#158 - Matt Schuster, Co-Founder of ADDRA LABS - Stupid Questions with Seth Hill

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
How's it going everybody? Welcome back to another edition
of the Stupid Questions podcast.Today in the pub we're going to
be talking with Matt Schuster. He is the Co founder and CEO of
a company called Adra. They are Adra Labs.
Excuse me? They make really awesome protein
bars. And Matt is an awesome guy for a
number of reasons. You'll get to hear some of his
back story and the things that he's overcome, like just severe,

(00:20):
debilitating depression to starting this new business, to
being in the advertising world for 15 years, to qualifying for
Kona, to being a successful father and husband, number of
other things. So it's a really good
conversation with Matt. Really appreciate him coming on.
So without further ado, want to introduce you to Matt Schuster
to ship it to your place. Oh, that was it.

(00:41):
Took a bit, yeah. I've ordered some fun stuff on T
MU. The best is when you order
something and you get something completely different.
We ordered mailers like the the envelopes that you're that we
used to pack and ship some of the boxes and a box came and
instead of mailers it was 3 pairs of like gamer microphones

(01:03):
or gamer headphones. I'm like this isn't even close.
Like. Yeah, not even remotely.
That is why one time I ordered the coolest thing I ever
ordered, I think was a what was it?
It was it was like a crossbow that a mini crossbow that shot
toothpicks. I bought it in college.
It was like back when Teemo first started.
But anyway, well, Matt, thank you so much for taking the time

(01:25):
to come on. I forget how we got connected.
Did was it through? Who was it through that
introduced us? It's Connor.
Connor, that's. Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sweet Connor.
Yeah, he's a character. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thanks. Thanks so much for for getting
connected with me, man. So where are you at right now?
Yeah, so I'm in northern New Jersey and just outside of New

(01:49):
York City. Yeah.
And yeah, I was pumped when whenConnor.
So we connected probably like four or five months ago.
We we had known each other just through the industry like he was
doing on your left for a while. And before we were at Agra, I
was actually working at power bars.
So our paths have crossed kind of briefly, but really got to

(02:13):
know each other when after we started Agra and we were just
chatting about ideas and ways that, you know, he could
potentially help us scale the business and we could help him
scale his media empire that he'sbuilding.
Yeah. And then he's like, yeah,
there's this this guy I got introduced to.
He does this awesome podcast andyou should definitely go on it.

(02:33):
I was like, let's do it, man. Yeah, so that's awesome.
O'Connor's a good guy. It's fun.
Been getting to connect with himand learn, learn his ways over
the years. But yeah, So what I would love
to do is first kind of go into some back story questions,
getting to know you a bit and then obviously we'll talk about
Adra. And is that is that how I
pronounce it is addressed? You held it man, you got a first

(02:54):
try. Sweet.
Sweet. So we'll go through that and
just have some insurance and outs questions.
So, but the first question I would love to dive into is from
your perspective, who is Matt? So I have listened to a few
episodes, so I kind of thought this one might be coming.
Yeah, good. It's so if you ask me this

(03:15):
question a few years ago, you probably would have gotten a
very different answer. So the way I describe it is I'm
currently an Act 2 of my adult life, as I'd say it.
So prior to anything related to endurance, I had an entire
career and life in in the corporate world and it was very

(03:36):
much a follow the bouncing ball of go to school, get a job
progressing job, continue to climb the ladder.
That's your goal and that defines who you are.
And then around 2019, I like to say I was, I took the sabbatical
pre COVID before taking a sabbatical was cool.

(04:00):
And that is when Act 2 started because I really did find the
answer to that question. And and what it really comes
down to is Matt, say, in addition to what Matt is, which
is the father, you know, an athlete, an entrepreneur, but
who he is is really a serial optimist, you know, someone

(04:23):
that's always seize the opportunity in things, ways that
things could improve, things people could achieve.
That served me in my previous life, but it's really become
front and center as this new genre of my life and career has
has developed. And it's been really fun getting

(04:45):
to know kind of me as a person and all the different elements
that were overlooked for so manyyears.
Yeah, Yeah. Good answer.
Thank you for taking the time tounload that a bit.
But I'm curious for you because you know, serial optimism goes
hand in hand, I would say with being a serial entrepreneur,

(05:07):
just because it takes an optimist to believe when before
anything has materialized. So I'm curious for you as you
look back on your past now because hindsight 2020, how
young were you and you think youcan first start to identify some
of the characteristics and the tenacity and drive to start or

(05:27):
sell or do things like entrepreneurship when you were
younger? So the, the, the career path I
chose was sales. So in a way it's it's an
entrepreneurial career path in general, but my success in that
area came from this. There's kind of two types of
salespeople. There's the sort of driven

(05:51):
numbers oriented hammer away, doas many phone calls, hit your
quotas kind of thing. And then there's more of the, I
guess I've called the opportunistic salesperson that
sees growth and abundance in different places.
For me, I always found that the management that I would work for

(06:11):
the, the philosophies and the direction that they gave never
really made sense to me. And it would be you have to make
sure you're hitting X amount of phone calls and this many
follow-ups and this many meetings and this much
entertainment. And to me it was like, you know,
if I'm going to approach JP Morgan Chase and try to bring

(06:34):
them on as a client for our marketing solution, I don't know
necessarily like calling them 100 times is going to translate
into success. It's going to be, well, what
strategic opportunity do we create that could provide them
something that they don't already have?
And then how we how can we position that?
Who do we have to talk to, you know, call it strategic selling,

(06:56):
call it what you want. It was very much creating,
seeing, creating the opportunityand it never jives with
management, but the numbers always were there.
So that was kind of the early, Iguess, identification of, I
think I think a little bit differently than than most that
are in my field right now. Yeah.

(07:18):
What would you chalk up that thinking differently mentality
from? Is that more of a nature or a
nurture thing? I would say probably more of a a
nature. I was, I was the classic what
if? Why not, kid?
So every single thing is like, well, what if we did this?
Yeah. Or why couldn't we do that?

(07:40):
You know, why can't I be president?
Why can't? And I don't know that it's not
something that was instilled. It was just kind of something
that happened. With your is there any
entrepreneurship or sales in your family like from your
parents? Yeah, my, my father, he was, it

(08:01):
is uncanny, but his, his trajectory was similar in
different aspect. He was in sales, different
industry, progressed, went up toa leadership position and then
roughly around the same age decided to step away and start
his own thing. And he was essentially an

(08:21):
entrepreneur from, you know, around 40 years old, maybe late
30s through to, you know, when he officially retired, running
different sales consulting businesses.
And he had a few different clients and a few different
things that he was doing. But it was all kind of around
the same theme of I'm an independent sales Rep that I can

(08:47):
kind of translate this skill across and own it for myself.
Yeah. Do you think he's proud of what
you've done or what you're doing?
Oh, yeah, yeah. I, I, I am lucky in that I get
regular updates every single time we put out a social media
post. Like, that was a good one.
Yeah. Which is awesome, right?

