Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 177. Aly Orady, CEO & Founder Of Tonal

Transcript

177. Aly Orady, CEO & Founder Of Tonal · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If knowledge is a brick wall, you're building a wall
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: where you have to be perfectly comfortable that there are
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: bricks missing all over the place and you're just going
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: to come in and fill them in later. And so
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: this idea of like you have this big, daunting task,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: but you're like, I'll just chip away at it. That's
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: just the way I've kind of been trained my whole life,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and the idea of business never never scared me, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: so I think I was just wired for it.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Hey, Hurdler's Emily Abadi here coming to you from the
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: AG studio. You are listening to episode one seventy seven
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast where I connect with
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: everyone from your favorite athletes to top experts and industry
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: CEOs about their highest highs, toughest moments, and everything in between.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: We all go through hurdles in life, and my goal
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: through these discussions is to empower you to better navigate
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: yours and move with intention so that you can stride
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: towards your own big potential and of course have some
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: fun along the way. Today I am talking with Ali Already.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: He is the CEO and founder of Tonal to say
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: that this.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Man is brilliant.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: It kind of feels like a little bit of an understatement.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I mean a Lee graduated high school at fifteen, college
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: at nineteen, and then started working at a series of
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: tech companies, including Hewlett Packard and computer startup Panelogic, and
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: at this time physical fitness was the last thing on
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: his priority list. On the morning after Christmas in twenty thirteen,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: it hit him like a ton of bricks. I need
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: to make a change. I need to get healthier. And
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: so in today's episode, he details that hurdle moment which
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: led him to losing seventy pounds and creating Tonal.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Of course, we get.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Into all of the Tonal specifics today, from what it is,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: how it's evolved, and how it works. Plus we talk
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: about what's to come for the company in the future.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Tonal recently announced that they would be debuting live classes
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: in the coming months. Let me tell you the day
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: before Alee and I sat down to record this IRL
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: in the studio, which was a joy. I stopped into
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: their new showroom on Fifth Avenue here in New York and.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I was absolutely blown away.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: My dad recently got Tonal himself. I am so amped
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: to get in on this and basically, long story.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Short, I am the team Tonal.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Before we get to it, I do want to give
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: some love to those of you that have already signed
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: up for the Hurdle membership.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: I am so stoked on it.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: And programming is kicking off October first. To get in
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: to learn more about what the membership has to offer you,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: including exclusive member forums, member events, unreleased episodes of the show,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: journal prompts, and so much more. Text the word membership
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: to seven three to Hurdler. Again, that is, text the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: word membership to seven three two Hurdler to hear more
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: about all of the goodies that you can get if
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: you get in on the Hurdle membership today.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Other than that, make sure you're following along with Hurdle
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: over on socials. It's at Hurdle Podcast.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I am over at Emily a baddie And with that,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: let's get to hurdling.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Today.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with Ali Alradi. He is the founder
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: of Tonal. Welcome to the Hurdle Studio. So excited to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: have you.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Here, Thanks for having me and in person.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: In person, I feel like a part of my soul
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  Speaker 2: ignites with excitement at this opportunity to look at you.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Irl while we record.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I love it. I love it too.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So, like I said, founder of Tonal, before we get
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: into your backstory, which we have a lot of things
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: in common to rap about, why don't you give the
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: hurdler some insight into what Tonal is well.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Tonal has been described as the world's smartest home gym,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: and those aren't our words. That's what Men's Health magazine
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: said about us. We've won tons and tons of product awards,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: but basically what it is is it's a digital weight
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  Speaker 1: machine for your home, like one machine that replaces every
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: machine in the gym, and a personal trainer built in,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: so we use AI and personalization and coaches on screen
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  Speaker 1: to guide you through strength training workouts in a compact
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  Speaker 1: digital weight machine that can do everybody group everything from
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: like legs the upper body to back to core. And
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  Speaker 1: it's just like having a personal trainer and an entire
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  Speaker 1: weight room. But in something about the size of a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: TV with a cable system built into it.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I love that you said something about the size of
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  Speaker 2: a TV, because I wouldn't think to compare the Tonal
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: size to the TV because it is quite slender. But
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  Speaker 2: the exception would be obviously when you adjust and move
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: around the weights, the machine itself could take up a
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: little bit more spacer.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: You would need a little bit more space to use it.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when it's folded up, it looks about the size
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: of a forty two inch TV like mounted sideways side.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: But then when you're ready to work out, these like
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: arms pop out with cables that produce up to two
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  Speaker 1: hundred pounds of digital resistance. And as long as you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: have a little bit of floor space in front of
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the tunnel to work out, you can you can do
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: like almost two hundred different moves on the tunnel and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: coaches who guide you through it, and it will kick
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: your butt. Professional athletes who use Toneal to train I.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: Love to hear it.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: The thing that is so different about Tonal, what you
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: touched on, is the fact that there's weight within the machine.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, over the last you know, sixteen eighteen, twenty
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: months now, in this pandemic, we have all been forced,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: so to speak, to take our fitness inside. And what
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Tonal offers that a lot of alternatives do not is
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: the fact that it's both training and a product to
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: actually use.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's the coaching, and I mean
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  Speaker 1: one thing, one really important thing to realize about the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: way we did this relative to everyone else in the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: connective fitness sector is everyone else kind of went into
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it trying to bring some sort of a group fitness
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: experience into the home, and that was never our goal.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Our goal was to try and replicate it personal trainer,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and so what we do is very very personalized. So
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  Speaker 1: you're running through a strength training routine, but the pacing
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: adapts to you. In fact, our videos aren't pre edited
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: like the videos with our coaches, they're not pre edited.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: They're actually being edited for you as you work out.
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  Speaker 1: The pacing is adapting to you. You're getting personalized instruction.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: We're choosing how much weight you should do for every exercise,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: We're deciding when that weight should go up or down.
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  Speaker 1: And so it's it's much different than I think what
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are used to when they think
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: of like, oh, I'm going to do an exercise routine
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: off of YouTube or off one of these mobile apps,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: or this is you know, it's just another level.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I stopped by the new showroom yesterday on
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Fifth Avenue to check out the machine, and what I
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: found to be so interesting about this is what you're
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: touching on here, the adjustments that it made for me.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Like I think the original test that I did the
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Tonal was like a ten rep of a bicep curl,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: and it like counted my reps as I went, and
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: it adjusted the weight to like match what my struggle
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: was at the moment. And that's just not something you
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  Speaker 2: get when you're standing in the middle of a gym
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  Speaker 2: by yourself trying to lift a couple of dumbells.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was I mean, what you're really hitting
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: on was was the core the core invention of this
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  Speaker 1: digital weight just digital resistance engine that we created. So
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  Speaker 1: you know, normally when you're lifting weights, you know you're
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: fighting gravity, and Tonal doesn't run on gravity. It runs
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  Speaker 1: on electricity and that resistance that you feel. It's responsive,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's dynamic, it's intelligent. So it's the first time
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  Speaker 1: you had any sort of a weight machine that was
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  Speaker 1: digital that can like literally measure what you were doing.
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  Speaker 1: Up until this point, most of the data we have
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  Speaker 1: on strength training was collected using clipboards, and that's the
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  Speaker 1: first time you can really measure it with this like
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  Speaker 1: level of fidelity and you know how someone is doing
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: through the range of motion, give them feedback on their forum,
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  Speaker 1: decide if they're struggling too much, spot them in real time,
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  Speaker 1: and that resistance is responsive you. So we literally like
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: everything you do on Tonal other like you start out
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: with the strength test and we know how strong you are.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: But from that point forward, everything you do is a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: little mini test. Yeah, and we're financed, Like, you know,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: is only getting stronger? Did she not sleep enough yesterday?
