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74: From Bodybuilder to Restaurateur w/ Don Varady · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  This episode is sponsored by National Technology Management. Visit TrustNTM.com for more information. I'm Kelly Siegel, and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business, and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living. On today's show, we have the co-founder of CleanEats and CleanEats Franchising, LLC, and CleanEats Kitchen. Don Verratti has a great,
• 0:28
  passion for helping others succeed. His dream is to help other small businesses who are interested in franchising get started without the worry of someone coming for a stake in what they built. I've gotten him known Don very well and he is authentic and genuine as they come. He is a no-nonsense dude that loves his wife and his company and is here to share his secrets with us today. Welcome you beautiful badass. There goes the humility right off the bat man and I freaking love you for it. So I'm going to be here to share
• 0:56
  Don, we're going to jump right into it. There's no secret that I love your brand. I love your food. It is delicious. But we're going to talk all about you, how you got started, how you're so successful. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your journey to the Clean Eats King? Yeah. I grew up right outside of St. Louis, California.
• 1:21
  And, uh, that's where I met my wife. My wife, uh, grew up just north of there. And, uh, we met in 2009 and I was kind of in a really dark place in my life, man. Um, just doing stupid shit. It wasn't really any, you know, tragic story or anything. I was just partying and being a dumb kid like everybody else. But I think I had a tendency to take it to the extreme and, uh,
• 1:48
  You know, just wasn't really happy with the life that I was living when I met her. So I was kind of in this transition phase of my life. And I always tell people that when we have our monthly discovery days with Clean Eats, I always tell everybody it was kind of fate. I get goosebumps right now when I tell this story. But had I not met her when I did, I'd be dead or in prison, man. That's the road that I was going down.
• 2:14
  Drinking, partying, drugs, you name it. It was the lifestyle that I was living. I had gotten to a point where I was just fed up with it. I was tired of feeling that way. I was tired of just living that life. I was getting ready to compete in a bodybuilding show. It was going to be my second one. I just made the decision, you know what, I'm just going to not do this.
• 2:37
  you know, because there was gear involved and all this stuff. And I said, I'm finally in a good headspace where I just want to focus on myself and just kind of reinvigorate myself. And so I was on my way to being in a really good space. And that is exactly when I met her. It's kind of weird to say that, but...
• 2:55
  We met in the gym that we were training at and a good friend of mine introduced us and she had just started this little cafe in this little bitty rinky dink town right outside of St. Louis there. And my friend took me over there and it was a healthy cafe. And back then in 2009, those things did not exist, especially where we are or were, because that's like meat and potatoes land. Like we had to coax people in the early days to eat there.
• 3:23
  Um, but I had went there and instantly like fell in love with what she was doing and her and I hit it off right off the bat. And, you know, the, the day that I met her, she told me that she was getting ready to train for this show. And I'm like, holy crap, this, this couldn't have worked out, you know? Um, and she had convinced me to do the show with her after I'd already made the decision that I wasn't going to do it, but I'm like, you know what? Um,
• 3:47
  if this is going to be a good support system and I've got somebody rallying around me and we've got so much in common, we wound up doing the show together and, you know, we hit it off right off the bat and, um, it was great. And then, you know, four or five months later, um,
• 4:06
  You know, that was when the housing market was kind of crashing. Construction was slow. I was getting really burnt out on what I was doing. I wasn't happy in my career anymore and didn't really know what I wanted to do next. I knew I was going to do something different. I had no idea what it was. And I was always in the restaurant helping Yvonne. I didn't work there, but I was working there just doing whatever she asked me to do. And, um...
• 4:33
  We kind of made the decision four months into a relationship that we were going to be business partners. Sounds crazy. Everybody says, man, you're nuts. Our family thought we were crazy. My family thought I was crazy because I was giving up a 15 year career as a union carpenter, pension, retirement, the whole nine yards, a good salary. And I walked away from all of it. And.
• 4:55
  You know, we had a long, lot of long late night conversations while we were sleeping in the back of the cafe, because at the time, Yvonne had went through a nasty divorce and she was literally living in the back of the cafe. And we decided that we were going to do this. And I said, I remember this night. I remember this conversation like it was yesterday. And I said, Yvonne, I cannot do this anymore.
• 5:22
  with a clean conscience and, you know, feel like I'm contributing everything that I have to contribute unless I have a brand new start and I got to get rid of my house, my truck, everything. Like my debt cannot like be carried on with this little bitty cafe if we're going to grow this business. So,
• 5:42
  The very next day, she followed me to the bank in a brand new Hemi truck that was less than six months old. And I dropped a key five on the desk and walked back out the door. Literally just gave my truck up and then let my house go into foreclosure and filed a personal bankruptcy. All within like 30 days. And I had about less than maybe 10 grand to my name. And we just injected it into the business and we rolled.
• 6:09
  And everybody thought we were crazy. We lost, I mean, the group of friends that I had, I mean, I can't even begin to tell you some of their opinions on what I was doing. They thought I was nuts, but
• 6:22
  Um, we grew that cafe a little bit and then we bought another one and we decided that we were going to move. She had went through a couple of cancer scares and we decided, you know what, if we're going to do this and we're going to try to take this to the next level, we want to do it where we want to be. And so we originally wanted Florida. That's where our hopes and dreams were. We went down to Lauderdale, Bocah.
