Latest / CEOs and ABCs / Joe Cannon (Sports Studio & Hyperice) Navigating Tough Job Markets, High Intensity Travel & Fatherhood. #030

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Joe Cannon (Sports Studio & Hyperice) Navigating Tough Job Markets, High Intensity Travel & Fatherhood. #030 · CEOs and ABCs

• 0:00
  Speaker A: That's crazy. If it, if it weren't crazy, would we, would we do it? You're never like, damn, I killed it as a parent today. Like, that was a perfect game. You're like, we did it. We did it right. We didn't lose. We got better today. At the end of the day, your kid doesn't really know what you do and doesn't care. They want you for you. I'm a dad. It's just end. Stop.
• 0:24
  Speaker B: Welcome to CEOs and ABCs. Real stories from execs who lead at work and show up at home. Career moves, parenting. Wins and fails and everything in between. I'm your host, Kevin Rice. Here's today's episode. Welcome back to CEOs and ABCs. My guest today is Joe Cannon. Joe is the senior vice president at Hyperice, where he's helped scale one of the most exciting brands in recovery, performance and wellness. He's helped drive the brand's growth through major partnerships, activations and high profile cultural moments across sports and wellness, from the super bowl to the Masters and South by Southwest. But what really makes Joe's story so compelling is not just where he's ended up, it's how he got there. He talks about graduating in a brutal job market, piecing together freelance work, sleeping in his car, and doing whatever it took to get his foot in the door. And now, alongside a fast moving career, he's also raising two young children and trying to be fully present for the moments that matter most. This is a conversation about hustle and opportunity and fatherhood and perspective. Joe, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:27
  Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
• 1:29
  Speaker B: So you are the senior vice president of business development, Hyperice, which is a company that, as you know, I'm a bit of a fanboy. I've been using the products for many years and it's been just amazing to watch this, like rocket ship take off because when I think I first got some of the products, it was a smaller organization and now it's what, 200 million in revenue? So you got a lot going on right now. So tell us a little bit about business development can encompass a lot of different things. What does your role actually look like and where do you think you're giving the most impact to the company?
• 2:06
  Speaker A: I'm a weird hybrid and I think in our case, business development has been a variety of things and is, is fairly amorphous in the sense of what we, what we do on a daily basis. So our focus is a lot of new business bringing on new partners, accounts or otherwise. To help. Whether that's retail or fitness partners, whether that's experience creation, whether that's brand partnerships, influencers, new structures of how we're going to work, we're kind of a little bit of everything for the company. And so it could be. I mean, it's probably more special projects than anything. The last couple years has really been a focus on working with partners to bring our tech to events, to kind of expand the addressable market. Because, like, if we only show up in fitness or we only show up in spa hospitality, that's only going to give us a certain amount of the market. And so we've been very fortunate. Like, the growth of our company is so that more and more people are interested in wellness and taking care of themselves and, like, taking their health care into their own hands and, like, not just performance athletes. Yeah. And being tired of being in pain. Exactly. And. But like, so much of it's like there are very few people, unlike you, where it's like we put something online and like, everyone just buys it. Right. Like, our stuff's expensive. Like, you're a psychopath. Like, who. Just like you're probably like the 1% of our clients who's like, oh, that was a cool Instagram ad. I'll buy that. Whereas, like, it's Normatec, it's eleven hundred dollars. Like, what do these black squishy pants actually do? Like, I've seen a lot of videos. I've seen these on Instagram. Oh, my gosh, these are amazing. I thought these were only for professional athletes or Ironman triathletes. Like, you know, it's, it's so important that we get people in them. So working with partners to create cultural moments, whether that's at Coachella, we had a few activations. We had 20 or we had 11 masters houses that were really for executives at other companies to try the tech and try it after a hard day's walk at Augusta. So I think there's just things like that that we're. We want to show up more. Like, we want to show up more as, as a culture, as a brand pillar of wellness, that, like, this is a great way to activate or experience this.
• 4:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. What's. What's been like, the most exciting or fun event or activation that you've done recently?
• 4:28
  Speaker A: I should have like a hundred. I mean, we probably did like 350 events last year that, that were for different partners. I don't know if I have. Oh, actually, you know what, at south by Southwest, we, we worked with Ali, who heads up Wellness over there at the Fairmont in Austin and we took over their pool. And so we were with AG1 and Kohler and we basically had these wellness mornings that had IV drips and facials and kind of everything before. And so I just love that aspect of seeing. I think we have over the four days we had like 1400 check ins for people who were from the conference that were trying the tech and otherwise. And so for us that's like, oh yeah, we could do this at our event at F1 or at the Grammys or at, you know, Milan Fashion Week. And so that's how we are trying to get the product out there more and become more of that kind of cultural influence on wellness.