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And Jeanie's a little bit extra help today with the
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  Speaker 1: spot or all of this stuff. It's responding to you
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: just like a personal trainer would, and it drives real results.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure if I used to Tonal today, it
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: would tell me or it would sense the three old
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: fashions that I decided that I decided to drink last night.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: My woop recovery score wasn't exactly pleased with me today.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: But what I'm really excited to talk to you about today,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: aside from you know, the innovation that's coming with Tonal,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: is to get to know a little bit more about you.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: You and I have something in common that we both
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: went through a dramatic weight loss period. But talk to
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: me about where your story really originated and when you
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: decided that you needed to make a change in your life.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Well, i'd I'd say the story originated right after I
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: graduated college and went into the technology sector. So and
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: by the way, like I was a techie my entire life.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I was like the seven. I was a chubby, seven
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: year old kid with glasses, a good coat, like that stereotype,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: whatever stereotype you're thinking of, that was literally literally me.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: You know, it was very very academic. I graduated from
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  Speaker 1: high school when I was fifteen, college when I was nineteen.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I moved to Silicon Valley start my career in supercomputing,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: designing supercomputers and telecom gear like what's called big heavy
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: iron in the sector, basically things you move around with forkliffs.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Before total I never designed anything I could lift myself,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: or anything that ran on just one power cord like
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: that was like typical. And so you know, I'm doing
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: that for like fifteen years, and at some point I
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: wake up and like my health is a total disaster.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I have Type two diabetes, I have sleep apnea, I'm overweight,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and I kind of had this like moment where I
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: woke up one morning and I'm just like, this is
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: headed to a point of no return and if I
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: don't do something about it, I'm never going to fix it.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: And I also realized that I'm successful. I've always been
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: successful at my full time job, whatever that means, and
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: so I'm just going to make this my full time job.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: And I quit my job and I focused on my
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: health and lost seventy pounds and nine months, and that
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that ultimately led me to Tonal, which is like a
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: passion project for me to be able to like do
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: technology and fitness and strength training all at the same
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: time and change people's lives. It's just it's been, it's
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: been amazing.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: So many things to double click on.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: The first thing that we definitely need to double click
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: on is you being a child prodigy, which is just
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: insane in that experience for you, What was it like
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: to be younger than most of your peers as you
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: were kind of walking around and going through your education process.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I've never talked about this, honestly, it was a little bit.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: It was a little bit scary. Yeah, I mean I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: think in high school that really like I didn't really
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: care much because I never really fit in anyways. And
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: so like it was like whatever. But I think by
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the time I got to college, I literally just kept
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the fact that I was younger or secret. I just
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: didn't tell anyone For four years, I just didn't tell
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: anyone how old I was.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: You had to look younger than everybody else.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that was me being naive. So I
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: literally I remember I remember, like, you know, sitting down
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: with my best friend, like maybe in like our senior
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: year we're about to graduate, and I'm like, dude, you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: don't know this about me, but like I'm like way
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: younger than you. Uh, And He's like, Alli, we kind
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of figured because you like grew two inches over the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: summer after your freshman year. And I'm like, but they
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: never said anything. And it's like it was it was uncomfortable.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I thought, like I thought for all sorts of reasons,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I figured that that they would they wouldn't love it.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: But it turned out not to matter. And it's just
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: not mattered my whole life. Like I got to I
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: got to heal Att Packard, my first job out of college,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you know, supercomputing lab, and like I'm nineteen years old
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and like I'm like the interns around me are drinking
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, not legal drinking age yet.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Oh wait, not that I was going to call you
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: out for your social situation in college, but like what
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: were you doing when all of your.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Friends were like, let's go to the bar and you
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: were like, I'm going to study.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Uh, I'm just like I don't drink.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, fair, fair, Okay, okay, since that makes sense. Wow, okay,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: So then you get to all these big jobs. It's
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: so did you think when you were growing up, did
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: you know that you wanted to have these types of
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: roles when you were going through college and everything.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I always like, I've always loved technology and computing,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: and like the idea of being in a supercomputing lab
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: was like a dream job for me. Like imagine, like
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you're nineteen years old, You're standing in like the premier
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: supercomputing lab in the world, Like these are like these
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: are the types of supercomputers who like stealth to the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: irs kind of a deal. Like these are big, massive systems,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: like the size of like eight refrigerators strung together with cables.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Like I think that one had like sixteen or twenty
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: four power cords. I don't remember, but like just massive,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: massive computers. That's like a dream job standing on a
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know, a quarter million dollar lab full of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: all of this equipment. And if at that moment in
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: time you're like, hey, Ali, one day you're going to
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: be the CEO of the fastest growing fitness company in
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the world, I probably would have fallen out of my
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: chair laughing.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: But ah, here we are, here, we are, here, we are.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: And then I mean, obviously you totally glazed over the
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: weight loss situation because as someone who also lost seventy
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: pounds in college myself, I know that it's not something
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: that happens overnight. And so the next natural question is
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: how did that play out for you?
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Where did it start? What changed?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think there's there's the losing seventy
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: pounds and nine months apart. But I think it's also
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: important to realize that for like, if you've been over
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: if like when I was overweight, and I'm sure everyone
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: who's you struggle this your whole life, Like this wasn't
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the first attempt to lose to lose weight, and I
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: kind of had tried things along the way and I
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: had like little little successes. And then of course, like
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of the yoyoing and the bouncing back.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And so for me, the first thing was realized, I
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: already knew some things that weren't going to work, and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: already knew some things that were going to work a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: little bit, but trying to, you know, but making it
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: my full time job and basically saying like, I'm going
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to just be super super dedicated, super committed, super consistent.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And that's that's what really I think unlocked it for
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: me In the beginning.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Was there a certain hurdle moment or tipping point that
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: you were just like, I can't be like this anymore.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I still I still remember the moment. It was.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I woke up the morning after Christmas and I don't
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: know why, but I was just laying in bed and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I'd built a startup and sold it the Samsung, and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I'd just goten off of your really really heavy travel.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I think like it's always around that part part of
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: like part of the year that you're reflecting on the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: year ahead and the idea of like spending one week
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: in Korea every single month for another year, and just
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: what that was doing to my health and my body
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and just the way I was feeling. I'm just like
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore. And then I also realized, like, yeah,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I've struggled a lot with my weight, but full time jobs,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I've succeeded at part time jobs not so much. So
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna make.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: It my full time job interesting.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: And you had the means to do this because you
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: had saved up a lot of money from selling this company,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: and you knew that you could comfortably take off this
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: amount of time to give back to yourself so that
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: you could then give back to your career and get
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: back involved.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And at the time, I was also single, and I
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: didn't have children, and like, I think a lot of
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of the things in life that like keep people,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: you know, super tied to their jobs and their income streams.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Like you know, at that point I was, I was single,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't have very many responsibilities. I could pair it
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: down my costs, like it wasn't it wasn't a big deal.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Right today I have, you know, I have, you know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a kid and another one on the way, and like kids
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: cost money, and like can I quit my job? Probably not,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Probably shouldn't be responsible. So so I think, like there's
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that phase of phase of life thing. But when I
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: when I did it. I also I also just like
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: set up pertain like I made like I'm going to
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: eat healthy. I like made a list of ingredients. I
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: made it a challenge for myself to like only eat
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: these things, but like use my creativity to do whatever
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: whatever I would love. So I focused on what I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: would eat, and then I focus on basically being active
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: twice a day.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: So wait, what talk to us about the foods?