• 6:49
  We went to Fort Myers. We traveled all over the state of Florida and nothing really seemed right. And then that year we went to the Arnold Classic. Everybody knows what the Arnold Classic is. And we happened to be wearing our like cafe branded T-shirts. And we ran into Jen Hendershot. And that was an idol of Yvonne's. She wanted to meet her and talk to her. So we walked up and talked to her and she saw our shirts and said, well, where is this?
• 7:18
  And we said it's right outside of St. Louis, but we're getting ready to relocate. And she said, you guys really need to check out Wilmington, North Carolina. And we kind of looked at each other and we're like, where the hell is Wilmington, North Carolina? Like, is that podunk land? You know, we're not trying to go there. We're leaving there. And so we did listen to her and went back to Florida, couldn't find anything that felt right. Nothing really sat with us.
• 7:46
  And so that following year, we went back to the Arnold and met Jen again, talked to her and she said, have you guys relocated yet? We said, no. And she said, I'm telling you, go to Wilmington, just make the drive and go there. And so a couple of months later, it was Labor Day weekend and we hopped in the minivan that we were driving. We call it the war wagon. This thing had a dent on the hood. It looked like somebody body slammed somebody on the hood. And we drove 17 hours straight
• 8:16
  I had found the original Clean Eats Cafe on Craigslist. It was a deli that the guy was selling. And we put that address in our GPS and started making this drive. And the whole way out, we said, you know, we were talking, you know, conversations about where we wanted to be, what we wanted to be, the business to be around, the kind of, you know, people that we wanted to attract and things like that.
• 8:40
  And I'm not shitting you, man. We pull in the parking lot of this deli. There's a Gold's Gym across the street. There's a Max Muscle Supplement shop in the parking lot. Everything within a three-mile bubble was everything that we had talked about driving to this cafe. We instantly fell in love with it. The minute we walked in the door, we're like, this is exactly what we are looking for. And...
• 9:01
  We talked to the guy, Dave, couldn't have been a nicer guy. And we didn't even negotiate, man. That's how naive we were at the time. We offered him the money right there and he accepted it. And I said, listen, man, we have to go back to Illinois. But if I write you a down payment check now, can you continue to operate this cafe until Thanksgiving? And then we will move. We need to go sell our other business because we've been trying to sell that cafe leading up to that. And.
• 9:30
  It just all worked out, man. The stars aligned. We wound up selling our other cafe for exactly what we were buying this cafe for. And that was Thanksgiving. We made two or three trips within a couple weeks moving to North Carolina. And we opened that first cafe in 2013. So that was kind of a wild journey there. I know I kind of, I sped that timeline up really fast there, but...
• 9:59
  In a nutshell, that's how we ended up in Wilmington. It's kind of a wild story. I'd forgotten you were in Wilmington, dude. I just met a very dear friend like you could come to me in Wilmington. I'm going to come down there. He wants me to come camping. So maybe we'll come out to your place. Introduce you guys to just me. Rudy Rickstein's real big business.
• 10:21
  entrepreneurs, a brilliant business coach. But I have to unpack all that, Don. I knew all that, I love that story. I heard it on a podcast, you've told me it. So I wanna reiterate it back for the listeners. It's a love story and you're a big teddy bear, salt of the earth, you trust everybody and good things happen to good people, man. Did you re-arrive that from all of what you just said? You trust everybody, you are such,
• 10:51
  a true authentic person and that's what the universe needs. That's why I wanted to have you on. One more thing, how many Clean Eats franchise locations are there today? As of yesterday, 106. So everybody, heart of the life. This guy started off a union carpenter, a carpenter electrician, was it a carpenter? Carpenter, yeah. Union carpenter,
• 11:16
  106 locations. Bravo to you, my brother. These meals, by the way, Clean Eats, it's spelled E-A-T-Z, www.cleaneats.com. They're actually available in the Heart of the Life app. You get 5% off. I eat them daily. They are so delicious. They will deliver to your house. That was my shameless plug. If you messaged me, I will send you the 5% off link. So I eat them daily.
• 11:46
  and I post them on my stories. They are delicious. What I love about them, and you know, let's talk about this. I didn't put this in short prep. What I love about them is they're not all protein. There's a good mix of carbs and protein. And you look at the two of us, we ain't frickin' shy for meals. So this ain't the new world where, oh, you can't have carbs. No, no, no, no, I need carbs to survive. So talk about how you came up with the recipe
• 12:12
  for the mixture of carbs, macros, and all that jazz that healthy people want? Well, I mean, the model itself, I gotta give all the credit to my wife, to be honest with you, in terms of the food and recipe development, that is her quote unquote lane.
• 12:33
  I don't meddle in it. I don't get involved in it. I am shamelessly, I'm the guinea pig. I try everything. I actually have been kicked off of our food committee three times for liking everything and not giving good enough criticism. So the joke around the office is if we want somebody to eat it, just come to my office and I'll eat it. But she she does all the recipe development. She's got a staff that helps her now.
