was amazing.
I mean you know how expensiveschool can be and with nine
years, you know post high schooleducation, I had racked up
quite a bit of student loans andyou know, my first kind of
payday.
Half of it went to taxes andhalf of it went to student loans
.
But I wasn't in love with anymoney but, uh, at least I was
debt free, so that felt reallygood.
(02:54):
It was pretty funny because I,when I entered in you know I've
been making payments for 20years when I finally entered in
the full sum and hit submit, youknow the screen just was like
calculating per second and thenit's just said thank you and
that's it.
And I was like I was expectinglike balloons to be released.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That's so funny.
So I think your, your start wasreally documented well in a
podcast my First Million back inDecember 2019 at season two,
number 30, if you want to get alittle more of an in-depth part
of the start.
But I get the sense that youare such a NorCal Santa Cruz
product Like that is in your DNA, that's in your culture, that's
(03:40):
in your life, that's in yourethos.
That's how I see you, as Isthat true?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, we love Santa Cruz.
I spent my whole life here,both kids born and raised here,
and you probably know CrossFitwas born in Santa Cruz as well.
I was thinking back to my earlyCrossFit memories back in.
This had to have been, let'ssee, 1995, 96, somewhere in
(04:10):
there.
You know I'm coming home fromcollege.
I was going to St VincentCollege in Latrobe, pennsylvania
, coming home for summer breakand I happened to have multiple
gym memberships because theywere all pretty inexpensive to
have and we had a world gym, twoworlds gyms here in san andrews
, a goals gym in a 24 hour and Iwas members at all three
(04:30):
because there were, you know,different girls at all three and
and thought I'd jump around alittle bit and train in a
different spot.
And I remember this guy comingin this, this trainer a little
older than me, and he'd alwaysbe like hiding multiple pieces
of equipment.
He'd be running like threepeople at a time, four people,
then they'd be jumping on thisequipment and then over to
(04:50):
another piece and then like runout the door and run back in and
I see him at like world gym andthen after a few weeks there
that guy was gone and then I'dbe over at goals gym.
Then I see him pop into goalsgym and he'd be working out
there and then he would gotkicked out of there for kind of
his training style and pickingup too much equipment and same
thing at 24.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Well, fast forward that that individual was, uh,
none other than Greg Glassmanwow, so you saw him before
CrossFit was even named CrossFit, which is about as OG, I think,
as you can get with uh, withthe sport, and you've you've
supported the sport and you'vebeen a sponsor for all that time
until today, and and I want totalk to you about what your
thoughts are about CrossFit andand and how that, how you guys
(05:32):
helped each other.
It's actually funny because Ifeel like the companies that
have sprung out of CrossFit, Ithink of you, I think of Sieta
chips, which I want, uh, wantedto mention as well, like we just
got bought a million dollarexit yeah.
Yeah, so.
So it's crazy how the lifestyleended up supporting products
(05:53):
that I think the world has nowadopted as as being healthy.
But but you started um,obviously as an alternative to
high sugar sports drink, andthat's something I want to talk
about.
But you and your founder, orionOrion Mellohan, your first
product was named.
You wanted to name it Raverade.
Is that true?
Back in 2011, because of yourparty lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, orion and I were always spitballing ideas.
We met in the CrossFit gym.
We met in CrossFit North SantaCruz back in 2009,.
I think in the CrossFit gym.
We met in CrossFit North SantaCruz back in 2009,.
I think my office when I was inCairo was in Scotts Valley.
Well, crossfit headquarters wasin Scotts Valley.
So that's how I becameacquainted with CrossFit
officially is because I wastreating a lot of the members at
(06:40):
HQ and then when they'd theyhave athletes come into town and
I was already working with highlevel athletes from the 49ers
and and the giants, and so itwas a natural fit.
Now I was pretty athletic myselfand and work on all those types
of folks and and so, uh, westarted.
I started, you know they'relike hey, you got to come truck
(07:01):
across it, across it.
And I was like, hi, you know,okay, I'll check it out.
And I remember going in thereand seeing a couple of the guys,
maybe a little younger than methat were in pretty good shape,
that that I had seen it at myoffice.
I said, all right, I'm going topace myself with these guys.
They look like they're kind of,you know, ahead of the pack
type of thing, and I'll neverforget that I I was.
(07:27):
I remember it was like lots ofpull-ups and running involved
and I remember our first round.
I'm with them on my all right.
I'm pacing with the top guy,the top two guys, by round two.
I'm in the bushes and I'mbreathing.
I hate to throw up.
It's like my least favoritething.
And I'm just hold barely,holding it together as
everybody's just passing me.
It was looking me up andsnickering up there and I'm like
okay, okay, maybe I don't haveall my quite figured out here
(07:48):
and uh, you know, that was a funlittle run.
Um, but uh, yeah, I mean that'show we kind of got going in the
space.
And and you know, ryan and I,uh, we've been going to birdie
man for years.
You know we, we met in acrossfit gym.
Well, we had free time, we usedto golf.
So you know, all of ourproducts really uh represent our
, our lifestyle.
You know, I mean, our veryfirst uh product we ever
(08:10):
launched was it was golf raidand because, you know, we were
golfing and there was nothing inthe golf space.
So as soon as we had theconcept for that, we go.
Well, we go to crossfit.
There's no drink for crossfit.
What about today?
And, um, you know we, we go tothe burn every year.
What about, you know, ray-b-ray?
That was a little bit too racy,which became Partiate over time
.
And so those were the firstthree products Golf, ray-b,
(08:31):
partiate and Citiade.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So I love the story and I don't want to go through
it now, but you went through somany ups and downs like not
knowing.
You know how you know who tolook for in terms of bott,
knowing you know how you knowwho to look for in terms of
bottling.
You know making your stuff,getting it into cans, doing all
those things.
It's an awesome story.
I hope people check that out.
But suffice it to say you wentall in, you gave up your
(08:58):
chiropractic practice and youliterally had such lean times.
You were hand to mouth for likea year or two before it finally
started to turn for you Likethat's scary part of it.
Like now you look back andyou're like how did I even have
the balls to do that at thattime?
What?
What is it when someone is inthat situation and they're like
(09:19):
you know what I?
Maybe I made a mistake here,maybe this wasn't the right
thing to do.
What was it that kept you goingon that?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Well, some would call it stupidity, I call it
ignorance and passion, my fellowno, it was.
It got really.
I mean it's been leaned so manydifferent times that it got
really, really, really hairy forme.
We had just purchased six acresoff the grid in Santa Cruz, had
(09:48):
, uh, just purchased six acresoff the grid in in santa cruz
and and so I move a little 400square foot uh trailer up there
and and we're living off thegrids.
There's no power, you knowwe're.
We had to drill a well, septictank.
I told my wife, look, we'rejust going to do this for like a
year.
I'm going to build us a house,blah, blah, blah, uh.
And at the same time, you know,I'm getting state AIDS going
(10:08):
and and and Orion and I bothhave our own, you know kind of
real jobs.
And they came upon us like,look, we got to make a decision
here.
And where I was withchiropractic at the time, you
know I felt like I had just kindof reached the top.
I wasn't um, wasn't challengedor stimulated anymore and I had
(10:28):
a great practice.
It was all referral based about30 new patients a month, all by
referral um from.
You know, existing patients hada great working relationship
with the medical community.
So, like existing patients,number one, number two was with
other docs and that just kind ofkept me going and I had a great
lucrative practice.
(10:49):
And then a few things happened.
One I decided to go all in inreal estate because I'm looking
around and I'm talking to someof my patients coming in.
This was back in 2007.
So 2007, I decided to take allmy money and then leverage
myself and then go in and realestate.
I buy like four properties,three or four, three or four.
(11:12):
I'm with my existing on four.
And well, we know, I know whathappened late 2007,.
If you're old enough, I mean,it was the absolute peak and the
worst time you could possiblydo that.
So come 2008 rolls around, I'vegot 50,000 a month coming in
and then coming I've got 75going out with all the real
(11:34):
estate stuff, and so thatdoesn't last very long.
So I ended up just completelygoing under.
Fortunately, my practice wasstill going strong, so I still
had income.
But then I, you know, I losteverything.
So I had no assets, no credit.
Then I'm building it back on,grinding with no credit,
everything's cash now and thepractice again is still going
(11:54):
strong.
And so 2009, orion and I youknow me, and we're getting
things going and it's like, hey,we got this company going, uh,
by 2011.
I gotta, I gotta sell.
So it's like, okay, I'm gonnago got this company going by
2011.
I got to sell.
So it's like, okay, I'm goingto go all in with the day.
This is where my passion's atnow.
I sell my practice and I haveto kind of do it quickly.
You know, anytime you'reselling a practice, as you know,
(12:19):
it's very personality driven,like people are attracted to you
and your approach and yourstyle, your bedside manner, et
cetera.
I sell to the guy who I knewwasn't quite the right fit, you
know, he just didn't have thecharisma and everything and I
sell it to him.
I accept payments and fastforward.
Six months later he just can'thandle it.
He goes out of business, stopsmaking payments to me Okay, so
now I've got no credit, no money, no income, because I'm not
(12:44):
getting paid from FitAid yet andhe stops making payments.
On the practice, I'm living inan RV, I've got two kids, I'm
fully off grade and I've got noincome.
And so this is, like you know,2011, into 2012 and most of 2012
.
I'm like, what am I doing here?
I'm in my mid thirties, I'msupposed to be in the prime of
(13:04):
my life.
I still have this massive debtload from my education.
You know I've lost everything.
And here I am on this beveragecompany.
That's really not doing well.
And uh, and I put all my eggsin that basket.
And you know we're makingmacaroni cheese and tuna every
night dinner Cause that's adollar 50 from that meal broke
(13:31):
and actually get some goodprotein in cart with that little
bit of that meal.
And that was our reality for aperiod of time and I would hit,
you know, pretty low dark spotin my life.
It was like, okay, you know,dust yourself off, and that it
keep moving forward Like a pityparty is not going to do me any
good at that point in time.
So you know, fortunately wewere able to turn things around.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You did it with direct marketing, which I love
hearing you.
You went direct to gyms you Ilove the fact that you reached
out to to gyms, first golf, golfplaces, but then you went all
in on CrossFit gyms and you youwent from $700,000 to $4 million
in sales, and that's just fromCrossFit gyms.
(14:05):
When you really focused in onFitAid and CrossFit gyms and
that blew me away.
The beverage industry, asyou've mentioned, 95% of
companies fail the first year,99 after five.
You're one of the few thatsurvive.
And that was all based on justmarketing to the consumers that
you knew were going to want yourproduct.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, the direct response marketing.
We learned from a good friendand mentor of mine, ben Al-Sadar
, who's one of the sharpestmarketing minds in the space,
and fortunately he took me underhis wing and really went out on
a limb for me and paid for someeducation when I didn't have
the funds.
And and uh, I dove in both feetall at once into everything I
(14:54):
could learn about directresponse marketing.
And so in the early days ofcrossfit some of the crossfit
gym owners out there mightremember, you know, we would
just send you a four pack ofFitAid in the mail.
You wouldn't request it, I justwould send it to you and I put
you in a follow-up sequencewhere we would say hey, this is
a great product, you know, madeby athletes for athletes.
(15:16):
Here's why it's, you know, sogreat.
Bring it into your gym with aninitial order, 10 cases.
I'm going to give you a freerefrigerator.
Well, you remember back in theearly days of CrossFit there
wasn't really any refrigeratorsin gyms.
They had any products at all.
Maybe they bought a case ofwater from Costco and they were
selling them for a buck a piece.
It was really not any pro shopsor anything.
So this was like the verybeginning of starting a pro shop
(15:40):
in a CrossFit gym.
Okay, they take us up on it, weget the fridge in there.
Then maybe they got some oftheir own t-shirts and their
waters and you know, you startto see a retail landscape
developing on the space.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
It's funny because a lot of beverage companies that
are startups now are trying toduplicate what you've done.