(09:09):
That is awesome. It's got to get the feedback
from parents for sure. When you can step back and say
that like your, your parents areproud of what you do.
I think that people who don't have that don't see how much of
A benefit it can be. And there's a balance too,
because I think that so, you know, some parents can be kind
of like, I don't know, overly supportive of things that are
not going to work out, if that makes sense.

(09:33):
Yeah, I think they can definitely just be an over
cheerleader and, you know, give the kid the keys and let him
drive kind of thing. But now they he's definitely
been both both my parents have been super supportive, but also
they're very quick. My mom more so than my dad would
be like, have you thought this through?

(09:56):
You know you're OK, right, Like things are good.
And I was like, yes, yes, she's like the kind of the, the
balance and the check. Yeah, she's the, she's the check
to. I guess the optimism does come a
bit from the from the nurture side, from my dad.
Yeah, yeah. Was your mom primarily?
Stay home Mom, take care of you.Not 100%.

(10:20):
So she was, it was, you know, dual income household.
So my dad had his businesses that he was running and then she
would have jobs locally in different areas.
So she, you know, worked in retail for a period of time and
it was, you know, really just tomake ends meet on the household

(10:41):
finance side. Yeah.
Were you guys growing up there in New Jersey?
No, no, I, I committed to cardinal sin moving to New
Jersey. I, I grew up in Long Island and
we, we are. Do you want to talk about
nurture? We are nurtured to hate New
Jersey. And why is that?
It's a Couldn't tell you it's. Just such a territorial gang

(11:06):
thing. Maybe he was back from the New
Jersey Shore, was big on MTV. But yeah, we're like, we get the
blowouts, like, that's our thing.
Like, But no, I, I grew up in Long Island and then went to
school in upstate New York and then worked in New York City.

(11:26):
So I've covered the entire stateof New York.
And then when it was time to settle down, New Jersey just
made a lot more sense. So so we moved out here.
Yeah. Did you meet your wife in New
Jersey? We met in college.
OK, Yeah. Nice.
How long have you been married? We are 2011.

(11:49):
Fourteen, right? Yeah, 14 years.
Yeah, congratulations, man. Yeah, almost 15.
Almost. Yeah.
And then you have. Yeah, go for it.
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we have two kids,
so Jack and Max. Jack turns 10 this month, and
then Max is 6. And it's.

(12:09):
It's funny, in many cases, the younger brother is the older
brother, which is very entertaining.
Yeah, I'm sure. Were you an only child?
No, no, I've got a brother and asister.
I'm the oldest of of three. OK, interesting.
So then you have that experience, then the perspective
of what it was like growing up and that watching your two boys,

(12:31):
I'm sure that gives a lot of flavour to your life.
It gives a lot of flavour, but it also makes a lot more sense
for how the dynamic in our household was.
And you know, 'cause I think youhave siblings as well, right?
Are you the oldest or the youngest?
Yeah, I'm the oldest. I have two younger sisters.
So the oldest gets away with nothing and then parents are

(12:53):
always hardest on the older child and the youngest gets away
with murder. And for the longest time I never
understood why. Now I've got two kids.
I'm like, no, I understand why. Yeah, why explain it to me?
Because I don't have kids yet. Because you get a frame of
reference to to balance off of. So if you have an only child and

(13:13):
they're 10 and they start to do things that may not be
indicative of a 10 year old, you're like, oh, OK, well
whatever. But if you have a 10 and a six
and you see the 10 year old doing something that was more
the behavior of a six year old. And then my my older son Jack
has the disadvantage of my 6 year old is wise beyond his

(13:35):
years. So he acts more like he's 10.
So you've got this comparison that happens in real time all
the time and you constantly are like having to parent up to the
10 year old. So it inevitably ends up being,
you know, harder on the older, but when really it's just like,
you know, you're, you're playingdown and we want you to play up
kind of thing. Yeah, interesting.

(13:57):
Thanks for sharing that. So I'm curious with you, like
being married, you know, almost 15 years, you have two young
boys, 2019 you decide to leave the advertising industry for
better, for worse. That is a huge risk.
So tell me as like a man provider for the family, what

(14:17):
was kind of going on internally for you and you were making
those decisions to step out on your own and take the risk of
starting Agra? Well, there was a lot of steps
between that day and Agra. OK, you can.
You can walk through every single one of them.
But but yeah, and I've talked about this a couple times
publicly, but I actually leavingin 2019 was more of a decision

(14:42):
from a mental health perspective.
And I had basically burned myself down to a point with the
the way I was progressing wasn'tcompletely functional and was
was on a path that was not goingto end well and made, you know,
made a hard decision. That said, I'd either step away

(15:05):
from a livelihood and become healthy and alive or continue
down the path and who knows where this could, you know,
probably not lead to a very goodplace.
And, you know, I had on my wife,God bless her.
She was there for the entire, you know, transition and, and
she was there for the beginning of the kind of downslide.

(15:30):
And we talked through it quite abit.
And ultimately, she was the one that I give her 100% of the
credit that it got to a point where I couldn't even get myself
out of bed to go to work. And, and I remember one Monday,
it was probably like October, November, and I just, I hadn't
slept at all. It was up all night, couldn't

(15:53):
get myself to physically sit up and and get myself to go to
work. And she just looked at me and
she goes, you're going to quit your job today.
And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. She goes, no, no, no, no.
You're going to quit your job today.
I said, you're right, you're right.
You know, when we look at it andyou lay it out like that is the

(16:16):
thing that's that's driving us in this direction.
And unfortunately that's the thing that has to change.
So I walked in, had a conversation with my CEO and you
know, at the time I was the, youknow, chief executive of revenue
and you know, it's not a job, you just don't show up anymore.
So there was a, there was a discussion and transition plan.

(16:39):
Eventually it was around February when I actually stepped
away, but it was once I got out and once I was home, granted we
were all locked down so everyonewas home, but the, the, the
real, like the real damage became very apparent.

(17:04):
And when you've lost basically 100% of your self worth because
you've had this constant negative intrusive narrative in
your head that's just developed and built over time.
And over time, it doesn't just go away.
So you have to work to get it tosubside and go from a, you know,

(17:31):
a full roar to just a dull whisper to eventually, you know,
pops in and out, but you can recognize it.
And that took me like 6 months, six months of just couldn't do
like wasn't doing anything, wasn't looking for a job.
Was just kind of focusing on being home, being a parent,

(17:51):
being myself, getting healthy physically and mentally.
And then ultimately it's what led me back to becoming an
athlete as a kind of a proxy forgetting healthy again.
Because, you know, I was an athlete in college or growing

(18:11):
up, you know, play Division One lacrosse and then basically
spent 15 years not being an athlete.
And then when this happened, it was all right, well, we've got
to get healthy. 45 lbs overweight, our cholesterol's to
the roof. You know, we are by all means on
the on the wrong end of the spectrum.

