Rob Fraser: Mission, Mindset, and Mastery (A $5 Million Story)

0:00:05 For 10 years, I woke up with a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life and where it
0:00:10 was going to go. And I loved that. I woke up every day with a fire in my belly saying,
0:00:14 “This is the goal. Here’s how I’m going to get it. And here’s what I’m going to do.”
0:00:18 And then almost seemingly overnight, when I walk away from the sport, that’s gone.
0:00:23 Your identity is gone. The day before I retire, it’s, “Hi, I’m Rob Fraser,
0:00:28 professional cyclist. It was everything. The next day, that’s gone. And over the next year,
0:00:32 that fades away because you’re no longer on the scene. And the friends, they’re still friends,
0:00:37 but you don’t see them. And the common interest starts to fade. And that led to this dark period
0:00:40 for me where I was like, “What am I going to do with my life?”
0:00:54 Welcome to the Knowledge Project. I’m your host, Shane Parrish. In a world where knowledge is
0:00:59 power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best of what other people have already figured
0:01:04 out. If you’re listening to this, it means you’re not a sporting member. Members get early access,
0:01:08 no ads, my personal reflections at the end of the conversation, access to the highlights
0:01:12 from the books I’m reading, hand edited transcripts, and so much more. Check out the link in the
0:01:18 show notes for more information. My guest today is Rob Fraser, founder and CEO of Outway, a rapidly
0:01:23 growing direct-to-consumer brand disrupting the premium performance sock market. Rob’s
0:01:28 entrepreneurial journey is a masterclass in overcoming obstacles and scaling a business.
0:01:34 In just a few years, Outway has gone from startup to multi-million-dollar success story. The company
0:01:40 has achieved impressive year-over-year growth, progressing through four, five, six, seven, and
0:01:45 now eight-figure revenue milestones. Rob’s ability to focus on what matters, build a strong brand,
0:01:51 and execute on scaling offers valuable insights for aspiring and established entrepreneurs and
0:01:55 managers alike. As a special offer for our listeners wanting to experience Outway’s
0:02:02 product firsthand, Rob’s offering 30% off. Simply visit Outway.com and use the code “SHAIN” at
0:02:06 checkout. Get ready for an illuminating conversation on the parallels between sports and business,
0:02:13 scaling a company, and the mindset required to push through challenges and achieve audacious goals.
0:02:20 It’s time to listen and learn.
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0:03:10 There’s a new massive trend emerging in entrepreneurship. More and more business owners
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0:03:40 visit Somewhere.com/knowledge for $1,000 off. You’ve been successful against the odds in both
0:03:45 professional sports and business. Talk to me about the mindset required to do that.
0:03:51 I mean, the mindset really comes down to a personal mission. I mean, if you think about
0:03:55 doing both of those things, whether it’s sport or anything hard, having some intrinsic
0:04:02 reason or some motivation or some personal drive to accomplish something really pushes
0:04:07 you forward and pulls you into that goal. A lot of people talk about building a resilient mindset
0:04:12 or building a stronger mindset. I really think that, sure, maybe there’s some benefit to trying to
0:04:18 teach that or learn it, but I really think it’s something that you can really only learn by going
0:04:22 through it. You go through those tough times and push through those things when it’s because
0:04:28 you care about something. That personal mission. When it was with sport, it was this goal to become
0:04:33 a competitive professional cyclist and reach different goals that I had. Whether it was coming
0:04:39 back from injury or coming back from setbacks, the goal was so much larger than the pain I was
0:04:46 dealing with or the stress. The idea of not pushing forward wasn’t even there. Whereas,
0:04:51 look at other parts of my life, sometimes you don’t push as hard because there’s no
0:04:54 personal mission there. There’s no reason to push. It’s not necessarily something you
0:05:00 take that mindset into everything you do, but it’s really helpful in those larger goals and
0:05:07 similar with business. I ultimately think success in any large goal comes down to your ability to
0:05:14 endure over the long term. Perseverance, resilience. I think extending the time horizon, people always
0:05:21 talk about hacks and quick wins and how can you shorten the timeline. Ultimately, I think that
0:05:26 leads to maybe a quick win here and there, but not longevity. In business and in sport,
0:05:33 the careers are built on longevity. That really comes down to a mindset because along that path
0:05:38 and anything worth doing, there’s just so many ups and downs and sideways and with sport and
0:05:44 business and there’s just so much going on. Where does that drive come from? Are we born with drive
0:05:53 or is it something we develop by following our passion? For me, my drive started in childhood
0:06:02 going into adolescent early teens. My personal journey was I wanted to show the world that I
0:06:09 could do something. My childhood was marked by not quite succeeding at anything that I set my
0:06:15 mind to. I was an overweight child and I loved sport, but I never was able to find what I was
0:06:20 good at. I would try out for all of the school sports, your basketball team or volleyball team.
0:06:27 I wouldn’t just not make it. I was always the first person not to make it. I was always on the
0:06:31 cusp. That almost made it a little bit worse because I could taste what it would be like to be
0:06:36 there. That started over time to build this drive of when I find something I’m good at,
0:06:41 I’m going to go all in and I want to win because when I looked around me, the feeling I felt at
0:06:46 that time was I’m not succeeding in these areas. Everyone that is seems to be getting some level
0:06:54 of acceptance. For me as a child and growing up, maybe that’s love, that’s what I should strive for.
0:07:02 I just wasn’t able to do that. That started to build and build. When I found early on it was
0:07:07 cycling. I was like, “Oh, I’m pretty good at this.” I was like, “I’m going to go all in,” and the drive
0:07:13 was really, I think when I reflect back, it was a drive to be accepted to feel like, “Oh, I finally,
0:07:18 I’m in the club. I finally am good at something.” Then I didn’t want it to be good at it. I wanted
0:07:24 to be great. I think that has some destructive tendencies to it as well, but that’s ultimately
0:07:29 where it came from is this feeling of acceptance and a chip on my shoulder of not being able to
0:07:34 pull it off for so long and seeing my peers do it and assuming that’s what it felt like to be
0:07:40 part of the club or accepted. The one thing that stood out there for me, actually two things stood
0:07:48 out was the ability to consistently fail and keep going at such a young age where you’re the first
0:07:54 person not packed over and over and over again, but you didn’t give up. Whereas I think a lot of
0:08:01 people would give up. That relates, I think, to the acceptance. Did you have a brother who got
0:08:06 attention or something for a different reason than you’re striving to get noticed?
0:08:11 Yeah, totally. I mean, so yeah, I had a younger brother and he was almost in our childhood the
0:08:18 exact opposite. He was incredibly good at sports. It came natural. We’re a big hockey family.
0:08:22 We grew up in a very traditional family, very traditional around school. Go to school,
0:08:28 go to university, very traditional around team sports hockey. Hockey was the big one. My brother
0:08:36 was really good at it, AAA and came natural. I wasn’t as good. I barely could make the select
0:08:44 team. Seeing that is like, “Oh, my parents really value sport and in particular hockey and my
0:08:49 brother’s really good at it and I see him succeeding and I’m not succeeding at it.” My parents are
0:08:53 great and of course they love me, but I was like, “I want to be good. I want to make them proud with
0:08:59 something.” Because I’m not particularly great at school. I didn’t enjoy it. I never really
0:09:02 understood. It wasn’t articulate to me in school what the purpose was. It was like, “You’re learning
0:09:08 this because of this. It wasn’t made kind of real for me.” I didn’t enjoy that too much and then I did
0:09:13 enjoy sport, but hockey just wasn’t the thing for me. The ability to fail over and over again,
0:09:18 I think you make a choice every time you fail, whether that’s going to hold you back or push you
0:09:23 forward. Ultimately, I decided early on to let that push me forward and I’ve carried that through
0:09:29 because that’s where you learn your most important lessons. You can learn from winning, but a lot of
0:09:33 the most important lessons and the stories I tell and what I reflect on in my life has come from all
0:09:40 the losses or the setbacks and that’s really over time built such a base of lessons and insights to
0:09:45 just kind of propel me forward that I’m thankful for all those failures. They’re incredibly difficult
0:09:49 at the time and when you’re going through them, you wish they’d go away. I’ve always found one year,
0:09:54 three years, five years in the future, you become more and more thankful for those opportunities.
0:09:59 Last night, you told me that competitive sports is better than business school. Talk to me about
0:10:05 that as a training ground for business. Yeah. I think for life as well, honestly. I think,
0:10:10 what does sport teach you? Ultimately, sport will teach you that you have to put in the work. If we
0:10:15 use running as an example, you can’t just show up and run a marathon. You can get to the start
0:10:19 line. Anyone can go to the start line, but it’s going to be pretty clear who prepared and who
0:10:25 didn’t. Beyond that, competitive sport, at least in my experience, as a competitive cyclist, I was
0:10:31 five times on the national team for about 10 years, traveled around the world, racing my bike. What
0:10:37 that taught me was a bunch of things. Most importantly, failure and resilience. We would race
0:10:43 maybe, let’s say, 10 times a year. It may be win once or twice, so you’re failing more than you
0:10:46 succeed. It’s how are you dealing with that and building forward and how are you dealing with
0:10:52 injuries? More than that, it’s how are you networking yourself? I managed myself as well,
0:10:57 so I was negotiating my sponsorship contracts. I was booking worldwide logistics. I remember
0:11:06 when I was 16 in high school, I was named to my first national team. I got an email. I had just
0:11:10 won a national race and that named me the team that year. I didn’t even know what world championships
0:11:16 was. I was so green in the sport, so new to the sport. I got an email from the National Federation.
0:11:20 It’s like, “Hey, you’ve been named to the World Championships team. It’s in Italy next month.
0:11:24 We’d love for you to come.” I remember emailing back and being like, “No, I can’t. I have school.”