We get the same type of stuffnow that you did from other
products that are trying to getinto this space, but we only
sell FitAid, like at our gym.
We sell probably still onehundred and twenty five cans a
month, like four hundred, likewe like.
(16:15):
We don't have anything else.
So.
So your product is good, I likeit, it works for our, our
athletes.
And then you've increased yourretail presence and you're an
Amazon and Vitamin Shop and Stopand Shop and Circle K now and
you ended up expanding and youbought a couple international
distributors along the way.
How were you able to figure outlike, okay, now we need to buy
(16:37):
Life Aid Europe and Life AidCanada and keep increasing our
reach with this and make thatinvestment.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I travel a lot, and so does Orion and you know quite
a bit for work and for fun aswell, and when you travel
overseas you see a lot ofcopycat products from the US,
you know, and if you, and so weknew that that could be the case
if this thing really took off.
And so establishing a presenceinternationally, as well as
(17:06):
protecting our trademarksinternationally, was really
important to us.
We had a CrossFit gym owner,heiss, who owned a box in Europe
, and said hey, I saw you guysat the CrossFit Games, I'd love
to bring it over.
And we made a deal with him andhe brought over one pallet.
You know, fast forward, adecade later he's running all of
Europe for us and has done anamazing job.
(17:27):
Our European and Australian,australia and New Zealand
businesses all in gyms.
So we don't have any retailpresence over there.
We stay strictly in gyms anddirect to consumer and have some
really great establishedpartners over there.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
That's pretty awesome .
I want to talk a little bitabout your product because it's
really funny.
I only actually drink one ofyour products.
It's the FitAid Recovery CitrusMedley.
I find that one the originalbasically.
For me it's the original andthen the other two that actually
are and that's very popular atour gym, also the sugar-free one
(18:05):
, the only other one that wereally sell because we've tried
all the other ones.
But the ones that the peoplereally like are the fit aid
recovery with the creatine, Imean.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
RX, rather both sugar and non sugar.
Oh, is that right?
Well, juicy apple, that's myfavorite.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So, um, which ones are the popular ones and how
have all these new flavors?
You and I want to go throughall the different ones a little
bit, just just so that peopleknow, like, what the products
are.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And we've got a FitAid uh zero sugar recovery
fruit punch, brand new flavorlaunching tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So so is that right?
All right, got to try it.
I'll try that one too.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I mean you have branch no-transcript.
I mean you have French, I'llsend you out a case.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
After this, I'll be up to my ears in Fit Ed.
I can't wait.
Thank you, so this has Now.
A lot of people say they haveclean drinks, but I really feel
like this is the one that I cankeep drinking and I don't feel
like ick and I don't feel crazyabout it.
How did you come up with theoriginal supplement formulation
(19:06):
and have you changed any of itor just added and made different
products based on how youformulate it?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, we have changed in how the initial formulations
work is.
Really.
I'm looking at what is theintended use occasion.
I mean, if you rewind 14 yearsago now, we were actually the
very first function for beveragecompany.
People can't even imagine thatbecause you go in the grocery
store now everything is functionfor everything.
But we were the very first.
(19:32):
At the time you had energydrinks, which is basically you
know one's drinking energydrinks for health benefits,
right, you just drink them toget jacked up.
So it's basically a caffeineplatform.
(19:52):
They're very high in sugar orartificial sweeteners, synthetic
caffeine, et cetera.
Emergence of kombucha andcoconut water very polarizing at
the time from a flavor profileperspective that nobody had.
You know, if you look at theenergy drink companies the big
three at the time it was like 15, 20 variations off the same
flavor profile.
Well, we wanted to be functionforward.
So he said, ok, what are youlooking for?
You know CrossFit is the mosttaxing workout that there is.
You know people are justsitting in sweat angels
(20:14):
afterwards like what's going tohelp get your body back to life
and and recover as quickly aspossible.
And so I would just kind oflook, go on Medline or PubMed
and look at okay, well, what arepeople taking, what are the
different supplements, what arethe efficacious doses of this
and that?
And also, talking to all theathletes in the space, what are
you currently taking?
Cell room perspective and why?
(20:36):
You know, and this, we did thatsame approach with everything
and we did it with party.
Look at party eight, five, hdpand milk, thistle and
electrolyte b vitamins, focus a.
Looking at nootropics likealpha, gpc and uh, l-theanine
and etc.
So you know we're basicallyreverse engineering based on the
intended.
You know the.
The use of creatine I'm superexcited about.
(20:57):
You mentioned the creatine.
Excuse me, creatine is on fireright now.
We've had our creatine skis outfor a while.
We're using bonded creatine.
So we take Creapuro, which isthe best creatine on the market.
Glambia, a nutritional,encapsulates in a pea protein,
so it increases solubility andstability and then we were able
to put that into a can.
(21:17):
But you look at, like theamount of women now that are
taking creatine.
I mean we're probably about thesame age.
I mean, back in the day it wasonly like meatheads were taking
creatine.
That was like a bodybuildingthing, but there was really no
awareness that how importantthis particular supplement is,
especially for women when itcomes to bone density and muscle
(21:38):
health, cognitive health,basically anywhere you're
getting, you know, high ATPuptake.
So you know we're seeing a huge, huge explosion in sales with
their treating excusespecifically with women.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
What?
What happened to life aid hemp?
That was out and now I don'tsee it.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, we had to kill it.
Unfortunately, regulations fromstate to state were so variable
that we could ship to certainstates and not others, and then
it really started to throw awrench into the core fit aid
business because we couldn't docredit card transactions on the
same page for HAP versus theother SKUs.
(22:19):
I had issues trying to get inon Amazon and so on and so forth
.
It was a shame because I lovedthat player profile and I did
like the way it made me feel,but the juice wasn't worth the
squeeze.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Got it.
Let's talk a little bit aboutyour personal challenges.
Got it?
Let's talk a little bit aboutyour personal challenges.
(22:51):
So what really struck me wasthat back in 2020, you lost your
home in Santa Cruz toeverything.
Now that you're seeing thatdown in southern california,
what do you reflect on with yourexperiences at the time and and
how you feel about what's goingon now?
Speaker 2 (23:06):
yeah, my heart really goes out to him.
I got to hang out with a goodfriend of mine whose mom lost
her home and I'm just chattingwith her later today after 50
years in the same place.
You know the it's a deep senseof loss.
I mean I'd say the longeryou've been, you know, in a in a
home and and the more kind ofeffort and sweat you put into it
(23:29):
I mean, my kids were, were bornthere and grew up there you
know you have a real sense of um, of not only belonging but also
that that it's, it's part ofyou, it's like part of your dna.
So it's almost like losing, youknow, a loved one or a piece of
(23:50):
you, piece of your identitythat goes away.
And you know we lost everything.
And I had put 22 years of youknow hard work and toil and
sweat equity into that property,developing it from when it just
had a deer trail when youcouldn't even see anything.
And you know we opened up abeautiful ocean view and, you
know, developed it, had, youknow, multiple places on it over
(24:12):
time and had just finished thebeautiful $150,000 tree house up
to Redwoods, 50 feet with thebathroom.
I mean the whole thing it was.
You know it was a work inprogress and to take the hit
both financially and beingseverely underinsured.
And I'm sure that's going to bea case with a lot of the folks
because the insurance droppedand now it's uncovered
(24:32):
Californian.
So you've got the financial hit, you've got the really the
fight or flight mode that itputs you in Like, oh my God,
what you know?
What am I going to do?
Do I even have my wallet, mycredit cards?
Do I have my passport?
Like how am I going to act?
Let's see sing.
And then, as time goes on, yourealize like, oh my God, you
know, all those pictures aregone and my grandparents, my
(24:58):
grandpa's wedding ring that hegave us and all of these
personal items that are part ofyour identity.
But it's also an amazing lessonand it takes quite a bit of time
to be able to reflect back andsay it actually happened for me,
not to me, I'm not a victim.
I remember, you know,interviewing with some media
(25:22):
after the fire and they said oh,you know, fire victim Aaron
Hines said well, let me correctyou right there, I'm not a
victim of anything, you know I'mnot a victim.
Okay, well, fire survivor, I go, I'm not a survivor here, I'm a
fire thriver.
That's what you can call me,you know, because how we
(25:42):
identify and the stories that wetell ourselves after tragic
situations determines whether webecome a victim and whether
we're suffering or not.
You know, suffering is a storythat we tell ourselves about
pain points in our life.
I mean pain's inevitable Shithappens.
I mean houses burn down, welose loved ones, we have
breakups, businesses fail, andthat was a massive turning point
(26:03):
when I was going bankrupt backin the day and overextended on
real estate and living in the RVand nothing was working out.
And I look in the mirror and Isaid, look, you have a choice.
You, me, me.
I got myself in this situation.
I take full accountability forwhere I'm at.
And guess what?
By taking full accountability,I have the ability to get out of
this situation, make differentdecisions.
(26:25):
Anytime I'm finding someonethat's in challenging part of
their life.
It's not necessarily makingbetter decisions, because I
think we're all trying to makethe best decision.
It's the outcome drawn.
So it's like make differentdecisions, just make a different
decision and keep movingforward and, you know,
minimizing that amount of timethat we have a pity party for
(26:45):
ourselves and go.
Ok, I may not see how thislittle piece fits in the overall
mosaic right now, but I do havefaith over time that things
will be coming to perspectiveand and who knows what it is.
It's a heavy sense of loss, youknow you're you gotta go
through some grieving, but withtime, you know, now I, I go out
and it's like, wow, my view isbetter than it's ever been
(27:08):
because there's no trees left.
You know, there's things.
Now I'm back on the propertyI'm so appreciative of that,
maybe wasn't there before andknowing that I can lose
everything and I lost everythingfinancially a couple of times
I've lost all my physicalpossessions.
Now, like I can lose everythingand guess what?
(27:29):
I'm going to be OK and youmentioned that email I sent out
you know a couple of weeks agobe okay.
And and you mentioned thatemail I sent out you know, a
couple of weeks ago my wife Iput my wife's quote at the end
that she always reminds me.
So it all works out in the end.
If it hasn't worked out, it'snot the end, you know.
And life is this amazing journeyand without the pain and brief
(27:56):
periods of suffering, withoutthat, how do we even know to
experience joy.
How do we even know toexperience the elation of when
you know friends and family andour community, you know, comes
together and support us.
So it allowed me to to learn tobe a receiver.
I had never been a receiver.
I have a hard time getting,taking things from people, but
when people were outpouring andlike sending me socks and
underwear and started to go fundme and doing all these things
(28:20):
like I, I needed that.
I, I needed that support and tohave, you know, my community
come out, have and also made memore of a, you know, just an
(28:40):
empathetic type person Like youknow, knowing that everybody's
having their own struggles.
You know, it's like so easy tocome to quick judgment about
things but you don't know whatpeople have gone through, where
they're at in their lives.
People have gone through andwhere they're at in their lives.
So when someone cuts you off intraffic, instead of just being
a hothead, like maybe I used tobe, I go.
Well, maybe their wife's inlabor and they're trying to get
(29:01):
to the hospital.
You know who knows Like wedon't know.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
That's a lot of wisdom.
Speaking of that email, thatwas one of the most, like I said
, impactful emails I've everreceived from a company or the
head of a company, and this wassomething that you sent Tuesday,
december 31st of this past yearand it was dated.
The email was dated September30th and it was a text exchange
that you had with your wife,rama, and you screenshotted it
(29:29):
and I'll write.
Let me say what it said.
It said your wife said sheriffsare here.
They came with news about Luke,who's your brother, and you
said what news?
Tell them he doesn't live withus, please.
And your wife said Luke hadpassed.
I don't have details.
His body is at your memorial.
And she said I'm so sorry, lord, have mercy.
(29:50):
And that hit me like a ton ofbricks.