(18:33):
Started running, start riding a bike and then someone's like,
oh, you should do a triathlon. And then we all know how that
goes, right? Yeah.
And then that that really, that really did, you know, it created
a platform to to heal off of. And ultimately it kind of
progressed into a career path and would lead me to to get to

(18:59):
Azure at some point. Yeah, wow.
So many things. No, no, it's really good.
And I I want to kind of pick apart some of those moments and
and talk about them. So if I ever pry too much just
let me know. But.
I'm going to dive in going back to, you know, the career you're
talking about 15 years. But you were really touching on

(19:19):
this point of almost like this concept at the the inner critic
where you have this voice that becomes a whisper and then a
scream until it like drowns you out.
So just for full context, I haveonly experienced a depression
similar to that for like a shortperiod of time, maybe a couple
of months. Like it wasn't too long after my

(19:39):
father passed away. But to that point, I had never
really experienced what that waslike.
It was like, I'd wake up for 5 minutes, I'd feel OK.
And then it's just like this overwhelming sense of just like
darkness descends on you. And like, like you said, don't
even want to move. So to, to, to come out of that
and to start to battle against or figure out what the game plan

(20:00):
is to confront those voices inside the head of the things
like the, the, the destruction of belief that you have in
yourself. I guess my first question is,
how did you put voice to those to where you've had to face
them? And then how did you start to
deny them the the authority overwho you were?

(20:23):
Yeah, it's a it's that was a bigone, which was 1 deconstructing
and separating the voice from me.
Because when you're in it, you just, you just hear it and it's
you because it's coming from you.
It's coming from me in your own head.
It's your own, your own voice that you recognize.

(20:45):
But for me, the, the biggest sort of transition point back
towards, you know, improving wasunderstanding or recognizing
that that voice is not me. Just by nature of me hearing it
means it's not me. And that's when I started to do
a bit more research and, you know, started reading and

(21:05):
listening to different books, different podcasts and
understanding the concept of being stuck in a parasympathetic
state or sympathetic state. Gentleman.
I always forget which one, but it's.
Over my head, but either 1 sounds good.
Yeah, essentially you're you're stuck in fight or flight.

(21:29):
And and that now that's the sortof final outcome of what caused
all the symptoms to occur. But, you know, understanding
that, oh, this is a defense mechanism of the body, you know,
it's used to keep you safe and those alarm bells and the
screaming, the yelling inside ismy body interpreting danger.

(21:53):
So I need to recognize that it'snot actually, it's saying, you
know, terrible things, but it's doing it because it's it
interprets that this the situation I'm in, I need to
leave. And being able to just identify
the systems at play was helpful and just understanding it.
But then what really where things really starting to

(22:15):
improve was going back up the chain of all right, well, why am
I in this state? And with that came down to was
the every human being needs somesort of sense of validation.
It's just intrinsically part of who we are.
But where that validation comes from is key to being very strong

(22:39):
mentally. If that comes from yourself and
internally through your own standards, you know you can
progress and be very confident and very healthy.
And from a, from a mental perspective, if you construct
your validation system like manyof us do at a young age from
others, then you're essentially dependent upon other people

(23:03):
telling you that you've done good or done well and accelerate
that up to the highest levels inwhatever capacity and work and
sport. And you know that validation
comes fewer and farther between and rarely is it genuine.

(23:24):
So when you're all of a sudden the well runs dry and you have
no point of validation to justify for yourself and you
don't have any internal validation system set up, you
know, it's a, it's a slippery slope.
And and that's essentially wherewhere I'd gotten to, I was, you
know, climbed the ladder. You know, I did good, I got a

(23:44):
promotion, I did good. I did this.
I've always had that. And then when I got to the top
ranks, there is nobody, right? Like there's me and the CEO and
you're not really, yeah, they'reyour boss, but really you're
more business partners. So there's nobody checking your
work. There's nobody.
It's more of an expectation thatthings go well.
And, and that's a hard lesson for a lot of executives to make

(24:06):
that transition up. And it really is the the folks
that have built their own systems for validation and for
progression as as a human, they're going to succeed in
roles like that. And that's really, once I
identified that my goal was all right, that's what I need to

(24:27):
build for myself and that's whatI'm going to focus on for the
next, you know, year, 2 years. So I don't like making money
right now. We've saved, we were, we're very
frugal with our expenses and like financially we were OK for
a period of time. But I said that's the thing that
needs to change. And if we can fix that, we can

(24:48):
have a much healthier, happier and more fulfilling life.
So. Yeah, well, there's so many
interesting points there, too. So what you were saying about
the external versus internal validation, I feel like in a
perfect world, external validation would be the place we
probably should get that from. But the problem is when you

(25:08):
have, I mean, just crappy people, you know, because hurt
people hurt people, you have this just terrible cycle where
we end up tearing each other down.
But it's also interesting too, because I'm like the topic of
selfishness all growing up, I thought of selfishness is like,
oh, I want to have the car and Iwant to have this, you know, and
it's kind of like this what I want.
But then there's this other typeof selfishness.

(25:30):
And this might be a little controversial to say, and I'm
not 100% sold that it's 100% true, but it's like the
selfishness of whenever we're talking to ourselves negatively.
And just really quick, I had this profound moment happened to
me where I did this exercise where we had to in this group,
write down all of the inner critic voices.

(25:50):
And then we had to say them to ourselves out loud and like
walking in a circle. And then have you heard of this
before? And then and then the music
stops and they're like, OK, now on take the open this envelope
and this envelope unbeknowing tous like was a picture of our,
our, us as like a kid. And then we were asked like,
would you say these things to yourself?

(26:12):
Dude? I broke down.
I cried like a baby because it'sit.
It took us something like that to make me realize like, oh,
this is the form of selfishness that I continually indulge in.
I'm talking down and bad to myself.
And words are so powerful. You know, it's like crazy what
they can do. And it's crazy how like your

(26:33):
brain will knows exactly how to cut to the core and it can,
it'll hit you with like nobody will say anything to you worse
than what you will say to yourself in your own head
because you know deep down whereyour biggest insecurities lie.
And man, I think it was Peter Attia.

(26:55):
I can't remember if it was a book or a podcast, but he had
talked about kind of going through something similar.
And one of the exercises that Adam do is any time those
thoughts come in, he had to either leave himself a voicemail
or create a voice memo and then later go back and listen to it.
And he would hear the things that he was saying to himself in
his head. And he's like, Oh my God, like

(27:17):
actually hearing it from his ownvoice out loud was a was a
surreal experience. I never, I never did any
exercise like that, but I can 100% relate.
Yeah, yeah, it's wild. So I grew up in like a Christian
house. And, you know, this biblical
concept of, like, God speaking the world into existence has

(27:37):
changed its meaning for me. Because if you think, we think
about, you know, giving each other life and death by our
words, like we literally have the power to affect someone on a
chemical level, you know, bringing life or death.
So it's just like, words are so,so powerful.
I think that and could be transitioned, but what I've also
found is the opposite is true aswell.

(27:58):
So just like your narrative can break you down completely,
changing that to the sort of opportunist or view of potential
can do the same thing. It's kind of like that book The
Secret, like if you speak it, itcan exist, which is kind of like
to your point that you just made.