• 5:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. I mean, the wellness industry is exploding right across the board. People are spending less on pretty much everything except for wellness. Feels like Hyperice is very well positioned to just really catch and continue to grow as the wave continues.
• 5:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think we've been really fortunate and lucky, you know, and like we've, we've helped a little bit, but I think we're really fortunate that you see these partners of ours like Whoop or Aura or some of these huge growth moments like high rocks and you're, and you're seeing this stuff like they're really pushing the boundaries of wellness, you know, I don't know, it's.
• 6:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, just getting it out to like the everyday, everyday person.
• 6:04
  Speaker A: Like the amount of people that were wearing Aura rings two years ago that are using it for different things, whether they're using it as a tracker for their menstrual cycle, whether they're using it just to track their sleep. Like you're seeing just, just an incredible amount of people take care of themselves in a different way than they did. And so that's really exciting to us.
• 6:25
  Speaker B: Well, let's rewind a little bit because I want to get back into a little bit more of your earlier career. Because what's not super obvious from your resume and all the success you've had at Hyperice is how shaky the beginning actually was for you. So you graduated from UC Berkeley, Go Bears in 2010. Does that sound right?
• 6:45
  Speaker A: Yes, sir.
• 6:46
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And job market was kind of brutal at that point. What, what, like what was your experience post graduation? Because I think a lot of people are experiencing that today where they do everything right. They graduate from. I mean, you graduated from a top school in the country and then all of a sudden there's no opportunities opening up. So what was your experience post graduation?
• 7:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, the best Public university in the history of the universe would be the correct way to describe Berkeley if we were, if we were just like Cal
• 7:16
  Speaker B: Poly San Luis Obispo is you.
• 7:18
  Speaker A: It's, it's in there. It's also ranked somewhere on the list. It just, there's just has to be only one, right? It's like Lord of the Rings, right? There can only be one. Um, and I, I graduated in 2010 and you know, I feel like we kind of were like that great lie generation where it was like, you do things right, you work hard, you get a college degree and you're going to make more money than your parents and you're going to have a job coming out of college. And I was like really fortunate that this guy who worked at the Cal Rec Center, a guy named Joe Watts, was awesome. Joe was like, sweet baby Joe. This guy was like 6, 5, was just a character, but he was always trying to do things differently. And he put me, kind of found me and was like, you should be the face of like the Cal Rec Centers Caltopia show. We're going to do this thing so we can recruit brand partners and we'll give you like a marketing internship. And he kind of took me under his wing and I was like, I was an English major and a rhetoric major. So I had two degrees that basically gave me no ability to do really anything other than now. I'm tremendous with like chatgpt prompts. Crush Crush chatgpt prompts. But like, he gave me some ideas on things and really got this thing going around on marketing. And I was doing video hosting or whatever and talking to brands. And he actually helped me get two jobs coming out of college. One was Coca Cola and it was like a campus marketing representative. And they were going to pay me $36,000 a year to live in San Francisco. And which I am pretty sure even in 2010 was not a sustainable income to, to live in and anywhere near San Francisco. And so I did not accept that job and opted to move home and took a job with a startup that did kind of geo targeting with coupons. So one of the first patents there, this guy was like a really forward thinking guy from Orange county, put this patent out there in like, I want to say. And so I went from campus to campus that he had these partnerships with and dropped in and tried to get students to use digital coupons on their phones. And people were like, only 50% of people had the Internet at the time on their phones. And like I bought an Internet phone in order to work at this company. So I could show people your QR
• 9:36
  Speaker B: codes weren't even native.
• 9:38
  Speaker A: First and only. Andrew. No, no, no. These were like barcode scans that were like basically like a paper coupon that we've digitized for these businesses. So part of was like recruit the business. And so much of this was like no one's gonna use coupons on their phones was the standard reaction. But it was always this like disagreement and it was really cool and it was going really well. And the guy just kind of decided that he was gonna sit on the patent and wait. And now he's in like litigation with everyone else. Cause now digital coupons are pretty big. And especially map based digital coupons based on your location. So 20 years later, he was very, very right on his predictions. And so I would assume he's going to get paid here pretty shortly because that was not clear and obvious in 2006 or 4, whenever he filed those patents there. Spent the next like three months applying to any job I could. Like I spent 300 jobs, probably got like three callbacks, got like one interview, got no jobs. It was like wildly depressing. I remember going to bed early, just being so sad and being like, what did I do wrong? And one of my buddies, my best friend was, we started finding these listings on Craigslist for people wanting to be able to do social media. And we weren't calling it social media because all the social media jobs at this time, like Coca Cola or big companies like bank of America, it's like we want people to run our Facebook and Twitter and we want them to have 10 years of experience on Facebook for a platform that wasn't out. Only Tom from MySpace had 10 years. And whoever was in charge of LiveJournal had social media experience in 2000.
• 11:12
  Speaker B: Right.