I can't believe how impactfulthat was that you shared.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
What made you want to share that with us.
Sorry, it still hit home Alittle harsh.
Well, look, there's a lot ofproducts out there.
(30:25):
You know, and, uh, you couldsay all my products better than
everybody else's.
And you know we make choices onwho we want to support and what
companies we want to supportwith our wallet, and, and you
know that's part of this greatsociety that we live in.
For me, our company is more thanjust FidAid and the products we
put out.
It's the people behind it, it'sthe story, it's all of our
(30:50):
incredible team.
You know, it's all the effortand time and thought that goes
behind.
You know, everything we do,it's our ethos, it's, you know,
the products is one aspect ofwhat makes that that up, and so
I found the more I can open up,which is not natural for me, I'm
(31:12):
very, uh, introverted person,just innately and and, and so
you know, being open, being moreengaging is is a challenge for
me, but I it's a.
It's a great challenge, anecessary challenge, the more
that people can relate withwhat's going on.
I mean you should see how manyemails and texts that I got
(31:36):
after that.
I mean I had one person text meand, like normally, I would
just, you know, delete the yearend type emails and, for
whatever reason, I feltcompelled to open it and their,
their little brother, who isalso named Luke and also passed
very unexpectedly, and she'slike.
(31:58):
I can't even tell you how muchit really hit home for me
Reading this.
It was the exact message that Ineeded to hear at that point in
time and it's like theseproducts, for me, are all about
changing people's healthtrajectory, like if I can get
them off a monster or off aCelsius or something.
(32:20):
Let's like imagine thatcompounding effect over time,
you know, with that type oflifestyle change, and if I can
have that same trajectory changefor for someone that might be
in a depressed, depressive stateor in some type of a funk or
feeling like, you know, theworld's kind of, you know,
(32:41):
closing down on them to to beable to, you know, open them up
and let them know, hey, otherpeople are going through the
same challenges and it's goingto be okay.
You know we're in this togetheras a community and, uh, you know
, that's really, you know why Ichoose to to open it up and, you
know, put out my cell phone andjust let people know where I'm
(33:02):
at.
You know this is life.
We're all living it.
We're living it the best weknow how and, uh, you know it's
not perfect, it can be messy attimes and lots of challenges,
but it it's also amazing, and Idon't know if anyone got out to
see the moon last night or thismorning before sunrise, but
we're so blessed.
You know, like God is good andlife is good, it's an amazing
(33:27):
period of time to be alive.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
It was such a powerful reminder about
gratitude and regret and loss,and so, as soon as I read that,
I reached out to my two brotherswho I'm not as close as I
should be and I I just told themI loved them just because of of
that, and I thought that was sopowerful and and I was so
grateful for the fact that, thatyou were able to share your
(33:51):
loss and regret and and um anduh, that made me better.
It made me a better personbecause of that, which I really
appreciate, which I never wouldhave imagined from a CEO and
president of a beverage company.
It's amazing.
That just blows me away.
So you can do good anywhere, nomatter what you're doing, and
(34:17):
um and uh, the fact that youkeep that in mind with you
personally, as well as yourcompany, just makes me feel, uh,
like there's really a lot ofgood in the world, which which I
appreciate.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Um uh.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
So, um, let me talk to you a little bit.
Let me switch a little bitgears and talk about you.
You've talked about CrossFitand I know there's been so many
changes going on with CrossFitand you probably have a best,
one of the best perspectivesabout CrossFit, as well as a
successful entrepreneur.
What is the future of CrossFit?
(34:50):
Where do you think it's going?
Do you think it's going to gowhere it needs to go?
You shaped your company.
How is CrossFit the companydoing?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
How's it doing?
Well overall, not well rightnow.
I would say yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
It's not well for a variety of reasons.
Some of it's just bad luck,some of it's just, you know, bad
luck.
You know, um, there there'sbeen a series of things that
have just kind of added insultto injury for CrossFit.
But and look, you know, I'vemet the leadership I, you know,
I, I, these are good peoplethey're, they're smart people.
(35:29):
You know there's a lot of, youknow, ridicule, I think, and and
some of it I don't think isreally founded, I think a lot of
it is just how things haveplayed out and people maybe not
having a real grasp on howbusinesses function.
Or, if the business is beingbought by a private equity group
(35:50):
, well, they want a return.
That's the whole point of them,you know, purchasing a business
.
So if I was running crossfit,maybe that would be the best way
to answer this question.
Here's what I would yes, andhere's some things that I've
been saying for the last 14years.
You're, you know, I I grew upin crossfit.
You're obviously a in greatshape and a crossfitter and
active at the gym.
(36:11):
There's two types of people andthere's people that are pro
cross it and then there's peoplethat have an opinion about
cross shit right and it.
We went, and the reason I saythis is very similar to
chiropractic in a lot of ways.
You know, it's like you go andask somebody on the street hey,
what do you think aboutchiropractic?
They're gonna oh, mychiropractor saved my life.
(36:32):
I threw my back, I couldn'tmove and I went in and they
fixed me.
It was amazing.
Or they're gonna to oh, mychiropractor saved my life.
I threw my back out, I couldn'tmove and I went in and they
fixed me and it was amazing.
Or they're going to be like ohno, those guys are crazy and
once you go to chiropractor,you're always going to have to
go and they might give you astroke and like there's going to
be certain objections.
How are we, as CrossFitters, nothandling and especially from an
HQ perspective, hammering theobjections that we know?
(36:54):
Every single person that has anegative view, every
non-CrossFitter, let's just sayalready has about CrossFit.
What are they?
I'll tell you what they are,because they have not changed
since the very beginning of time.
Oh, to start CrossFit, youalready got to be in great shape
, right?
If you're a girl, what's goingto happen?
You're going to get too bulky,right?
(37:17):
Or number three oh, you'regoing to get injured if you do
CrossFit.
These are the number, the topthree objections that have been
like that since the verybeginning.
So, if I'm HQ and I want toprovide value to the affiliates
which is what this should all beabout, because a lot of people
are like, oh well, how manypeople in a Savant or that
people, if they're affiliatedstill, and if they drop due to
(37:39):
the price increase which wentfrom, what is it?
Now?
It's up to like four grand orsomething.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, like three and a half or something like that.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, and my point is it doesn't matter if it's three
and a half thousand, it doesn'tmatter if it's $35,000.
Okay, it doesn't matter.
That's not actually the painpoint, because if I was
delivering, if I'm CrossFit HQand I'm delivering you as a gym,
30 new members every month andyou know that the lifetime value
on that membership is 50 grandeach or whatever, I could charge
(38:09):
you $30,000 a month and it'sstill a great deal, right.
So it has nothing to do withwhat they're charging, it has to
do with the value of theproviding for the cost.
You need to with any service orproduct.
You need to exceed theperceived value, needs to exceed
the cost, okay.
So number one a massivemarketing campaign dealing with
(38:33):
the top three objections, whichhas never been done.
Okay, you need to be showpeople that are completely out
of shape, doing a beginner'sclass in a very safe way and
transforming.
There's amazing transformativestories in CrossFit.
There's no modality in fitness,maybe outside of, like the
Marine Corps bootcamp that hasthe transformative power of the
(38:56):
crossfit box.
So they need to deal with theobjections and show that the
transformation.
And then, number two they needto get the marketing machine
going and drive people in theaffiliates and and be able to
track them, and you could give areport to each affiliate owner.
Here's how many leads that wesent your way.
Now you can't close the lead.
(39:18):
That's on you, the owner, andyou're not going to be around
very long, but here's the leadthat we sent you, and there's
already people in the space thathave been doing this for years,
doing, you know, instagram andFacebook ads, a TikTok marketing
.
So there's lots of ways we cando this referral campaigns, et
cetera to drive people into theaffiliate.
Then you're increasing theperceived value, the actual
(39:40):
value relative to whatever thecost is, and they could make a
lot more money and charge a lotmore than more members that
they're tracking, they're,they're driving into this.
Well, it's as simple as that.
So why those two things havenever been done?
I'm at a complete loss.
Those are the first two thingsI would do if I was taken over.
Simple.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Yeah, I feel like that's so simple and yet there
are.
I can imagine CrossFit HQhaving a lot of reasons in their
head why they can't or won't oraren't going to do those those
things, and it it's it's.
You're spitting truth right now, to me at least, on that that's
(40:21):
it's.
It's terrible that they're notgoing to do what I think they
should be doing in terms ofsuccess and growth and and that
they've been floundering for asmany years as they have right
now.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I agree with you.
It's a win-win for everybody.
It's a win for the communityYou're getting more people in
shape and in the CrossFit gyms.
It's a win for the affiliatesby driving members in and taking
care of a lot of big objectionsthat people may have that are
unjustified.
And it's a win for HQ becausethey'll be able to charge more
and keep that revenue model.
(40:56):
And then when everyone's like,oh, crossfit's great, yeah, they
send me X amount of membersevery month, like you'd have a
lot more people going, well, Iwant to start an affiliate.
If that's the case, you know,and having this type of model,
so it's the challenge becomesand I think this is a big
takeaway and this is, you know,everybody at LifeAid gets it's
(41:18):
hard to see.
It's a little branded notebookhere that we all carry around
with us and in it we have ourcore values written at the front
of the book, and core valuenumber 10, always play the long
game, always play the long game.
The problem is, right now,crossfit H2 is playing the short
(41:38):
game and they should be playingthe long game.
The problem is, right nowCrossFit HQ is playing the short
game and they should be playingthe long game, because the long
game is beneficial even in theshort term.
That's what they're failing, Ithink, to realize.
And if they were to handlethese things and drive more
value and drive memberships inboxes yes, it's going to cost an
expense, but it's playing thelong game going to increase the
enterprise value significantlyand make CrossFit cool again.
(41:59):
I mean right now, you know itmight be more exciting in Europe
, but domestically and you talkto affiliate owners.
I talk to a lot of affiliateowners hey, how come you're not
affiliated anymore?
How come that?
How about this?
They are affiliated, but theydropped CrossFit out of their
name.
It's Santa Cruz Strength andConditioning instead of Santa
(42:19):
Cruz CrossFit.
Yet they still play theaffiliate fee.
Why did you drop CrossFit outof your name?
It's doing me more harm thangood.
You know how many times.
I've heard that it's doing memore harm than good.
I mean that should be a massivewake-up call right there.
Doing me more harm than good,like, oh shit, what are we doing
with our brand where people arestill paying us?
They don't even want to marketit anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
That's terrible, Terrible.
Let me ask you what's the firstcore value?
Just the number one on yournotebook.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Number one create the most fun, healthy, holistic and
fulfilling work environment inSanta Cruz and beyond.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
All right.
So let's talk about LifeAidthen.
So what is your future as acompany?
Let me just.
When I scheduled you for thispodcast, I just wanted to look
at the energy drink industry alittle bit and it blew me away.
(43:16):
The numbers are insane.
So energy drink sales were $53billion two years ago.
It's supposed to grow to like$86 billion a year in 2027.
Red Bull is valued at $22billion.
Monster is like $50 billion.
Celsius' network worth is like$6 billion and the buyouts have
(43:39):
been insane.
Korek, dr Pepper bought ghostswho I never heard of in my
entire life.
I've never seen a ghostbeverage in my entire life.
Just bought them for like 990million for 60% ownership.
All of this.
Now I look at lifeid and I'mlike this is the next
(44:00):
announcement that's going to bemade.
Is this acquisition here?
Speaker 2 (44:03):
No, no, no, no.
Well, I'll tell you.
I'll tell you a couple ofreasons.
We are unwilling to sacrificeon our core values and our ethos
.
We will never have a beveragethat is artificially sweetened
(44:26):
with sucralose, aspartame orACE-K, which does kill your gut
microbiome.
You know.
You look at some of the studies.
You know the sucrose level isso small and you excrete it like
well, no one, no study has beendone on low doses over 10, 15,
20 years on what that does toyour body.