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: So basically really really light on meat, medium on like
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: things like fish. I love yogurt, I love eggs. Those
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: are those are things that have true recently worked for
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: me yoga at the probiotics eggs, Like eggs are like
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: a miracle, right, and like to think about this, an
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: entire chicken comes out of an egg. The egg literally
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: has all the ingredients of life, like it has to.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: An entire chicken comes out of it. So I'm like, okay,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I love eggs. I love you know, so like I had,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I had, you know, generally speaking, like I basically said,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna avoid all refined foods. So I'm gonna avoid sugar,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna avoid flour. I couldn't say I'm never eating
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: sugar a flour because the second, I say never. Then
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: like two weeks later you've fallen off the wagon, but
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: you say, I'm just gonna avoid them, and you know
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that you always have the option of doing it, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: for some reason, you can go twelve months without touching
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: sugar flowers. Like so a lot of those understanding my
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: psychology and like and figuring this out. And then there
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: was the whole fitness piece right about that I would
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: go to the gym and I would, like in the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: early days, I'd hop on an ellipsical or a bike
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: or I would just try to do something like twice
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a day, usually once at the gym, usually once outside
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the gym. And that worked for like three weeks, and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: then I plaateaued and this is like the really frustrating
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: thing for people on this journey. And I plaateaued and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I remember I remember being like I think it was
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: on a bikero and elyptical or something, but being in
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the cardio section, I was looking over and like all
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the personal trainers are over in the weight room, and
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I'm like, why are all the experts over there? And
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: why am I over here? Like that was like the
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: first like you know, moment of like, Okay, there's something
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: wrong here. And strength training is hard, Like it's intimidated.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: The first time you walk into a weight room, you
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: don't really know what you're doing. Like maybe you've been
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: in there to do the obligatory bicep curl or bench
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: press from time to time, but you don't really know
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: what you're doing. There's all these big dudes around you,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you know, And and you got to you got to
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: figure it out on your own. And and I and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I had to as I like, I did a lot
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: of reading, I watched a lot of YouTube, and I
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: like figured out how strength trained. But it wasn't it
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: wasn't exactly obvious. Uh, and it took many, many months,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: but I eventually like figured out how to do it
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and lost weight and stuck with it, and you became
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: like the pillar of my routine. And so I think
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of like strength training as the main thing that I
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: do and then everything else supports it. So interesting exactly
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: how personal trainers train people. Yeah, right, and that's the
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: beauty of it. But for the average person who doesn't
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: know that or doesn't know what to do in there,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: it's just intimidating, and they don't do it.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: At the time, did you think about hiring a coach?
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Well, remember that whole thing about being unemployed.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah, I mean I'm thinking about this.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: That question isn't did you have the me insire coach?
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Was?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: But did you get to a point in all of
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: your research and everything where you just started to feel
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: really frustrated about trying to navigate this space alone?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: No, I think I'm I'm an engineer, and I think
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I love learning how things work. Yeah, And so for me,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: it was actually like it wasn't the learning process wasn't frustrating. Love.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I love learning. It's probably my greatest strength is my
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: ability to learn independently and unstructured environments. It's how I
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: graduated at age fifteen in high school. I was actually
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: homeschooled for a few years. I've done like public schools,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: private schools, homeschooling, and so, like, I'm a really flexible
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: learner and I just genuinely enjoy learning. And so for me,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: like it was almost like I got drawn in and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: just like started geeking out. And I'm reading about like
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: muscle fibers and eccentric overload and like on all these things,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and the more I'm learning about it, the more I'm
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: realizing how like, well, there's all the science that says
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you can do all these things, but then you go
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: into a weight room and you just have dumb ways
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: so can't do the things that like the research says.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And so by the time I started tonal, I basically
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: knew like how much opportunity was missing already, and I
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: got to That's one of the things that got me
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: real excited about total. It's like, we get to close
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the gap. But people who exercise on tonal, they get
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: twenty five percent stronger in the first ninety days. Right
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: we're running some research studies right now. We're like the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: data isn't out right now, but we actually can show
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that people who work out on tonal gain muscle faster
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: than people who work out the traditional way. Why making
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: better decisions, doing more advanced things based on actual science
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and research? And you know, and that's like who has time?
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Why waste time? Why waste the minute in the gym?
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Why waste a rep.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, why waste to wrap such a profound question.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I Mean, the thing that's interesting here is I would
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: take a step back and ask myse self and again,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: like we're talking about means right, So someone could buy
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: a tonal, or you could decide like, okay, I am
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: going to work with this one specific trainer. But if
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: you're going to pay one hundred and fifty two hundred
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: dollars a session with this one trainer, the question is
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: are you going to want to meet with them as
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: regularly as you would be using a tonal that's already
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: in your living room.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Does the per session cost created this incentive to working
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: out more? That's one question. The other question is like
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: is it is it actually affordable? Like I did the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: math once, and if we took every personal trainer in
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the country and said you're working full time, we'd have
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: enough capacity to train zero point three percent of the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: US population. Whoa and so so there aren't very So
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: you start with something that's already not accessible. You ask
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: people today like do you want to strength Do you
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: think strength training is important? Yes? Do you want a
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: personal trainer? I mean in theorious, but they're expensive, it's inconvenient,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: it's intimidating, Like surprising how people are too intimidated to
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: get a personal trainer, and like we solve all those
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: problems and you know, it's a fixed monthly you know
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: what the monthly cost is. You know, for our firm
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: financing program, it's sixty three dollars a month for the hardware,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: forty nine dollars a month for the membership, which you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: add those up and it's kind of like the cost
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: of a gym membership for your entire family or one
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: personal training session and you and your family can work
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: up it's unlimited, right, and all of that. I think
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: it just like it's about getting people to build those
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: habits and see those results and get that like that
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: habit flywheel spinning, and and the more friction you add,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: whether it's finding a personal train or having to pay
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: per session, having to like if it's a good personal trainer,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: they want to meet you at three pm in the
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: middle of the day, and like, I have a job, right,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And and the more you can make it easier, the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: more people succeed.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Definitely, I want to rewind again for just a minute
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: to talk about that waste, that weight loss phase of
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: your life. Something that I struggled with in the years
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: after losing weight was seeing myself as the new version
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: of myself so to speak, like the emotional progression that
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: had to happen and I would definitely say that took
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: much longer than the physical progression, And to this day,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I'm still struggling with some of the issues that I
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: have outstanding from when I was overweight. But I'm curious
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: to know a little bit about your experience and that
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: and how you felt like you also worked maybe on
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: the inside to match what was happening on the outside.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So do you ever have you ever done visualization? Like yeah, yeah,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: So for me, like the first ten minutes of your
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: day are by far the most the most valuable. And
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: one of the things that eventually dawned on me was
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: like when you're working, when you're kind of like in
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the rat race, you give your best hours to work.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: You get up, you rush to work, you're like fighting
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: through traffic. You rush to work, and by the time
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: you like get home and you're beginning to think about
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: anything about yourself, whether it's your health or what you're
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: going to eat or like, you're already tired, your decision fatigued,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: you're exhausted, and you're almost ready to go to bed.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: And if you wake up in those first ten minutes
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: are where you're going to you know you're gonna meditate
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be thoughtful, You're going to visualize. It basically
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: sets up the rest of the day, of the rest
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of your week. And for me, like that mental self
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: image of like what I look like, I literally had
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to like reprogram the way I saw my own reflection
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: in the nerd, right, And it was an intentional thing, right,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and I had to do it. I mean I've done
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it for weight loss. I've also done it as as
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: a leader, Like I have to walk into a business
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: and like lead four hundred people, right And I started
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: out as like this child nerd who like you know,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: high school, Like this guy's a total nerd. I can't
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: be seen anywhere around him until like leading four hundred
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: people right now on a company that's like doubling year,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be like eight hundred and like another ten months.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And yeah, its it takes that practice of being of
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: seeing yourself that way.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Wow, what a powerful visualization.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Literally, I mean I think of how it's got to
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: feel for you to stand up in front of all
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: of these people, and at first you're literally feeling like
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: the kid that's like walking onto college campus and being like, yes,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I'm actually eighteen. But in theory I am. I am
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: not at all, And that's like, you know, we all
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: struggle with that. I think it's that classic imposter syndrome moment.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: It's like should I be here? What's going on? But
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: the reality is like in this moment now leaving this company,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: obviously you've worked your butt off to be where you are,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: and just like with the weight loss, it's like you
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: worked really hard putting in all those hours in the
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: gym and making smart diet decisions that now are back
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: then anyway, you owed it to yourself, and I felt
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: like I have owed it to myself to like get
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: the rest of me to catch up to all of
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: that hard work.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's worked every day or just working on your yourself,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: working on your psychology. At the executive level, I'm like,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: i'man an executive coaching program for CEOs and I have
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a one on one executive coach who I work with,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and I think in real life, like ideally, yeah, if
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: everyone could have a personal trainer for everyone have a coach,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: it'd be incredible. Just turns out that's not scalable, it's
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: not practical, it's not pragmatic. And so when we a
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: tonal set off to build a personal trainer for the home. Like,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that's why we did it, because we knew that this
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: was this could be potentially be unlocked.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: So you you start working out twice a day, you
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: make really smart eating decisions over nine months, which is
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: so impressive. And I think, again, we need to make
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: note that you decide to make this like your full
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: time thing. So for someone else, this might not be
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: something that's in your wheelhouse, and that's totally okay. I
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: would also make sure that we advise anyone who's interested
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: in losing weight on their own, they definitely seek out
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: council from a registered dietitian or perhaps your physician to
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: get a program or a concepted plan that works best
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: for you. Now that all those things are kind of
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: in the air here for you, that was a nine
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: month period, and then when in that period do you
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: start to really.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Think about what will become tonal?