0:11:29 Because I had no idea. I was so green and then I showed the email to my parents. They’re like,
0:11:33 “What did you do? Email them back. You’re going to go. We’ll talk to the school.
0:11:39 We’ll get you out and we’ll support you to go.” I emailed them back. I got on the team. What that
0:11:46 led into is it was going to Italy. Hop on a plane, arrive in Germany for a layover, having no idea
0:11:51 where I am, and just being thrown into the deep end like that. As a young kid, just hop on a plane,
0:11:55 you end up in Europe. I didn’t even really know where Europe is at that time. Embarrassingly,
0:12:00 if you said point out Italy on a map, I would have had a tough time. That’s how I just, but now
0:12:04 I’m there. How do you deal with that? How do you meet new people? How do you perform? All of these
0:12:09 lessons we talked about earlier about building a resilient mindset and how do you learn to push
0:12:16 forward when things get tough? Sport will teach you that. Business school, I think it’s important.
0:12:22 I don’t want to knock on it too bad, but they’re teaching you all the things you can read about
0:12:29 and learn about. All the tactics and the common knowledge and how you would apply that. But I
0:12:32 think ultimately in business, at least what I’ve learned is you could know everything, but it’s
0:12:38 how are you going to react when shit hits the fan? How are you going to talk to people and
0:12:43 negotiate and use your network and think creatively? Those were a lot of the lessons
0:12:48 that I learned in sport. How do you use some of your past experiences to your advantage? Having
0:12:53 the network I did was so incredible. I just think that sport, if I boil it all down to
0:12:58 like a succinct answer, it’s really that it taught me that everything is earned, not owed.
0:13:03 You had to do the work. There was no substitute for the work that things almost never go to plan
0:13:08 and you need to figure it out and then just built so many skills. I’ve had performing under pressure,
0:13:14 talking to people. It’s just you’re immersed in it and there’s no getting out of it. I just
0:13:18 thought that was such a formative experience. Everything we’ll talk about today and everything
0:13:25 I’ve done in business has been on the back of the sporting career. I didn’t go to business school.
0:13:30 Of course, I’ve read all the books and I’ve tried to learn the common knowledge and I have, but the
0:13:36 lessons and the actual mindset I take to business for almost the last 10 years is the same mindset
0:13:40 I had when I was competing in sport. Talk to me a little more about the role of sort of preparation
0:13:45 or positioning when it comes to sport and business. Seems like there’s a lot of similarities between
0:13:54 the two. In sport, I was never the most talented rider. Honestly, sport was a manifestation of my
0:13:58 entrepreneurial tendencies because like I said, I grew up in a sport family. I think when I look
0:14:02 back, if I had been introduced to business at that time, I would have gone into business and
0:14:07 done something more entrepreneurial. But I didn’t have an entrepreneur model growing up. I didn’t
0:14:13 really even know that was a thing. It was like I said, traditional family, normal jobs and sport.
0:14:17 And so I was like, okay, I have all of these kind of tendencies of wanting to go after a big goal,
0:14:23 willing to take risk, resilient. Pointed out of sport, you can be pretty successful. My superpower
0:14:28 in that I use with those entrepreneurial tendencies in sport was preparation and positioning.
0:14:33 How can I be more prepared than any other athlete when it comes to the start line? How can I study
0:14:37 the course? How can I take what I know that’s coming up on the season before replicate that at
0:14:43 home and practice and study it knowing that I had disadvantages? So I raced downhill mountain bikes,
0:14:48 but I grew up in Pickering, Ontario. There’s not a mountain in Pickering, Ontario. So how do you
0:14:52 compete with people that live around the world around mountains or what I called the BC kids,
0:14:56 the people lived in BC with all the mountains in British Columbia? And you have to really figure
0:15:01 out how to make that work. And how I made that work is I would build little 10 or 15 second
0:15:07 parts of the course on the hillside by my house. And what that taught me was I really
0:15:11 learned precision and the importance of really executing at a high level and executing when
0:15:17 it mattered, positioning myself and being prepared for when the race run came to be the most ready
0:15:22 I could be. That started way before the actual event started that was studying the course in
0:15:26 advance to sort of preparation, the training all the off season and just knowing ultimately when
0:15:31 you get to the start line, whether it’s in sport or business that you’ve done everything you could
0:15:36 do to prepare for that. And that usually worked for me because the pressure in those situations,
0:15:40 no matter what you know or how much you’ve done, if you’re not prepared to position properly,
0:15:46 the pressure will overtake all the talent that you have for sure. The ability to execute is so
0:15:53 important. One of the other similarities I think is from the outside looking in, sports looks really
0:15:59 sexy, business looks really sexy. But from the inside, it’s a bit of a mess. It’s a total mess
0:16:04 in both really in sport, being a professional athlete or competitive athlete is glamorized.
0:16:09 You’re seeing the very tip of the iceberg. You’re seeing the 1% of the time that it goes right.
0:16:13 You’re standing on the podium and you’re seeing these people succeed, but you’re not seeing the
0:16:17 early mornings. You’re not seeing the injuries. You’re not seeing the setbacks, the mental health
0:16:22 that comes along with it. And similarly with business, you see the headlines, but you don’t
0:16:27 see what led into that. And the athletic careers and the business successes that we all read about,
0:16:32 these are often these 10 year overnight successes, right? And people glamorize that and latch onto
0:16:35 that and be like, you know, that’s what business is or that’s what sport is. And I think that’s
0:16:42 somewhat destructive because it really misses the true nature of these endeavors, which is
0:16:48 resilience and tough times and in a long time to get there as well. And we kind of get into this
0:16:52 world with where people want to hack or they want to shortcut. And I just think it’s the wrong
0:16:57 messaging and it’s the wrong way to approach these things. It’s just so important to extend
0:17:00 the timeline on these things and really just give it your all.
0:17:04 Is it true you taped your broken wrist to a bike to compete?
0:17:10 Yeah. I mean, so the way our sport worked is you train all winter and you basically compete in the
0:17:16 summer. And so you spend so much time preparing for a race that you have three months of racing
0:17:21 and you would constantly get injured and you would just have to figure out how to make that
0:17:27 work. And yeah, leading into one of the biggest races of the year, I had a broken wrist, a broken
0:17:32 finger. There’s no long-term damage to just dealing with the pain I can get this dealt with
0:17:37 when the season’s over. In my mind, it was like, I’ve worked too hard to just back away from this
0:17:43 challenge. So I asked myself, what is it going to take to get this done? I couldn’t hold on to
0:17:47 the handlebar. I didn’t have the strength. And so I was like, I’m going to have to tape because
0:17:52 everything’s led to this moment. I’m not going to back down. If I physically can do it, if I’m
0:17:57 awake, I’ll be there. And I think it’s those lessons. And ultimately, we talked about earlier
0:18:01 about resilience and that mindset of doing hard things. And I talked about you just have to do
0:18:08 them. That taught me, you can do it. The pain I was feeling was so crazy, but ultimately, you get
0:18:12 up there and you’re prepared. And when you’re ready to execute, the pain goes away. I think it’s
0:18:16 really important to go through those tough times and realize that you can come out the other side
0:18:21 because that’s ultimately where you start over time to build that muscle and be able to deal
0:18:26 with the really high stress things as they come and stay calm during them. I’d be very surprised
0:18:28 someone could teach themselves to do that without going through the tough times.
0:18:34 You went through a bit of an identity crisis post-sport. Talk to me about that.
0:18:41 Yeah. For 10 years, I woke up with a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life and where
0:18:47 it was going to go. And I loved that. I woke up every day with a fire in my belly saying,
0:18:50 “This is the goal. Here’s how I’m going to get it. And here’s what I’m going to do.”
0:18:56 And then almost seemingly overnight, when I walk away from the sport, that’s gone, right?
0:19:01 Your identity is gone. The day before I retire, it’s, “Hi, I’m Rob Fraser,
0:19:06 professional cyclist. The next day, it’s, “Hi, I’m Rob Fraser.” Who is that? I’ve identified
0:19:13 as the cyclist for so long. My entire identity is that. My friend network is that. My friends at
0:19:18 this point were from all over the world, we would meet up during the season or the off season and
0:19:23 be in the same place. It was the common language we all spoke. It was everything. The next day,
0:19:28 that’s gone. And over the next year, that fades away because you’re no longer on the scene.
0:19:32 And the friends, they’re still friends, but you don’t see them. And the common interest starts
0:19:38 to fade. And that kind of led to this dark period for me where I was like, “What am I going to do
0:19:43 with my life?” At this point, I was in my early twenties. So the rest of my life was still ahead
0:19:50 of me, but I felt so lost because I just, I didn’t really know what to do. And the idea of
0:19:56 not having that big goal was terrifying. And it really led to this period of trying
0:20:00 to figure out, “What am I going to do with my life?” It sounds a little ridiculous sometimes,
0:20:04 but it was just kind of, yeah, it was this identity crisis of, “How do you reinvent yourself? How do
0:20:09 you build a new network around something you don’t even know? And what am I good at?” I didn’t
0:20:15 go end up going in or finishing university. I hadn’t worked any other career jobs. I worked
0:20:19 the odd jobs here and there, but cycling was my life. Sure, you could go into coaching or
0:20:23 something like that, but that wasn’t really where my passion was. It was really about that
0:20:29 fulfilling some large goal and ultimately being in kind of control of my destiny. And yes, it was
0:20:35 about a two-year period of trying to navigate that and figure it out and really make sense of it.