(44:47):
We'll never use artificial dyesred, this and blue that We'll
never use synthetic caffeinethat all of those drinks have
that comes from the gigafactories overseas, with no
regulation whatsoever.
Our products have a supplementpanel and not a nutrition panel.
(45:07):
Well, why is that?
Well, there's, you know thatthey're in the 60s.
There was something that theFDA passed called GRAS,
generally regarded as safe forfood products, which is complete
crack.
I mean, if you look at the foodadditives in the US relative to
Europe, it's like they havelike 70 approved food additives
(45:29):
and we have like 7,000.
I mean, it's mind blowing.
I'm probably off on the numbersthere.
It's crazy what we allow in ourfood and what they don't, and
there's a lot of little thingsthat we know is crazy.
Like we use the methyl for aB12, methylcobalamin right,
(45:51):
which is the superior form.
It's more bioavailable, youknow.
It's a better form period,there's no question about it.
Guess what?
The methyl form is not grossbecause they haven't updated
these things since the sixties.
The cyano form, cyanocobalamin,which your body does break down
to cyanide in small doses anddoes excrete it.
Unless you are diabetic,pre-diabetic or obese, then your
(46:12):
body doesn't really excrete itthat well, that well.
Well, nobody wants cyanideaccumulating in their, in their
body.
Cyanocobalamin is gross, youknow.
So there's all these likelittle things that, if you're
actually focused on doing theright thing, playing the long
game and creating the best, mostefficacious, healthiest,
cleanest product available, allthese other companies that
(46:34):
you're mentioning, with thesemulti-billion dollar valuations,
people think that they'rehealthy, especially women, going
towards, like a brand that youpreviously mentioned, that's, up
to six, eight billion dollars,or an Alani or some of these
other ones stuff.
There's a book calledcaffeinated, if you want to go
down the wormhole on syntheticcaffeine, uh, which came out of
(47:00):
world war ii.
The nazis developed it and thisis like it's monsanto and
pfizer collab from back in theday.
It's crazy.
Synthetic caffeine, they alluse cyanocobalamin, they all use
artificial sweetener, sucralose, as aspartame or Ace K are a
combination of which.
Right, and we're just not goingto go down that road.
So you know, we're happy beingwhere we're at and and
(47:23):
continuing to develop greatproducts and servicing our
community and and gyms anddirect to consumer and high-end
retailers, like you know, wholeFoods and Sprouts, and you know
that's that's where we stay inour lane.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
I mean, you guys aren't.
You guys are a pretty big too.
Like your revenue is what?
20 million a year?
They're estimating.
You don't have to tell me theactual uh, that people are
valuating you at over a hundred,120, 140 million, something
like that as a business.
Um, I understand.
So let me ask you two questions.
One is um, you said you wantedto grow to like a billion
(48:00):
dollars or 200 million in salesor something like that.
Like some, you obviously, as acompany, you want to grow as big
as possible.
What you do, we respect the wayyou guys do it.
We'll just give you a crap loadmore money to leverage yourself
(48:21):
into a bigger player, but youcan keep.
We won't have you compromisehow you produce your product.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I mean, of course, we would look at anything that
that was proposed um, at the endof the day, to to really grow.
You know, top line, from wherewe're at to where I think we can
be.
It's really a distribution game, you know.
You look at all those otherbrands that you mentioned now.
You know they all have massivedistribution.
(48:48):
They're on a Coke truck or aPepsi truck or a Dr Pepper truck
or a Budweiser truck or a RedBull truck, right Like, if you
start paying attention to thesedelivery trucks cruising around
your town, they're one of likefour or five companies.
So it really comes down to, youknow, getting the distribution
to really go for a massive landgrab and go wide and go
(49:08):
everywhere, like you also haveto have.
You know consumer demand rightnow, the average consumer and
I'm not talking about, you know,california, or you know there's
certain health pockets thatpeople are actually aware of.
You know what type of B12 theytake and you know these things
mean.
You know what type ofsweeteners are being used.
These things mean something tothem.
(49:28):
As far as their criteria ofpurchase, a lot of the United
States isn't there yet.
You know they're not there.
I spent six years inPennsylvania, western
Pennsylvania, it's not there yet.
You know, they're just behindeverything else from health
perspective.
So we would need the generalawareness to catch up, to say,
hey, you know, these are thingsyou should be looking for in the
(49:50):
foods and drinks that you'reconsuming, and people to start
making different decisions.
And it is happening.
It is happening.
When we first started this,there were the big three energy
drinks and no one thought thatwould ever be disrupted.
It was Red Bull, monster,rockstar.
Well, guess what happened?
Bang came along and disruptedthat and knocked out the number
(50:12):
three.
And then Bang got knocked outas quickly as they came up by
Celsius and now they're the newnumber three.
And why are people drinking?
Why is Celsius so big?
And you got up to a $20 billionvaluation?
Because they brought in womenfor the first time in the energy
drink category that women hadnever participated.
They never drank Monster or RedBull or Rockstar.
(50:33):
Now women are drinking anenergy drink because of this
perceived health benefit fromthese various brands.
Well, it's only going to be amatter of time when they're
actually looking at the back ofthe can and go wait a second.
I thought this was healthierthan my, than the monsters and
stuff.
And they look at it and go well, it has actually the same
ingredients.
Why is it healthier?
Oh, maybe it's not.
(50:53):
You know what else is there outthere.
And so, over time, there'll bea natural discovery towards
getting cleaner and cleaner andwhat you're consuming, and you
know that's where we're going tobe waiting, as we always have
been, you know, right at thefinish line, when you're ready
to really make the leap on themore of a clean ingredient
profile.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
It is crazy how the success of these drinks are not
based on the quality of theproduct.
It's really on the marketing.
When they market to kids notkids or young men it's the Sour
Patch flavor that they market,or if it's like some macho dude,
it's the Elks Blood flavor andif it's the women, it's quote
the healthy type product.
(51:36):
And, like you said, you'reright, no one ever lost money
betting on the ignorance of thegeneral population.
It seems like in general it'sgoing to take a real long time.
It is happening, like you said,but it's a long game for them
to sort of see.
I mean, there might be certainevents that might sort of hasten
(51:56):
this.
I'm not sure.
It always seems like somethingbig happens and then little
jumps and starts happen in termsof health.
But I admire you for doing that.
It just might take a long timefor that to happen.
I'm not sure we're in it forthe long haul.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
We're 14 years into it now and you know, uh, if the,
if it takes, you know another14, so be it.
I mean, celsius didn't reallytake off until you know, like
year 15 or 16.
They, you know, they kind ofwent on multiple times and it
had kind of a Hail Mary passright at the end to really turn
things around, turn around theirpositioning on that kind of
(52:36):
thing.
So these things do take time.
We're we're a profitablecompany.
We're, you know, got a greatteam, a great core team.
We've got a great consumer base.
You know, most of our newcustomers still come from
referrals.
So, like back in my Cairo day,like that's the best, you know
you're doing good work whenyou're getting a significant
amount of referrals and many newgym owners out there.
(52:57):
That's one of the top metricsyou should be looking at how
many referrals are we getting?
If they're not there, then youneed to be changing your systems
to.
You know, to create andstimulate more referrals.
Because if you're doing greatwork in the world, people feel
compelled to talk about you.
Like think about it, doc.
Like what's the last time youhad an amazing experience at a
(53:20):
restaurant?
New restaurant opens in town?
You go, you're with your wife,like wow, the ambiance is great,
the host is fantastic, you knoweverything, the waitstaff, like
everything about it.
What's the first thing you do?
You know, when you get home,that next morning or whatever
right, you feel compelled to gotell all your friends or your
(53:41):
patients about oh, you got to gocheck out this new restaurant.
It is amazing.
Let me tell you what they didblah, blah, blah.
Right, you are compelled.
So if you're not gettingreferrals, you're not being
compelling enough and theexperience that you're
delivering to your people and sothat's always like the metric
that I always like look at where.
Where are referrals?
(54:02):
Are we being compelling?
You know, are we educatingpeople well enough than what
we're all about and what we'rewhat we're doing?
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Absolutely.
Um, talk to me, uh, in closinga little bit, I know you also
invest in in other businesses orentrepreneurs.
You're you.
You do a little bit of payingit forward, I would suppose, in
terms of looking for otherpotential ventures to to help
fund.
Have you found anything thathas been really promising or or
(54:30):
what's that experience been like?
It's fun.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
I love it.
I love it.
I.
You know I can provide a lot ofvalue from the zero to one
crowds.
So, like young entrepreneurs,you know, if you're a young
startup, there's a thousandthings that need to go right and
and one of them can literallysink the ship, you know.
And so like helping guidepeople to to avoid that one
(54:55):
inaccurate thinking that canreally sink it, and then also
supporting, you know, greatentrepreneurs and people and
products that I see come along.
I mean my favorite one rightnow is a company called Good
Wipes and what they are is anall organic, flushable.
Think of a baby wipe, but it'smade of all cotton.
(55:16):
This whole thing aboutmicroplastics, and now there's
microplastics in our testiclesand our ovaries.
It's crazy, right, it's crazy.
They see there's like a creditcard worth of plastic in our
brains.
Now I mean this is insanity,all coming probably from water
bottles and plastic cuttingboards and who knows right.
So the same thing was happeningwith baby wipes.
(55:37):
I mean everyone uses baby wipeson their little young kids and
here these things are allplastic.
They don't degrade, I know theydon't degrade.
If I have a septic tank, youcan't use them because 10 years
later open the thing up Likethey're still floating in there.
They don't break down.
So this company, good Wipes,came around and said hey, we are
creating an all organic cottonbaby wipe with no plastics in it
(56:01):
and it's great for adults andkids and they break down in
minutes in septic tanks thataren't polluting the ocean.
That's a plug to me.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
That's pretty awesome .
I love that.
So any final takeaways.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
Pretty awesome.
I love that.
So any final takeaways where,if a gym wants to stock your
products, if anyone else allhandles as well, and then, uh,
if they wanted to come on board,uh, they could email me
directly a as an Aaron Hine D HI N D E at uh lifeaid bepcocom.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
Wow, Aaron, it's uh been such a pleasure to talk to
you.
I feel really inspired actuallynow that I've listened to you
talk about your life andexperience, and is there
anything else you'd like to sayor share before we sign off here
?
Speaker 2 (57:06):
I'll end with my wife's quote again, because it's
just such an important thing tokeep in mind that you know it
all works out in the end.
And it hasn't worked out, it'snot the end.
So I love, keep moving forward.
We're all in this struggletogether and, uh, you know God
is good, Life is great.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
I love that.
I love that quote.
I'm going to be using itforever.
Thank you so much All right doc.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Thank you.
Welcome to another episode of Botox and Burpees.
I have with me one of my mostdistinguished guests, I think,
ever to date.
It's Aaron Hind.
Dr Aaron Hind, co-founder ofFitAid.
Dr Hind is the president andco-founder of LifeAid Beverage
Company, and their motto iswhere they reimagine what we
drink.
Lifeaid is a leadingmanufacturer of premium, healthy
(00:24):
and convenient nutritionalproducts designed to boost
performance and speed recoveryfor people pursuing active and
healthy lifestyles.
I am a huge FitAid consumermyself.
This is, as Aaron said, an OGshirt from years and years ago
that I got when I first starteddrinking FitAid.
I still drink it.
I probably go through about 20cans every two weeks or so.
(00:45):
I have the auto delivery set upso it just gets shipped right
to my door.
I love the and I want to talkabout the different flavors.
I'm a huge fan of the CitrusMedley Recovery one, but I would
be interested in hearing whatother products that you have
that you think are good, and Iwould also like to talk a little
(01:09):
bit about your personal life.