(28:19):
And, and that's really for me, that's when things started to
transition from like, OK, I'm developing myself to OK, it's
time to pursue. And, and all of a sudden it's
like, well, why can't I do an Iron Man?
Like other people, other humans do it, I can do it Or like, or
like, why can't we start a business or why can't we, you

(28:42):
know, do a career pivot And like, humans do these things all
the time. And I'm no different than any
other human. And all of a sudden that that
perspective change was like, wow, we really could do
anything. It's just a matter of do we have
the confidence to focus and and drive and do the the work it's
going to take to get there. Yeah.
So as you started to, I guess, really piece back together the

(29:05):
framework of how you would operate internally and you get
into triathlon and you're signing up for the Iron Man's,
you're getting podiums, you makeit to Kona.
At what point did you start to entertain and put stock in the
idea of like, OK, I think it's time to start something new.
And you know, I'm again, you're going to be at the top.
I mean, you're you're an executive again, you're not

(29:27):
going to have that someone looking over your shoulder.
So how did you start to operate and make it make that work?
So the the venture of it's actually kind of funny after
about six months of just not working, I I pitched my family

(29:48):
and I still have the deck, but. You like many deck I love.
It to, you know, my wife and then my kids and my kids were
much younger at that point at that point, but I sat them down
the couch and I said, I want to take one year and just train as
a triathlete. I'm not going to chase for a
job, not going to pursue anything that makes money.

(30:11):
I'm just going to pursue myself in this sport.
I don't know why, but something is pushing me in that direction
and I feel like I need to do that.
And I broke down like the finances and I essentially was
pitching them as if I was looking for investment, which
you were from them, which which I was exactly.
Best of time and money, yeah. Yeah, and they, they got such a

(30:33):
kick out of it. My pitch to them was if we do
this, my goal will be for all ofus to go to Hawaii.
If I qualify or what? I'm sorry, when I qualify.
And that was in 2020. We didn't go to Hawaii till
2024, which in hindsight I probably shouldn't have told my

(30:53):
5 year old at the time. Like hey we made 9:00 every
single race. I came back.
He's like so are we going to Hawaii?
I'm like, no. Oh man, yeah, that every single
play. Play on the run on the marathon.
Actually it was are we going to the volcanoes?
I was like, no, not this time, buddy.
And so I pitched and did that and then and, and fully just

(31:17):
dove into it, hired a coach, youknow, I had my budget.
So I, you know, bought the bike I could afford and started just
immersing myself. And triathlons, endurance sport
in general, but triathlon in particular, so amazing because
it, it checks every box. Like if you're, if you're in a
physical fitness, obviously there's lots of stimulation.

(31:38):
If you're in a gear, there's lots of stimulation.
If you're in a science, there's tons of it.
And it's just, there's so much to dive into and I kept on
finding myself gravitating towards the nutrition science
side of things. I was just very, very interested
and intrigued about how the bodyjust takes in utilizes and

(32:02):
expelled energy throughout the training and then throughout the
day and just kind of read and immerse myself a ton, not
looking to do anything with it. Just really was interested in in
it. It appealed to me.
And then it was actually September, my first season.

(32:24):
I qualified for 70.3 worlds in Saint George and I was training
for it and IA week out I crashedand full, you know, collarbone,
shoulder blade really like was done wasn't training.
And it was the first real injuryI'd had and you know, year and a

(32:45):
half of doing the sport and wentfrom full activity to no
activity. And I was first I panicked.
I was like, Oh no, this thing that you know, saved me is now
taken away. But then it was like, no, you're
OK, that'll heal, but what are you going to do with this
downtime? And started just typing away and

(33:09):
just dumping thoughts into a document.
Just everything I kind of absorbed over that the year and
a half. And it ended with this, you
know, 4050 page Word doc. And I was like, what is this?
And I was like, maybe it's a book.
I'll write a book. My wife was like, yeah, yeah,

(33:29):
maybe you should just show it tosomebody for before you do that.
And I had a friend that was at Penguin Publishing and he was
like, Hey, I think, I think I have a book.
And you read he's like, that's not a book.
Sorry, bud. No, no, no.
But it could be a cool blog. And I was like, all right, maybe
I'll make a blog. So I made it and I was called H

(33:52):
Grouper. And then that that was really
the first step into entrepreneurship because then it
was like, Oh, well, maybe this could be, you know, media
destination and create a website, started bringing on
writers, started creating socialaccount and social presence and
started to catch a little bit ofmomentum.

(34:13):
You know, the followers started to grow.
But I had zero business model. I had no way to monetize it.
And but I caught the bug of like, I think I want to do
something like this for a living.
Learned a ton about, you know, working within social media and

(34:34):
the backbone and infrastructure of, of driving traffic to a
website. And then lo and behold, right
when I was at the point where I was like, there's no way to
monetize this right now, I got to do something else.
I got introduced to my now partner Eric Saltist who was
running Power Bar and he was he had been with the company for

(35:01):
over 25 years predominantly in R&D.
You know we talk about how he was part of the part of the team
and he was leading the team thatdeveloped the first research
around dual source carbohydrate.And so we can all thank Eric and
Oscar and and the folks that were working on that research

(35:21):
for the 2 to 1 glucose to frucose ratio that we have
today. And he had taken on the
distribution of power bar. So he wasn't running R&D or
product, but yeah, he was just running sales in the Americans
needed some help with social media and need some help with,
you know, e-commerce. And I was like, I, I just

(35:43):
learned all this, let's do it. So joined with them, work
together for a couple years and then got to a point where we're
like, you know, we have no control over the product, the
brand, the messaging, the positioning.
And he's like, I'm an R&D guy. I've got like 12 products that
are just on the shelf that are just collecting dust, never
going to see the light of day. And they're all innovative and

(36:05):
they're not on the market today.It's like, what do you think of
let's, you know, start somethingnew and, and bring these
products to market and give thema real shot?
And I said, sign me up. Let's do it.
Like where do I sign the check? Yeah.
And I said, great, what's the first product we're doing?

(36:25):
And he's like a protein bar. And I was like, oh, another one.
But then, you know, there was a whole story behind why protein,
why a protein bar, Why now? And once he kind of walked me
through the science behind it, Iwas like, all right, now I'm

(36:47):
intrigued. And now it makes a lot more
sense. So we can we can launch with
that. Yeah, that's a crazy story, man.
So I mean that again, that like that's a huge shift in the
dynamic of what it means to be aprovider.
So did you pitch your family again?
They were kind of parts of my actually I have it here.

(37:07):
So that's my wife's name. So she was on board.
So she says COOH grouper. So she was, she's been in it and
part of this journey from day one and every single venture
that we've had, you know, she, she has been a key contributor,
key component even now with Adra, like she's, she's doing a

(37:31):
lot of the operations on the back end for different parts of
the business, which that has been so much fun because I
always said like we should find a way to get the same job and
work at the same company. That would be fun and it took us
creating our own company to do that so.
Yeah, So is age Grouper still around as a as a team?