0:20:40 Is that when you started the business? The business was the way out. So during that two years,
0:20:45 I tried a bunch of things. I was applying for jobs. I ended up getting into the local college in
0:20:50 Victoria where I lived in Victoria, BC for sport management. I thought the logical step here was
0:20:55 a career in sport. Like I said, coaching. It’s like, here’s my skill set. How do I apply that
0:21:00 moving forward? What’s the logical thing to do here? So getting to sport management, I simultaneously
0:21:04 got a job with the Canadian Sport Institute, was working with future Olympians. I was on paper
0:21:10 doing what made sense, what you would see the typical post-athlete do, and I was dead inside.
0:21:15 I was just like, “This can’t be it. I’m doing what is supposed to be right. This is what everyone
0:21:20 says is right.” And I was like, “If this is the rest of my life, I’m not sure I can do this.”
0:21:28 And at the time, I was going into my second year of school and I was just kind of,
0:21:32 I was in a four-year program. So three more years left, but I was starting to get that angst of like,
0:21:36 “This is going to be over soon and real life’s going to hit. I’m going to be excited to go deeper
0:21:40 into the career and just kind of go further down this path I’m on that I really don’t want to be
0:21:47 on.” And I don’t know how I got onto it, but for some reason, listened and listened or read to
0:21:53 the four-hour week, four-hour work week by Tim Ferriss. And it sounds so trite. So it’s so common.
0:21:57 I got into that book and what it really taught me. I can remember exactly where I was. I was walking
0:22:01 around a local golf course. I listened to books more than read them. This idea, listening to the
0:22:05 book really gave me the idea that, “Oh, I think I have some skills here. What are you saying makes
0:22:10 sense? I understand this. I think I can do it.” Business sounds interesting. And the way it was
0:22:16 framed in that way was like, “Oh, this is the sport of business. This is a new thing that I can go
0:22:22 and try to compete in.” And I certainly win, but just a big goal. And that was so exciting to me. It
0:22:28 was like a new path and it had more longevity. There was more income opportunity and that was
0:22:33 incredibly exciting. And that kind of evolved into, “How do I stay in sport, but on the other
0:22:38 side of the table?” If I’m not going to be in coaching or an athlete or on the more common
0:22:43 path, is there a way that I can build a business or a brand in the athletic space? How do I keep
0:22:49 this party going was the idea while also having a new big goal and trying to just chase something.
0:22:57 Why socks? Socks, particularly in cycling, are a large part of the culture. So in cycling,
0:23:01 when you’re on a team, it’s an individual sport. We race individually, but you’re on a team. And
0:23:05 the team, whether it’s national or your sponsorship team, you’ll get a kit. So you’ll all look the
0:23:10 same. You look the same as your teammates. Socks were this area where you could wear whatever you
0:23:15 wanted. And so I would always wear kind of funky colored socks. I actually had a sock sponsorship.
0:23:20 That was a way that my parents ultimately could pick me out on the hill because you’re watching a
0:23:25 bunch of bikers come down the hill and I would wear really loud socks like pink and blue. And
0:23:30 you could kind of spot that and be like, “Okay, there’s Rob.” Beyond that was a way to kind of like
0:23:36 express your individuality. It’s like, “Okay, you’re in the sea of sameness. How can I have a
0:23:41 little bit of me out there?” And so socks were already in my blood. And so I took that same kind
0:23:46 of mentality out of sport into the real world. So at school, I would wear those socks in the gym
0:23:52 at work. And so I became known as the sock guy before owning a sock business. And so when it
0:23:56 became time, I’m going to start a business. I started thinking of like, “What do I know
0:24:00 and what do I like and what do I think can be improved?” And I ultimately wanted, at the time,
0:24:06 I loved brands like Lulemon and Red Bull. Those were two kind of top tier brands for me around
0:24:09 their athlete marketing, their product development. I just loved everything about those brands. I was
0:24:15 like, “I don’t really, I’m not technical. I didn’t have a particular set of skills.” I was like,
0:24:19 “Apparel seems like a more, an area that I could get into and understand. I’ve got some skills I
0:24:24 could do there. And what’s the simplest form of apparel?” At least my thinking back then was like,
0:24:29 “Oh, I kind of know socks. Socks seem like a good place to start because relatively low risk in
0:24:34 terms of how much I would need to invest to get started.” It was the culmination of all of those
0:24:39 things. And I could probably tell a story right now of why socks were this incredible business
0:24:44 opportunity, which they are. But at the time, I was just like, “Socks are cool.” I think socks
0:24:48 could be improved. And it turned out as I went further down that path, I uncovered how much
0:24:54 opportunity actually existed in socks. And ultimately, the insight was the entire world
0:25:01 was moving towards athleisure. We were coming into a less traditional, less formal way of dressing
0:25:05 and much more into a more functional way of dressing. And we can see that with our clothing,
0:25:09 the pants I’m wearing right now, for example, or the yoga pant. And when I looked at the sock
0:25:15 category, they remained use case specific. So they’re recycling socks or running socks or
0:25:20 dress socks. I was like, “Why isn’t there a yoga pant for the foot?” That was the idea. It’s like,
0:25:24 “Look at the yoga pant and how versatile that is. You can wear it exercising, dress it up,
0:25:29 down, casual.” I was like, “What a functional, fantastic, and fashionable piece of apparel.”
0:25:34 It’s like, “Why are our socks not like that?” And so that was the simple idea. And I got kind of
0:25:38 obsessed with it. And I was like, “This can be improved.” I remember the first time I tried on
0:25:43 a pair of your socks. I had never thought about socks before. I mean, I was the guy who sort of
0:25:49 went to the store and watched the cheapest per pair of socks that I can get. Put them on your
0:25:53 feet. They sort of cover up your feet. And that’s what they do. And then I tried on a pair of yours
0:25:58 and I forget how I got the first pair. I think a friend gave it to me. And then I instantly went
0:26:03 to your website and I ordered… I threw out every sock in my drawer and I just ordered a brand new
0:26:07 drawer of socks. I had never thought about the difference between a good pair of socks and a
0:26:12 bad pair of socks. And I still have no idea, but I know your socks feel really good. What’s the
0:26:17 difference between a good pair and a bad pair? So what you said is not uncommon. If you think
0:26:22 about socks in general, they’re the world’s worst gift as you’re a kid. It’s what your parents always
0:26:26 would get you as a gift. Yeah, if you’re bad for Christmas, here’s some socks. Exactly. It was
0:26:31 almost a punishment. And then as an adult, you’ve learned to almost hate this product and buy it
0:26:35 begrudgingly at the department store. It’s an afterthought. No one actually thinks about their
0:26:40 socks. And so we’re living in this world of 90 plus percent of the population is thinking a lot
0:26:45 about everything they wear except for one of the most important things. Really, one of the
0:26:51 pair of apparel that touches the ground with you, right? And it’s kind of foundational to the feeling
0:26:57 right up standing and walking and everything you do. The idea that this was an unaware category
0:27:01 was super interesting. But what makes a sock special? I mean, there’s so many things. The common
0:27:08 socks you’ll buy, they’re just low quality. They’re not seamless, so they’re going to create hot spots
0:27:13 and pinching. They’re going to be typically probably low quality cotton. And so they’re going
0:27:18 to absorb sweat, which leads to blisters. There’s a ton of different things. If you look at any good
0:27:22 athletic sock and specifically ours, they’re going to be seamless. They’re going to be moisture wicking.
0:27:26 They’re going to have support. So there’s going to be support in the arch to help with midfoot
0:27:30 fatigue. There’s going to be strategic cushioning. So where is the foot making contact with the
0:27:36 ground? We could go on for days. But ultimately, what I was trying to solve for was I want something
0:27:41 that is going to be incredibly comfortable, useful across a bunch of different sports or
0:27:45 activities. And it was born out of a personal need, right? Like I said, I was going to school,
0:27:50 I was working a job, and I was still training and staying active. I was doing some triathlons at the
0:27:54 time. And I wanted a pair of socks that could do all of those things because the cycling socks I
0:27:57 mentioned I would wear at school, they weren’t great for running. They would fall down. The cuff
0:28:01 wasn’t compressive enough. And so I was like, that led to that kind of discovery of like, why
0:28:06 isn’t this better? And ultimately, a good pair of socks should be supportive. They should look good.
0:28:09 They should feel good. And you should be able to do almost everything in them. I mean,
0:28:14 that seems obvious, but it wasn’t at the time. It’s crazy. They’re almost like compression
0:28:18 socks too, right? Like they feel really good around your feet. And your feet just feel happy.
0:28:23 Yeah, that’s the fine balance of like, it’s like a hug for your feet. But how do you not make that
0:28:26 too compressive? And how do you make that work across a wide variety of foot sizes? And we’re
0:28:31 not always perfect, but that is the goal. Like it should hug the leg and not fall down, but it
0:28:35 also should come off the leg without leaving marks, which is a tough thing to do. We are
0:28:39 striving to always improve that. But I think we’ve got a good mix. And your story is not
0:28:43 uncommon. The people will come in and they’ll buy a pair, typically because a lot of our socks
0:28:49 have fun designs on them. What we recognize early on is socks are this, like I mentioned with
0:28:53 cycling, socks are this way that people can express individuality. And within that,
0:28:58 people have different ways they like to do that, whether they like to celebrate different animals
0:29:04 they love or, you know, nature landscapes or their favorite food. So we discovered that like,
0:29:08 it’s really hard digitally because we’re primarily sold all online. We’re also sold in
0:29:13 store, but primarily online, at least for the majority of the business, how through the computer
0:29:17 screen or the phone screen, can we convince you that this sock feels good without putting it on
0:29:21 your feet? That’s really tough. An easier way is to give you an emotional response being like,
0:29:26 I love cats, for example, I want to buy that sock because it has cats on it. But what we know is
0:29:30 that’s the best pair of socks you’re ever going to put on. And so that person buys the pair of socks
0:29:35 that they like the design, they put it on, and then like you, they come back and go, oh my, like,
0:29:39 I didn’t even know socks could feel like this. And they replace their sock drawer with it. And
0:29:43 that’s, that’s quite literally, you know, our mission is to like, or a vision of the business
0:29:48 is to replace the sock drawer. I truly believe that we should be able to make a great all day
0:29:52 performance sock that someone could line their whole drawer with based on what height they like
0:29:55 and what kind of material they like. And you shouldn’t have to make a decision in the morning
0:29:59 anymore of what you’re going to wear. So that sock will do it for you. Did you have a business
0:30:04 partner when you started? I was in school when I started the business. I was in my second year.