• 11:13
  Speaker A: And it's like, well, how's this even possible? Like who's even saying this? And so I think like not even Peter Pham, the Patel legend, has 10 years of social media experience in 2010 and I couldn't get a job. And so like all these companies wanted people to run their Facebook and Twitter for them. Sleeping in my parents house, sleeping on my buddy's couch in LA when we wanted to. And then he found this offer, this job at this place called Sports Studio, which was recently purchased by an investment group led by Adam Sandler and Jack Garoputo from Happy Madison. And they did all the fake sports and TV commercial and movies. So wardrobe, casting, choreography. But they were going to add ancillary services and kind of build out this agency. Like business. And so I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. They've done a League of Their Own any given Sunday. Just like incredible projects that grew up like Mighty Ducks, just idolizing. And they just had this warehouse of like 3 million garments. It was so cool. And I was blown away. And I was like immediately like I have to get a job here. And so they were offering like $10 an hour, 10 hours a week. But it was in LA, I had to be out there. And so I would go to these meetings and like there and with them and I got the job. And it was, it was crazy. I would like if I came from my parents house at Chino Hills, I would have to, I would leave at like 5 because I realized I was gonna take me like two hours to get out to LA. And so I'd get there like at like 5:30 or 6 and then sleep in my car. Cause it only took me like 45 minutes then. And then my boss would knock on the door and wake and I was obsessed with it and I couldn't get enough. And then. But there were no jobs. It was small company, they weren't doing a ton of revenue.
• 12:51
  Speaker B: And then were you, were you still like freelancing jobs on Craigslist at this time?
• 12:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, this, and this is one of them. But like once I got this role full time, I, I got rid of the other ones. It was like, it was that I was like, oh man. Like I kind of got to just go all in on this.
• 13:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, we both have that in common. Like that's how Hathaway started was I was freelancing jobs. Well, me and my business partner were freelancing jobs, Craigslist. We had just taught ourselves to build websites, basic SEO, kind of like Internet marketing stuff. And so we set up autoresponders and every time somebody would post like a listing for build a website, do SEO, anything like that, we would have an auto response and we just like send them an email and be like, hey, I'm a United States based freelancer. Because they would get hundreds of messages from people in India or overseas and I'd be the one that would respond right away with an actual message. And that's how we got our start, just freelancing jobs off Craigslist.
• 13:51
  Speaker A: And neither one of us got murdered, which is cool.
• 13:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, well. And I was also desperately poor, barely getting by. I don't even know how I managed to survive. I live in these crappy little places and probably eating like top ramen because it was just survival mode. Just kind of getting through and just trying to figure things out because yeah, the job market was terrible. I didn't want to get a traditional job and I was just like, all right. And I guess I look back and those years were really formative for me because I think they really developed a lot of my sense of drive and hustle and just part of my identity today is just I'm the person who's going to find a way. And I think that really came from those early years. So let me ask you, like, how do you think that period of your life where you were like sleeping on friends couches at your parents house, like, just trying to survive? Like, how did that foster who you are today? Or did it play a big role in who you are today?
• 14:49
  Speaker A: Maybe, I think yes, I think absolutely. I mean, I think I have a soft spot for people who are looking at career transitions or don't fit in the square peg round hole or whatever the saying is, right. Because that's me. And I just, I like know how difficult that period is. I think I look back on it, I was like, oh man, I was so depressed. Like, I was really, really. And I probably never said that I had applied to so many jobs and nothing was taking and it was just like, this sucks, you know? And like this really, really sucks. Maybe I should go to grad school and had taken the lsat, which now has expired, unfortunately. My dad would still remind me all the time, like, you know, if this doesn't work out, like you could go to law school and he still will say that. And you know, you could always be
• 15:42
  Speaker B: a divorce attorney and then you'd be really depressed.
• 15:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, you could be, you could. There's lots of, and maybe there's a lot of happy ones too. But yeah, to me, man, it was, it was, it was, it was a time. And yeah, I just, I think like, I'm really grateful for the people who took shots on me and gave me time. And I think I am always like that now too because even like when we were coming up at Sports Studio, we're going to all these events, we were trying to change our business and there were, there were people that like gave us time that I will always. And even early at Hyde Price and stuff gave us time that actually treated us better than we were at that time. Like, didn't make us feel small. And I always just have this like soft spot for those people. And I've, I've had conversations with, with people in the past about this at like sporting events. Some people are like you were really close with that guy there. And I'm like, I was just telling him how much I love him and I care about him because he gave us time and treated us like we were someone we weren't when we were trying to be. And like, I don't know, that kind of stuff is always amazing. And so it's like, I hope that I do that for other people too.
• 16:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. But I mean, during that time you developed a lot of skills that had you not been working on those, you probably wouldn't have gotten the opportunity at Sports Studio and ultimately wouldn't have gotten the opportunity at Hyperice. Right. That was kind of your transition into this world.