• 12:58
  But in the early days, man, when we were still competing and doing all of that, and it was just the two of us running our business, it wasn't rocket science, man. We literally would buy Food Network magazines and all the food magazines. And we would just flip through there and find a really healthy, delicious meal that we saw in the magazine. And we would say, okay, well, how can we flip out ingredients and make this healthy? You know, I mean, that's
• 13:25
  When we started the Clean Eats brand versus Locale, even Locale, you know, the business back home, we focused on taking comfort food and making it healthy and focused on portion control. That's the whole basis of the business. And we've been like that from day one, you know, going on 12 years now doing what we're doing. And, you know, most of the meal companies...
• 13:49
  they try to pigeonhole themselves into one sector of business or one lifestyle, dietary lifestyle, whether it's, you know, all organic or keto or, you know, you name it, just put a tag on it. And we never wanted to do that. We wanted to have something available for every lifestyle. And that's kind of the way we've done it since day one. So just so people understand too, and I don't mean this to be an infomercial, but it's I live and die by these things.
• 14:18
  They're very affordable and I would put them up against any of the competition. And I have two homes. They ship to Florida, they ship to Michigan and they come proper. And if you look at any of my stores, I unbox them. It's a shameless plug, but that's why I wanted you on. I reached out to you. I said, I have this brand. I want to align with somebody and it was just perfect. And ever since day one, you've given it to me straight and we've been honest.
• 14:44
  and we're gonna be a long lasting friendship. But having said that, what the Heart of the Life show is all about is overcoming adversity. So I know you just don't blink your eye and get to 106 locations. So what are some of the mistakes and failures you encountered? What did you learn from them? Oh man. Here we go.
• 15:04
  You made a comment a minute ago that is semi-true, but not necessarily true anymore. Yes, in the very beginning, I was very trusting. You know, we trusted everybody and it got us in a lot of trouble. So now I trust is earned with me now. It's not so much that I just give it out and give people the benefit of the doubt right away. I never do that now.
• 15:31
  And the reason for that is some of the mistakes and failures that we made in the beginning. I mean, we almost lost our company twice trying to hire different consultants and people to come in and help us. And it's honestly what made me start the consulting kind of side project that I do on the side, which is help other small businesses and owners and things like that. If they wanna scale and they don't know how,
• 15:58
  You know, I kind of built this model to come in and help them. And right now I don't charge any money for it because of my time. You know, I don't I don't feel comfortable charging people money to do this because I can't give them the time that they deserve to warrant me charging them. But eventually I would like to get into that when the day comes and it's right. But the whole basis of that model is to help people feel comfortable with a consultant that isn't going to one, come for equity of their company.
• 16:26
  charge them, you know, want to take royalties if they're a franchise business or something like that and just, you know, overvalue themselves. I want to make sure that, you know, my whole thing is earned equity over time. Prove your worth and then ask, you know, you know what I mean? And so that's the that's the whole model for the way that I've been doing consulting is let me come in and show you how I can help you. And then if you're still comfortable with me and you want to move forward,
• 16:54
  then we'll work out a deal and, and, you know, and if, if that's right, then we'll move forward. If not, you know, I made a friend and I helped somebody. So that that's kind of how I'm going to do that. Yeah. I love that because you know what happens all too often if this younger generation, they want something before they're willing to do anything. So I think I just posted yesterday. It was about, uh, uh,
• 17:16
  winners do things to feel good. The losers feel good or do want something to feel good. So it's the reverse. Having said that, you didn't, I want you to dig into, you said you almost lost your business twice. Yep. The listeners need to hear what mistakes, give us one or two of those mistakes that made you almost lose it. And then how'd you overcome it? Cause that's the good stuff. Yep. So the group that franchised us, we were very young and naive, man. When we,
• 17:47
  The day that we decided to franchise our business was we walked into an equipment dealer and we were going to open another location here in Wilmington. We didn't even know we were going to franchise. We went in and we're like, okay, let's expand. Let's do another location. But this time, let's kind of do what we want. We were...
• 18:06
  You know, when we found the little cafe, we were very limited because it's a very small space. And we were like, OK, well, we have all these ideas. You know, we were still competing. We were meatheads. So we want to sell supplements and clothes and do all this stuff. And we walked into this guy's office and he was like, you know, I've heard about your brand. I've heard about your business. You know, you guys have a good reputation around town. He said, I really think that you have something here and you should think about franchising. And me and Yvonne looked at each other and we're like, what the hell is this guy talking about?
• 18:36
  And then he gave us a business card and we went home and we thought about it. We're like, you know what, man, this is, we should probably think about this. And me and Yvonne thinking about something is like an hour, two hours. We're like, let's do it. And we were like, you know, a couple of rockheads. Then we were all hyped up. So we called this guy and we met with him and we sat down with him and he told us about what they do and how they do it. And we agreed to it.