(37:55):
The site's still up, but we we don't, we don't do anything with
it really anymore. It's it kind of just functions
as a park domain at this point. Yeah, got it.
So then with ADRA, like what is the science, What is the
specifics? And I'm sure you told the story
a million times, but now I'm curious because protein bars,
most of them I hate. Yeah.

(38:16):
Not to you, not to not to your audience.
Let's hear it. Yeah.
So, so the first thing, and I'llI'll kind of tell the story of
how Eric kind of positioned it and pitched it to me because I
think it's it really does sum itup.
So he says there's three reasonsand three data points of why
this bar should exist. Because the first one is there's

(38:41):
been so much research on the theutilization and the processing
of protein in the body for different, you know, walks of
life, but they've predominantly been done on strength athletes
or the sedentary population. And then there's been very few
that have been focused predominantly on endurance

(39:03):
athletes. And the reason that's important
is because when they actually did, and this is within the last
few years, what they found was the protein intake needs are
actually quite a bit higher thanwhat you would expect in
comparison to say like a strength athlete.
So you know, for a call it, I don't want to put numbers in

(39:24):
case I'm wrong, but say a decade, decade plus, the
recommendation if you're a bodybuilder or power lifter or
any sort of resistance based athlete is 1.6g of protein for
every kilogram body weight per day.
What they found was that endurance athletes and they
classify that as anyone that's training upwards of, you know, 5

(39:47):
to 10 hours a day and steady state exercise needs closer to
1.8 to 1.85g per day. And the reason for that is,
unlike others, we do this steadystate activity where we burn all
types of fuel. You know, mainly carbs, we burn

(40:08):
some fat, but we also burn protein and no other athletes do
that because they're not doing this persistent exercise.
So just by nature of we've used protein as fuel, primarily
branched chain amino acids. You know, we've got to replenish
that. There's no protein storage
facility on the body. You know, there's, you can store

(40:31):
glycogen in your muscles, you can store fat as fat, but you
can't store protein. So your, your intake needs go
much higher. And this is new, this is new
science. There was just an article in
Outside magazine, Alex Hutchinson wrote that was
calling out this new, this new focus, the new paradigm shift

(40:53):
and protein for endurance. He's like, all right, so we've
got this wave of wow, protein orendurance athletes are going to
recognize they need way more protein. 1 he goes #2 the, it's
not just protein as a singular object, but it's actually the

(41:13):
composition of the amino acids that make up that protein.
And when you really dig into it,there's really only certain
amino acids or there are certainamino acids with a protein that
are more important than others, particularly one called leucine.
So leucine is an interesting one.

(41:33):
It's, it's one of the branched chain amino acids or BCA.
As you know, a lot of people will take that as a supplement.
But what Leucine does is it's functions as a building block.
So it's used as a raw material to create new body proteins, but
it also functions as a trigger or we like to call the dimmer

(41:57):
switch. So when you're, when you eat a
protein bar or a steak or anything that's got a, you know,
a decent amount, what happens isthat your blood leucine level
rises. And as that happens, that is
what activates the muscle recovery process or muscle
protein synthesis. And the higher you can get that

(42:18):
blood leucine level, the more protein synthesis you can get to
occur. So when we were talking through
innovations, he said one of the things you can do is you can
increase just that component of the protein and not the rest of
it, and you can have a more efficient protein bar.

(42:40):
And I was like, but what about, you know, the recommendations
based on total numbers? He says, yeah, those are
important, too. You do need to have some
protein. But really what you're trying to
get to is that 2 1/2 to 3 grams of leucine per serving and then
that Max that flips on the switch all the way to 10.
And then you're going to get thesame recovery process.

(43:03):
And that's where we really dug in and, and there's been some
research done just within the last, I would say 12 months that
proved out that case where they took a lower protein count,
higher leucine level. So biopsy the bust a bunch of
athletes. I don't know if you've ever had
that done That's I haven't, but man, that looks pretty.

(43:24):
Some he's like stick a hole in your thigh and stick a chunk of
muscle out and yeah, yeah, yeah.But it's the only way to do it
the right way. And so they did it.
And you know, the the the overwhelming response was, yeah,
you can get, you know, 20 grams serving of protein with the
equivalent leucine level of 30 grams gives you the same

(43:47):
response as 30 grams of protein in terms of how much you can
rebuild muscle. And he goes, nobody is doing
that. Like that is unheard of in the
endurance space. There are products, you know,
general market in the strength world, mainly powders, but
nobody has done it for an endurance athlete and nobody has

(44:08):
done it in a bar. And I said, all right, I go,
what's the Third Point? He goes go and look at every
sports nutrition company's website that caters to our our
endurance world and tell me how many have protein on the front
page. None of them.
None of them. It's, they've all got a product.

(44:30):
It's it's typically whey proteinpowder or plant protein powder
in a bag. But it's not a primary focus
point, right? Gels and carb drinks and
electrolytes, you know, that's where the money is.
But nobody's really focusing in on it.
So is this odd white space in what would most people would
look at as a very crowded market.

(44:52):
And, you know, he laid the kind of story out to me.
I was like, that makes a lot of sense.
Like, you know, why, why doesn'tthis bar exist?
Why has nobody really pursued this?
You know, effectively what you end up with is the most
efficient, effective recovery bar that you can, you know,
throw in a bag or you can stick in a jersey pocket.

(45:14):
And it's it's right. When you're done with your hard
session, you have the opportunity to maximize the
return from that session. Yeah, to the to the full degree.
So just to make sure I'm understanding correctly, so if I
take like a regular protein bar,it's got 30 grams, you're saying
that this one with 20 grams would be at the same efficiency
level as the 30 grams because ofthe increased lice lysine?

(45:38):
Leucine. Leucine.
Leucine is that. Would be.
It would create the same level of muscle protein synthesis as a
30 gram serving of of whey protein, which is considered to
be the kind of gold standard of protein supplement sources.
The other, the other note about it is that all our bars are

(46:00):
plant based, which you know, there's, it wasn't necessarily a
decision based on like trying toavoid dairy, but it was what we
found was there's a benefit because plant sources are
notoriously low in leucine. And this is a way where you even

(46:22):
if you're vegan or don't, can't tolerate lactose, this is a way
for you to get that leucine level in a very efficient way.
But there are a lot of bars out there that are using different
plant sources, particularly soy,where if you wanted to get that
full recovery, you'd have to eatupwards of three bars in one

(46:46):
sitting. And you know, there's, there's
some big ones out there, big names that use soy protein as
their base source. And you know, the Leucine story,
which I think is going to becomea little bit more mainstream,
does not bode well for for thosebars.
Yeah. So how have you found?