• 17:14
  Speaker A: Yeah. Sports, sports licensing, sports product content.
• 17:20
  Speaker B: Did you, did you get the job at Sports Studio off of Craigslist or was that just.
• 17:24
  Speaker A: It came in from something.
• 17:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, you did. Okay. We had a big break client that came off Craigslist, a company called Weed Maps. So we met their founder because he was freelancing SEO jobs and so weedmaps were spending like a hundred grand a month with us. It was a huge client came from Craigslist and eventually they took everything in house and Justin sold the company for an insane amount of money. But yeah, it just came through a lot of just hustle and a lot of terrible, terrible clients that we had to work with off Craigslist. Like just some of the weirdest characters ever. But you know that one thing like brought in revenue, helped us grow the company. And in those early days if you would've come into our office, there'd be like 10 developers with just nothing but like weed, like cannabis on their screens. That's all we were doing was just cannabis websites. And when they took everything in house, we had to figure out how to get the replace the revenue. Thankfully we signed some big accounts. It was just kind of serendipitous. But. But yeah, like you never know what's going to come when you're out there hustling.
• 18:34
  Speaker A: It's true.
• 18:36
  Speaker B: So Sports Studio, I think you started kind of in a small part time capacity. How did you end up taking a full time position at Sports Studio?
• 18:45
  Speaker A: There was a, there was an HR incident. I got a call when I was like in, in Berkeley going to Tulka Cal football game. And my boss called me at the time and was like, hey, you know, something happened at the office and would you like a job? And so I took a job like as like doing wardrobe and so you know, and was doing wardrobe for Hollywood TV commercial and movies as well as doing the Marketing function, blogging, SEO, ppc. Like all of that stuff that kind of, in our social kind of cataloging, all the project that this company had done. So when someone searched, they'd find us. They knew we were the, the industry standard for what they needed. And so yeah, it was, I, I got, I got a start, a full time start because someone else messed up.
• 19:37
  Speaker B: You know, preparedness. Luck meets luck. There's that saying.
• 19:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would say like, you know, in retrospect was probably like a very interesting beginning. But you know, take what you can get.
• 19:50
  Speaker B: Why did, why did they choose you? Because you were doing.
• 19:53
  Speaker A: I was the only one, I was the only one working part time. I think I was like the natural selection for the person and not that they were like, oh yeah, Joe's. Joe dresses really well. I really like his basketball shorts he wears into the warehouse.
• 20:07
  Speaker B: What, what did that role, how did that change the way you were thinking about your career because you graduated with an English degree? Did it make you start to think like, oh, marketing could be a real career for me? What did you learn in that experience at Sports Studio?
• 20:21
  Speaker A: I think sweet baby Joe at, at Berkeley kind of turned my mind onto the marketing aspects and like being able to like, okay, cool. Like there's this really interesting way we can tell this story. But also there was this mechanical aspect of then where it was like Google really didn't care about the answer before AI, they were looking for blogs to give the answer to these questions or Wikipedia. Someone, someone says, where do I rent sports wardrobe in Hollywood? So it was like there was this very mechanical aspect and way to gamify it. And I have a personality that I become obsessed with things where it's like, I just want to learn. So I have this kind of weird memory that I can't delete a lot of stuff out of the hard drive, so to speak. I say that like I'd weigh a lot less if I could for a lot of my memories. But I have a solid state hard drive and so this is all actual data storage and a lot of it's useless. But yeah, I just, I have, I just, I genuinely like people and I want to work with people I like and talk to and learn about and learn about them and what they're into. And then I can get into that. I'm genuinely curious about this kind of stuff, which I think is a skill in business development. And then also just you ask questions like, oh, that's really cool. How does that work? And like, I'm always been willing to be the Dumbest person in the room by being like, I don't know. What does that mean? Like, that acronym or something. We'll be in military meetings. I'm like, oh, yeah, this crazy acronym. You're like. And everyone's nodding question, question in the back. What does that mean? You know, and. And getting the answers. And, like, always being the one. Like, I don't know, but I can find out is one of my superpowers. And that's what I love doing. And it's like, I don't know. So, like, could you tell me the answer? And so I think, like, that's something that I really like, like, and enjoy about all of it is like, I'm just a voracious consumer of content and information and media just to be like, oh, that's cool. That's interesting. That's an angle for us. Like, it's fashion or culture or anything. I love. Like, I know I'm a dad. I'm not cool, but, like, I feel like I have a pretty good sense for, like, someone this age, like, to know that I don't know what's cool so that I should look at other stuff to understand what is. So that we can get involved in it. It.
• 22:39
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, we're dads. We're. We're never going to be cool again, but at least you get to go do some pretty cool stuff with super bowl and Masters and things like that. Now that you're at Hyperice, I. I'd love to hear, how did you end up at Hyperice? Was that another Craigslist opportunity?