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So I started out doing a pretty broad set of activities, right,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and I just like, I just need to do something
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: active twice a day. To start out on a bike
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: or an elliptical, and then in the afternoon I'd pick
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: up Big Hill in San Francisco and walk up it, right,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and As I progressed, my routine became more and more
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: structured and more and more centered around around strength training.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: So towards the end of this period, now now I'm
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: in a period where like strength training is the majority
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of what I'm doing because I recognize the benefits of
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: strength training. You're building muscle, it's raising your basilin metabolic ray.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, the more you work out, the more
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: muscle you have, the more your BMR goes up, as
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: opposed to working at doing a lot of cardio under
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Clark constriction actually losing muscle and having lowering your BMR rights.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: It's so it's becoming this this core pillar of mine,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and I'm actually starting to think about, well, I can't
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: like be on this like hiatus of like fitness is
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: my full time job forever, Like at some point I
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: got to go back into the workforce, and I'm going
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to have a family at some point, like I do now,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a fan. Like I can't do all
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: that and keep coming to the gym every morning at
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: five or six am, Like that's just not not a
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: practical way to live your life. And and I could
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: almost like have this fear of like everything just sliding
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: back to where I was. Yeah. And so one morning,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting on a bench of the gym sharing this
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: giant strength training machine. It's big cable crossover, and I'm
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: thinking to myself, if I could just fit this in
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: my one betterm apartment in San Francisco, I could just
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: work out every day in the morning for like, literally
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: thirty minute routine is almost all you need. Is I
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: can just like do a thirty minute routine every single
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: morning and then hop in the shower and head to work,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Like that would be amazing. And I realized in that
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: moment the reason this machine was so big and I
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: was never able to fit into my apartment is because
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it runs on these big metal plates and gravity and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: takes up all the space and it's loud and it's clanky.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: And if I could just generate force a different way,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: and I thought about it, and I'm like, electricity, Like
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: we propel cars and trains with electricity, Like it's a
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: powerful force. If I could generate force of electricity, I
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: could shrink this thing down and get it into my
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: one better apartment. And once it's running on electricity and
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: it's kind of by definition computerized and you can make
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: it smart and responsive and you actually have data. And
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: going back to all that research I'd been reading about
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: for like the last many months, and I, oh, wow,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: you could do eccentric overlall. You could build a spot
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: R into this. You could like make better decisions, you
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: could and it just like I can almost see all
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: the dominoes in my head falling in terms of like
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: what this could be. And I was so excited. I
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: went home and ordered parts and just started building prototypes
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: like literally strapped to my kitchen counter, Oh my god,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and off to the races.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Literally, Like there are just so few humans in the
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: world that operate the way that you operate. Just it's
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: it's really special because someone or many would have an
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: idea like that without even like anywhere near the kind
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: of knowledge that you had to actually execute on this.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: But I think so many of us we have these.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Big ideas and we get intimidated or scared or we
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: think like but like that's just kind of silly, or
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: don't know how to kind of get out of our
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: own way, right, So what do you think or where
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: do you think that you learned how to get out
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: of your own way? Where do you think that initiative
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: came from. Was that self taught or was that something
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: that you were shown over time as you were growing up?
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it was. It was partially the way
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I was raised. So my parents always had businesses. Like
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: my dad was a professor at University of Michigan. My
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: mom had a PhD. She like invented color radar and
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: like some of the fundamental equations behind like global positioning,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: so like like they're really so they're like they're like
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: really really and so it's really smart. And they always
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: had like side business. I've been around business like my
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: entire life, like never anything the size of tonal, Like
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: always like businesses that you could squarely say were like
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: side hustles. My parents were selling PCs out of their basement,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: so like their chief technician. Like they'd tell a PC
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and I'd have to like assemble it right. Don't tell
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: people about the child labor.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: I was like ten.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: A time when I was thirteen, we had sold a
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: PC to a local bookstore and they wanted an inventory
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: management system for the books, and I, like, I volunteered
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: to write it for them. So I wrote them an
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: inventory management system, and I learned a lot about products,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: because I remember like we like I went and installed
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: this thing and I was all proud, and next day
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: called me up and they're like, hey, Ali, how'd you
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: do a book return? And I'm like, you never said
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: anything about returns, and like, what do you mean you
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: can't do returns? And so like, yeah, you learn, So
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you make mistakes and you learn along the way. And
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: then and then I'm homeschooled, and like when you're homeschooled,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: like my mom hands me a Calculus textbook and you know,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: and you just kind of got to figure out on
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: your own and maybe once in a while you can
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: ask a question, but you learn to like if knowledge
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: is a brick wall, you're building a wall where you
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: have to be perfectly comfortable that there are bricks missing
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: all over the place and you're just going to come
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: in and fill them in later. And so this idea
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of like you have this big, daunting task, but you're like,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I'll just chip away at it. That's just the way
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I've kind of been trained my whole life, and the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: idea of business never never scared me, and so I
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: think I was just like wired for it.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, it sounds like you were definitely wired for it.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: I also would love if you have any advice for
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: individuals who have problems getting out of their own way.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: For someone who maybe is thinking about the next big thing,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: or they maybe just on a day to day level,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: have some trouble executing, so to speak, what do you
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: tell them?
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I think it really differs from person to person, but
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I think one example I can think of is I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: remember I had someone who is a senior in college
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: come to me and wants to ask me a question like, helly,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: how did you get over the risk of, you know,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: starting a company? And I looked at them and I'm like, like, look,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you're you're pretty blessed. Like you you have a college
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: degree from a good school. You have like no cost structure, right,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Like what are you scared of? Like what's going to happen?
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Like you're probably not going to end up homeless, You're
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: not going to die, Like what's the worst thing that
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: could actually happen to you? And I think when you
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: face that fear of like what could go wrong here
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and realize that, like the worst case scenario actually isn't
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: that bad, and then you start thinking about, well, the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: best case scenario looks like and how amazing that could be.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Then you're like, I'd be crazy not to do this, right,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And I've had this conversation with like entrepreneurs or like
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: trying to make the decision to take the leap. I've
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: had this conversation with executives where like they're like this
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: really comfortable, high paying job, and you're talking to them
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: about like, hey, you want to come to a company
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: that we're going to have to work you're bought off.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: It's way faster, it's not going to be as comfortable,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: but you get to change the world and you're probably
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: going to make a bunch of bunch of money along
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: the way too. And convincing them to take that leap,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and it's the old like Steve Jobs sugar water speech.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you know what I'm talking about,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it's that speech right for a lot of people.