• 19:04
  And we wrote this guy a check for like 25 grand. We didn't know anything about this guy. We went home and I actually had a little small freak out moment. I'm like, Yvonne, we just wrote this guy a check for almost all of the money that we have. We didn't vet him. We didn't talk to anybody. So I freaked out. I called the guy on the phone. I said, hey, can you give us a couple of contacts of the other brands that you've worked with? And he gave them to us. He said, yeah, call these guys.
• 19:30
  And we called a couple of them and they were like, yeah, man, they helped us grow. They're great. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, sigh of relief airplane comes off and I'm like, great. And then we signed a, you know, a partnership agreement with these guys and it wasn't that it was a bad one. It was, you know, again, you're talking 2013. So this was 10 years ago. We didn't know what we didn't know. And it was a,
• 19:55
  It was a very expensive consulting agreement, and I'll just leave it at that. It's not like they ripped us off. We should have just been more educated and maybe hired an attorney. That's one lesson to review this thing. And had we done that, it would have saved us a lot of headache. But one thing led to another one, and we were able to get out of that about a year and a half later. And ironically, one of the guys that was part of that is one of our partners now on the Clevee's Kitchen side.
• 20:23
  Um, his name is Jason, um, really good dude. Um, he's, he's younger, but he's, you know, he's a diehard entrepreneur, very, very intelligent guy, and, um, he's been a part of that growth. And, um, that was kind of our way of getting out of that contract was kind of trading one thing for another one, if you will, long, very long story short. Um, the other guy went on and did his own thing.
• 20:49
  And then that was the first time we almost lost it, trying to get out of that. It got ugly for a minute, but we were able to get out of it. Let's focus on that for a second. So what you did is you did progress over perfection. You didn't hesitate and wait and say, oh my goodness, let me make sure we get this perfect. And you had the confidence in yourself to say, you and your wife, of course, your team, to say, hey, if this goes south, we'll be okay. So that's,
• 21:16
  what being an entrepreneur is all about building the airplane while you're flying it and wondering how are we doing this so that is fantastic story and i just i admire your your your trust in in humanity and people because there are good people out there there's lots of good people yeah and even though this this deal didn't work out it really did work out
• 21:41
  And I want to point out something, and this is so it's, this doesn't seem like we're having a man crush here. How I met you is through one of your franchisees. He could have said, oh, I want to stay and do business with the Heart of Life brand. But he immediately sent me on a text message with you
• 22:00
  and said, you two need to connect because you're gonna, that is a testament to you and the culture that you've made of the Clean Eats brand. So people, this guy's the real deal and it's gonna get better, which is gonna be my second question. But I wanna ask one more too, because I think I know the answer to what I'm gonna ask anyways. Who or what has been the biggest source of your inspiration in your work? I've been very good at
• 22:28
  And I don't know if it's a gift or a talent or what it is, but I've been very good at watching successful people do things from afar. You know, Andy Frischella is an acquaintance of mine. I've known Andy and the guys at First Form for a long time. And to be honest with you, in the early years of me and Yvonne's business, those guys were the bar.
• 22:52
  They were the ones that I looked up to and kind of watched how they built and grew their brand and their company. And every time they would raise their bar, I would raise mine. They would raise their bar, I would raise mine.
• 23:05
  And just being able to watch Andy and Sal and the guys around first form from a distance and watch how they conducted themselves, watch how they operate and things like that. You learn a lot just by paying attention, keeping your mouth shut, keeping your head down and watching and just continuing to educate yourself, to be honest with you. I don't know if it's one person or the other. It's just paying attention to who's doing things right and learning those lessons and putting them to work.
• 23:35
  Living and learning. I love that. You asked earlier, the second time we almost lost our company was really where I learned that lesson the hard way. We had these kids come from Florida that were looking to buy a franchise. And we were really young, man. I think we only had seven or eight units. And it was a really young couple in their early 20s. They were kids. And they were great.
• 24:03
  They were very energetic. They lived the lifestyle. They were picture perfect to us, but they were really short on finances and they wanted to bring the father of the daughter down and meet us and talk to us to get approval and he was gonna back them and that sort of thing. So this guy comes down and sits with us and starts telling us all these stories about the franchise background that he had and everything that he had done
• 24:32
  And we approved them. They opened their store. Well, then that was right around the time we were still trying to get out of that other consulting agreement that I was telling you about. And he was like, look, if you guys are going to have me consult you, this is not a good agreement for you guys. You guys should try to get out of this. You know, whether you're whether you're you know, you don't get along with these guys or whatever. Business wise doesn't make sense.
• 24:58
  And we were getting to that opinion ourself. And by then we had other people that were kind of trying to give us some guidance and things. And one thing led to another one. We were able to get out of that. And then this guy was kind of our advisor and the guy turned out to be a complete fraud, just a complete fraud. I had found out a lot of things within the year that he was with us, that he was doing behind my back. He was,
• 25:25
  taking real estate commissions behind my back with a fake brokerage number and really disclosing things about our business that legally he was not supposed to be doing. And one thing led to another one. We wound up having to sue him. And that was my wake-up call because the consultant agreement that we signed with him, we couldn't afford a business attorney at the time. We didn't have one. And I was arrogant enough at the time
• 25:54
  And I always tell everybody I've made two major mistakes in my life. One, marrying my first wife at 23. The second one is signing this consultant agreement. It literally almost cost us the entire company. And I was arrogant enough to redline this thing myself. And we signed it. And it almost cost us the whole damn thing. And when we sued him, this went to court and an arbitrator and everything else, and it wound up being.