• 22:55
  Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no Craigslist. I'd met Jim, the CEO of Hyperice, while he was at a company called Zenith Helmets. Then we had done some projects together with Dick's Sporting Goods, and we actually did, like, a One Direction photo shoot with Jimmy Fallon back in the day, like, super early. It was like, One Direction and Drew Brees. We made these uniforms for them and ended up doing with, like, a friend who's still one of our friends, actually worked at Hyperace. Alex Reinhardt, for. For a few years running our sports marketing. And we would just have these conversations. We go to these dinners for, like, four hours talking about what their business was doing. And I was just. I was so interested in business and, like. And it still am. Like, I just love, like, business biographies and memoirs and, like, I'm an absolute nerd when it comes to, like, that sort of thing and, like, understanding how and why things work or. Or don't work. And so we were just talking and it, over the course of like months, if not like a year after he joined, I held off. I was working on some cool entertainment projects. But yeah, it was like, do you want to come and like, join Hyperice? And I remember talking to my girlfriend at the time, now wife, and I was like, I don't know, am I, am I rushing it? Am I? And it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. And I went and I was like, I don't want. My fundamental thing was like, I don't want to miss out on the rocket ship. And it's been really fun.
• 24:15
  Speaker B: Was it obvious to you that it was gonna be a rocket ship or you were.
• 24:19
  Speaker A: I think it had the. I think it had the potential to be. I think the stuff they were doing predominantly with pro teams, like the product was good. But I remember Anth, prior to joining, they just launched like the foam roller and then the vibrating ball. And like, at the time, like, I was kind of unsure on like, like how these things really worked. Like, I wasn't really involved in fitness or whatnot. And so it's kind of unsure on like, how this stuff worked and if it could sell. And so took kind of a leap of faith. But I knew that I wanted to work at a brand. I knew I wanted to do something cool, stay in sports. Like, that's been part of my, like, who I am, like sports, fashion and culture and so. And yeah, it's like it's the right fit for me. Yeah.
• 24:59
  Speaker B: Well, it sounds like your wife had a little bit of a role to play in helping you make that decision.
• 25:04
  Speaker A: She reminds me of that quite regularly.
• 25:08
  Speaker B: Do you. Do you think you would have recognized the opportunity or been willing to make a bet on this organization had you not gone through that kind of struggle period of trying to hustle and figure out job gigs throughout that period. Was it those years that led you to this or would you have just ended up going down this path anyways?
• 25:31
  Speaker A: I think a lot of the relationships that I built, I think the opportunity was great. It was a. I had been at the other. At Sports Studio for five and a half years and it was. It was probably time for me to try something new. Like, I had built the network to what I could and this was an opportunity to grow it in a bunch of other kind of more consumer focused areas. And that's what we've kind of done.
• 25:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's an amazing organization. Nobody knows it, but I wear a venom back device pretty much for every episode. And you see, I got. I Got a few products back here that I added for product placement for you, but as you mentioned earlier, I pretty much have the entire catalog. You should probably just do an auto subscription for me whenever a new product is released.
• 26:12
  Speaker A: Just a little one of a. One of one. Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, just for me. Hi, Kevin here. If you're enjoying this conversation and you know someone else who's working to grow in their career while staying present at home, I'd really love it if you could share this episode with them. It's one of the best ways you can help us and help more leaders build their careers in a way that they're proud of without missing the moments that matter most. Also, you have two young kids under the age of five. You're traveling. Every time I talk to you, you're traveling. So you got a lot going on. What is, what's life like for you right now, both at home and work? Kind of what's going on behind the scenes?
• 26:51
  Speaker A: Life is, Life's crazy. If it, if it weren't crazy, would we, would we do it? Yeah. I have a five year old who turned five on, on Christmas Eve. And then my, my daughter turns 3 in about a month and a half. And they're, they're awesome. We love them. But we, My, my wife and I have our, our hands full for sure. So things are in the midst of. And we accidentally signed up for pony, which is a very intense undertaking as we learned. There's a lot of parents who've developed their just out of being toddlers into like baseball war machines, which is, which is incredible. We were not one of those parents. So we've been chasing a little bit as the development. When we first went out there, my wife called me from practice because our daughter had vomited. So like I was drew the short straw of taking her home to get her cleaned up. And my wife called me, was like, holy, these people are really good at baseball. And she like referred to them as people. I'm like, aren't they like five? She's like, actually some of these kids are like almost seven. I was like, how is this? Our son can barely like throw a baseball, has no concept of the rules. And we're almost half, almost to the end of the season and we're still working on some, some key fundamentals as in like throwing and not running away from the ball.
• 28:12
  Speaker B: From the ball.