(47:06):
Because when I was in college, Istarted this company and it took
a level of education to to to kind of show people, hey, This
is why it's more expensive. This is what it's worth.
So for you guys, obviously there's an education component
here and sometimes it just for whatever reason takes a while
for things to catch on, like thehigh carb thing like that kicked
in and you know, everything else.
So how's the education componentbeen going and is it tracking

(47:28):
with your business trajectory oflike sustainability to be able
to hit growth and things like that?
Yeah, you're spot on. So it's education is the name of
the game. We actually have 3 levels of
education. We need to do so one, we need to
educate people why they should care about protein and we need

(47:51):
to educate them what protein is.And then it's like, OK, and
here's why leucine is important.So this is kind of three-step.
And you know, the big what we found is the ideal scenario is
if we can get 3 to 5 minutes with a person and just share a
lot of what I just shared with you.

(48:12):
And you know, we do that a lot of events.
So we go to a lot of races, we partner up with a lot of teams
and we set up webinars so we canteach them and educate them not
just about aggro, it's really more about just this new wave of
protein. And I like to say that you're
just learning about it. There's 10 things you can do in

(48:34):
your kitchen today that nothing to do with buying an aggro bar
that could actually improve yourrecovery and your performance.
And you know, as we, as we see is that the more we educate, the
more we see people coming in andgiving them a try and then the
more they try, the more we see people recurring.

(48:55):
I think our, you know, trial to repeat purchase rate from what
we've been told from partners and advisors we work with is
abnormally high. So that means, I guess people
like the way they taste at least.
And, and one of the things, one of the cool things we did was we

(49:16):
actually built a calculator. So we took all this new science
and threw it in a calculator that you put in your, you know,
your body weight, you put in your training volume, you put in
your dietary preferences. And it'll give you, Hey, here's
here's where you should target arange of, you know, X grams to Y
grams of protein per day. It'll tell you how to space it

(49:38):
because spacing it throughout the day actually plays a big
role. And then it'll tell you how
much, if you're getting enough leucine or if you need to
supplement with more. And, and then it gives anyone
that takes it an opportunity to get grab one of each bar for
free because our big thing is like, just try them as many bars
we put in people's mouths as possible.

(49:59):
And yeah, that's, that's right on our website, just the daily
protein calculator. But every time we see it, you
know, we see people come in, they grab the sample pack and
then, you know, a large percentage of those then come
back and and try them again and put them in the training.
I actually just took your eight question survey.
Nice. So how many entries?

(50:21):
What's your number? Well, technically I'm, I'm on
question number six and I'm trying to say preferred method
for format protein snack. I think it's just eating food.
I don't know. Yeah, what I say here, whole
food, plant based protein. I mean, I'm pretty much
vegetarian, so I'll probably saythat and then here we go.
Plant based proteins is probablywhat I do mostly.

(50:43):
So mine is after I enter my e-mail.
Tick tick tick tick. How many of these have you had?
OK, 84 to 104g per day. Are you eating that?
I don't count it, but I doubt it.
How many have an egg? I ate three eggs before this and
some. 6g yeah. Definitely not no.

(51:05):
Yeah. Eggs and peanut butter are
sneaky. You think there's more protein
in than there actually is? Yeah.
You got to eat a lot of peanut butter.
It's only like what, 12g per twotaspoons for tablespoons or
something like that. So you'd have to be like Hawking
it down. 7 or 8G per serving it's OK, it's quite a bit lower
yeah. So I have to try it out and but
but yeah, I mean, even that likethe, I think it's always

(51:28):
interesting when we're at races,the first question I ask people
is how much protein you eat in aday.
And it's funny, you get 2 answers.
You get, I have no idea. Or you get, I know I'm getting,
you know, this much like 100 some some of astronomically high
number. That's the spectrum.

(51:48):
Like there's nobody that actually, there's very few that
are just generally aware like, Oh, I probably should be getting
around this when I probably eat around this.
It's just either no clue whatsoever or hyper in tune.
And the hyper in tune folks are,you know, sub 2%.
So, so just getting people to understand they should be
eating, you know, 100 plus gramsof protein a day.

(52:12):
That's a win. And, and I guarantee anybody
that's training, if you're not, if you went say a month of
eating 100 or you know, take calculator depends your body
weight, but that 1.8g that recommendation, if you did that
for a month, you would see noticeable differences in your
recovery and your, you know, potential muscle soreness and.

(52:36):
FTP would go up by 100 watts. Yeah, I don't know about that.
Yeah, it's not snake oil. Unfortunately, we can't
guarantee PRS in seven days of your money back.
I mean, my, my biggest thing when because obviously being a
founder and we have a lot of bars in the house and eating
them for a while. My biggest thing was I just

(52:57):
noticed that my bounce back after races was a lot shorter.
Normally if I do a 70.3, it's like a week plus.
Whereas you know, since I started eating, you know, a lot
more protein, you know, now that's down to like 4 days.
Like I remember I did Eagle Man a couple weeks ago and then I

(53:20):
was back out for a group ride the following Wednesday.
You know, my legs were fine. And it's, you know, it obviously
everyone's a little bit different but, and it's
situational, but the trend was, you know, much quicker recovery
after the really, really hard sessions than than previous.
Well, I've ordered the sample pack, so I'll have to give it a

(53:42):
shot, but 80 grams, I'm just trying to think what that would
actually really look like per meal.
Like having to plan that out. I'm I'm small like I'm 100 and I
was 124 lbs this morning. So it's like being able to put
in that much food is like. A Greek yogurt.
Greek yogurt is a great, great source.

(54:03):
It's not a ton of calories for the amount of protein that you
get. Yeah.
So like we always say that it's,you know, get 20 to 30 grams of
breakfast, lunch, dinner, that'syour staples.
So that's for you, that would bearound 60 and then a snack
somewhere either before or afterlunch or before or after dinner.

(54:29):
And then your your post workout snack.
Yeah. And then you're at 100.
OK, sweet, I'll let you know howit goes.
Yeah. So with this business, like
you've been running it for a while now, you've had the
opportunity to be all across thespectrum of the highs, the lows,
the OK, we're going to make it. Maybe we're shutting the doors
tomorrow and maybe you've experienced that a few times.

(54:50):
So where are we at on the spectrum right now?
What it, what, what's your, what's the mental bandwidth take
up right now for you and the business and you and Eric?
We're at the start of the hockeystick.
We like to say though, you know,we've seen, we did our launch
and just out of fanfare and excitement and friends and
family, we saw a boom like, oh, all these orders, like

(55:13):
everything's great. And then and then it died down a
little bit, came back to reality.
And then the the last year is really just been the analogy is
just rubbing sticks together trying to figure out what works,
trying to figure out our voice, getting our systems in place.

(55:33):
And you know, we've tried just being the two of us.
We're self funded so we don't have outside investment.
So we really are bootstrapping this whole thing.
We've done a couple of engagements with different
agencies and consultants. But to be honest, what we've
seen the biggest improvement in anything we've done has been

(55:54):
when we've just focused in and learned it ourselves.
So like, we hired an agency to do our advertising and it, you
know, it just didn't quite work out.
And then we just dug in and said, all right, we're going to
learn meta ads and we're going to learn, you know, the back end
of Clavio and how to do all the flows.
And we screw up all the time. Like we make so many mistakes,

(56:17):
but we learn what works and whatdoesn't.
And, you know, we're slowly starting to inch it up.
And then I would say one of our big turning points was at the
start of this race season and westarted going to these events.