• 26:23
  like over like words like and and or things like that, that had I just, you know, been humble enough and went and hired an attorney to do it and spent the money and done it right. We would have never went through that. Never.
• 26:39
  And so that was my wake up call. And I was like, you know what? I've got to humble myself and I've got to start learning from people that really know what they're doing and understand when I don't understand something and be comfortable going and asking for help. It was that moment when I learned that lesson and I've never forgotten it since. And that's just how I've operated ever since that day. I'm gonna reiterate that. I own several companies as well. I own a national technology management and any time,
• 27:08
  that we enter in any agreements, we run it by the lawyers first. And I hate to do that, but it will save you lots of headaches, lots of money in the future in case a deal goes south. They don't all do. And unfortunately, I just had Brad Lee on it. He said this, he said, you always want to stay out of litigation because the only people that make money during litigation are the lawyers. So that's really good advice.
• 27:38
  Don't try to do things yourself. Definitely don't write. I did have a very first, my first start out in business, I'll share this, I've never shared this before, is my attorney then that helped me start my company made me read the contracts with him and he would say, what do you read, what are you interpreting? So, because he wanted me to be, and unfortunately he's now since deceased, but he taught me how to read a contract
• 28:04
  interpret it and understand their culture to see if it's somebody you wanna do business with. He's like, they will tell you three things. If you wanna do business with them, and if you don't wanna do business with them, or the in-between. So either the one, if you don't wanna do business with them, it will be in that contract. It will be so one-sided that that's not somebody you wanna do business with. So that's my legal advice for the day, but I'll read a quick contract, like I read yours,
• 28:33
  And no, if it's fair, that's somebody I want to move forward with. So a lot of times, and I'm going to give away a secret, if I ask you for a contract right away, I'm just, I'm trying to figure out who I'm dealing with. So that's just a little thing I do, because if it comes back and it is all for that person, my dealings are done. I walk away. Yeah, it's vital. I mean, my attorney is kind of,
• 28:59
  over time has become one of my best friends. And it's kind of for that reason. I've learned a ton from that guy just by going to him and saying, Sam, I don't understand this. Can you, can you educate me on this? Or, you know, I've actually, it's kind of sick and demented, but I have this weird obsession with contract law now. It's just weird. And I think it was that situation that's, it scared me to death so bad.
• 29:27
  that now every time there's a contract with our company, my first initial thing that clicks into my brain is, what's our liability and how do we get out of it? And how do we protect the brand and the company? And if you would have told me 10 years ago that I would have had an interest or any kind of obsession with reading contract, I would have laughed at you. I hate to read anything, but I don't know.
• 29:54
  You just told on yourself, you know, people, you don't have to listen to people, just watch them, but you just did tell on yourself because you read, you had two issues, two contracts with two consultants that burned you and you lived and learned and you're now like, okay, I'm gonna read these around and go forward because you were burned. So that won't happen ever again. And the beauty part about that is I will tell you, and you could attest to this,
• 30:23
  litigation, whether you're right or wrong, is war. It is war, and it just becomes this little cat and mouse game. I'm telling people, because if you've never, hopefully you'll never be involved in it, but if you do, it is worse than divorce, a death in the family, because they come after everything in it, and the discovery,
• 30:49
  And they just said, time suck and time drain. So if you can avoid it, two businessmen talking about it right now, avoid it. And I want to tell you right now, my best friend or my attorney is my best friend and he tells me the same thing. Yeah, that's the worst. So let's switch, let's switch into good stuff. Forget litigation because we do business the right way and everybody wins when we do business. What, where do you see clean needs head in the next few years? Oh man.
• 31:18
  I think that's the biggest question we get during our monthly discovery days when people are coming in and it's, it's kind of a date, you know, we're vetting them to see if we want to bring them into the brand and they're vetting us to see if they want to invest in the company. Right. And that we get that almost every, every event is, you know, where do you, where, what are you and Yvonne going to do? How long are you going to be involved in the brand? Are you guys thinking about selling soon? Because I mean, I'm going to toot my own horn for one second, but.