• 32:20
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  Speaker 2: and get your free sample path today. I literally was
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  Speaker 2: just having a conversation with a friend yesterday who said,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm ready for ex opportunity, and
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: I said, are you ever ready? Are you ever truly
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: ready to make a massive change. Sometimes you may feel
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: as though you need a change, but I don't necessarily
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: think that means that this individual is ready to one
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: hundred percent dive in face first.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: You're you're never ready. You're never ready to have kids.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: You're never ready. I mean I still remember, like we
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: were like on our way to the hospital and like,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm I was like, I don't think we're ready.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, no one's ever ready.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: It's a little late for that, but I know exactly.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Except but that's the point. You're like, for all the
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: big things we do in our lives, we're never ready.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: And you know what, you just figured it out along
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the way.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: You figured it out along the way.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Like that's a human condition.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it is the human condition.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: And then the next step to kind of understanding that
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: human condition is understanding that these hurdles or quote unquote,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: as some may perceive them, failures, they have opportunities to
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: teach us something. So rather than getting down on yourself,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, no one works really hard for something not
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: to go as they had hoped or as they planned.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: But rather than getting down in yourself off, taking a
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: second to step back experience those emotions.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: And then do something with that.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Learning is what makes you be able to show up
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: to the next hurdle and actually get over it with
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: some more confidence.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: You know. That actually reminds me of a moment I had.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: So Tonal wasn't actually my first startup. I actually co
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: founded another company called Panel Logic, like back in two
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: thousand and six, so but call it nine years before Tonal.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I started this other company with a friend and I
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: in that company, like it got a lot of wars,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: and we did some good stuff for a few years,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: but it ultimately didn't go anywhere. We sold it to Samsung,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and that's how I ended up ended up at Samsung.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: But the day I quit my job to go do
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: that startup, there's this friend I had who was like
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: this kind of like wise, like you know, godfather type
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: figure in my life. And he looked at me and said, Ali,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I know this is an odd thing to say to
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: someone who just became unemployed, but I promise you that
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: the net present value of your lifetime networth just went up.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm like my sentence, I know, I know, I'm
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: like Mike, that's an odd thing to say. And He's
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: like he's like, Ali, I don't know what's gonna happen,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: but I know you're gonna learn a lot. And that
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: was his whole point.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: That was the whole point. That was the whole point. Okay,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: So back to the town at all.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you fathom and start building things in your home
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: with the pieces that you ordered off the internet. Talk
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: to me about how that experience started to play out.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Well when you're building a company, and going back to
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: your question about like what you say entrepreneurs, you got
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: to realize a startup is a big ball of risk.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Like it's this massive ball of like all the things
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: that could go wrong. Yeah, and what you want to
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: do is basically like cleave off the biggest piece of
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: risk that you can and with total like the first
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: biggest piece of risk is like, can you really use
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: electricity to generate something that feels just like a real
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: weight machine. And even today, like people like with all
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the success we've had, people still walk into our short
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: rooms and they do a bicep curl and they're like, Wow,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: this thing feels amazing. Feels just like a real weight
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: machine but better. And it's like it's hard to comprehend.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: It's like magical, Like it's like there's an element of
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: disbelief of like I can't was working, yeah, And I
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: had to prove that to myself. I had to prove
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: that you could actually do this. And so that's what
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: I was trying to prototype, something that could generate resistance
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: using electricity but felt like a real weight machine. And
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: that took several iterations, of course. But the first one
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that I built, which took took a few months, and
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I showed to those very first investors who like gave
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: me the very first dollars to like go pursue the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: next prototype, and the prototype after that that one worked
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: just well enough that you could believe that it was possible.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: It didn't work great, but it worked just well enough
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: that you could believe that it was possible. And then
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: built that, and then I built an even better one,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: and then I built a machine that could actually well.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: By this point, I actually added a team and so
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: that they built a machine that you could actually do
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: a full body workout on. And I remember at the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: time that the challenge was was called the birthday challenge,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: like for all these birthday he wants to never go
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: to the gym ever again. So let's build the version
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: of Tonal with movable arms and all this stuff that
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: replaces every machine at the gym. And we worked on
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: this for months, like like it was me and a
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: few or other folks and we stood in machine shops
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: for months just building prototypes and making things. And uh,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: it was I missed those days. I missed I like those.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Early days, the early like super communal days. Also, I
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: mean you said something here that I think is really
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: important is that it starts with you, right, Like you
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: just said in carving Away at the Ball of Risk,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: that you had to get to a point where you
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: believed that what you thought about was actually possible. And
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: I think oftentimes we get these big ideas and we
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: almost try to like skip ahead from that step, right,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Like we go ahead of ourselves and are immediately like
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: trying to prove this thing that we thought about to
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: so many other people before really taking the time to
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: do that self inquiry. It's kind of like setting boundaries
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: in that when you set boundaries, you need to practice
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: like setting boundaries with yourself and executing like on your
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: own time before you can really execute them and set
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: them with other people. Like I need to set a
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: boundary for myself that like, I'm not going to come
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: into the office after seven thirty at night during the week.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: If I'm not good at keeping that boundary for myself,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: then how am I going to start executing with everybody else?
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: So for you here, it sounded like you were like,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: all right, I'm really going to show myself that I
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: can make this thing, and I'm going to believe this thing,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to play with this thing, and then
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I'll introduce it to other people.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: So there's this thing I often say, which is like,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: there's a difference between having thick skin and a thick head.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is how many people
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: have worked on a really terrible startup idea for far
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: too long, right, And so in some ways, like if
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: you really believe your time is the most valuable thing
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: in the world, you need to prove to yourself that
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: this is worth your time, and you have to be
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: willing to kill your own startup in the early days
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: so that you don't go waste years of your life
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: pursuing something that is ultimately not going to go anywhere.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: And by the way, not just your life, but like
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: the people you hire and your investors' money, and so
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: like in some ways, like you have to be your
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: own harshest critic, and that takes like a lot of
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: intellectual honesty and self reflection. And that's where I think, like,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: if you have a thick head and just keep charging
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: forward and ignoring all the signs, ignoring all the feedback,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: you know that that's not good. The other thing that's
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: not good is not having thick skin. We're like, it
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: is hard, and you will hear a lot of negative
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: things that aren't true, and being able to distinguish between
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: those two things and like having the conviction and the
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: vision to know where you can go with this, but
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: also not like drinking your own kool aid and just
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: wasting everyone's time and money doing something just not worth it.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: And so you're you're, you're, you're looking for that balance
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: always in the in the early.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Days, I think it's hard sometimes because in almost everything
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: in life, there are more naysayers than there are hype men, Right,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: So how do you know when you're being one of
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: the others? Sometimes, like how do you know if you're
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: just being thick, like thick skinned, or if you're like
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: you need to be a realist and kind of let
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: it go.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Well. I think you're always asking yourself the question, like
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: for me, like a question myself like is this thick
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: skin or is just a thick head? Right? And that
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: was my latest test. Maybe that's not going to work
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: work for everyone, but a lot of times, you know,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: you know, like the way we do it with our
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: teams today is like we set milestones and objectives ahead
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: of time, So you're not going to get to the
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: finish line and be like, let's decide now if that worked. Right,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: you start off from the beginning and saying, like, when
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: we get to the finish line, how are we going
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: to decide whether or not this worked? And you you
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: almost start from that place in the very beginning, so
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: when you get there, you already know whether or not
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: you fail or succeed, as opposed to getting there and
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: you're always talking yourself into like, yeah, that was good,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: and it's like, no, that is totally not what you're
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: what you're aiming for, and you miss the market. You
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: either need to like rethink it and course correct or
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: you need to go in a different direction. And being
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: clear of yourself every step of the way I think
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: is super super important.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I also would say that, I think it's about sending
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: multiple finish lines, right, Like it's not just like you didn't,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: you know, when you started creating this machine think about
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: or maybe you did, but I'm assuming you weren't thinking
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: of what it is now. There were so many finish
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: lines you had to get to to get to this
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: current finish line, which is really just you know, the.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know, the five k of the marathon at
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: this point.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have. I mean, look, you can always have.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: You have to have this long term vision of this,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: what this could be one day. You have to have that,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: but you have to have milestones along the way, and
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: you have to have a mission that's much narrower than
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: your vision. So here's a classic example. So Microsoft, right
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: their vision was a PC on every desk, Like we're literally,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: this thing is going to replace everything you do in
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: the office. Right, But what have they started with? They
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: started with word processing. We're just going to replace the typewriter.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: They weren't talking about email, they weren't talking about PowerPoint,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: they weren't talking about Excel. And if on day one
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: they're like, we're going to go build email and Excel
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: and like they wouldn't have accomplished anything, and so you
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: got to start with like to your point, like these
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: bite sized pieces and things you know you can accomplish
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: in a reasonable amount of time, and your mission will
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: expand over time. But that vision on day one, it
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: never has to change. Dream big, go ahead, Like that's
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: what's going to get you out of bed every day,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: That's what's going to bring investors to the table. You
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: need that because it motivates you and motivates people, reminds
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: you like why we're all here. But yeah, those milestones
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: are so so important.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: Side tangent, side note, side question, deviating a little bit.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Who inspires you? Where do you find your motivation from?