0:30:08 I just had the idea. You know, when I said I’m going to start a business, I was quite literally
0:30:13 listened to that book, laying in bed, kind of, you know, having my nightly identity crisis,
0:30:16 some existential crisis, like, it just snatched me. I was like, I’m going to start a business. I
0:30:20 kind of got up right then I started to open my Apple notes, started thinking about different brand
0:30:26 names and went to school and I talked to my good friend at the time. I developed a good a great
0:30:30 friendship with a little classmate. We would do all our class projects together. We actually got a
0:30:34 job together outside of work. I was doing some rep work for a brand. I got him involved. We were
0:30:39 doing some field marketing. And so we got on well, you know, we’re friends. We worked well together
0:30:44 and I didn’t expect the business to work. I was like, it was, it’s like, what are the odds? Here’s
0:30:49 this like former athlete guy that’s kind of like not particularly great at school, has no business
0:30:54 experience who set a goal to build a sock company. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. Like
0:30:59 some people still do, right? And so I was like, this would be way more fun with a friend, which,
0:31:03 by the way, is like the world’s worst reason to start a business with someone because it’s fun
0:31:06 to do with a friend that I’ve learned in high school. But, you know, ultimately what I didn’t
0:31:10 ask myself at the time, which I think is so important for entrepreneurs and just people in
0:31:15 general to ask themselves is what happens if this goes right? The common knowledge is for
0:31:19 people to hedge their downside. They go, what happens if this goes wrong? And that’s very,
0:31:24 that’s fair. People want to protect themselves. And these are ultimately risky endeavors.
0:31:27 But I didn’t ask myself at the time, like, what happens if this goes right? Because if you think
0:31:32 about it, and I try to always tell young entrepreneurs is like, what would be more painful?
0:31:36 Failing because it didn’t work or failing because it did. And you didn’t capture the opportunity.
0:31:40 That would be so much more painful. And I felt like that kind of happened in my cycling career.
0:31:44 So, you know, I’ve like, I’m working really hard now to not kind of repeat that mistake.
0:31:48 But yeah, I started it with a business partner. And it was fine when it was kind of like just
0:31:52 something we were doing. But, you know, ultimately, as it started to get a little bit of traction,
0:31:57 like I said, I didn’t expect it to work. But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t incredibly
0:32:02 committed. You know, I was obsessed. The second I decided to do it, I was all in. I was reading
0:32:06 every business book I could find. I was, you know, like I said, I had entrepreneurial tendencies.
0:32:09 I just didn’t know they had manifested in sport for so long that I was like, oh,
0:32:14 I found business now. And I just got obsessed with it. The same was not true of my business
0:32:18 partner. That wasn’t kind of his thing. You know, he wasn’t necessarily, I don’t think he would
0:32:22 identify himself as an entrepreneur. And so as things started to grow, and we were pretty lucky
0:32:27 with some early success, the business started to work. You know, in the first year, we did,
0:32:31 you know, multi six figure revenue of just selling socks kind of around town for the most part.
0:32:36 The first socks I sold, I just took to school in a Tupperware and hand to hand combat and sold
0:32:39 them to students and teachers, because they’d like, you know, we’re not friends if you don’t buy
0:32:43 these. And so that was like how it got started. And so ultimately, after a year, it started to get
0:32:48 real. Like the work required nights and weekends is like the common stories go. And, you know,
0:32:51 it became pretty clear that this was out of line with his values. You know,
0:32:56 we didn’t have those discussions early on of like, what do we want out of this? Because
0:32:59 we were doing it for fun. We were friends. We just wanted to have a good time and try to try
0:33:04 something and really kill time and during school. Like we always expected just to continue with
0:33:10 school and kind of continue on. But that for me evolved very quickly. And like, oh, no, I can
0:33:13 do this. You know, like, I really like this. And there’s a big opportunity here. And so,
0:33:18 you know, ultimately over time, that tension started to grow and the gap between our abilities to
0:33:23 have conversations of what’s going on, because I was just like consuming knowledge and trying to
0:33:28 learn at such a rate because I was obsessed with it. It became very difficult for us to be aligned
0:33:33 on what we wanted out of the business, which ultimately led to him leaving the business and
0:33:37 quitting true form. We didn’t have any proper resolution for that. We didn’t have a shareholders
0:33:41 agreement. We didn’t like, we just did almost everything wrong when setting up the company,
0:33:46 which is really easy to do because there’s almost no great resources for helping your
0:33:51 entrepreneur. And ultimately, to get the proper legal agreements is expensive when you have,
0:33:57 like we started the business with $1,000 each, right? So put $1,000 in. That’s all we had. And
0:34:01 it all went in inventory. There was no money for a legal agreement or a lawyer. And you’re in the
0:34:04 honeymoon phase of business. Of course, you’re never going to fight with your partner, right?
0:34:08 Everything’s great. It’s going to be successful. But once it gets real, that’s when those kind
0:34:12 of things are super important to have at least a discussion about. And there was no discussion.
0:34:16 And so he left the business. There was no resolution. And that kind of led into this
0:34:20 period of where I had to figure out how to resolve that. And it was super messy. And
0:34:25 ultimately ended up coming to an arrangement and buying them out about, and ended up kind of
0:34:31 closing two, two and a half years into the business. And kind of March of 2019 is when
0:34:36 he officially left the business and I got full control. And that’s kind of what I peg is the
0:34:41 real star. That’s where I was like, I’m all in because I had to go take out a personal loan
0:34:48 to make it happen of like $150,000, which was insane, right? I remember we finally agreed on a
0:34:54 number and I didn’t have that money. I had student debt. I had the exact opposite of money in the bank.
0:34:59 But I was so committed. Around that, we talked about earlier around just the mindset and the
0:35:04 willingness to kind of just go all in. I went to every bank in town and would just, I was like,
0:35:08 okay, I’ve got credit cards I’ll draw out on. I’ve got a line of credit. I’ve got some student
0:35:14 loans. My then-girlfriend now wife, like she was like, I’ll sign on, we’ll get some loans. And
0:35:19 I was able to kind of put the money together through all these various, very high interest,
0:35:24 high risk kind of funding sources. I didn’t want to ask anyone else, like, I believe in this,
0:35:28 but I don’t want to put anyone else at risk, you know, like, I’m willing to take this on and put
0:35:34 it on my shoulders and go. And the act of doing that, actually my now father-in-law reached out
0:35:38 after he’s like, hey, look, I appreciate that you’re willing to do this, but I’ll loan you the
0:35:44 money. And I’m forever grateful for that because, A, it was a vote of confidence and it allowed me
0:35:48 to kind of, you know, push on. And I was super proud to be able to pay him back in a couple years,
0:35:52 too. We paid him out like relatively quickly. And the terms are super fair anyways, but it’s
0:35:55 like, I want to get his money back. And I take that responsibility incredibly seriously.
0:35:58 Otherwise, this Christmas dinner is gonna be pretty awkward.
0:36:02 Yeah, yeah, of course. And, but I had such high conviction that like, I would do anything to
0:36:06 get that money back. If the business wasn’t going to fail, I would, that money would go back first.
0:36:10 And, you know, I take those sorts of things. Like when people bet on me or, you know,
0:36:15 my employees or investors, whatever, I take that incredibly seriously. I did a number one
0:36:18 thing you should be focused on is like doing right by the people that believe in you and
0:36:20 bet on you. Who is the first person to ever bet on you?
0:36:25 My mom. Yeah. So I went to university and dropped out. So that’s like, that was a big
0:36:29 riff in our family. Cause going to university was the safe path. That was the known path of,
0:36:35 you know, my dad sold insurance and, you know, my mom, when, when she had us stayed at home,
0:36:40 and it was, it was super traditional, super go to school, get, get whatever job, build a family.
0:36:45 And so the idea of kind of going all in on this cycling career at the time was just like
0:36:50 a pipe dream for the most part. And it wasn’t really anything yet was a big riff. But my mom,
0:36:54 like, I could tell deep down, she was like, I know you got this. I know you’ll figure it out.
0:36:58 Cause what I would always say to my parents at the time, and I was telling you about this
0:37:02 yesterday is like, whenever I have these big goals, I kind of hold two beliefs at the same time.
0:37:06 One belief is I’m absolutely sure I’ll pull this off. Like I have no doubt.
0:37:12 I will figure this out, but I have no idea how I’m going to do it. I could not articulate that,
0:37:15 which is very difficult for a parent. Cause they’re like, I want to believe you,
0:37:19 but I need to see some. That’s the plan. What’s the plan, dude? Yeah.
0:37:22 It ended up working out and there was the same thing in business too. It’s like,
0:37:27 I have no idea how I’m going to do this, but I do know I can do it and it’s going to work out.
0:37:31 My mom being like, you know, kind of just on the side, you know, being like,
0:37:36 I know you’ll figure it out. That was, you know, so important. She’s always kind of been in my
0:37:40 corner like that. And certainly the, the person to kind of bet on me and, and understand I was
0:37:46 different. You know, she understood that like I was intensely passionate about things as a kid.