• 31:47
  most of the people buy into our brand because of the culture, because of what we do and how we do it. And I think that they're, they're just scared that they're going to sign and then Yvonne and I are going to go, Oh, by the way, we're selling the company next month. See you later. You know, which there, there will be a day where that will come and that will happen. But I, I always tell everybody until I wake up every day and I go to that office and I just am miserable to where the passion is gone. And I'm like,
• 32:14
  dreading going in there, I'm not going anywhere. Well, there's so much to do and there's so much innovation left and growth left to do with this brand that I still love being a part of. And I like thinking and problem solving it through. And our owners are family to us. We have one of the tightest knit group of franchisees. When I tell stories at franchise events and to other franchise related
• 32:40
  you know, consultants and brokers and things, they're just stunned at how different our internal culture is compared to other brands, because Yvonne and I kind of pride ourselves on not, you know, every franchise, every franchisee in our system has my cell phone number. They can just pick up the phone and call me. Other franchisors that have a hundred plus units, you don't ever talk to them. You ain't getting them on the phone. You damn sure ain't going to meet them in person, except for once a year at the annual, you know,
• 33:09
  you know, retreat or convention that they have. And we're just so ingrained in what goes on day to day. Some would say it's almost to a fault. You know, we probably should start to separate ourselves a little bit for our own sanity and stress and anxiety. And in certain ways we're doing that, but we always feel very passionate about if we're not, if we stop doing that, it changes the dynamic of how our brand operates. And so,
• 33:38
  We take a lot of pride in that and being so ingrained in the day to day with our owners. How old are you? I'll be 45 in August. I got to tell you, you were talking about Andy Priscilla and how you guys slept in the back of the restaurant. And that's how Andy got started to sleep in the back of the vitamin shop. And talk about culture. I would argue that First Form has...
• 34:05
  has some of the strongest culture I've ever seen. And you get handwritten notes when you get their supplements. And I've interacted with your people and it's this, you are absolutely right. Same, similar age, similar companies. And you know, First Form arguably is one of the largest brands in supplement business. So I don't see them stopping and I don't see you stopping. And I'm enjoying every interaction I've had with CleanEats. But I'm telling you guys, if you haven't tried it,
• 34:34
  Forget the competition, this is the real deal. Best bang for the buck in the business. And again, I wanna make people understand these things are tasty. I eat them every day. And there are certain days when you're really, really busy, if you're going like we do, that literally, I only have two minutes to run in the kitchen, throw a frickin' dish at one, and bring it back and eat it while I'm either doing a podcast
• 34:59
  or doing a video chat, and sometimes, you don't know this, Don, I try to shoot videos on it, but I'm doing a Zoom or something. Sometimes that's the only freaking meal I can get. So you save my life, I have got to eat. Throw up 220 pounds of solid muscle. I need food. And there's certain days, and there's certain days too, you or somebody from your office sends me stuff
• 35:24
  on a whim every once in a while. Plus we order it. And I, every time I look out at my porch, I see it, I go, yeah, my daughter, by the way, she, she eats it. She's like, yeah, these are delicious. Love the food. And it's gonna be a partnership for a long, long time. Again, you can get 5% off, uh, in the heart and life app. We got to get you in there too, because you've got some great stories, but let's switch your, your, your, your personal one. Can you share some hobbies and interests outside of clean eats? Sure. Um,
• 35:55
  Man, the gym for me has been the number one staple in my life for 24 years. And it's never gone anywhere. That's been the number one thing. It's never changed. So I still love to lift weights and stay in shape as the best that I can. And, you know, you'll sympathize with this as a business owner. I have really struggled with that in the last, man, I'd say year and a half.
• 36:26
  the stress and anxiety makes that extremely difficult. I mean, extremely difficult. And I've gone through ups and downs where I just don't want to train, man, because my mind's not right, or I'm different than a lot of other guys. They can use the gym as a stress outlet. Whereas when I'm in the gym, that's when I do my best thinking.
• 36:51
  So some of the best ideas I've ever came up with, I came up when I'm benching or when I'm squatting or, you know, right in the middle of a gym session. And, you know, I got to stop and write it down on my phone before I forget it. But that's where my wheels start to turn. So, man, if I come home and my brain is mush, there's no way I can't get it done. I just can't go down there and do it. I can't focus. And so I've really struggled with it. And it's kind of funny that we're talking about this because just last week,
• 37:18
  I had my monthly call with a life coach that I've had. Yvonne and I have used the same woman for 15 years and had a call with her Monday. And that was reaching a breaking point with me. And I said, Laura, this is my number one staple. And I feel like slipping away from me and I can't have it. Like it's bothering me really bad. She said that, you know, you just lack accountability, man. You know, it's simple. You're overthinking it.
• 37:44
  And this is a 50-year-old woman telling me this, a 220-pound man. And I'm like, shit, she's right. Like, so I was like, okay, well, there's only one trainer here in town that I would really trust with my stuff. And I called him, and I'm like, bro, I will work around your schedule. You tell me when you're free, and I'm coming, and I want you to train me. He was like, are you serious? Yes.
• 38:08
  why do you need a trainer? And I'm like, accountability. I don't want to think, I want you to write it. I'm just going to show up. You count my reps, but it's going to force me to come there and force me to do it. And it's been the last two weeks, the stress and anxiety have just fell off of me. It's crazy how that happens. But that was long winded and I apologize, but the gym is probably my biggest hobby outside of, you know, I love to shoot guns. We have a 300 acre farm that,
• 38:37
  That's my heaven on earth. When I go out there, the world disappears and we don't have any cell service out there. There's no internet connection. You're completely unplugged and it's great. I loved everything about that. I will tell you, I was sitting on my freaking hands saying, you need a workout partner. I was just gonna say that. Because it gives you a reason to go and I work out with a bodybuilder and he pushes me like there's no tomorrow.