The reason why I reached out toyou to do this podcast was
because of an email that yousent at the end of 2024, at New
Year's Eve, about your brother,and it was such a touching, just
impactful email that I couldn'thelp but have to reach out to
you and ask to talk to you aboutit.
It was amazing.
(01:30):
It was not something I've everseen a company ever do or
someone who is ahead of acompany ever do, and it blew me
away.
But before we get to that,thank you again for coming and
joining me on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Thank you for having me Really appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So a little background.
You are a doctor ofchiropractic.
You got your doctor ofchiropractic degree from Palmer
College and you were a clinicdirector at your own sports
injury and pain center for over10 years.
That's before you got full timeinto your business and then, in
2011, you co-founded LifeAid,which is the company, and then,
in 2011, you co-founded LifeAid,which is the company, and you
(02:06):
have now a number of beveragesFitAid, focusaid, lifeaid,
travelaid, golfaid, partyaid andthe thing that I love the most
about this was and I relate toit as a student too was once.
Your company had a lot of upsand downs, but once it finally
got going, you were able to pay$240,000 in student loans in one
fell swoop, and I think that isthe dream of everyone who's
(02:28):
coming out of training to beable to do that, and that must
have been a pretty specialfeeling.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Oh, it was amazing.
I mean you know how expensiveschool can be and with nine
years, you know post high schooleducation, I had racked up
quite a bit of student loans andyou know, my first kind of
payday.
Half of it went to taxes andhalf of it went to student loans
.
But I wasn't in love with anymoney but, uh, at least I was
debt free, so that felt reallygood.
(02:54):
It was pretty funny because I,when I entered in you know I've
been making payments for 20years when I finally entered in
the full sum and hit submit, youknow the screen just was like
calculating per second and thenit's just said thank you and
that's it.
And I was like I was expectinglike balloons to be released.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That's so funny.
So I think your, your start wasreally documented well in a
podcast my First Million back inDecember 2019 at season two,
number 30, if you want to get alittle more of an in-depth part
of the start.
But I get the sense that youare such a NorCal Santa Cruz
product Like that is in your DNA, that's in your culture, that's
(03:40):
in your life, that's in yourethos.
That's how I see you, as Isthat true?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, we love Santa Cruz.
I spent my whole life here,both kids born and raised here,
and you probably know CrossFitwas born in Santa Cruz as well.
I was thinking back to my earlyCrossFit memories back in.
This had to have been, let'ssee, 1995, 96, somewhere in
(04:10):
there.
You know I'm coming home fromcollege.
I was going to St VincentCollege in Latrobe, pennsylvania
, coming home for summer breakand I happened to have multiple
gym memberships because theywere all pretty inexpensive to
have and we had a world gym, twoworlds gyms here in san andrews
, a goals gym in a 24 hour and Iwas members at all three
(04:30):
because there were, you know,different girls at all three and
and thought I'd jump around alittle bit and train in a
different spot.
And I remember this guy comingin this, this trainer a little
older than me, and he'd alwaysbe like hiding multiple pieces
of equipment.
He'd be running like threepeople at a time, four people,
then they'd be jumping on thisequipment and then over to
(04:50):
another piece and then like runout the door and run back in and
I see him at like world gym andthen after a few weeks there
that guy was gone and then I'dbe over at goals gym.
Then I see him pop into goalsgym and he'd be working out
there and then he would gotkicked out of there for kind of
his training style and pickingup too much equipment and same
thing at 24.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Well, fast forward that that individual was, uh,
none other than Greg Glassmanwow, so you saw him before
CrossFit was even named CrossFit, which is about as OG, I think,
as you can get with uh, withthe sport, and you've you've
supported the sport and you'vebeen a sponsor for all that time
until today, and and I want totalk to you about what your
thoughts are about CrossFit andand and how that, how you guys
(05:32):
helped each other.
It's actually funny because Ifeel like the companies that
have sprung out of CrossFit, Ithink of you, I think of Sieta
chips, which I want, uh, wantedto mention as well, like we just
got bought a million dollarexit yeah.
Yeah, so.
So it's crazy how the lifestyleended up supporting products
(05:53):
that I think the world has nowadopted as as being healthy.
But but you started um,obviously as an alternative to
high sugar sports drink, andthat's something I want to talk
about.
But you and your founder, orionOrion Mellohan, your first
product was named.
You wanted to name it Raverade.
Is that true?
Back in 2011, because of yourparty lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, orion and I were always spitballing ideas.
We met in the CrossFit gym.
We met in CrossFit North SantaCruz back in 2009,.
I think in the CrossFit gym.
We met in CrossFit North SantaCruz back in 2009,.
I think my office when I was inCairo was in Scotts Valley.
Well, crossfit headquarters wasin Scotts Valley.
So that's how I becameacquainted with CrossFit
officially is because I wastreating a lot of the members at
(06:40):
HQ and then when they'd theyhave athletes come into town and
I was already working with highlevel athletes from the 49ers
and and the giants, and so itwas a natural fit.
Now I was pretty athletic myselfand and work on all those types
of folks and and so, uh, westarted.
I started, you know they'relike hey, you got to come truck
(07:01):
across it, across it.
And I was like, hi, you know,okay, I'll check it out.
And I remember going in thereand seeing a couple of the guys,
maybe a little younger than methat were in pretty good shape,
that that I had seen it at myoffice.
I said, all right, I'm going topace myself with these guys.
They look like they're kind of,you know, ahead of the pack
type of thing, and I'll neverforget that I I was.
(07:27):
I remember it was like lots ofpull-ups and running involved
and I remember our first round.
I'm with them on my all right.
I'm pacing with the top guy,the top two guys, by round two.
I'm in the bushes and I'mbreathing.
I hate to throw up.
It's like my least favoritething.
And I'm just hold barely,holding it together as
everybody's just passing me.
It was looking me up andsnickering up there and I'm like
okay, okay, maybe I don't haveall my quite figured out here
(07:48):
and uh, you know, that was a funlittle run.
Um, but uh, yeah, I mean that'show we kind of got going in the
space.
And and you know, ryan and I,uh, we've been going to birdie
man for years.
You know we, we met in acrossfit gym.
Well, we had free time, we usedto golf.
So you know, all of ourproducts really uh represent our
, our lifestyle.
You know, I mean, our veryfirst uh product we ever
(08:10):
launched was it was golf raidand because, you know, we were
golfing and there was nothing inthe golf space.
So as soon as we had theconcept for that, we go.
Well, we go to crossfit.
There's no drink for crossfit.
What about today?
And, um, you know we, we go tothe burn every year.
What about, you know, ray-b-ray?
That was a little bit too racy,which became Partiate over time
.
And so those were the firstthree products Golf, ray-b,
(08:31):
partiate and Citiade.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So I love the story and I don't want to go through
it now, but you went through somany ups and downs like not
knowing.
You know how you know who tolook for in terms of bott,
knowing you know how you knowwho to look for in terms of
bottling.
You know making your stuff,getting it into cans, doing all
those things.
It's an awesome story.
I hope people check that out.
But suffice it to say you wentall in, you gave up your
(08:58):
chiropractic practice and youliterally had such lean times.
You were hand to mouth for likea year or two before it finally
started to turn for you Likethat's scary part of it.
Like now you look back andyou're like how did I even have
the balls to do that at thattime?
What?
What is it when someone is inthat situation and they're like
(09:19):
you know what I?
Maybe I made a mistake here,maybe this wasn't the right
thing to do.
What was it that kept you goingon that?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Well, some would call it stupidity, I call it
ignorance and passion, my fellowno, it was.
It got really.
I mean it's been leaned so manydifferent times that it got
really, really, really hairy forme.
We had just purchased six acresoff the grid in Santa Cruz, had
(09:48):
, uh, just purchased six acresoff the grid in in santa cruz
and and so I move a little 400square foot uh trailer up there
and and we're living off thegrids.
There's no power, you knowwe're.
We had to drill a well, septictank.
I told my wife, look, we'rejust going to do this for like a
year.
I'm going to build us a house,blah, blah, blah, uh.
And at the same time, you know,I'm getting state AIDS going
(10:08):
and and and Orion and I bothhave our own, you know kind of
real jobs.
And they came upon us like,look, we got to make a decision
here.
And where I was withchiropractic at the time, you
know I felt like I had just kindof reached the top.
I wasn't um, wasn't challengedor stimulated anymore and I had
(10:28):
a great practice.
It was all referral based about30 new patients a month, all by
referral um from.
You know, existing patients hada great working relationship
with the medical community.
So, like existing patients,number one, number two was with
other docs and that just kind ofkept me going and I had a great
lucrative practice.
(10:49):
And then a few things happened.
One I decided to go all in inreal estate because I'm looking
around and I'm talking to someof my patients coming in.
This was back in 2007.
So 2007, I decided to take allmy money and then leverage
myself and then go in and realestate.
I buy like four properties,three or four, three or four.
(11:12):
I'm with my existing on four.
And well, we know, I know whathappened late 2007,.
If you're old enough, I mean,it was the absolute peak and the
worst time you could possiblydo that.
So come 2008 rolls around, I'vegot 50,000 a month coming in
and then coming I've got 75going out with all the real
(11:34):
estate stuff, and so thatdoesn't last very long.
So I ended up just completelygoing under.
Fortunately, my practice wasstill going strong, so I still
had income.
But then I, you know, I losteverything.
So I had no assets, no credit.
Then I'm building it back on,grinding with no credit,
everything's cash now and thepractice again is still going
(11:54):
strong.
And so 2009, orion and I youknow me, and we're getting
things going and it's like, hey,we got this company going, uh,
by 2011.
I gotta, I gotta sell.
So it's like, okay, I'm gonnago got this company going by
2011.
I got to sell.
So it's like, okay, I'm goingto go all in with the day.
This is where my passion's atnow.
I sell my practice and I haveto kind of do it quickly.
You know, anytime you'reselling a practice, as you know,
(12:19):
it's very personality driven,like people are attracted to you
and your approach and yourstyle, your bedside manner, et
cetera.
I sell to the guy who I knewwasn't quite the right fit, you
know, he just didn't have thecharisma and everything and I
sell it to him.
I accept payments and fastforward.
Six months later he just can'thandle it.
He goes out of business, stopsmaking payments to me Okay, so
now I've got no credit, no money, no income, because I'm not
(12:44):
getting paid from FitAid yet andhe stops making payments.
On the practice, I'm living inan RV, I've got two kids, I'm
fully off grade and I've got noincome.
And so this is, like you know,2011, into 2012 and most of 2012
.
I'm like, what am I doing here?
I'm in my mid thirties, I'msupposed to be in the prime of
(13:04):
my life.
I still have this massive debtload from my education.
You know I've lost everything.
And here I am on this beveragecompany.
That's really not doing well.
And uh, and I put all my eggsin that basket.
And you know we're makingmacaroni cheese and tuna every
night dinner Cause that's adollar 50 from that meal broke
(13:31):
and actually get some goodprotein in cart with that little
bit of that meal.
And that was our reality for aperiod of time and I would hit,
you know, pretty low dark spotin my life.
It was like, okay, you know,dust yourself off, and that it
keep moving forward Like a pityparty is not going to do me any
good at that point in time.
So you know, fortunately wewere able to turn things around.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You did it with direct marketing, which I love
hearing you.
You went direct to gyms you Ilove the fact that you reached
out to to gyms, first golf, golfplaces, but then you went all
in on CrossFit gyms and you youwent from $700,000 to $4 million
in sales, and that's just fromCrossFit gyms.
(14:05):
When you really focused in onFitAid and CrossFit gyms and
that blew me away.
The beverage industry, asyou've mentioned, 95% of
companies fail the first year,99 after five.
You're one of the few thatsurvive.
And that was all based on justmarketing to the consumers that
you knew were going to want yourproduct.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, the direct response marketing.
We learned from a good friendand mentor of mine, ben Al-Sadar
, who's one of the sharpestmarketing minds in the space,
and fortunately he took me underhis wing and really went out on
a limb for me and paid for someeducation when I didn't have
the funds.