(56:37):
And then I noticed just suddenly, but I noticed people
coming up to the booth like, oh,I've heard of you.
I've tried your bars. And then as the summer and this,
you know, as the events went on,it went from I've heard of you
or tried them to oh, I've, I've bought them to, I use them.
And then we're starting to hear like, oh, OK, it's starting to

(56:58):
build. And then now it's at the point
where we think we've got it dialed in and it's just a matter
of scaling up. And that's the harder part.
So, you know, you get to a certain point when it's just the
two of you. There's only so many hours in a
day and there's so many things that you want to be doing.

(57:21):
Like there's events all over thecountry and there's so many, you
know, people that you can reach out to.
But it's how do we start to scale within our own company to
to kind of build on the momentum.
And I don't have an answer for you yet.
We have our our, our one year review meeting coming up next

(57:44):
week. So I'll come back to you and let
you know what we decide. But I good problems.
But you know, growth is growth can be a double edged sword.
So. Yeah, for sure.
How many people do you have likeworking under the hood?
Is it just you and Eric right now primarily or?
It's Eric, myself, my wife, and then we actually just brought on

(58:09):
a another individual part time to, to work with us with helping
with the teams. And but that's like fractional
like a few hours a week kind of thing.
But it's, you know, predominantly just Eric and I do
the heavy lifting stuff. Yeah.
What is your what is the biggestgap right now that you see that

(58:30):
needs to be fulfilled? If you if money was no object
and you were able to just plug some in or someone in.
Oh. It's a good question.
I don't know that there's necessarily a massive glaring
gap. It's more the opposite.
I guess the gap would be being able to understand signal for

(58:50):
noise because there's just so many opportunities to to scale
in different directions right now.
And it's not to say that any oneof them is going to get
guarantee. Like we could double down with
Iron Man to go, you know, the official recovery bar of Iron
Man and that would be a massive investment.

(59:11):
And who's to know if that would work or not?
You know, we've had success going to their races and being
at the Expo and the finish line food, but who's to say that
would get watered down if we didit on a broad scale.
So I think it's the gap would be, you know, treading carefully
and understanding where to placethe bets as opposed to placing

(59:36):
all bets because I've seen companies do that and that
that's almost as worse as you'renot having opportunity at all.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, yeah.
Well, I can imagine even if you did something like with the Iron
Man, the the ability to track when an order comes in and how
that may have been tied back to the influence of being one in
their bag or whatever. Like that would be that.
I don't even think that there's a way you could do it.

(59:59):
So that's the that's the world Icame from.
So digital, digital advertising and I can tell you there are
it's a billion dollar industry to understand multi touch
attribution and there are massive companies with
incredible resources trying to solve that problem.
For, you know, the Fortune 100 and it's still not something so

(01:00:22):
for us to think that we could solve it for little Agra.
I think we're I think we're a ways away maybe in the act that
so. You know how they have the air
tags? Imagine if you could take that
technology and squeeze it down and put it put it in the
packaging. Yeah, put it RFID and just.
Starts to get and it tags their phone whenever they're eating
that thing and then if they order within 24 to 48 hours, you

(01:00:45):
could like make a link or something like that, I don't
know you'd have. To get real, there are there are
creepier technologies that existout there that are tracking you
in ways that you like. There are apps that have
permission to branch outside their app on your phone and can
track everything your phone's doing.
And it's not like Google or Apple.
It's like, you know the flashlight app and you don't

(01:01:08):
realize because you opt in for their terms and then they can re
monetize that data and they knowif you went to Kayak and search
for what flight and then give that back to, you know, Delta
and then Delta can pitch you ads.
Yeah, as I worked in advertisingjust for a small publication for
a while, selling ads and got to hear some of these wild stories

(01:01:31):
of the things that go on, 'causeit can be quite a dirty industry
or just like creepy to the Max. So let me ask you, 'cause you
have 15 years in this, Our phones are listening to us, are
they not? I've never gotten a solid answer
from anybody at Meta or Google, so I can't speak to the sort of

(01:01:55):
like always on audio recognitionpiece, but what I can tell you
is that the GPS in your phone is100% always sending data out.
That's one of the companies I worked at.
It was a mobile location companyand all they did was just
capture every phone in America and where it went and they would
be able to take you and say, allright, I want anybody that went

(01:02:18):
to Chipotle in the last three days and I'm going to serve them
ads for most with a discount code.
And then we know that, you know,within a level of certainty they
were inside the Chipotle crazy and and like that just
extrapolate that level of accuracy and mass scale of data

(01:02:40):
and what you could do with it. Like we've had financial firms
come to our come to the company I worked at asked if we could
build them stuff. The government like it's, it's a
whole that's, that's the very, very interesting part of that
sector. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah. Wow.
Well, just a couple more questions for you if you still

(01:03:00):
have time. Yeah, yeah, go for it.
OK, cool. So the first one, so being
married for you know, going on 15 years, like you understand
the needs, the give and take of a relationship and then now
you're with Eric in a relationship.
Some save marriage partnerships are like, or excuse me, business
partnerships are like marriages.So are you figuring that out as

(01:03:24):
well? Like how's that going?
Like, are you finding it easy, hard, fun?
Oh no, it's it's ton of fun and you're spot on.
You're 100% right. It's the the two people I talk
to most on the planet right now are my wife and Eric.
And it really is, you don't, youdon't really know someone until

(01:03:45):
you either marry them or start abusiness with them.
Because then you really get to see and it goes both ways.
They get to know you. But the, you know, working with
him for a couple years on the power bar stuff, you know,
you're, it's, it's 1° removed. And then over the last years,
we've really gotten to learn andunderstand the nuances.

(01:04:06):
And what's interesting about ourrelationship is we both come
from such completely different walks of life and have such
completely different perspectives and priorities in
terms of what we think isn't notlike important for the business,
but like what we rank higher. And it's, you know, most say,

(01:04:28):
oh, man, that's a recipe for disaster.
It's actually been one of the reasons for our success because
we've mitigated a lot of our blind spots because we both look
at completely different directions, but eventually want
to achieve the same goal. So like with him, he's he's very
analytical, very cerebral, able to work through very complex

(01:04:55):
problems or projects systematically and organized.
He has a very scientific mind and his background really does
come from the, you know, education sector and the R&D
sector. You know, his day-to-day was
talking with Louise Burke, who'sthe head of sports nutrition

(01:05:18):
science and, you know, was the head of the Australian Institute
of Sport for a number of years, you know, advises and leads the
IOC nutrition panel for the Olympic Committee, like top,
top. And like those are the, that's
the company that he would keep. Whereas, you know, for me coming

(01:05:38):
from the marketing side, it's very consumer centric.
It's very like all that sounds great, but what do people need
to hear? What do they want to hear and
and what's going to make sense to them?
And between the two of us, what we get is a lot of depth from
Eric and a lot of sharpening forme.
And when we combine, it ends up being, you know, very

(01:06:00):
thoughtful, but grounded in a lot of rich information.
Whereas, you know, a lot of other.
If you, if it was just me, I don't know that it would be
successful because we wouldn't be able, it would be very
shallow sales pitch. Whereas if it was just Eric, it
may not land because, you know, we may be talking a different

(01:06:22):
language and what the customer wants to hear.
Yeah, yeah. It's good to have those
opposites. Yeah.
And we also learned what's what excites him and what excites me
are very different. Our, our meetings are really
funny. I'm like, yeah, I was like, oh
man, we, we just got this opportunity to, you know, go to,
to this race and do this and do that.
He's like, oh, cool. He's like, I just spoke to this
scientist. I was like, oh cool.