• 39:07
  on the days that I don't wanna go, I know I gotta meet him so I get there. So if you look at me, besides the clean eats food I'm eating, I'm getting in better shape because I haven't had a workout partner
• 39:19
  20 years. This guy has supersets. And of course, if you just look at my comments, it's because like all I do is steroids, but no, you eat clean eats and you work out seven days a week, heavy as can be, and you get bigger and more ripped. So I will tell you one more and I'm going to throw you a little, little hack besides that.
• 39:39
  why think of why you work out to begin with to look good to feel good to do good or probably just because so what ivan thinks you're sexy i don't know what your why is but remember your why and if it's not big enough which i know yours is but if it's not this is for the listeners your why why you work out is not big enough get a bigger why and you'll get your butt in there but
• 40:05
  I feel like I've been working on for 30 years, then I get bored. And I'm like you, I throw on podcasts and I do some of my work, but I also trade at 5am because it's a non-negotiable for me. So figure out your why, people. And my why is because this is my brand is...
• 40:27
  So I can donate a million dollars to charity every single year, not I, we, the Heart and Life brand, and all you guys who are part of the Heart and Life community are helping me do this by purchasing cleaning stuff, by purchasing gear, by joining the app. And we're gonna donate a million dollars. So anytime I don't wanna get my lazy ass out of bed, I think about the two children's charity and the narcotics charity that we're gonna donate to and say, they're depending on me.
• 40:55
  So I get my butt out and I get to the gym and I just punch justice. And then I feel better. I mean, for me, it's turned into health now. I mean, shit, I mean, just look at other food. 99% of my diet is our own food because I know where it comes from and I know how it's prepared.
• 41:14
  But, you know, my family has a rich history of cancer and they don't live the greatest lifestyle. They never have. Yvonne's family is the same way. And so that petrifies me, you know, so the number one reason why I train now is just for overall health and wellness. You know, I have no aspirations to compete again in literally anything. I don't want to do power or powerlifting or, you know, compete in really anything. It's just.
• 41:41
  And I think sometimes that's kind of why I struggled not to go down a wormhole, but I never really had a goal. You know, when I was competing for 12, 13 years, however long it was, the show date was the goal, right? You had a calendar, you knew exactly what you were going to do. There was a plan, there was a roadmap. And the last time we competed was in 2014. And ever since 2014, there's been no goal, no roadmap, no nothing. It's just having the desire to go down there and bang weights out and
• 42:11
  That's been a roller coaster for a little while now, but. Well, I'm three and a half years older than you. And I tell you what, it gets harder. It gets harder. It does. And you're right about that stress. I'm watching this heart of the life app and it has been difficult. It's like throat hurting cats because marketing isn't picking up. It would start off a fitness app. And I'm like, guys, it's no longer a fitness app. It is a health and happiness
• 42:35
  social media hangout. So I'm like-minded people. There's absolutely no negativity. And holy cow, to get people's thinking to change. What I say impossible only describes the degree of difficulty. And if it can be done, I'm going to do it, as you're attested to tell. I mean, I can talk to you forever. I don't realize we're 43 minutes into this thing, and I'm only halfway through my question. So we're going to speed through a couple of things. Yes, sure.
• 43:02
  to know who you are. And I will commit this to you. I'm coming down to Wilmington because I have another reason. I'm going to introduce you to a local guy that you're going to love. So let's blow through some things. What's one thing about you that people might be surprised to know? Probably some of my insecurities. Even though as much as we've done, I still think, I have moments when I get into situations where I'm like,
• 43:28
  am I good enough to be here? You know, am I good enough to sit at this table? And, you know, you know, would I be invited to certain things, you know, at this point? And then I just got to tell myself, Hey man, none of that shit matters. Do your thing. You know, when the time is right, you'll, you'll feel it. And bro, that's fire right there. Thoughts are magical lives. Here is a highly successful podcast.
• 43:57
  and I'm going to throw it out there, probably millionaire, multi-millionaire, saying, am I good enough to be here? That right there was priceless. So thoughts are magical lies, people. That's six inches between your ears. We'll lie to you. This man is killing life and still wondering, should he be there? I feel the same way sometimes. What's your biggest fear? It's going to sound crazy, man, but I have this question.
• 44:27
  most people are scared to drown or scared to burn to death. I'm scared of cancer. That's probably my biggest, biggest fear. And I've been to the point where I have been told by my life coach, stop freaking thinking about it because we're really into like law of attraction, manifestation and things like that. If you think it, it will happen. And man, I think about it every day I wake up and I'm like,
• 44:55
  Should I be eating this? Should I be around this? To the point where it almost gets obsessive almost. And I'm like, I'm an idiot. Like, stop thinking about this crap. And I have to talk myself away from it. Do you have a, have you done any preliminary scans on any of that stuff? I haven't, but this is my 45th birthday. So I have all of the, you know, the midlife tests coming up. You know, the middle-aged man tests, I call them.
• 45:21
  Yeah, there is a special CT that you can get done that has AI, and it will scan your body for pre-cancers. I just had it done. I had to go to New York. They're only in certain places, New York, Vegas, Miami. So I'll get you connected with somebody, and you can go get it, and it'll make you feel better. Because I just had it all done, and they went back and said, dude, you are 100% healthy. Nothing.