• 28:13
  Speaker A: You know, we're working through some things, but the coach has been awesome and it's been, it's been really fun, but it's for we. She called me maybe 10 times. And it was like, I think we might have over signed him up. Like, this might be bad. He might be just turned off from sports forever. And he leaves practice, he wants to call me and it's like, dad, baseball was awesome. And we're like, oh, okay, well, if you thought that was awesome, then I think you'll really like it when you start to learn how to, like, play it. But it's been, it's been really fun to watch that process and, you know, not, not push that along. So we got, we got that going.
• 28:48
  Speaker B: My, my nine year old just started baseball for the first time ever. And so he's never played before, but he's really confident. He's like, dad, I'm a good baseball player. So, okay, let's go see how this goes. And I, I realized I kind of also overstepped here because baseball's four nights a week. It's just completely taken over. I thought it'd be like a game, a practice, no big deal.
• 29:12
  Speaker A: Baseball dad. You're just like a hashtag baseball dad.
• 29:15
  Speaker B: It's constant. And he gets two at bats a game, doesn't touch ball in the outfield, but he's really enjoying it. So I'm trying to just kind of be encouraging, even though my life just got taken over.
• 29:26
  Speaker A: What I think I like about, even though, like, I quit baseball when I was 12, even though I think it was like my best sport because I thought it was boring and I played catcher and my dad was like, if you think baseball's boring and you're a catcher and you're involved in almost every play, then like, I have no argument for baseball. Like, okay, you can go play soccer and do you know basketball and other things that you were doing? And so my son, my son really liking it. But the difference between that and soccer, like, at this age, the kids get to play in the dugout together, there's more downtime, they can goof around a little bit, and there's just this fun kind of camaraderie that exists within it, which I really love. You know, working with professional athletes like we do at Hyper Ice and the book Range by Epstein, before I had kids I got really into, because it talks about, like, over specialization leading to burnout and other things and injuries and otherwise. And like, I think fundamentally sports can be such an amazing teacher of kids about resilience and friendship and being a good teammate. Like, before Cole goes to baseball every day and before he gets out, it's one of the three rules of baseball, and it's like, listen to your coach, try your hardest, and be a good teammate. And like, that goes so far. And I think we, we lack a lot of that now. I just love the aspect of what team sports can teach you about life and, and being a good friend and being a good teammate and winning and losing and just coming back. And so we're going to put him in everything kind of regardless of whether he wants to or not, just to. So he gets a feel for it. And it's like he gets what it is to suck and skill development and all of those things. I think there's just so much in sports that I love. And growing up, my first toys, we've done the reverse with my son. All of my toys growing up were balls I don't think I had until I started playing sports. I got a GI Joe. Now my parents will disagree with this and be like, we gave you everything. You see all these pictures of me. There's a ball. That's pretty much it. It's like, there's a hoop, there's a goal, there's a bat. It was just always that. And so we kind of have done the reverse with my son where it's like, he really likes art and otherwise and so. But his interest in sports and his skill development, it's been really fun to watch.
• 31:39
  Speaker B: I think the merits of, like, kid sports are. Are there. What I've been struggling with is just kind of what I mentioned is, like, it takes up so much of our family time. I saw somebody recently who's a parenting expert talking about how, like, successful families that raise successful kids, they really preserve a lot of the family time, and so they don't enroll them in a lot of sports. Maybe one sport at a time. And yeah, I would love to have my son playing a sport where it's two. Two nights a week. And the rest of the time, you know, we have family time. It does take away from it, but like you said, you know, you're learning camaraderie. And also he gets another kind of mentor type figure that he can learn from. And then there's also just the school of hard knocks. I didn't want to come out and tell him when he said, I'm really good at baseball, I didn't want to be like, you're actually not really very good at all. I wanted him to be able to experience that himself and come to the realization and then hopefully want to work on it. But as of right now, he's not interested in really playing. I offered to throw catch with him for the last five nights in a row. And he just turned me down every
• 32:46
  Speaker A: time we started doing like, not bribing. I mean, I guess this just is full bribery. Like we're absolutely bribing our son because he really wants to play the infield, he wants to be more involved. But dude can't catch or throw. So like, no, no person should put him in the infield with any sort of conscience for his safety. And so part of the conversation in the last week has been like, I really want to play more and do this. And it's like, well then we gotta practice throwing and catching, buddy. Because like the guys who are in there, they're like able to get the ball out and do those things. So like, let's practice. And like, really our goal is for next season to like when you're one of the bigger guys. Cause he's the youngest kid in the league pretty much because he turned five on Christmas Eve, right. And so it's like the cutoff is January 1st, so it's like it's born that year. So you're a 2020 baby. So here you go. And he's, he's like negating that, which is kind of nice. It's kind of a hard conversation to have with your 5 year old and like, probably one that's a little bit too soon. But it's like, hey, all we can do is get better. Like let's, like, we could be a good listener, we can be a good teammate. Like those are the things and you have to be excellent at those, let alone the skill development because they're going to tell you where to throw it sometimes and you got to be able to do that, that. And he's like, yeah, you're right. And so he's like discouraged, but he's starting to recognize that like, and the difference between him and the others. So I, I, I like that aspect and not being the one that it's like, hey, you suck. You're gonna do better. Yeah, Yeah.