And and uh, I dove in both feetall at once into everything I
(14:54):
could learn about directresponse marketing.
And so in the early days ofcrossfit some of the crossfit
gym owners out there mightremember, you know, we would
just send you a four pack ofFitAid in the mail.
You wouldn't request it, I justwould send it to you and I put
you in a follow-up sequencewhere we would say hey, this is
a great product, you know, madeby athletes for athletes.
(15:16):
Here's why it's, you know, sogreat.
Bring it into your gym with aninitial order, 10 cases.
I'm going to give you a freerefrigerator.
Well, you remember back in theearly days of CrossFit there
wasn't really any refrigeratorsin gyms.
They had any products at all.
Maybe they bought a case ofwater from Costco and they were
selling them for a buck a piece.
It was really not any pro shopsor anything.
So this was like the verybeginning of starting a pro shop
(15:40):
in a CrossFit gym.
Okay, they take us up on it, weget the fridge in there.
Then maybe they got some oftheir own t-shirts and their
waters and you know, you startto see a retail landscape
developing on the space.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
It's funny because a lot of beverage companies that
are startups now are trying toduplicate what you've done.
We get the same type of stuffnow that you did from other
products that are trying to getinto this space, but we only
sell FitAid, like at our gym.
We sell probably still onehundred and twenty five cans a
month, like four hundred, likewe like.
(16:15):
We don't have anything else.
So.
So your product is good, I likeit, it works for our, our
athletes.
And then you've increased yourretail presence and you're an
Amazon and Vitamin Shop and Stopand Shop and Circle K now and
you ended up expanding and youbought a couple international
distributors along the way.
How were you able to figure outlike, okay, now we need to buy
(16:37):
Life Aid Europe and Life AidCanada and keep increasing our
reach with this and make thatinvestment.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I travel a lot, and so does Orion and you know quite
a bit for work and for fun aswell, and when you travel
overseas you see a lot ofcopycat products from the US,
you know, and if you, and so weknew that that could be the case
if this thing really took off.
And so establishing a presenceinternationally, as well as
(17:06):
protecting our trademarksinternationally, was really
important to us.
We had a CrossFit gym owner,heiss, who owned a box in Europe
, and said hey, I saw you guysat the CrossFit Games, I'd love
to bring it over.
And we made a deal with him andhe brought over one pallet.
You know, fast forward, adecade later he's running all of
Europe for us and has done anamazing job.
(17:27):
Our European and Australian,australia and New Zealand
businesses all in gyms.
So we don't have any retailpresence over there.
We stay strictly in gyms anddirect to consumer and have some
really great establishedpartners over there.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
That's pretty awesome .
I want to talk a little bitabout your product because it's
really funny.
I only actually drink one ofyour products.
It's the FitAid Recovery CitrusMedley.
I find that one the originalbasically.
For me it's the original andthen the other two that actually
are and that's very popular atour gym, also the sugar-free one
(18:05):
, the only other one that wereally sell because we've tried
all the other ones.
But the ones that the peoplereally like are the fit aid
recovery with the creatine, Imean.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
RX, rather both sugar and non sugar.
Oh, is that right?
Well, juicy apple, that's myfavorite.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So, um, which ones are the popular ones and how
have all these new flavors?
You and I want to go throughall the different ones a little
bit, just just so that peopleknow, like, what the products
are.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And we've got a FitAid uh zero sugar recovery
fruit punch, brand new flavorlaunching tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
So so is that right?
All right, got to try it.
I'll try that one too.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I mean you have branch no-transcript.
I mean you have French, I'llsend you out a case.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
After this, I'll be up to my ears in Fit Ed.
I can't wait.
Thank you, so this has Now.
A lot of people say they haveclean drinks, but I really feel
like this is the one that I cankeep drinking and I don't feel
like ick and I don't feel crazyabout it.
How did you come up with theoriginal supplement formulation
(19:06):
and have you changed any of itor just added and made different
products based on how youformulate it?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, we have changed in how the initial formulations
work is.
Really.
I'm looking at what is theintended use occasion.
I mean, if you rewind 14 yearsago now, we were actually the
very first function for beveragecompany.
People can't even imagine thatbecause you go in the grocery
store now everything is functionfor everything.
But we were the very first.
(19:32):
At the time you had energydrinks, which is basically you
know one's drinking energydrinks for health benefits,
right, you just drink them toget jacked up.
So it's basically a caffeineplatform.
(19:52):
They're very high in sugar orartificial sweeteners, synthetic
caffeine, et cetera.
Emergence of kombucha andcoconut water very polarizing at
the time from a flavor profileperspective that nobody had.
You know, if you look at theenergy drink companies the big
three at the time it was like 15, 20 variations off the same
flavor profile.
Well, we wanted to be functionforward.
So he said, ok, what are youlooking for?
You know CrossFit is the mosttaxing workout that there is.
You know people are justsitting in sweat angels
(20:14):
afterwards like what's going tohelp get your body back to life
and and recover as quickly aspossible.
And so I would just kind oflook, go on Medline or PubMed
and look at okay, well, what arepeople taking, what are the
different supplements, what arethe efficacious doses of this
and that?
And also, talking to all theathletes in the space, what are
you currently taking?
Cell room perspective and why?
(20:36):
You know, and this, we did thatsame approach with everything
and we did it with party.
Look at party eight, five, hdpand milk, thistle and
electrolyte b vitamins, focus a.
Looking at nootropics likealpha, gpc and uh, l-theanine
and etc.
So you know we're basicallyreverse engineering based on the
intended.
You know the.
The use of creatine I'm superexcited about.
(20:57):
You mentioned the creatine.
Excuse me, creatine is on fireright now.
We've had our creatine skis outfor a while.
We're using bonded creatine.
So we take Creapuro, which isthe best creatine on the market.
Glambia, a nutritional,encapsulates in a pea protein,
so it increases solubility andstability and then we were able
to put that into a can.
(21:17):
But you look at, like theamount of women now that are
taking creatine.
I mean we're probably about thesame age.
I mean, back in the day it wasonly like meatheads were taking
creatine.
That was like a bodybuildingthing, but there was really no
awareness that how importantthis particular supplement is,
especially for women when itcomes to bone density and muscle
(21:38):
health, cognitive health,basically anywhere you're
getting, you know, high ATPuptake.
So you know we're seeing a huge, huge explosion in sales with
their treating excusespecifically with women.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
What?
What happened to life aid hemp?
That was out and now I don'tsee it.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, we had to kill it.
Unfortunately, regulations fromstate to state were so variable
that we could ship to certainstates and not others, and then
it really started to throw awrench into the core fit aid
business because we couldn't docredit card transactions on the
same page for HAP versus theother SKUs.
(22:19):
I had issues trying to get inon Amazon and so on and so forth
.
It was a shame because I lovedthat player profile and I did
like the way it made me feel,but the juice wasn't worth the
squeeze.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Got it.
Let's talk a little bit aboutyour personal challenges.
Got it?
Let's talk a little bit aboutyour personal challenges.
(22:51):
So what really struck me wasthat back in 2020, you lost your
home in Santa Cruz toeverything.
Now that you're seeing thatdown in southern california,
what do you reflect on with yourexperiences at the time and and
how you feel about what's goingon now?
Speaker 2 (23:06):
yeah, my heart really goes out to him.
I got to hang out with a goodfriend of mine whose mom lost
her home and I'm just chattingwith her later today after 50
years in the same place.
You know the it's a deep senseof loss.
I mean I'd say the longeryou've been, you know, in a in a
home and and the more kind ofeffort and sweat you put into it
(23:29):
I mean, my kids were, were bornthere and grew up there you
know you have a real sense of um, of not only belonging but also
that that it's, it's part ofyou, it's like part of your dna.
So it's almost like losing, youknow, a loved one or a piece of
(23:50):
you, piece of your identitythat goes away.
And you know we lost everything.
And I had put 22 years of youknow hard work and toil and
sweat equity into that property,developing it from when it just
had a deer trail when youcouldn't even see anything.
And you know we opened up abeautiful ocean view and, you
know, developed it, had, youknow, multiple places on it over
(24:12):
time and had just finished thebeautiful $150,000 tree house up
to Redwoods, 50 feet with thebathroom.
I mean the whole thing it was.
You know it was a work inprogress and to take the hit
both financially and beingseverely underinsured.
And I'm sure that's going to bea case with a lot of the folks
because the insurance droppedand now it's uncovered
(24:32):
Californian.
So you've got the financial hit, you've got the really the
fight or flight mode that itputs you in Like, oh my God,
what you know?
What am I going to do?
Do I even have my wallet, mycredit cards?
Do I have my passport?
Like how am I going to act?
Let's see sing.
And then, as time goes on, yourealize like, oh my God, you
know, all those pictures aregone and my grandparents, my
(24:58):
grandpa's wedding ring that hegave us and all of these
personal items that are part ofyour identity.
But it's also an amazing lessonand it takes quite a bit of time
to be able to reflect back andsay it actually happened for me,
not to me, I'm not a victim.
I remember, you know,interviewing with some media
(25:22):
after the fire and they said oh,you know, fire victim Aaron
Hines said well, let me correctyou right there, I'm not a
victim of anything, you know I'mnot a victim.
Okay, well, fire survivor, I go, I'm not a survivor here, I'm a
fire thriver.
That's what you can call me,you know, because how we
(25:42):
identify and the stories that wetell ourselves after tragic
situations determines whether webecome a victim and whether
we're suffering or not.
You know, suffering is a storythat we tell ourselves about
pain points in our life.
I mean pain's inevitable Shithappens.
I mean houses burn down, welose loved ones, we have
breakups, businesses fail, andthat was a massive turning point
(26:03):
when I was going bankrupt backin the day and overextended on
real estate and living in the RVand nothing was working out.
And I look in the mirror and Isaid, look, you have a choice.
You, me, me.
I got myself in this situation.
I take full accountability forwhere I'm at.
And guess what?
By taking full accountability,I have the ability to get out of
this situation, make differentdecisions.
(26:25):
Anytime I'm finding someonethat's in challenging part of
their life.
It's not necessarily makingbetter decisions, because I
think we're all trying to makethe best decision.
It's the outcome drawn.
So it's like make differentdecisions, just make a different
decision and keep movingforward and, you know,
minimizing that amount of timethat we have a pity party for
(26:45):
ourselves and go.
Ok, I may not see how thislittle piece fits in the overall
mosaic right now, but I do havefaith over time that things
will be coming to perspectiveand and who knows what it is.
It's a heavy sense of loss, youknow you're you gotta go
through some grieving, but withtime, you know, now I, I go out
and it's like, wow, my view isbetter than it's ever been
(27:08):
because there's no trees left.
You know, there's things.
Now I'm back on the propertyI'm so appreciative of that,
maybe wasn't there before andknowing that I can lose
everything and I lost everythingfinancially a couple of times
I've lost all my physicalpossessions.
Now, like I can lose everythingand guess what?
(27:29):
I'm going to be OK and youmentioned that email I sent out
you know a couple of weeks agobe okay.
And and you mentioned thatemail I sent out you know, a
couple of weeks ago my wife Iput my wife's quote at the end
that she always reminds me.
So it all works out in the end.
If it hasn't worked out, it'snot the end, you know.
And life is this amazing journeyand without the pain and brief
(27:56):
periods of suffering, withoutthat, how do we even know to
experience joy.
How do we even know toexperience the elation of when
you know friends and family andour community, you know, comes
together and support us.
So it allowed me to to learn tobe a receiver.
I had never been a receiver.
I have a hard time getting,taking things from people, but
when people were outpouring andlike sending me socks and
underwear and started to go fundme and doing all these things
(28:20):
like I, I needed that.
I, I needed that support and tohave, you know, my community
come out, have and also made memore of a, you know, just an
(28:40):
empathetic type person Like youknow, knowing that everybody's
having their own struggles.