0:37:50 And I don’t think also she really had a frame for entrepreneurship, like cause it just wasn’t a
0:37:54 discussion. Like I had all these little things going on. I had my own little, my own little
0:38:00 bike shop repair. I built an office in my bedroom closet. I was always doing these. I just didn’t
0:38:04 know what it was. I was obsessed with the idea of kind of building business. I built bike teams. I
0:38:09 would get all the kids in there when we built teams. I was organizing people. We had like schedules.
0:38:14 And so I was always building teams, leading teams, building little businesses. And I just
0:38:18 didn’t know what I was doing was entrepreneurship or building a business. That was just what came
0:38:22 natural to me and what I loved to do. And so she knew I was different. So she knew when I was kind
0:38:28 of going to go on a different path. And she encouraged that, which was like forever thankful
0:38:32 for because, you know, it’s, it’s hard to, to be the only one that believes in yourself sometimes.
0:38:39 How important are the people you surround yourself with towards happiness and accomplishing your
0:38:44 goals? I think it’s, it’s everything really. Let’s talk about like business or life in general.
0:38:49 It’s like you want people around you that are rowing in the same direction, right? Like you
0:38:54 want people that have goals. You want to be able to swap and share insights. You want to be able
0:38:58 to encourage each other. The power of having like a great network or group around you is kind of a
0:39:04 double-edged sword sometimes too, though, because although the like a great network of people are
0:39:09 going to propel you forward and teach you things you wouldn’t know, sometimes you start to kind of
0:39:13 try to keep up with the Joneses a little bit. So in particular, like as I started to get some
0:39:17 level of moderate success in business, my network started to grow and I started to become friends
0:39:21 with people that were much further ahead than me. And it almost led to this insecurity, you know,
0:39:25 like for the five years before I was building my business, relatively unknown, didn’t really know
0:39:29 anyone else building a business. I was really operating authentically and like what I wanted to do
0:39:34 and setting goals that I thought was achievable. And then I’m immersed in this world where people
0:39:38 are thinking much bigger, which is on one hand, great, you know, lessons of thinking bigger and
0:39:44 realizing like, oh, I am limiting myself, but at the same time trying to shorten the time horizon to
0:39:49 try and catch up to these people that I admire, there’s just no way to rush that process. And
0:39:53 every time I’ve tried to rush that process, particularly over the last couple of years,
0:39:59 it’s ended up backfiring, you know, like this year in particular, I made a conscious effort to be like,
0:40:05 no more, I’m going to go back to operating authentically, doing what I feel is right,
0:40:10 listening to the vice around me, but filtering it and using it to the best of my ability. And
0:40:15 it’s going so much better. It’s really back in that way of operating authentically. And so there
0:40:20 is, I think you have to be careful as your network grows, that you’re not trying to compare
0:40:25 yourself to those people as much. And you’re just gathering inspiration from them. When you’re around
0:40:30 a lot of smart people, too, ideas are going to start flying. And it’s your, you need to have the
0:40:35 confidence and willingness to say like, that’s a great idea. That one’s not for me. Or how do you
0:40:39 synthesize those ideas? Because in the early days, I thought, well, these people all know a lot more
0:40:43 than I do. And sure, they know maybe it’s more about business, but they don’t know more about my
0:40:47 business. They don’t have all the context of what’s going on. They don’t understand the complexities
0:40:52 of simply introducing a new product, right? Like that has so many supply chain implications,
0:40:57 marketing implications. Like, sure, like the most common advice I got from people is, oh,
0:41:00 you sell socks. Have you thought about doing underwear? It’s like, yeah, of course I’ve thought
0:41:05 about doing underwear. But like, those are complete different supply chain, psychologists. Now it’s
0:41:10 gendered where socks or unisex, like there’s so many considerations. But on the surface,
0:41:15 it’s good advice. And so I’ve had to really learn that, you know, advice is welcomed and appreciated,
0:41:20 but it’s my job to synthesize and actually use it when it makes sense. So to start
0:41:25 accumulating all of that and making sense of it. And, you know, I’ve stopped applying a lot of it
0:41:29 when it doesn’t make sense anymore and being okay with saying no, which is tough when you’re surrounded
0:41:33 by smart people, right? You’ve got investors, you’ve got mentors, you’ve got advisors. And,
0:41:36 of course, they’re smart, they know what they’re doing. But I think it’s really important as an
0:41:42 entrepreneur to know you know your business best, right? And the advice is there to help guide you,
0:41:47 but sometimes it’s not what you should be doing. Walk me through some of the changes you made
0:41:54 specifically this year. Like, what’s different between the mindset approach, attitude, processes
0:41:59 that you’re doing this year that have led to incredible results versus what you were doing
0:42:05 last year? I’d say the number one thing we talked about was removing ego. Let’s just not do things
0:42:09 because we think they’re the thing to do. Let’s just do the right things. We need to understand
0:42:17 that we can’t necessarily change the market. We can’t create demand that’s not there at our
0:42:22 current size right now. We need to be okay with the ebbs and flows. And we don’t need to when
0:42:26 things are not going well or we’re in a slower period. We don’t need to try and artificially
0:42:31 inflate that. We don’t need a Hail Mary. You know, silver bullets and like hacks and all these
0:42:36 things, they’re so appealing to an entrepreneur. Every entrepreneur is like, you’re just in it,
0:42:42 right? It’s so hard. And when someone has this new hack or new thing, it’s that fallacy of like,
0:42:48 “Oh, that one thing I’m not doing is going to solve all of my problems, unlock all of the growth.”
0:42:52 And it’s just not true. And the worst thing that can happen is the one time that maybe
0:42:57 that silver bullet does work because then it teaches you that, “Oh, there’s hacks here.”
0:43:01 So I always kind of caution like, if you get lucky, just appreciate it. But these hacks typically
0:43:05 don’t work. What we ended up doing is just extending the time horizon. Like I said, I was
0:43:11 trying to rush before for what reason though. It was literally expectations I had put on myself.
0:43:16 No one around me was saying you need to grow at X or do Y. It was really me just feeling like I
0:43:22 needed to gain acceptance of people that already accepted me. It was kind of weird.
0:43:26 And it was really just the self-discovery of being like, “No, these people already accept me.
0:43:31 I’m doing what I do. It’s kind of that kid again, right?” Of like, “Oh, if I don’t keep performing
0:43:35 and outperforming and winning, maybe they won’t like me anymore or I won’t be accepted anymore.”
0:43:40 And then just being okay with like, “Look, I have to just operate this authentically.”
0:43:44 And I asked myself, “What would it look like for this business to be around in 20 years?
0:43:49 Forget about what we grow this year. How do we build a business that injures over time?”
0:43:53 And that makes the building so much more fun. How do we actually get back? I fell
0:43:58 back in love with the product again this year, right? I love socks. It’s such a weird thing to
0:44:04 say, but one of my superpowers is I actually really love socks and care about the product.
0:44:08 And that comes through in the product that we offer. People love them as well because
0:44:14 I’m obsessed with making it better and I’m obsessed with the customer feedback around it.
0:44:18 And falling in love with the product, serving the customer, extending the time horizon and not
0:44:23 doing things because your ego is dictating it, that’s a pretty good recipe for business success.
0:44:27 The thing gives me the most joy is, I’ll sit down with our team now and we’re talking about
0:44:32 the future and it feels like we’re on our toes and not our heels now. And they’re also feeling
0:44:37 really inspired. And they’re saying, even when there’s still challenges, business is still super
0:44:42 hard, but we’re dealing with the hard problems calmly. We’re like, “We can figure this out.
0:44:46 We’ve learned the tough lessons and we planned for this.” Versus throwing Hail Marys.
0:44:52 We were operating from a position of just trying to play catch up on hitting our arbitrary goals
0:44:58 that didn’t really matter. And it ultimately led to an unhappy work environment. It was stressful
0:45:04 and it just wasn’t fun. I was like, “Why are we doing this? Why do we do this because we
0:45:11 enjoy it? We enjoy learning and improving.” And that was the big unlock is ultimately
0:45:14 just extending the time horizon and being like, “What makes us happy running this business?”
0:45:18 It’s interesting when you think about extending the time horizon. There’s so many different
0:45:23 ways to do that, right? Not going into debt. There’s operating from a position where we can
0:45:27 run a marathon instead of a sprint. It’s not taking advantage of your customers and treating
0:45:32 them as a win-win. You’re going to be a customer for life. Is there anything else that comes to
0:45:36 mind when you think of extending the time horizon? In order to extend the time horizon,
0:45:40 I need to be physically and mentally as healthy as I can be. Same with our team.
0:45:44 This doesn’t work if we’re not all operating to the best of our ability too. And the business has
0:45:49 been so stressful, like any business over the last 10 years, that it really took a toll on my body
0:45:55 specifically over the last two years. We had a few very stressful events and I dealt with them
0:46:02 well in business, but the rest of my life fell apart in my body and realizing that that’s not a
0:46:09 sustainable path to go on. Being an athlete for so long and younger in general is like,
0:46:14 I death gripped through life. I learned very early with the injuries I rode through is like,
0:46:18 “Oh, you can just make it through this. You can just brute force your way through this.”
0:46:23 And that’s not the best approach always in business, especially if you have an extended
0:46:28 time horizon and longevity in mind, right? It’s like the same idea of are you better off consistently
0:46:32 working out or going once a week and just demolishing yourself and the consistency is going
0:46:37 to be better for sure. I had three goals this year, is get the business back to a place where
0:46:43 we’re thriving and having fun, get my health back to a place where I feel confident and inspired
0:46:49 and all in on this. And the third one was a little more personal. I had a new kid. I have two
0:46:54 boys and one was born this year. I was really focused on the family because I had my first kid
0:47:00 during the real thick of business and during COVID as well. And I really wanted to enjoy
0:47:04 the process of this. It was family business and health for three core pillars. And those things
0:47:11 holistically all need to be going well for me to operate at my best. We talk about
0:47:19 work-life balance, which is like, I hate the concept of it in entrepreneurship. For a
0:47:24 salaried worker, sure, balance should be something that you’re thinking about. But in
0:47:28 particularly in sport or high-performance careers or something that you’re doing, it’s like,
0:47:34 you need to tilt the scale in your favor, right? And that’s, by definition, no balance. However,
0:47:38 I think what gets missed here is that part of the work for an entrepreneur like an athlete is
0:47:43 like your health and your personal relationships. If those aren’t in a good spot, you’re not
0:47:48 operating at 100% efficiency. And so that’s part of the work, right? What’s not part of the work is
0:47:53 maybe partying or doing things that you shouldn’t be doing that are going to set you further back.