• 34:17
  Speaker B: I just don't want that to have to come to from me. I want him to realize not himself. And then hopefully he wants to practice, which I haven't seen materialize yet, but maybe, maybe it'll come soon.
• 34:29
  Speaker A: My son's super into Pokemon cards right now, which is something like as all kids are, I bought and so like he's like obsessed with my Pokemon cards that I've collected and had at my mom's house. He made me bring them home. He was like, dad, you don't even play with the Pokemon cards, so you should just give them to me. I was like, well, that's a good argument. But I was like, well, they're grandma's. He's like, well, even better. Just bring them home and I'll have them. And I'm like, yeah, I don't think so. I'm like, I go out to grandma's every night after you go to bed just to like look at him. And my grand, like my mom lives an hour away from us. And so a couple days later he's like, you don't drive out to grandma's every night to play with the Pokemon cards, so you should bring him here. And I was like, okay, fine. So he brought him here. But if he does certain things in baseball, he can pick one of the non holographic cards because a dude will tear Charizard like it's a napkin, you know?
• 35:17
  Speaker B: See, I made the mistake of building my son a deck that was too good. Good. I built him this Dragon deck with this kind of like unique combo where you do a lot of discarding and then you specifically like pull out this Charizard from your graveyard. And I built him this deck that's just too good. And now I can't build a deck that will beat it. And he just beats me every time because the deck is just better than everything else I can make. So that was my mistake.
• 35:44
  Speaker A: It's like using ChatGPT, you're like, how
• 35:47
  Speaker B: do I beat this deck?
• 35:49
  Speaker A: How do I beat the best deck in the history of the world?
• 35:53
  Speaker B: So well, Joe, I know, I know you are a very like devoted dad. How do you balance being there with your son, going to baseball, playing Pokemon with him with a role that requires a lot of you? Because I also know you travel a lot, you're always going to conferences. How do you balance the two and kind of what's going on with you at Hyperice right now?
• 36:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I would say I have like an incredible partner in praising and really the CEO of our household. My wife has a full time job and it does an incredible job still just like making things special for the kids and the family and just has this unbelievable drive to make our kids childhood special. And so, so many times it's like just trying to keep up with them. And I would say like I've done a much better job over the last, call it like two plus years of being more present. My first kid, we were born like in the middle pandemic and so like I didn't even take paternity leave and I Just kind of kept working and took it later and we went on a vacation with him as the three of us. And because I was just around like I was stuck in the house, I was like, I might as well work at that point. It was, I always likened that moment to, you know, like when you're a newborn dad for the first time, you're like Anne Hathaway and Devil Wears Prada, except there's two Meryl Streeps, you know, and you gotta anticipate every need of both and clean up the mess, do the dishes, do this stuff and be there. And so it's like that's your focus and it's very tactile and operational, which I do really well. I'm fundamentally like a fixer and someone who goes and can get things done. Like, see it, fix it, move on is kind of how I roll. And. And now as they get older, I think I've done a lot better job of. I guess like maybe two years ago, I kind of had this realization that I was, I'm doing all these things. I have this like in like I'm. I love the career that I have and like the things we get to do are amazing. And I have these pinch me moments that 10 year old me would be like, you went to the super bowl, like what? Or like, you know, 13 year old me, like, you went to the Masters, Are you kidding? And that's not lost on me. But it was like, it wasn't necessarily feeling as sweet. And maybe that's because I wasn't taking the time with the kids to really like be there. Like, I think like, you know, I don't know if you ever feel like a really good parent. I guess like this maybe too like therapeutic. But like, I always feel like I'm kind of like Bill Belichick or like Nick Saban after like a win. Like every night. Like with Lane and Ben, you're never like, damn, I've killed it as a parent today. Like, that was a perfect game. You're like Bill Belichick going back. You're like, we did it, we did it right? We didn't lose. We got better today. But we could have done a lot of other things better. And I feel like that's part of being a good parent. But you have to kind of give yourself a little bit of grace just enjoying it. And so right now, I mean, from 5 to 7:30pm it's pretty impossible to get ahold of me because that's the time my kids are away. And when I'm home. That's what I'm doing now. I'll check emails or texts or things here and there throughout the evening. And I'm not saying I'm not on my phone because a lot of times that's my decompression time too. Because after the kids go to bed, like 7:30 happens. And at 7:38 and then I'm back on ripping emails to Asia or the Middle east or catching up on the day's work and getting stuff out ahead. Because so much of my role is outbound pushes that it kind of like has to be like I am the motor that generates the gas. Otherwise it just doesn't return in that way. And so I've spent a lot of time being there and trying to appreciate it and being like, wow, this is like, this is really nice. We're getting a breather, we're taking our time. And I still think sometimes like a daily struggle, right? You finish some days and you're like, wow, that was really hard. Like right now, bedtime is really hard for us. And sometimes we like, we're both in there trying to get them down. It's like, like, what on earth. It's not like we don't do the same routine every day. So yeah, it's, it's definitely a balance and there's. And I travel a lot and we have like a, A great support system. And you know, I think just my wife also travels for work too, so we go back and forth. So some weeks, like it's, it's all me, some weeks it's all her. She doesn't travel quite as much as I do, thank God. But yeah, it'll be, be. Be weeks where we're home. But we, we're pretty, pretty hardcore about it once when you're. When we're in it, you know, So I love walking my son to school. Like that's like a great reset for me, like every morning when I'm home. Like all these families in our neighborhood have golf carts and like, we don't live that far away. And it's like, just like want to walk like, and spend the time, right? He like, really is into roly polys. So like, so like a new world record of like collecting like 13 of them every day, which is a pretty big deal.