You know, it's like so easy tocome to quick judgment about
things but you don't know whatpeople have gone through, where
they're at in their lives.
People have gone through andwhere they're at in their lives.
So when someone cuts you off intraffic, instead of just being
a hothead, like maybe I used tobe, I go.
Well, maybe their wife's inlabor and they're trying to get
(29:01):
to the hospital.
You know who knows Like wedon't know.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
That's a lot of wisdom.
Speaking of that email, thatwas one of the most, like I said
, impactful emails I've everreceived from a company or the
head of a company, and this wassomething that you sent Tuesday,
december 31st of this past yearand it was dated.
The email was dated September30th and it was a text exchange
that you had with your wife,rama, and you screenshotted it
(29:29):
and I'll write.
Let me say what it said.
It said your wife said sheriffsare here.
They came with news about Luke,who's your brother, and you
said what news?
Tell them he doesn't live withus, please.
And your wife said Luke hadpassed.
I don't have details.
His body is at your memorial.
And she said I'm so sorry, lord, have mercy.
(29:50):
And that hit me like a ton ofbricks.
I can't believe how impactfulthat was that you shared.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
What made you want to share that with us.
Sorry, it still hit home Alittle harsh.
Well, look, there's a lot ofproducts out there.
(30:25):
You know, and, uh, you couldsay all my products better than
everybody else's.
And you know we make choices onwho we want to support and what
companies we want to supportwith our wallet, and, and you
know that's part of this greatsociety that we live in.
For me, our company is more thanjust FidAid and the products we
put out.
It's the people behind it, it'sthe story, it's all of our
(30:50):
incredible team.
You know, it's all the effortand time and thought that goes
behind.
You know, everything we do,it's our ethos, it's, you know,
the products is one aspect ofwhat makes that that up, and so
I found the more I can open up,which is not natural for me, I'm
(31:12):
very, uh, introverted person,just innately and and, and so
you know, being open, being moreengaging is is a challenge for
me, but I it's a.
It's a great challenge, anecessary challenge, the more
that people can relate withwhat's going on.
I mean you should see how manyemails and texts that I got
(31:36):
after that.
I mean I had one person text meand, like normally, I would
just, you know, delete the yearend type emails and, for
whatever reason, I feltcompelled to open it and their,
their little brother, who isalso named Luke and also passed
very unexpectedly, and she'slike.
(31:58):
I can't even tell you how muchit really hit home for me
Reading this.
It was the exact message that Ineeded to hear at that point in
time and it's like theseproducts, for me, are all about
changing people's healthtrajectory, like if I can get
them off a monster or off aCelsius or something.
(32:20):
Let's like imagine thatcompounding effect over time,
you know, with that type oflifestyle change, and if I can
have that same trajectory changefor for someone that might be
in a depressed, depressive stateor in some type of a funk or
feeling like, you know, theworld's kind of, you know,
(32:41):
closing down on them to to beable to, you know, open them up
and let them know, hey, otherpeople are going through the
same challenges and it's goingto be okay.
You know we're in this togetheras a community and, uh, you know
, that's really, you know why Ichoose to to open it up and, you
know, put out my cell phone andjust let people know where I'm
(33:02):
at.
You know this is life.
We're all living it.
We're living it the best weknow how and, uh, you know it's
not perfect, it can be messy attimes and lots of challenges,
but it it's also amazing, and Idon't know if anyone got out to
see the moon last night or thismorning before sunrise, but
we're so blessed.
You know, like God is good andlife is good, it's an amazing
(33:27):
period of time to be alive.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
It was such a powerful reminder about
gratitude and regret and loss,and so, as soon as I read that,
I reached out to my two brotherswho I'm not as close as I
should be and I I just told themI loved them just because of of
that, and I thought that was sopowerful and and I was so
grateful for the fact that, thatyou were able to share your
(33:51):
loss and regret and and um anduh, that made me better.
It made me a better personbecause of that, which I really
appreciate, which I never wouldhave imagined from a CEO and
president of a beverage company.
It's amazing.
That just blows me away.
So you can do good anywhere, nomatter what you're doing, and
(34:17):
um and uh, the fact that youkeep that in mind with you
personally, as well as yourcompany, just makes me feel, uh,
like there's really a lot ofgood in the world, which which I
appreciate.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Um uh.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
So, um, let me talk to you a little bit.
Let me switch a little bitgears and talk about you.
You've talked about CrossFitand I know there's been so many
changes going on with CrossFitand you probably have a best,
one of the best perspectivesabout CrossFit, as well as a
successful entrepreneur.
What is the future of CrossFit?
(34:50):
Where do you think it's going?
Do you think it's going to gowhere it needs to go?
You shaped your company.
How is CrossFit the companydoing?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
How's it doing?
Well overall, not well rightnow.
I would say yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
It's not well for a variety of reasons.
Some of it's just bad luck,some of it's just, you know, bad
luck.
You know, um, there there'sbeen a series of things that
have just kind of added insultto injury for CrossFit.
But and look, you know, I'vemet the leadership I, you know,
I, I, these are good peoplethey're, they're smart people.
(35:29):
You know there's a lot of, youknow, ridicule, I think, and and
some of it I don't think isreally founded, I think a lot of
it is just how things haveplayed out and people maybe not
having a real grasp on howbusinesses function.
Or, if the business is beingbought by a private equity group
(35:50):
, well, they want a return.
That's the whole point of them,you know, purchasing a business
.
So if I was running crossfit,maybe that would be the best way
to answer this question.
Here's what I would yes, andhere's some things that I've
been saying for the last 14years.
You're, you know, I I grew upin crossfit.
You're obviously a in greatshape and a crossfitter and
active at the gym.
(36:11):
There's two types of people andthere's people that are pro
cross it and then there's peoplethat have an opinion about
cross shit right and it.
We went, and the reason I saythis is very similar to
chiropractic in a lot of ways.
You know, it's like you go andask somebody on the street hey,
what do you think aboutchiropractic?
They're gonna oh, mychiropractor saved my life.
(36:32):
I threw my back, I couldn'tmove and I went in and they
fixed me.
It was amazing.
Or they're gonna to oh, mychiropractor saved my life.
I threw my back out, I couldn'tmove and I went in and they
fixed me and it was amazing.
Or they're going to be like ohno, those guys are crazy and
once you go to chiropractor,you're always going to have to
go and they might give you astroke and like there's going to
be certain objections.
How are we, as CrossFitters, nothandling and especially from an
HQ perspective, hammering theobjections that we know?
(36:54):
Every single person that has anegative view, every
non-CrossFitter, let's just sayalready has about CrossFit.
What are they?
I'll tell you what they are,because they have not changed
since the very beginning of time.
Oh, to start CrossFit, youalready got to be in great shape
, right?
If you're a girl, what's goingto happen?
You're going to get too bulky,right?
(37:17):
Or number three oh, you'regoing to get injured if you do
CrossFit.
These are the number, the topthree objections that have been
like that since the verybeginning.
So, if I'm HQ and I want toprovide value to the affiliates
which is what this should all beabout, because a lot of people
are like, oh well, how manypeople in a Savant or that
people, if they're affiliatedstill, and if they drop due to
(37:39):
the price increase which wentfrom, what is it?
Now?
It's up to like four grand orsomething.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, like three and a half or something like that.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, and my point is it doesn't matter if it's three
and a half thousand, it doesn'tmatter if it's $35,000.
Okay, it doesn't matter.
That's not actually the painpoint, because if I was
delivering, if I'm CrossFit HQand I'm delivering you as a gym,
30 new members every month andyou know that the lifetime value
on that membership is 50 grandeach or whatever, I could charge
(38:09):
you $30,000 a month and it'sstill a great deal, right.
So it has nothing to do withwhat they're charging, it has to
do with the value of theproviding for the cost.
You need to with any service orproduct.
You need to exceed theperceived value, needs to exceed
the cost, okay.
So number one a massivemarketing campaign dealing with
(38:33):
the top three objections, whichhas never been done.
Okay, you need to be showpeople that are completely out
of shape, doing a beginner'sclass in a very safe way and
transforming.
There's amazing transformativestories in CrossFit.
There's no modality in fitness,maybe outside of, like the
Marine Corps bootcamp that hasthe transformative power of the
(38:56):
crossfit box.
So they need to deal with theobjections and show that the
transformation.
And then, number two they needto get the marketing machine
going and drive people in theaffiliates and and be able to
track them, and you could give areport to each affiliate owner.
Here's how many leads that wesent your way.
Now you can't close the lead.
(39:18):
That's on you, the owner, andyou're not going to be around
very long, but here's the leadthat we sent you, and there's
already people in the space thathave been doing this for years,
doing, you know, instagram andFacebook ads, a TikTok marketing
.
So there's lots of ways we cando this referral campaigns, et
cetera to drive people into theaffiliate.
Then you're increasing theperceived value, the actual
(39:40):
value relative to whatever thecost is, and they could make a
lot more money and charge a lotmore than more members that
they're tracking, they're,they're driving into this.
Well, it's as simple as that.
So why those two things havenever been done?
I'm at a complete loss.
Those are the first two thingsI would do if I was taken over.
Simple.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Yeah, I feel like that's so simple and yet there
are.
I can imagine CrossFit HQhaving a lot of reasons in their
head why they can't or won't oraren't going to do those those
things, and it it's it's.
You're spitting truth right now, to me at least, on that that's
(40:21):
it's.
It's terrible that they're notgoing to do what I think they
should be doing in terms ofsuccess and growth and and that
they've been floundering for asmany years as they have right
now.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I agree with you.
It's a win-win for everybody.
It's a win for the communityYou're getting more people in
shape and in the CrossFit gyms.
It's a win for the affiliatesby driving members in and taking
care of a lot of big objectionsthat people may have that are
unjustified.
And it's a win for HQ becausethey'll be able to charge more
and keep that revenue model.
(40:56):
And then when everyone's like,oh, crossfit's great, yeah, they
send me X amount of membersevery month, like you'd have a
lot more people going, well, Iwant to start an affiliate.
If that's the case, you know,and having this type of model,
so it's the challenge becomesand I think this is a big
takeaway and this is, you know,everybody at LifeAid gets it's
(41:18):
hard to see.
It's a little branded notebookhere that we all carry around
with us and in it we have ourcore values written at the front
of the book, and core valuenumber 10, always play the long
game, always play the long game.
The problem is, right now,crossfit H2 is playing the short
(41:38):
game and they should be playingthe long game.
The problem is, right nowCrossFit HQ is playing the short
game and they should be playingthe long game, because the long
game is beneficial even in theshort term.
That's what they're failing, Ithink, to realize.
And if they were to handlethese things and drive more
value and drive memberships inboxes yes, it's going to cost an
expense, but it's playing thelong game going to increase the
enterprise value significantlyand make CrossFit cool again.
(41:59):
I mean right now, you know itmight be more exciting in Europe
, but domestically and you talkto affiliate owners.
I talk to a lot of affiliateowners hey, how come you're not
affiliated anymore?
How come that?
How about this?
They are affiliated, but theydropped CrossFit out of their
name.
It's Santa Cruz Strength andConditioning instead of Santa
(42:19):
Cruz CrossFit.
Yet they still play theaffiliate fee.
Why did you drop CrossFit outof your name?
It's doing me more harm thangood.
You know how many times.
I've heard that it's doing memore harm than good.
I mean that should be a massivewake-up call right there.
Doing me more harm than good,like, oh shit, what are we doing
with our brand where people arestill paying us?
They don't even want to marketit anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
That's terrible, Terrible.
Let me ask you what's the firstcore value?
Just the number one on yournotebook.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Number one create the most fun, healthy, holistic and
fulfilling work environment inSanta Cruz and beyond.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
All right.
So let's talk about LifeAidthen.
So what is your future as acompany?
Let me just.