• 45:51
  nothing precancerous about you. And then there's some genetic testings. I'll connect you with a guy who you will make you feel better. If you had all the money in the world, but had to work, what would you be doing? All the money in the world and still had to work. Probably small business consulting, man. It's turning into a really big passion of mine. That's awesome. And I love that for you because I get to know you and I feel your heart.
• 46:20
  And hopefully the listeners are feeling your heart. That's just genuine authenticity coming through people. This guy doesn't need to do this and wants to do. Yeah. I've kind of fallen in love with figuring out how to take, I may not know anything about somebody's business, but I'll learn and just taking something and making it grow. It's just, it's very intriguing to me. I love it. I love that. I, we're going to have some in-depth conversations in person. If you could create one law in the universe, what would it be and why?
• 46:51
  You know what? I never served in our military. It's probably if you ask me my biggest regret, that's it. I wish I would have done that when I was right out of high school. That was my next question. If you could do one thing over in your life. So you would serve in the military, which branch? Doesn't matter. I would just do it just to, for the discipline and, and kind of maturity. But if I could come up with one law for our country, I think that they should make it a law that everybody is,
• 47:21
  make it mandatory that everybody serves at least in some capacity in our, in our military in some, some way or fashion. I don't have all that figured out, but I mean, there are other countries, there are other countries that do that. I think Sweden might be one of them, but you know, it's mandatory. They do at least two years before they enter society. So the, where our, where our country and where our society is, and I hate politics. I will not get into a political debate.
• 47:49
  But where all of that, where we are just as a mentality, as a country, as a society, man, if everybody in our country had to serve two years in our military right out of high school, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I love that. That was, I think, one of the best answers, if not the best answer I've ever heard. What do you want your legacy to be? I mean, my main mission every day that I wake up, and especially with Clean Eats, but everything really is...
• 48:18
  I wanna have a positive impact on as many people as possible before I'm dead and gone. Sounds cliche and it sounds very generic, but that's what it is. No, no, no, it tells who you are as a person. And I'm gonna tell you right now, I loved you before,
• 48:36
  I said when we started before we hit record, I'm sorry we haven't spoke much lately because I'm trying to kick this thing off. But I got to get more access to you because you're my kind of people, man. And the listeners are going to love you. You're just real and authentic. And I need more of you around me, man. So if you could have dinner with one person who is alive or plus, by the way, sorry, I got to meet Yvonne. I love how much you talk about her. So if you could have dinner with one person who is alive or dead, who would it be and why? I would either say Steve Jobs or Elon Musk.
• 49:07
  Ooh, those, they're deep. You don't even have to say why. I understand. I understand. You just went right out. How did your, how did their minds think so differently than everybody else? Another level. I love it. Completely. Yeah. What makes you harder than life, my brother? Probably because I'm willing to do things that most people won't.
• 49:35
  some of the sacrifices that it takes to get to where most people talk about, they're not willing to do them. They'll get on the internet and say they are, or they'll talk about, you know, they're trying to get there or they're going to get there. They'll tell people what they're going to do instead of doing it and then talking about it. So,
• 50:00
  And that's probably one of my biggest complaints with social media and the guru entrepreneur space right now is there's too many bullshitters out there that are going to tell you what they're going to do or tell you how they can help you. And they haven't built a damn thing. You know, they got popular by writing a book about it or.
• 50:19
  or whatever the case may be. But if you really dig into them, they haven't built shit and they're out here charging people $7,000 a month for a six step process to a million dollars. And, you know, it's a subscription based thing and that's that, and they haven't built a damn thing. And I think that's where I would like to separate myself from everyone is to, you know, that old cliche saying the proof is in the pudding. Dude, that's,
• 50:47
  You just said why we like each other, because we both bootstrapped, started from the bottom, now we're here. And, you know, you can take it all away, we'll build it right back up again. This time, faster and better. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of guys out there that are doing really good things, who are really good, genuine people. They're very high-profile guys, and they're genuine. I've met a lot of them, and they're great. But for every one of those, there's two that aren't.
• 51:18
  True, true. That's the first question you should ask. What companies have you built before you try to tell me? You're not going to take workout advice from somebody that's not in shape. You're not going to take relationship advice from somebody who's twice divorced. So I don't understand why we take business advice from somebody who's never built a business. So if you could leave me with one piece of advice, what would it be? I think humility is probably the best character trait that anyone can have.
• 51:49
  Out of all character traits, I think humility is the biggest thing lacking in just humanity right now. Not just business owners or not just entrepreneurs or high caliber performing individuals. Humanity as a whole lacks humility. That's freaking beautiful.
• 52:10
  I want to remind everybody to run over to the app store, download their Harder Than Life app. Clean Eats is an affiliate in there. We're going to take this to the next level with them. Jason built us a beautiful site. We're going to be having some Seagull brand foods in there. And, man, I just love the heck out of you and had a blast here. Can't wait for this episode to air. And I'm going to see you very, very soon. I really appreciate you coming on Harder Than Life podcast today.
• 52:40
  Yeah, thank you, man. I appreciate it. Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.