(01:06:46):
Yeah, and that's. Important, but like what gets
him out of bed and what gets me out of bed are very different.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You guys should like do a little
podcast recording of your annualmeetings and then publish it
out. There.
I don't know, it'd be pretty boring.
Inside of Azure didn't. Want to hear that?
Yeah, that's funny. So let me just ask you this, I

(01:07:06):
guess kind of final question. Going back earlier, you know, we
talked about a very vulnerable part of your life and period
when you were having trouble even getting up out of bed.
And you've come around full circle to that.
Now, if there's one thing I know, it's this life as a
constant revisiting of these circles of life, you know, the

(01:07:27):
ups and downs. And that's the, there's a lot of
beauty in that because once you go through that cycle a few
times, you realize that it only lasts for so long.
So for somebody who is maybe in the in the low point of that
cycle right now and trying to figure out and find a way out,
what kind of advice would you give to them?
There's a lot and it's hard to say like this is the one thing,

(01:07:53):
but the first kind of a framework to at least start to
look at the problem was the concept of reframing.
Because you know, when you, whenyou're in that state and you're
looking at whatever the scenariois of, you know, my job's the

(01:08:14):
problem or my this or my that, you're taking one perspective
that's been fueled by everythingyou've experienced up to that
date. And there was this kind of this
lesson I read in one of the books I was going through where
it's called turning your FS intoA's.
So fear, frustration, failure, like those are all very

(01:08:38):
emotional statements, emotional words.
So you looking at a situation and say, all right, what am I
scared of? What is it about it that's
frustrating me? And what is what is cataclysmic
failure actually look like? And then turn it into your A's,
which now I'm forgetting what the A's were, but it was

(01:09:00):
basically defining out the problem in its most negative
state. And then turning those, like,
how can we then look at this in a different way where we're
aware of the risk, but we see the opportunity we have.
Oh, there it is awareness, action and accountability or

(01:09:21):
acceptance or something like that.
But how can we then turn that into actionable steps we can
take to either address or mitigate and then accept that
we've now put this under our ownpower and we're not under the
power of the problem. And just starting to think about

(01:09:41):
that sort of framework helped a ton.
Because even if it's something simple as you know, changing
that perspective to I think I want to get better or I think I
want to just think differently about it.
That in itself is a is a reframing and that can be the

(01:10:02):
turning point, right? That can be the thing that all
of a sudden it's like, all right, now what could we do?
As opposed to everything is shit.
Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. So fear failure and frustrations
and then turn that into awareness, action steps and
acceptance. Is that right?
Since yeah, I. Have to put that in the show

(01:10:23):
notes. That's that's of the of all of
the different practical advice pieces I've asked, that's one
that I think stuck with me the most.
So. That's there you go and you can
use it, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just about taking the taking, almost if you could take
yourself out of your own situation, you just look at it
from another angle of like, all right, someone forced me to find

(01:10:44):
the silver lining, what would itbe?
And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, OK, well maybe there
is something. So I get it.
It's not a silver bullet. It's not be all and all.
There's different situations in life.
I get that. But I think that's at least
somewhat universal where it could at least help somebody
start to move in the right direction.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So then final question, what

(01:11:07):
does success look like for you in your life?
Oh, man, that things continue tobe this big slice of progression
pie every single day going forward.
And I get, I get a lot of Flack for this statement where someone

(01:11:28):
says if you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you do?
I would say I don't want to win the lottery because the
progression or the, you know, trajectory and the, and the way
that the life is going right now, like I worked really hard
to get to this state and this state, by the way, like it's not

(01:11:49):
enviable in all aspects. Like we're running a startup.
So financially it's not very good for now, hopefully, but but
in terms of just the return of life experience, like I would
take this any day of the week. So as long as to me, success is

(01:12:11):
I continue to love and enjoy every step from a from a
entrepreneurial perspective, progress as an athlete, progress
as a, as a father, as a family member.
And, you know, if we can continue to live this life and
things continue to get better, like that's, that is success.

(01:12:34):
Sure, I'd love to build Azure upand sell it for what did RX bar
sell for 600 million? Sure that that would be cool.
But but you know, we don't that's not a requirement for
success. We'll continue to build this
build a successful company that has, you know, a bright future.
That's that's success. That doesn't need this massive

(01:12:56):
exit. Though.
If there's any prospective investors out there, I'll have a
different answer for you. Don't worry.
Well, very eloquent put, Matt. Thank you so much for diving in
with me and sharing from a vulnerable place on a number of
different fronts and telling thestory of Adra.
Wish you all the best. I'll make sure to link in the
show notes that survey. So be, Yeah.

(01:13:16):
Yeah, yeah. Try to get them, get the try the
bars. I will definitely trying and you
even got me in the upsell. I quick clicked it real quick
because I got four more bars for$9 or something like that.
There you go. One click upsell.
That's right, Yeah. I gotta love shop fire or
whatever it is you're using. Awesome, Great to meet you.
I really appreciate you having me on.

(01:13:37):
Like I said, listening to a lot of the episodes.
I mean, you've had some, some hitters on here and I was, you
know, super honored and and you know, feel super grateful to be
included in that, in that in that company.
Yeah, awesome. Thanks man.
Thank you so much to Matt for coming on, for being vulnerable
and sharing your story. I really appreciated him.

(01:13:59):
Really appreciated you Matt, forbeing on the podcast.
Make sure to check out the show note links for the survey that
you can take on their website for Agile Labs to figure out
what kind of protein needs your body has.
And yeah, I'm getting some in the mail.
Looking forward to trying them along with you guys.
Also check out the show note description for any other links

(01:14:19):
to the newsletter to checking out the sway socks.
Excuse me, not sway. That's my old business.
The stupid question socks keep doing that.
Yeah. Thank you guys so much for being
here. If you're watching on YouTube,
please like, comment, subscribe.If you are listening on
podcasts, platforms such as Spotify or Apple Podcasts, if
you could like, comment, subscribe, follow, do anything

(01:14:41):
on those platforms continues to help grow the pod.
Yep. Thank you guys so much for being
here. Really appreciate it and we'll
catch you in the next one. Peace.

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#158 - Matt Schuster, Co-Founder of ADDRA LABS

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#158 - Matt Schuster, Co-Founder of ADDRA LABS