When I scheduled you for thispodcast, I just wanted to look
at the energy drink industry alittle bit and it blew me away.
(43:16):
The numbers are insane.
So energy drink sales were $53billion two years ago.
It's supposed to grow to like$86 billion a year in 2027.
Red Bull is valued at $22billion.
Monster is like $50 billion.
Celsius' network worth is like$6 billion and the buyouts have
(43:39):
been insane.
Korek, dr Pepper bought ghostswho I never heard of in my
entire life.
I've never seen a ghostbeverage in my entire life.
Just bought them for like 990million for 60% ownership.
All of this.
Now I look at lifeid and I'mlike this is the next
(44:00):
announcement that's going to bemade.
Is this acquisition here?
Speaker 2 (44:03):
No, no, no, no.
Well, I'll tell you.
I'll tell you a couple ofreasons.
We are unwilling to sacrificeon our core values and our ethos
.
We will never have a beveragethat is artificially sweetened
(44:26):
with sucralose, aspartame orACE-K, which does kill your gut
microbiome.
You know.
You look at some of the studies.
You know the sucrose level isso small and you excrete it like
well, no one, no study has beendone on low doses over 10, 15,
20 years on what that does toyour body.
(44:47):
We'll never use artificial dyesred, this and blue that We'll
never use synthetic caffeinethat all of those drinks have
that comes from the gigafactories overseas, with no
regulation whatsoever.
Our products have a supplementpanel and not a nutrition panel.
(45:07):
Well, why is that?
Well, there's, you know thatthey're in the 60s.
There was something that theFDA passed called GRAS,
generally regarded as safe forfood products, which is complete
crack.
I mean, if you look at the foodadditives in the US relative to
Europe, it's like they havelike 70 approved food additives
(45:29):
and we have like 7,000.
I mean, it's mind blowing.
I'm probably off on the numbersthere.
It's crazy what we allow in ourfood and what they don't, and
there's a lot of little thingsthat we know is crazy.
Like we use the methyl for aB12, methylcobalamin right,
(45:51):
which is the superior form.
It's more bioavailable, youknow.
It's a better form period,there's no question about it.
Guess what?
The methyl form is not grossbecause they haven't updated
these things since the sixties.
The cyano form, cyanocobalamin,which your body does break down
to cyanide in small doses anddoes excrete it.
Unless you are diabetic,pre-diabetic or obese, then your
(46:12):
body doesn't really excrete itthat well, that well.
Well, nobody wants cyanideaccumulating in their, in their
body.
Cyanocobalamin is gross, youknow.
So there's all these likelittle things that, if you're
actually focused on doing theright thing, playing the long
game and creating the best, mostefficacious, healthiest,
cleanest product available, allthese other companies that
(46:34):
you're mentioning, with thesemulti-billion dollar valuations,
people think that they'rehealthy, especially women, going
towards, like a brand that youpreviously mentioned, that's, up
to six, eight billion dollars,or an Alani or some of these
other ones stuff.
There's a book calledcaffeinated, if you want to go
down the wormhole on syntheticcaffeine, uh, which came out of
(47:00):
world war ii.
The nazis developed it and thisis like it's monsanto and
pfizer collab from back in theday.
It's crazy.
Synthetic caffeine, they alluse cyanocobalamin, they all use
artificial sweetener, sucralose, as aspartame or Ace K are a
combination of which.
Right, and we're just not goingto go down that road.
So you know, we're happy beingwhere we're at and and
(47:23):
continuing to develop greatproducts and servicing our
community and and gyms anddirect to consumer and high-end
retailers, like you know, wholeFoods and Sprouts, and you know
that's that's where we stay inour lane.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
I mean, you guys aren't.
You guys are a pretty big too.
Like your revenue is what?
20 million a year?
They're estimating.
You don't have to tell me theactual uh, that people are
valuating you at over a hundred,120, 140 million, something
like that as a business.
Um, I understand.
So let me ask you two questions.
One is um, you said you wantedto grow to like a billion
(48:00):
dollars or 200 million in salesor something like that.
Like some, you obviously, as acompany, you want to grow as big
as possible.
What you do, we respect the wayyou guys do it.
We'll just give you a crap loadmore money to leverage yourself
(48:21):
into a bigger player, but youcan keep.
We won't have you compromisehow you produce your product.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
I mean, of course, we would look at anything that
that was proposed um, at the endof the day, to to really grow.
You know, top line, from wherewe're at to where I think we can
be.
It's really a distribution game, you know.
You look at all those otherbrands that you mentioned now.
You know they all have massivedistribution.
(48:48):
They're on a Coke truck or aPepsi truck or a Dr Pepper truck
or a Budweiser truck or a RedBull truck, right Like, if you
start paying attention to thesedelivery trucks cruising around
your town, they're one of likefour or five companies.
So it really comes down to, youknow, getting the distribution
to really go for a massive landgrab and go wide and go
(49:08):
everywhere, like you also haveto have.
You know consumer demand rightnow, the average consumer and
I'm not talking about, you know,california, or you know there's
certain health pockets thatpeople are actually aware of.
You know what type of B12 theytake and you know these things
mean.
You know what type ofsweeteners are being used.
These things mean something tothem.
(49:28):
As far as their criteria ofpurchase, a lot of the United
States isn't there yet.
You know they're not there.
I spent six years inPennsylvania, western
Pennsylvania, it's not there yet.
You know, they're just behindeverything else from health
perspective.
So we would need the generalawareness to catch up, to say,
hey, you know, these are thingsyou should be looking for in the
(49:50):
foods and drinks that you'reconsuming, and people to start
making different decisions.
And it is happening.
It is happening.
When we first started this,there were the big three energy
drinks and no one thought thatwould ever be disrupted.
It was Red Bull, monster,rockstar.
Well, guess what happened?
Bang came along and disruptedthat and knocked out the number
(50:12):
three.
And then Bang got knocked outas quickly as they came up by
Celsius and now they're the newnumber three.
And why are people drinking?
Why is Celsius so big?
And you got up to a $20 billionvaluation?
Because they brought in womenfor the first time in the energy
drink category that women hadnever participated.
They never drank Monster or RedBull or Rockstar.
(50:33):
Now women are drinking anenergy drink because of this
perceived health benefit fromthese various brands.
Well, it's only going to be amatter of time when they're
actually looking at the back ofthe can and go wait a second.
I thought this was healthierthan my, than the monsters and
stuff.
And they look at it and go well, it has actually the same
ingredients.
Why is it healthier?
Oh, maybe it's not.
(50:53):
You know what else is there outthere.
And so, over time, there'll bea natural discovery towards
getting cleaner and cleaner andwhat you're consuming, and you
know that's where we're going tobe waiting, as we always have
been, you know, right at thefinish line, when you're ready
to really make the leap on themore of a clean ingredient
profile.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
It is crazy how the success of these drinks are not
based on the quality of theproduct.
It's really on the marketing.
When they market to kids notkids or young men it's the Sour
Patch flavor that they market,or if it's like some macho dude,
it's the Elks Blood flavor andif it's the women, it's quote
the healthy type product.
(51:36):
And, like you said, you'reright, no one ever lost money
betting on the ignorance of thegeneral population.
It seems like in general it'sgoing to take a real long time.
It is happening, like you said,but it's a long game for them
to sort of see.
I mean, there might be certainevents that might sort of hasten
(51:56):
this.
I'm not sure.
It always seems like somethingbig happens and then little
jumps and starts happen in termsof health.
But I admire you for doing that.
It just might take a long timefor that to happen.
I'm not sure we're in it forthe long haul.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
We're 14 years into it now and you know, uh, if the,
if it takes, you know another14, so be it.
I mean, celsius didn't reallytake off until you know, like
year 15 or 16.
They, you know, they kind ofwent on multiple times and it
had kind of a Hail Mary passright at the end to really turn
things around, turn around theirpositioning on that kind of
(52:36):
thing.
So these things do take time.
We're we're a profitablecompany.
We're, you know, got a greatteam, a great core team.
We've got a great consumer base.
You know, most of our newcustomers still come from
referrals.
So, like back in my Cairo day,like that's the best, you know
you're doing good work whenyou're getting a significant
amount of referrals and many newgym owners out there.
(52:57):
That's one of the top metricsyou should be looking at how
many referrals are we getting?
If they're not there, then youneed to be changing your systems
to.
You know, to create andstimulate more referrals.
Because if you're doing greatwork in the world, people feel
compelled to talk about you.
Like think about it, doc.
Like what's the last time youhad an amazing experience at a
(53:20):
restaurant?
New restaurant opens in town?
You go, you're with your wife,like wow, the ambiance is great,
the host is fantastic, you knoweverything, the waitstaff, like
everything about it.
What's the first thing you do?
You know, when you get home,that next morning or whatever
right, you feel compelled to gotell all your friends or your
(53:41):
patients about oh, you got to gocheck out this new restaurant.
It is amazing.
Let me tell you what they didblah, blah, blah.
Right, you are compelled.
So if you're not gettingreferrals, you're not being
compelling enough and theexperience that you're
delivering to your people and sothat's always like the metric
that I always like look at where.
Where are referrals?
(54:02):
Are we being compelling?
You know, are we educatingpeople well enough than what
we're all about and what we'rewhat we're doing?
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Absolutely.
Um, talk to me, uh, in closinga little bit, I know you also
invest in in other businesses orentrepreneurs.
You're you.
You do a little bit of payingit forward, I would suppose, in
terms of looking for otherpotential ventures to to help
fund.
Have you found anything thathas been really promising or or
(54:30):
what's that experience been like?
It's fun.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
I love it.
I love it.
I.
You know I can provide a lot ofvalue from the zero to one
crowds.
So, like young entrepreneurs,you know, if you're a young
startup, there's a thousandthings that need to go right and
and one of them can literallysink the ship, you know.
And so like helping guidepeople to to avoid that one
(54:55):
inaccurate thinking that canreally sink it, and then also
supporting, you know, greatentrepreneurs and people and
products that I see come along.
I mean my favorite one rightnow is a company called Good
Wipes and what they are is anall organic, flushable.
Think of a baby wipe, but it'smade of all cotton.
(55:16):
This whole thing aboutmicroplastics, and now there's
microplastics in our testiclesand our ovaries.
It's crazy, right, it's crazy.
They see there's like a creditcard worth of plastic in our
brains.
Now I mean this is insanity,all coming probably from water
bottles and plastic cuttingboards and who knows right.
So the same thing was happeningwith baby wipes.
(55:37):
I mean everyone uses baby wipeson their little young kids and
here these things are allplastic.
They don't degrade, I know theydon't degrade.
If I have a septic tank, youcan't use them because 10 years
later open the thing up Likethey're still floating in there.
They don't break down.
So this company, good Wipes,came around and said hey, we are
creating an all organic cottonbaby wipe with no plastics in it
(56:01):
and it's great for adults andkids and they break down in
minutes in septic tanks thataren't polluting the ocean.
That's a plug to me.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
That's pretty awesome .
I love that.
So any final takeaways.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
Pretty awesome.
I love that.
So any final takeaways where,if a gym wants to stock your
products, if anyone else allhandles as well, and then, uh,
if they wanted to come on board,uh, they could email me
directly a as an Aaron Hine D HI N D E at uh lifeaid bepcocom.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
Wow, Aaron, it's uh been such a pleasure to talk to
you.
I feel really inspired actuallynow that I've listened to you
talk about your life andexperience, and is there
anything else you'd like to sayor share before we sign off here
?
Speaker 2 (57:06):
I'll end with my wife's quote again, because it's
just such an important thing tokeep in mind that you know it
all works out in the end.
And it hasn't worked out, it'snot the end.
So I love, keep moving forward.
We're all in this struggletogether and, uh, you know God
is good, Life is great.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
I love that.
I love that quote.
I'm going to be using itforever.
Thank you so much All right doc.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Thank you.
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