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Because I'm sure aside from the people at your company,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: like your knowledge the insights that you have are super
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: inspiring to a lot of people that connect with you.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: I read a lot, right, And so for me, like
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to say there's like one specific person
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: that I get inspiration from, but I'm kind of a
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: student of Like I'm just so curious about how the
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: world works and how others have succeeded. And like we
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: watched Steve Jobs's like you know, speeches and his keynotes,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: and you read Bezos's annual letter to the shareholders every year.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: It's like mandatory reading material, and you read books like
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: some of the early books that I was reading around
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: the time I started Total was like the Jim Collins
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: series of books like Great by Choice. For example, Guy
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Kawasaki wrote a book called The Art of the Start
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: about like what it's like to really start a startup,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: and it's it's a super pragmatic advice of like what
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: it's what it's really like. But when you start seeing
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: the world through the eyes of people who who don't
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: think through limits and boundaries, you begin to slowly rewire
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: the way you see the world. And I think that's
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: where my you know, my inspiration comes from. It's just
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: from watching watching other people, and it's it's oftentimes from
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: from my peers. So like, I was at a conference
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: last week for the CEOs of startups and like this
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: is I think there's like about ninety CEOs in the room.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Twenty of them were unicorn so companies valued it over
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: a billion dollars. Five of them were CEOs who'd recently
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: IPO their businesses. And again, like, these weren't all consumer businesses.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: They were all a lot of them are very very
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: different types of businesses. But we're sitting in a room
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and we're all talking about like we're like going through
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: these workshops on the exact same like challenges that we're facing.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: What is it like to scale a team? How do
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: you manage cultures through a global pandemic? What happens with
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: with remote work? How how did you keep how'd you
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: inspire your leaders to lead? Because they're like the little
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: secret of being a CEOs you actually do nothing, but
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: you're responsible to everything. So if we're doing nothing, well,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: how are we constantly like challenging our leadership team to
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: go push harder and upgrade themselves and their own abilities?
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: And so you look around you and like you're surrounded
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: or you have access to be surrounded by people who
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: are facing the same challenges that you are, and they
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: inspire you like, well, if he can do that, and
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: he can do that, I need to go do those
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: things too, yeah, right, And you know you just oftentimes
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: it's maybe it's your peers more than anything.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Right, I'm making mental notes for after we're done recording
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: to ask you more about maybe who was in that
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: room and if there's anyone that I should push oh
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: if I should be talking to I think that question
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: who inspires you is actually a really important question, and
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: if I'm being totally candid, about three or four years ago,
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: someone asked me that and I felt as though I
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: didn't really have and obviously good is interpreted, but I
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: didn't have a good answer, and it made me do
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: some personal inquiry for myself, asking myself, where what was
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: I exposing myself to?
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Who was I talking to? Who could I learn from?
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Why wasn't I being fully present in a lot of
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: these situations, and where was my mind when I had
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to learn and connect with these individuals and
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: pull this inspiration. So for anyone listening, I would definitely
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: say to ask yourself that question as well, because I
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: think it's really it's really really valuable.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Wait wait, okay, I'm going to ask you the question
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: who inspires you?
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: So I mean, thank you. I kind of teed this
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: up for myself. I would be remiss if I didn't
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: say that. Beyond my family, which is probably my immediate
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: source of inspiration, and the Hurdle community, which they I
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: get so many dms and I'm so grateful for them.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: From all the community members and the Hurdlers that say
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: thank you to me, but really being able to show
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: up for them and create this content and do what
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: I love and give back. And I think that's something
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: that you can relate to as well. Is a really
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: special opportunity. I'm actually speaking to someone this Friday who
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: really inspires me, and that is Gretchen Ruben. So I
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: am just so motivated by her perseverance and her outlook.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: And I think that that certainly is the through line
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: for me and the people that inspire me. It's what
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: is it that they are bringing to the table in
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: terms of their resiliency. I think stories of resiliency and
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: like persistence just I mean, as one would expect that
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: someone who has a podcast called Hurdle certainly really resonate
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: with me. And so individuals who just use both their
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: perseverance and their talents to do good in this world
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: like super resonant with me. So someone like Angela Duckworth,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Like I'm sure you've read Grit. What an amazing book.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I go to that back to that time and time again.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: So again, like I mean, we're sitting next to a
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: bookshelf that has a scene amounts of literature that I
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: literally pick up almost.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: On the regular. But for me, again, what am I
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: exposing myself to? Who am I looking to for advice?
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: And in that advice am I feeling like I'm present
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: in learning it and then applying it?
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Is kind of what I think about when I look
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: to who inspires me?
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Amazing? I mean, I actually I want to revise my answer,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: maybe just add.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Something or allow it at.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: A challenge for for the listeners here. Yeah, my assertion
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: is if you if you're looking for there's literally inspiration everywhere.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Everywhere you look. Every person you meet can inspire you
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: if you're if you're looking for it.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: I love that great, great, great amendment.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: A little asterisk, A little asterisk. Okay, so let's rewind again.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: We're like going in some circles, but I feel like
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: they all kind of go together. I really like the
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: way that this is going. So you are working with
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: a team, and the team has the Ali's Birthday mission
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: and they succeed on the mission totally. And when would
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: you say, timeline wise, you had the first iteration of
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: tonal that you really felt was great to bring to market.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: So first iteration of tonal that that one that I
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: step was improved, it wasn't great. That raises a quarter
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: million dollars of investment of investor money. Second iteration built
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: raises another million birth a challenge. You know that one
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: is is incredible. We show it to a bunch of
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: like personal trainers in town. They're like losing their minds, right.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: We build two more, rent an apartment south of market
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: in San Francisco, hand keys out to a dozen people
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: and basically tell them you can go work out whenever
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: you want, but we're gonna film it and we're gonna
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: interview you once a week. And they do this for
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: about three months, and like we have this first cohort
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: of people of users using the product. We start raising
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: a Series A, and you know, by the end of
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: that year, we've raised them eleven million dollars Series A.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: And I would say that was like that one was
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: not something you could take to market because it looked
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: like it was built in a machine shop. It didn't
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: look like a like a consumer product. But that was
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: when we were really off to the races. And from
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: there we started working on like one hundred percent of
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: our focus was on productization, and it was like beginning
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: to hire more of the team, like using them, like
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: hire more of the team, you know, productize it, find
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: a contract manufacturer, spin up the manufacturing line, and all
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: in all, from the very moment I went home and
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: ordered those first parts to when the product went out
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: to market was three and a half years of product
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: and technology development, over two years of beta trials, over
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: one year of in home beta trials, twenty five homes,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: fifty users with Tonals in their homes for an entire year,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: like all that feedback, iterating and refining the product experience.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Over forty five patents file today RW some of the
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: most fundational patents in the industry when it comes to
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: things like digitaloids.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: I feel like a question that people wonder but no
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: one ever asks, is when you say that you raised
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: you raise eleven million in your Series A. So when
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: someone says, we raise eleven million dollars in our Series
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: A besides more research and building and playing employees, Like,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: what does that kind of money go to?
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Well? One hundred percent of it goes into the company,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: right for starters, right, Yeah, So, like the first thing
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: it goes to is up until that point, like you
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: and all the employees around you are largely being paid
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: in equity, like you're ere. You can have stocking wall
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: paper your room with it, but but you're not. No
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: one's getting a real salary. And so when you actually
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: raise a real round like that, that's when you start
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: paying people market rate salaries. I mean, that's when you
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: really start building a team. So like I think I
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: would say of that eleven million dollars, i'd say a
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: good like seventy five percent of it went to payroll.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: It's so interesting to hear that, right, because someone's next
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: question would be like, wow, Like you really had to
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: be a great sales guide to convince people that this
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: thing that you were so firm was going to be
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: the thing is the thing that they should dedicate their
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: time to without being able to. I mean, we talked
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: about before being a father, providing for your family, and
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: these people are just like comeing in on blind faith
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: and equity that they're going to be so good in
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: just a matter of time.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean it goes back to the point we
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: were talking about earlier that you you pointed out, which
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: is like, if I can't even sell it to myself,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: how am I going to sell it to anyone else?