• 41:00
  Speaker B: That's great. I love how you have some rituals, right? Starting the day with your son, walking to school, closing out with bedtime routine. And kudos to you, man. Like having a window of two hours where you're actually present with your kids. That's really hard to do. I'm constantly talking to people and that's really their biggest struggle is they have time with family despite working 12, 14 hour days, traveling a lot. But the hardest part is actually just being present in those moments because yeah, you got, got emails and text messages and you're just constantly bombarded. So like turning on do not disturb, that's a great tool.
• 41:38
  Speaker A: Or just like, hey man, it's bath time. Sorry.
• 41:41
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 41:41
  Speaker A: And just being super honest about it.
• 41:43
  Speaker B: Right.
• 41:43
  Speaker A: Like, oh, sorry, T ball practice, you know, can't help. And like my dad always coached my teams growing up and like, I can't do that. I know that that's probably just one step too far for where I am right now.
• 41:57
  Speaker B: Like overextending yourself. Yeah.
• 41:59
  Speaker A: Where it's like, I just don't know how I could do it. Right. And it's because, like, you know, it's like I missed stuff and so.
• 42:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't think I could coach my kids until if they pursued sports to an older age where it was a little bit more competitive. It's really hard for me to just tone it down enough that I could be a good coach. But if he played middle school, then I feel like that's, that would be my time to really get in there and help him develop his skills. Because I'm a bit of a driver.
• 42:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, I get that.
• 42:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. How is becoming a dad, like, changed the way that you see yourself?
• 42:39
  Speaker A: Mom and dad, it's just end. Stop. That's the biggest note.
• 42:44
  Speaker B: Right.
• 42:45
  Speaker A: Fundamentally, it's like that's what's going on in my tombstone. Dad, father, first husband, brother, son. It's not selling stuff or doing co partnerships. I Hope the NormaTec ACG boots aren't on my tombstone, like, because that'd be sad because that would not deal with like, the impact like I made on other people.
• 43:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. My kids might joke that they would be put in my grave because I wear them too often. Yeah. How did things change for you after you became a parent in those early years?
• 43:16
  Speaker A: I think it just rationalized how, how important everything is or isn't and like that we're kind of only here one time. And I think at the end of the day, your kid doesn't really know what you do and doesn't care at like the young age. And they don't, they don't care about any of it. They don't care about the sale. They don't care about like, they want you for you. And like, you know, Ryan Holiday has that story about getting frustrated because everything he builds, the kid stops and then has the. Has him build something else or build this castle or whatever in fort and they just don't even play with it. And then his wife tells him, like, but you're the toy. Like, you're the toy. It's not the toy's not the toy. You're the toy. And I just love that because I'm like constantly reminding myself, like, I'm the toy. Like, I'm like making them great. It's like. And yeah, it sounds so silly when you're not a parent, like to hear that, like, but it just changed your perspective on, on everything. So.
• 44:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, a lot of like career is success and accomplishments and what you said a few moments ago about they just want you for you, that's a really important reminder of what self esteem really is. In career, you get so much external validation rather than just knowing that you're enough. And then you have this mirror every day when you come home that reminds you, this little human loves me for exactly who I am. Not because we hit our numbers or because we did this big event. And, you know, our kids just really are such a great mirror for us. Joe, thank you so much for this conversation and just being here with me today. I really appreciate how honest you were across both sides of the story. Like the grind, the clarity that comes later when you realize what really matters. And I just really appreciate your reminder that kids, kids don't care about our titles, our partnerships, our wins at work. They just want you. And that's such an important anchor for anyone trying to build a career and a family at the same time. So thank you again so much. I really appreciate you being here. If you're enjoying this conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. CEOs and ABCs is all about helping you grow in your career and show up at home. We've got many more amazing guests coming up, so tap, follow, and stay tuned.