0:47:58 But people think about, if I say work-life balance is a joke, people are like, oh,
0:48:04 what about your health? Health is included in the work. And I think it’s such an important part
0:48:08 of it too. It’s like, how can you be a high-performance entrepreneur? How can you tilt
0:48:13 the scale in your favor? How can you change the odds? And I think your ability to be sharper,
0:48:19 more alert, physically and mentally fit is going to do so much benefit for you,
0:48:24 especially as the business grows too. The business now in its current stage is much more
0:48:30 dependent on me thinking clearly and having good ideas and meeting people and being on when I do
0:48:37 that. And that requires me feeling good. Like I said, tilt the odds in your favor. I’ve never
0:48:41 really understood this concept of balance. The balance implies that you’re perfectly equal in
0:48:46 these things. And so I always think of this as like a mosaic. So you have a border and you have
0:48:50 different sized pieces. And some of those pieces are family, some are work, some are maybe your
0:48:57 hobbies. Health is definitely one of the big pieces there. And they shrink and they sort of like,
0:49:01 but they can never go away. Sometimes work is going to be more of a priority. Sometimes it’s
0:49:06 not. Sometimes your family is going to take over. So these, the pieces expand, but they can never
0:49:11 really go to zero. And health is like so foundational for all of these. But when we get busy, the first
0:49:16 thing we do is like, what do we do? We skip lunch or we get a really crappy lunch. We stop working
0:49:20 out. We stop sleeping really well. And we think we tell ourselves that we’ll just make up for it
0:49:25 later and we start making worse and worse decisions. We’re cranky. We’re irritable. And it just
0:49:30 compounds negatively. Yeah. It almost ensures destruction, right? So I’ve got a protocol now
0:49:34 because that’s what happened to me two years ago when things were going poorly. That’s what I let
0:49:38 go. And it just, it cascaded into a two-year event, which I’m sure could have been much shorter.
0:49:43 And I just treat it much more like an athlete. You know, if you’re injured, you go into recovery
0:49:47 protocol. So if you’re dealing with a high stress event in business, what’s your recovery protocol?
0:49:51 What’s that look like? How do you build that? How do you build that into a system and follow it?
0:49:55 When these things happen, you can’t solve them overnight. And so like working actually three
0:49:59 hours. I mean, sometimes you need to stay up late. You know, there were late nights because
0:50:02 I’m literally on email chains with my lawyers for dealing with stuff, but like,
0:50:07 that’s not every night. And that’s not super common. And you can, you know, moderate that stuff.
0:50:13 Letting your health go is kind of the worst strategy I’ve found, honestly, because getting
0:50:17 through those times is down to resilience and perseverance. And if you let your health go,
0:50:22 and when it did, like that’s when, you know, very rarely have I ever felt like I couldn’t
0:50:27 do something. When my health was in a poor spot about two years ago, going through the thick of
0:50:31 it, that was one time where I was like, I don’t know if I can do this much longer. Like if I don’t
0:50:37 get better, I honestly don’t know if I could do this or I would trade this business to feel better
0:50:41 because I’m just so sick right now. And I just don’t want to do it anymore. That was the only
0:50:45 period. So that’s when my health left. I was like, Oh, was that the Lossy? That was the the
0:50:49 cease and assist that led to our ultimate rebrand. Yeah, that was like the first.
0:50:54 Walk me through that. We’re five years into business operating under a former name.
0:51:03 And it’s going really well. It’s 2021. Our business that previous year grew 135% year over year.
0:51:08 And we were already growing an average of 100% year over year. So it was just up into the right.
0:51:13 I was physically feeling good. I was fit. I like ran a half marathon PR that year. Like
0:51:18 everything was great. It’s the year I think we met and I was raising, we bootstrapped the business
0:51:23 from the start. And like I said, I started to build a network and this opportunity rose to
0:51:29 raise some money that not only there was kind of three parts to it, you know, there was a personal
0:51:34 security part to it. There was capitalizing the business for the first time, like actually having
0:51:39 some some buyer power behind what we want to invest in. And then also inviting in some voices
0:51:42 that I was so desperate for of people I admired. So it was kind of this
0:51:46 opportunity. I remember telling, you know, a bunch of friends and my wife being like,
0:51:51 you’ll never get this, like all my business heroes like want to give me money and invest in the
0:51:56 company. Like this seems almost like cheating. This is incredible. So I passed that opportunity.
0:52:01 But literally the day the money hit the account, we raised, you know, millions of dollars. It hits
0:52:05 the account. I get an email from my lawyer that says urgent in the subject line. And that’s just
0:52:11 almost never a good thing. And it’s from my IP attorney, which I barely hear from. It was our
0:52:17 first ever cease and assist. And it basically said, you know, there’s a company that believes they
0:52:22 have rights over your name and is demanding that you do X, Y and Z. And one of those is stop using
0:52:29 the name. And so I was kind of like immediately just shook because we just raised all this money.
0:52:34 We’ve been in business for five years. And that was the first time, you know, in sport and in business
0:52:38 at that point, everything was something that like I was solving problems that I created.
0:52:44 I wasn’t battling somebody. Like I was in charge. This was something happening to us that was
0:52:49 completely out of control on. And I had no frame for it. I had never gone through it before. I
0:52:54 didn’t know anyone that went through it for maybe half an hour. I was like, this is a death blow.
0:52:59 You know, like, I was kind of like let myself and then, you know, I called you actually,
0:53:05 I called a few other people. I was like, okay, like this is not uncommon. But it was incredibly
0:53:11 stressful. It basically led us onto this six month journey of rebranding and changing our name.
0:53:15 And that’s an incredibly complex process for a business that’s been around for five years. And
0:53:20 how do you even start that process of, you know, communicating the messaging? What is a name that’s
0:53:25 going to work? And the stress, I think ultimately the stress came down to was not messing it up,
0:53:30 right? I had so many people that relied on me at that point. I had a young family.
0:53:35 I had employees. I had investors. I had what felt like the world on my shoulders. And none of them
0:53:38 were putting that pressure on me. I put it on myself because I told you, I take these
0:53:43 responsibilities incredibly seriously. If someone gives me money or bets on me, like I said, like,
0:53:51 it’s my duty to do right. And so I wasn’t going to not put 110% effort into it. And I had to learn.
0:53:58 So I basically, over the next six months, became quite educated on IP law and figuring out kind
0:54:02 of everything and working with the best attorneys. And we found the best people and working through
0:54:06 the rebranding process and kind of going through discovery of what is a brand, you know, like
0:54:11 when I started it, I kind of just picked a name that I liked. And yeah, we filed trademarks.
0:54:14 We did all the right things, but I didn’t do any diligence to see if there were other brands
0:54:18 using similar names. And so this time around, I had to be like, what’s a brand name that could
0:54:23 champion a business going forward? We’ve been in business for five years. People know about us.
0:54:26 It’s not a massive business, but it’s growing. And what’s one that’s protectable? And you’ve got a
0:54:29 timeline because you’ve got a person on the other side saying, change your name by this date or we’re
0:54:33 going to sue you. And it’s just like, so you got a gun to your head, and you’ve got this huge list
0:54:38 of things you need to accomplish. And it was incredibly daunting. And this was, you know,
0:54:44 the one time, like, I had no one else to lean on, like my team couldn’t do this for me, investors
0:54:49 couldn’t. I had to do all of it and kind of absorb all of the stress work directly with the,
0:54:54 like, I don’t have a co-founder or an operating partner at that level. So like, it’s me on email
0:54:59 chain with all the attorneys, understanding all the complexities of it, and then figuring out
0:55:04 how are we going to go down this process? And so yeah, it was ultimately the stress of that.
0:55:08 And but like I said, now kind of a few years removed, I’m incredibly thankful for that period.
0:55:12 I just like learned so much like the buyout of my co-founder. That was kind of what I coined is
0:55:16 like 150 grand. That was my MBA. I learned so much during that process. Just around, what is
0:55:20 a shareholder agreement? What’s the importance of it? Like around co-founder dynamics and values
0:55:24 and buyouts and the way we had to do everything. I learned so much at that period. This was now
0:55:28 another learning opportunity of like, oh, okay, we’re, we’re operating in a different league now
0:55:32 where like, this is a thing and people, you have to play a little bit of defense. People are going
0:55:37 to throw like, shoot arrows at you, you know? And so that was an arrow. And ultimately I let
0:55:41 the second arrow hit me, which was my reaction, right? You have the first arrow, which can’t
0:55:45 control the second arrow is like how you deal with it. And I forget where I’m quoting that from,
0:55:48 but someone says that I loved it because it’s like, you can choose not to get by the second
0:55:52 arrow. And I chose to kind of like not do the right things in terms of taking care of myself.