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: And so you got like you got to just scrutinize
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: it and make sure it's it's it's bulletproof. And even
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: before even before the million dollars, like that first two
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars check, that first million dollar check,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Like other entrepreneurs have asked me, like, Ali, how'd you
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: raise that first money? Like the first person, how'd you raise?
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, you have to realize that it is
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: an irrational decision to give an entrepreneur two hundred fifty
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars That is one hundred percent and irrational emotional decision.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: And those first investors are investing on passion. Those first
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: employees are joining on passion. They're passionate about what you're
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: working on, and they're fully comfortable signing up for the
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: idea that you know, I might walk away a year
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: later with maybe just enough money to have like made
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: most of my rent and a ton of experience. Yeah,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: and that's what they're looking for.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: And I do want to talk just a second about
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: strength training specifically, because I think for some as you mentioned,
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: you looked over at that area at the gym and
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: you saw all the trainers by the strength equipment and
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: many of us have been in that scenario, but because
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: it feels so foreign, it's hard to get into. I
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: know you have so much research on why incorporating strength
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: training can important. Getting on board with strength training can
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: really be life changing. Why don't we just talk a
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: little bit about that.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot to say, but let me just
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: ask you one question. Okay, if you are forty years
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: old and you're going to do one thing for the
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: rest of your life into old age, and you have
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: to choose between strength training and cardio, which one would
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: you do?
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I hate to say this, but like I'm
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: going to choose.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Cardio physiologically wrong answer. So like in reality, right, So
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: you strength train, you build muscle instead of losing muscle
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: as you age. It strengthens your bones, it strengthens your
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: connective tissue. And if you're doing strength training properly, you're
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: pairing it with mobility work. So you're building muscle, but
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: you're also maintaining flexibility. Having muscle is important to moving properly.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Moving properly is important into preventing injury. If you think
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: about like the leading cause of death and elderly women,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: just as an example is hip fracture. Right, it's actually
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: the complications from the hip surgery. But like you know,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: as you get older, right, you want to keep strong bones,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: you want to keep your strength up. You want strong
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: connected isssue, you want flexibility, and you want to maintain
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: muscle mass so that you can move properly. And if
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: what you do is a lot of cardio, what you're
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: actually doing is, in many cases you're metabolizing muscle, especially
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: if you're not if you're in some sort of coloric restriction,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: and too is you're putting a lot of mileage and
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: wear and tear on your body. So, look, cardio is important.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: I do cardio. I do a little bit of cardio,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: But strength training is my pillar, and it is the
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: thing I'm going to do until the day I die.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Why it's probably the best way to add yours to
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: my life.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: What's the timeline from Okay, we have this thing that
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: looks like it was built in a computer lab, till
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: when we have something that looks like I want to
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: hang out in my wall my living room.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: It was about six months before you had something that
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: could go in the home. Six months later we started
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: putting them in people's homes. A year later, we started
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: like actually selling the product on the and open up
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: for showroom.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: Give me what year is this?
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: So we launched, like we launched everything, big press announcement.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: You know, website is live. We're no longer like we
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: were like in this wind like this building with like
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: fogged that windows, and like in this alley in San Francisco,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: and like we invited like professional app like Tony Gonzalez
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: or like, hey Tony, when you get to San Francisco,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: walk down this aisle to Ali like that you're gonna
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: find a green building with fogged that windows and a
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: purple door. Knock on the door and we'll let you
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: end right say the past word super super shady and
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: so like. So this was like the big reveal, like
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: was August twenty eighteen. We started delivering product nationwide March
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: Got it? Got it? Wow? Okay?
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: And I mean now we're here in twenty twenty one,
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: and so much has even happened since then. How do
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: you feel now? I mean I mentioned going into the
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Fifth Avenue showroom. I know you know you probably weren't
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: thinking about that back in twenty nineteen.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's surreal, Like that showroom is beautiful, stunning,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: it is it is, it is beautiful, beautiful, short, it's
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: surreal to walk into that. Now. I was walking talking
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: to my wife after like walking seeing it for the
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: first time, and she said, how is it. I'm like,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: it's it's amazing, it's beautiful, it's surreal, and she's like,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: how's it surreal for you? Didn't you do this? I'm like, no,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I like knocked over the first domino and then like
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: we now have hundreds of people who could go do
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: this stuff, and it's just it's amazing to watch what
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: what what these teams are you know, are doing. It's
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: it's inspirational. It's inspiring.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's inspiring.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: I mean it's interesting, right because it's that first step
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: that you think about, whether it was in your weight
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: loss journey or in building this company, that almost takes
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: the most courage, right, Like you needed to take that
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: first step or knock over that first domino so that
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: you could get to this place that you didn't even
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: dream of now, yeah.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: And it it the courage never never stops. Right. In
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: some ways, CEO is the easiest job in the company
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: because you literally have to do nothing right. In some ways,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: it's the hardest job because all the hardest problems come
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: to you, like like by the time you're looking at
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: something like there's like twelve other people who've been like,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know, ask ask someone else, and and it
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: ends up on your on your desk, on your plate
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: right to go solve these like really really big, big challenges.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: And so it takes courage to every single day know
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: that you know, this thing we're working on is so
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: so worth every challenge we're going to face, and to
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: turn around and like take all the inspiration that you're like,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: we're getting inspired from our teams, we're getting inspired from
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: our members, we're getting inspired from everywhere. But then to
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: turn around and constantly reinspire your teams to like push
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: through these really really hard challenging things like opening up
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: shotrooms during a global pandemic, shipping product across the world
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: when like like literally we have a global semiiconductor shortage,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: we have global logistic smeltdowns, Like we've charted full aircraft
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: just full of tunnels just to get tunnals here faster.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: These aren't easy things to you know, to do, uh,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: And it's a it takes so much courage.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: Takes a lot of courage. You have a lot of
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: big name athletes that are using your product. You also
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: have some really awesome big names when it comes to
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: your investors. For any of those individuals, do you remember
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: someone in particular that made you feel like really a
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: little bit starstruck the first time that you came into
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: contact with them.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: I met I've met a lot of a lot of athletes.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: I think you know. When you said the question, two
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: moments popped into my head. The first one is Tony Gonzalez. Yeah.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: So he like he's in our office. I demo this
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: product and he like he's using it for like ten minutes,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: and he's like, this is amazing. I'm in and he's like, Ali,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: let's chat right. And we walk into a conference room
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: and he looks at me and he's like, Ali, are
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: you are you going to Are you going to succeed
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: at this? And I looked at him and I gave
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: him the typical engineer answer. I'm like, well, you know,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: it's a startup. There's a bunch of rest blah blah blah,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: but these are all the reasons why I believe it's
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: going to be successful. And he looked at me and
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: he said, oh, are you going to succeed at this?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: And I realized that he wasn't testing my ability to
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: assess risk. He was testing my conviction. And I'm like,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: hell yeah. And I think that, like, I never forget
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: that moment, because I think there's a difference between being
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: an operator, right where you're running a business and you
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: can't be naive and you can't ignore risk and you
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: have to make sure everything's can go well, and being
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: being a leader where sometimes people just need to be
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: reassured that everything's gonna be okay, right, because again, the
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: hardest things they end up on your desk, right. So
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: that was one one moment that really really stuck with me.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Another one was just the moment we realized Steph Curry
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: was using our product and he bought the product under
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: a pseudon and we delivered to him. We had no
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: idea it was him. And then the pandemic starts, and
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: then Aisha posts on Instagram a little video clip of
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: her doing a work doing a workout with Steph and
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: it's on the tone and she like she just like
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: it's this quick pan She's like panning around her gym,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: and like they're standing in front of the tonal like
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: with the tonal bench and the tonal machine there and
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: they're doing their workout together because we have this partner
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: mode you can do workouts together. Yeah, and we're like,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: you know, oh my god, oh my god. And that
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: was that was another another moment. And like we have
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: dozens of athletes. Every time you meet them, it's just
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: they're they're inspiring because I think we take for granted,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: like we think they're famous, but I think we take
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: for granted how much hard work it actually takes to
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: achieve what they have achieved.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Right. Another person who's inspired me a lot is like
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Ryan Nice. He runs next Play Capital but also former
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: NFL player, but he's transitioned into like business and finance
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: and helping helping athletes invest their money. But he's really
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: connected the dots from me for why so many professional
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: athletes then become business leaders, Because it turns out it's
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: the mental strength that allows you to succeed as a
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: professional athlete. It's not always purely physical. A lot of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: it's mental. It's focused under press sure that then helps
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: you transition into business. And how many have made that transition.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, ye, yeah, no, I mean definitely.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine, like how giddy I feel giddy
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: when I like see a repost from someone that I
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: admire of the show on Instagram. So nevertheless, having a
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: product in their home, it's really it's really an awesome,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: an awesome thing to see. I'm sure we talked about
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: being in the head of a company that's, you know,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: four hundred employees now soon to be eight hundred employees
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: within just a matter of months. They look to you
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: and they see, you know, a leader, someone who motivates them.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: When you look in the mirror, what is it that
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: you see looking back at you?