0:55:56 I give myself grace now because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t have protocols built. I didn’t
0:56:01 know I was going to get burned out because similar to work-life balance, I believe burnout is
0:56:06 the result of working a lot on things that don’t fill your cup that are out of line with your
0:56:10 mission. It’s not from overworking. The common thing is like, oh, if you work 80 hours a week,
0:56:14 you’re going to burn out. It’s not true. I can work 80 hours, 100 hours a week on things I love
0:56:19 and feel very energized and excited and you’re obsessed with it. But working that 80 hours on
0:56:24 this legal stuff, which was completely counter to what I wanted to do in our mission, it was such
0:56:30 a distraction and a sideshow. And it’s draining. It was incredibly draining, the stress, the anxiety
0:56:34 around it. I smile, right? Because it’s just like, if I think back, there’s so many incredible
0:56:38 stories and it was just like such a rewarding thing to go through knowing we’ve been on the
0:56:43 other side and we’ve now under our new name outweigh sold more product than we did ever as
0:56:49 our old name. But it was incredibly difficult. It goes to show you that as you get more successful,
0:56:54 you start to attract attention. A lot of people like to compete with lawyers instead of product.
0:56:58 That’s the losing mindset. Those people that are doing that are operating from a place of fear and
0:57:02 they’re playing more defense than offense. That’s not how I like to operate. I’m much more of a
0:57:08 friends in business kind of guy. I think business is not zero sum. I think everyone can win the
0:57:13 markets are massive, especially in the soft space. It’s a $50 billion market. But yeah, we went from
0:57:21 no legal issues to three in one year. So it wasn’t just that one. I got like, within the next six
0:57:27 months, got two others around completely unrelated things as well. And it was almost comical. It’s
0:57:32 just like kick me while I was down. But I learned how to deal with those things. We resolved all
0:57:38 of them. But yeah, man, it’s something you just kind of have to go through.
0:57:43 What went into the decision to rebrand instead of fight?
0:57:48 So every bone in my body wanted to fight. I came from a career of where you’re in a sport,
0:57:53 you’re competitive. Your number one goal is to fight is to win. Not physically,
0:58:00 but fight for that podium spot. That’s what you’re doing. But I had to this time prioritize
0:58:05 everyone else as well and think through how does this affect not just me, but everyone
0:58:09 involved like I mentioned. And it was just a lot of discussions. First, it started with if we do
0:58:14 decide to fight, what’s that look like? And the quotes I got were, it could take you two years
0:58:18 per country you fight this in and up to a million dollars. There’s the financial and then there’s
0:58:24 the brain drain of doing that. And so you weigh that against what are the financial and other
0:58:29 implications of changing the name. And ultimately, what I landed on was this understanding of what
0:58:35 our brand is, which is why this whole process was incredibly rewarding is because I got to really
0:58:41 dig into why did people buy our product? If we were a luxury brand where we were trading on our
0:58:46 name as a big piece of the value, this was going to be a big problem. But we were a product driven.
0:58:51 So people bought us because they loved the product. The name in that, in that scenario was a
0:58:55 reference to the product. And the way I thought about it was like, I broke brand down into kind
0:59:00 of three core components. And I like to use kind of like analogies to help visualize things. I
0:59:06 visualize a brand as a human and we’ll use you as an example. Okay. So you’ve got three things
0:59:13 primarily you have your name, how you look and your essence. And so your name is how I’m going
0:59:17 to reference, I’m going to call you or I’m going to talk to you about other people. But if you came
0:59:21 to me and said, you know, now my name is Dave, there would be like a little weird or take some
0:59:26 adjusting, but like it doesn’t change who you are, whatever, no problem, we can figure that out.
0:59:31 How you look, if suddenly you came and had shoulder length hair, somehow, and yeah,
0:59:35 and, and changed how you look and look completely different, it would take some getting used to
0:59:39 how to recognize you. But ultimately, you’d be the same person. And I would still want to hang
0:59:44 out with you if you came look the same had the same name, but we’re a completely different person.
0:59:50 And our interactions were different. I would question whether or not you were the same person,
0:59:55 whereas you changing your name or how you look doesn’t change who you are. Brand is ultimately
1:00:00 how you make someone feel. And it’s the essence of the company. Understanding that gave me a lot
1:00:05 of kind of like a much more kind of positive path forward realizing, okay, we’re changing the way
1:00:10 people reference us. And we can communicate this story, we’re not changing how we look, we’re able
1:00:16 to maintain our logo, we’re able to maintain our product and everything that made us visually look
1:00:19 the way we do, that’s not changing our mission and vision, that’s not going to change, it’s going
1:00:24 to evolve with our community and with our customers. But we had to change our name. And so once we
1:00:27 understood kind of like, what are the implications here and how should we be thinking about it,
1:00:33 it became a lot less daunting, not easier, but less daunting to figure out, we’re just changing
1:00:38 how people reference us. And thankfully, people don’t buy our product because we put our name
1:00:42 on it. Our name is just the way that we’re referenced in the world for the most part. And
1:00:46 there is goodwill. There’s not to say that a name is not important, it is incredibly important,
1:00:49 which is why we took so much time to figure out a new one. Once we could communicate that message
1:00:54 and do that authentically and try to get that message to as many existing customers as possible,
1:00:59 we can control the narrative there. And also understanding that this only really affected
1:01:03 people who’ve heard of us. And when we looked forward, it’s like all the majority of the
1:01:06 growth was still in front of us. So this doesn’t actually matter for people that never heard of
1:01:10 us because they wouldn’t know our current name from a hole in the wall. So it’s like, okay,
1:01:14 that also makes it a little less daunting. It’s like, we have a community of customers here that
1:01:18 know about us, we know how to reach them, and we’re going to be very authentic. So we actually
1:01:22 ended up creating a little YouTube series where I walked people through and brought them along on
1:01:26 the rebranding process as like, here’s what we’re doing. We interviewed like hundreds of people
1:01:30 of our customers being like, what does the brand mean to you? We’re going to evolve this and we’re
1:01:36 going to actually like take it in a direction that you now help us build. When the name changed,
1:01:41 that was almost a part of the ego I had attached to like, I made this thing, it’s mine. That’s where
1:01:46 that kind of like left, which I think was really a good thing. So it’s like, this is our brand now,
1:01:50 this is the customer’s brand, this is the team’s brand, we’re all building this. And I think that’s
1:01:57 really important for an entrepreneur is to let go of that my, my, mine, because you need to be able
1:02:01 to delegate, you need to be able to bring in people that are better than you. You need to realize
1:02:06 that your job as the entrepreneur, the founder is to really get the thing going. And if you’re the
1:02:10 person of scale that do that as well, but you need to build the system around you. And so that was
1:02:15 also a really unique time where I was like, it felt like what I had created the name I created
1:02:21 kind of died a little bit, like that phase died a little bit. And we were reborn as like, I had this
1:02:27 kind of other analogy is like, up to that period, we were, you know, we were a caterpillar in the
1:02:31 first five years. And we went into a cocoon and emerged a butterfly. It was like, we called it
1:02:35 our butterfly moment. And, you know, although like we looked different with a new name or
1:02:39 whatever, we’re still the same thing. We’re just kind of now we’ve got wings and now we can fly.
1:02:44 And it was like, it was kind of this like beautiful little way. I made myself feel better and
1:02:48 explain that to the team. And it’s like, this is our butterfly moment. You know, we can either,
1:02:53 like I said earlier, we can choose to let this, this unfortunate situation hold us back or propel
1:02:57 us forward. And so we went through the demise of like, how do we actually use this as a springboard?
1:03:01 How do we bring the community along for us and actually walk them through this and make them
1:03:05 feel involved in like their voice was heard and end up working it really well for us.
1:03:09 I suspect you’re going to have a lot more legal challenges as you go from eight figures to nine
1:03:15 to hopefully 10 as you get more and more attention. At dinner last night, I think David said this too,
1:03:18 is like, you know, you’re not a real entrepreneur. So you get a legal letter, right? And I’ve,
1:03:22 that he’s not the first person to say that to me. And it’s just so hard when you get the first one,
1:03:27 like anything in business, you know, it’s like the first time it happens to you feel like you’re
1:03:31 the only one in the world this is happening to. And it’s very lonely, especially if you don’t have
1:03:36 a network, like if you don’t have a network in particular, that can be very scary. Thankfully,
1:03:39 at that time, I had people that would be like, Oh, this happened. They’re like, Oh, no big deal.
1:03:43 Like you’ll, you’ll do it. And now I have dealt, I met with a young person, like kind of something
1:03:46 similar was happening. I’m like, no, you’ll be okay. And it felt good to kind of be that voice.
1:03:49 I could see them kind of like starting the wheels were starting to turn and starting to get stressed
1:03:55 as like, just trust me, I was in your position, like, you will be okay, but you need to do this.
1:03:59 You need to like take care of yourself and kind of walk them through what we did. Ultimately,
1:04:04 if we can share those lessons, I think they’re so important. I welcome the challenges. I’m happy
1:04:09 to be in a period of like smooth water right now. But, you know, ultimately, like the challenges,
1:04:13 like I said, are how we grow and you’re right. These are just as part of business is like,
1:04:17 people are shooting arrows and you’re going to get hit. It’s what are you going to do about it?
1:04:23 And learning that what seems like a death blow often is not is, is how you build that resiliency
1:04:27 and the ability to keep pushing forward. So now when we got the, each subsequent legal letter,
1:04:32 that initial shock impact and how I dealt with it was, was better and improved a lot and how I
1:04:37 managed those things. And, and that’s ultimately the goals. How, how can you build that resiliency?