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: I do, I do see. I see the same thing.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: I see a CEO, I see a leader, I see
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: someone who's trying to build something great without limits. And
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: I also see I also see a dad. Like I've been.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: I have a twenty two month old child at home,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: and I, believe it or not, with even with everything
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: that total is, it's still one to like be. Becoming
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: a father is one of the most rewarding things I've
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: experienced in my life. It's just it's incredible to like
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: watch a human being grow up and I can't explain
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: it until you experience it for yourself, and parents won't
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: tell you. Parents are like, You're like if you're single
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: and you don't have kids, and you ask a parent
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: of like, oh my god, we're not sleeping. It's so
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: much work. It's so different than I expected. And then
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: you have a kid and those same parents come up
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: to you and like how is it. I'm like, it's amazing,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: and like, see, we told you. I'm like, no, you didn't.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: You told me how heart it would be. And the
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: best thing I've been told about being a father is
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: your life's about to get ten times harder and one
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: hundred times better. Yeah, And I definitely I definitely see that.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: When I look in the meter, I think the third
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: thing that I see is a community builder and a
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: community leader. And in many ways, like that's a thread
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: that's run through my entire my entire life. I've built
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: communities over and over again, and it's just something that's
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: ingrained in like who I am and what I like
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: I can totally relate to that. I also really think
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: of myself as a connector and a community builder. But
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: I also reflect back on the times in my life
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: where I felt without right when I was going through
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: my weight loss journey, I felt without community.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, so many of the amazing.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: Tools that we have today Tonal included these things weren't
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: available to us when we were going through these times.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: And so it's interesting to me to have such a
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: deep rooted desire and hope to build community to others
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: as a reflection of times when I didn't have.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: It at all.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, I think the first first community
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: I really kind of I stumbled into into building was
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: San Francisco is a place where it's a very transient
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: type of place and when you come there, you almost
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: like need a place to land and like a network
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: to build. And that's where I started, like in the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: early days, kind of building a community around that. And
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: it got to the point where like I get random
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: emails from like people like hey, Alli, this person's moving
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: to San Francisco and that like that was a little email,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: and like the rest was like, you know, you know
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: what to do?
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: You know what to do?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I totally yeah, I get it. I get it.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: Tell us tell us about what excites you right now?
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Got so many things. Tonal is growing at an unprecedented rate.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Like hardber companies don't normally grow eight x year over year.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Your typical harder coomaning grows thirty percent year over year.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: And so, like, I think one of the things that's
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: really really exciting me is is just like how fast
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: our community is growing and how we're changing people's lives,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: and like you can see our member communities on Facebook,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: but also the community of employees that we've built and
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the leaders we've been able to bring in. When you
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: hire someone who is capable of scaling manufacturing ten x
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: in one year, those are very special people, right, and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: when you get to meet those people, it's like a
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: lot of times, like we're looking around at our team
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: and I'm talking about every level, like just people who
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: are just brilliant and inspired and and I'm it's almost
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: like I looked at someone someone on a team that
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: I feel like we're just like collecting the most amazing
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: talent in the world and bringing it here. And I
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: think someone you met yesterday, So Matt the former editor
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: in chief of Men's Health magazine you knowin joined Tonal
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: in the past year and he's running a lot of
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: our like physiology, science and editorial and curriculum stuff. And
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the executives we've recently joined
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: and kind of you look at their backgrounds and some
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: of the things that they've accomplished and what they could
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: do for Tonal and and when you start thinking about
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: not only like where we are and the trajectory we're
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: heading on, but the team that we've we've built and
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: what those people are capable of adding to the vision
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: and adding to our execution, it's like this could go anywhere.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think something that's really great about
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: the team that you're building. Again touching on going to
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: the store the other day or the showroom the other day.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: And a girlfriend of mine recently joined the Tonal team,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Molly ridder Back.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, again.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: Another amazing human.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: But what I was going to say is that their
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: like passion for what you're building is so apparent the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: moment they start talking about your company. Like I hadn't
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: caught up with Molly in forever, and we went to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: go ride bikes last Friday in Prospect Park and she
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: was like just talking about what's going on and how
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: they're so exciting when the team is growing, And I
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: was like, wait, we haven't caught up on like where
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: you started working.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: She's like, Oh my god, I'm a tonal. I can't
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: believe I didn't. I didn't tell you this. It's so great,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: like so many things.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: So the through line from you know, writing backs with
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: her to showing up the showroom yesterday was just like,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: these people are so excited at what you were building.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: And it goes back to the idea of like, how
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: did you convince people to get on board with you
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: before you had this amazing thing that's now in the showroom.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: It's like, it's the passion.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: It's it's the passion, and it's just it's it's it's
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of times it takes brilliant people like Molly
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: is brilliant, Yeah, she's And it takes brilliant people to
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: be able to see not just what this is, but
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: what this could be. And I think when when she
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: joined and she was thinking about like what you could
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: do with an editorial budget larger than the editorial budget
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: of your typical publication, A lot lot different. It's just
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: like this, this guy's the limit. And you give people
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to to dream, and you're getting people who
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: have vision and dream but also can do you need?
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: You need both and and you just you know, you
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: point like like we're replacing every like in our world,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: Like we envision a world where everyone can be their
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: strongest and we're building a personal trainer, right and you
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: say that to them and you just let them run, right.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: I love that. I love that.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: All Right, we're homing in on the final question here.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: Right now, you have an opportunity to give yourself a
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: piece of advice looking back on your biggest hurdle moment,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: which I think we can both agree is the one
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: that changed your life and inspired you to create Tonal
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: during that weight loss journey. You have an opportunity right
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: now to give that guy a piece of advice.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: What do you tell him?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: You know, when people buy totals, they often say, my
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: biggest regret wasn't doing it sooner. And I almost want
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: to look at that that person and not at the
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: moment that I faced that that big hurdle, but that
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: guy five years earlier, ten years earlier, and say, what
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: are you waiting for?
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: You have?
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: You have the rest of your life ahead of you,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: and you're going to be You're amazing at all these
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: other things. But like go work on your biggest weakness.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: You're not healthy. What are you waiting for? Your biggest
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: regret is going to be not doing it sooner, so start.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: I'm so excited that we got to sit down today.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: This was awesome.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Allie. How do the hurdlers keep
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: up with you? How do they keep up with Tonal?
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: Give us all of the info?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: So at tonal on Instagram, that's that's our handle, at
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: tonal on Twitter, tonal dot com is our website. Those
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: are by far the best ways to follow follow a Tonal.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: I'm also at a radi on Instagram and and Twitter.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not very active on social media yet. I probably
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: will be at some point, but right now I'm like,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: really busy running this business.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: You can I have a chat with your executive coach
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily a Body and at Hurdle Podcast
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: Another Hurdle Conquered.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time