1:04:40 And how can you build the teams that we’ve got incredibly great, you know, attorneys now and,
1:04:44 and processes for when these things happen. You only build those over the first time it
1:04:49 happening, right? It’s like, no one’s building up an IP attorney team and the whole process around
1:04:51 IP infringement. If you don’t have issues there,
1:04:55 I can say things you can’t, but like some of the stuff that people are claiming is just like,
1:05:00 absolutely ridiculous. Like it shouldn’t be granted that this has, you know, any sort of
1:05:05 intellectual property rights whatsoever. Yeah. And I’m, I’m intentionally having to be quite
1:05:08 vague and not even mentioning what our previous name is because that’s, that’s in these agreements
1:05:12 of like what I can and cannot say, but you’re right. It’s the unfortunate thing about IP law
1:05:18 in specifically is it almost exclusively operates in the gray area, right? In trademark
1:05:23 infringement in particular, what they’re looking for is, will the non-observant consumer,
1:05:28 in other words, a person who knows nothing, who’s not paying attention, would they be confused
1:05:32 between one brand and another that come down to logos or words? And that’s a hard thing to prove.
1:05:36 And ultimately, who’s going to prove that over time is the person with a lot of money because
1:05:38 they’re going to argue different things. It’s a battle of bank accounts.
1:05:42 It’s a battle of bank accounts. It’s a battle of time, right? Like how much time are you willing
1:05:46 to spend? Like I said, it was like much more than the million dollars. It was the two years,
1:05:50 the two years with no certainty. So I was like, that’s too much of a looming, you know,
1:05:54 too big of a risk, too big of a risk. And generally these things are without, they’re
1:05:58 pretty baseless, but they’re usually bigger companies with firepower.
1:06:05 You want to come back to the mosaic or balance with two young kids, rapidly growing business.
1:06:08 What have you learned about using your time effectively?
1:06:12 It’s had to evolve, right? Because I’ve been in a few different, I’ve won a few different
1:06:18 hats to the different scale of our business. And like as a founder, you start day one doing
1:06:22 everything. And as the business evolves, you start to hire people, but you’re still
1:06:24 doing a lot of the things and you’re micromanaging. You’re not, you’re,
1:06:29 you know, I hadn’t done this before. So I do all the mistakes and you’re, you’re overriding
1:06:35 things and, and you don’t know any better. But eventually you start to learn, like I mentioned
1:06:39 with kind of how we evolved after the rebrand, like you’ve got to bring in better people than you
1:06:44 and understand how are you best applied, right? How are you the most effective in your job?
1:06:49 And how I manage all of that now is like, I kind of had to, for myself, relearn what work is.
1:06:52 How do I hold myself to account? How do I judge myself? Because the other kind of
1:06:58 downside of entrepreneurship is you don’t have a lot of feedback as a founder. So when you have a
1:07:02 boss, you’re getting feedback, you know, if you’re hitting marks or not. And, you know,
1:07:06 we have investors and stuff, but our investors are also like entrepreneurs and they’re great. So
1:07:13 they’re not exactly kind of keeping tabs as much as like a boss would, for example. And so you have
1:07:18 to one, hold yourself to account and figure out what that looks like. And for me, I had to reinvent
1:07:24 that as like work today is not what it used to be. It’s not hands on the tools as much.
1:07:29 It’s not overriding decisions. It’s not getting too into the weeds. It’s not losing touch. I still
1:07:36 have a very firm kind of finger on the pulse of the business. I have a lot of consumer feedback
1:07:41 sent directly to my inbox. I want to know what’s going on at that level, but it means not getting
1:07:46 involved in the weeds and kind of doing those jobs. And so work for me is how do I like the
1:07:53 mosaic? How do I holistically make sure I’m in the best mindset to have a good idea? I say my
1:07:58 jobs to really have a good idea once a quarter, like a really good idea. And those ideas move
1:08:05 the needle quite substantially. And they often require a lot to go into those ideas. But I’ve
1:08:10 got such incredible people working on kind of the day to day, week to week, month to month stuff.
1:08:15 My job is to be looking six to 12 months out. And then further, but typically six to 12 months,
1:08:18 because I think beyond that you’re guessing. In six to 12 months, we can make a pretty good
1:08:24 idea of where we need to be going. And ultimately, it’s to have those good ideas. So how do I put
1:08:30 myself in a position to have those good ideas? That’s a lot of reading. That’s a lot of consuming
1:08:36 just basic information out there. So reading, even just like the publicly traded companies
1:08:42 in our space, reading the reports, how are the CEOs thinking? How’s the market looking at these
1:08:46 businesses? And what are they saying? It’s networking with people, extracting those insights.
1:08:49 I call it like almost like engineered serendipity as well. It’s like, how do you put yourself in a
1:08:54 bunch of different situations to just extract an idea? How can you go idea harvesting? I look at
1:08:58 that as my job to basically go out there and collect the information, come back and synthesize
1:09:03 it and apply it in which way makes the most sense for our business. And of course, like that’s not
1:09:08 all, all I do. I would love to, that’s all I do, but I get pulled into, you know, the, in the business
1:09:13 problems flow uphill. And so there’s still those things, but thankfully I’ve got incredible people
1:09:18 that kind of had those off now as well. And my area of excellence and like where I’m the most
1:09:24 effective is when I’m creative. And so I’m creative when I’m not stressed. When I’m creative, I’m
1:09:30 thinking about those ideas and networking and kind of operating. But the lack of stress also comes
1:09:36 from taking care of myself. And so it’s been tough though to redefine work is that because it doesn’t
1:09:40 look like sitting in front of a computer, it doesn’t look like nine to five. And so I had to
1:09:45 battle with this. Like, am I working hard enough? And it was this, this realization that like, oh,
1:09:50 I’m out of the death grip phase. That’s no longer serving me. I can’t just sit down and death grip
1:09:56 a good idea. I can’t just sit there with a Google doc and be like, good idea time. That’s not how it
1:10:01 works anymore. My, my, my work is 24/7, the mosaic. It could be something my wife says, like, she’s
1:10:06 incredibly smart. Like she gives me tons of ideas. She’s the real co-founder in the business, right?
1:10:11 Like those early days, who am I going over everything with? Like her level of business
1:10:15 knowledge would be higher than, you know, people going with MBAs. Like she’s seen it all. Talking
1:10:19 to her about things, walking through problems, talking to everyone. It’s just like work looks
1:10:24 like that. And so it’s spending time with family, but it’s, it’s, are you, can you extract something?
1:10:28 Is there an insight that comes out of that as well? And another way to look at the mosaics is
1:10:33 seasons, right? There’s seasons where you need to be busier and I’ve really identified where those
1:10:38 seasons are. And, and that’s communicated with my family and, you know, my wife and partner and
1:10:42 where that’s going to be kind of all in. And like what’s, we’ll just say what season are we in,
1:10:47 right? And how do we adapt to that and make sure that we’re operating at the best of our ability
1:10:52 in all areas that matter. What have you learned about simplicity and focus when it comes to
1:10:59 operating a business that most people miss? I think the tendency to do more is just the common,
1:11:05 the common path people go down. They’re like, okay, I’ve got some level of success. How do I
1:11:09 replicate that by doing more? So like, for example, we sell socks, should you sell underwear? What
1:11:13 people fail to realize there is have you fully maximized the opportunity that’s in front of you?
1:11:17 I mean, really optimize it. I mean, the power of focus is so important. The way I kind of like
1:11:22 explain this to our team is imagine you’re running a race and you’re in the lead pack
1:11:27 and you’re doing a good job. And out of the corner of your eye, you kind of catch
1:11:31 another race going on. You’re like, oh, that looks fun. And you hop the barrier and you’re
1:11:35 in that. But now you’re middle and back of the pack. You didn’t prepare for that race. You don’t
1:11:39 really know the landscape. Oh, and you’re now falling behind in the race you’re running because
1:11:43 you haven’t built the infrastructure to maybe have another teammate that could run that race
1:11:46 who trained for it. For example, that’d be like hiring or developing a different line of business.
1:11:50 But like what a lot of entrepreneurs do is they try to run multiple races. And that’s
1:11:54 like a surefire way to burn yourself out and also just not give the attention and focus to
1:12:00 what really matters. We’re taught that like to get more, you have to do more. I just don’t
1:12:03 think that’s true. I think to get more, you should be doing less typically. You should be
1:12:10 subtracting. So going into this year, we’re very clear on our goals. Almost like a bit of an insecurity
1:12:15 we’re trying with this too is like, are socks enough? You know, is it a big enough goal? But
1:12:22 outside of my own ego is like, why aren’t socks enough? Right? It’s like I said, $50 billion
1:12:29 industry. We’re a leader in it. And we’re doing really well. And we’re of that market size. We’re
1:12:34 just scratching the surface if you would even say that, right? It’s a massive market. It’s what I
1:12:40 always go back to is like, we’ve barely maximized the opportunity here. We’re at the start line still.
1:12:45 Why would we do anything else? And we love doing this. And I think that level of focus
1:12:51 empowers you to like really become an expert at it and really become a master of it and extend
1:12:55 the time horizon. Not to say we won’t do other things in the future, but right now, the best
1:13:00 opportunity we have in front of us is what we’re doing. So why would we take any of that focus
1:13:05 away? And every time we’ve kind of faltered over the past few years, it’s been, like I said, chasing
1:13:11 a silver bullet or trying to go down a path that is just out of line of our circle of excellence.
1:13:16 You know, like, why are we doing this? Other than it wasn’t really a, those paths were never
1:13:20 something I was like, this is what we need to do. Like the conviction to have around socks. It was
1:13:26 advice or grasping for growth or trying to figure it out. And I think like in anything in life,
1:13:32 like focus is so incredibly important. And business is also just so hard. Like life,
1:13:36 there’s just always things coming at you. Being able to simplify what you’re doing,
1:13:40 your day-to-day to deal with those coming in. Like I said earlier, we now, of course,
1:13:45 still have problems, but our ability to deal with those problems is incredible, right? Because we’re
1:13:50 not so underwater with everything we’re trying to do. We’re just so ready to deal with whatever
1:13:56 coming that way. And I think the focus and just the mental clarity around it and being okay with
1:14:02 socks, you know, which is, it sounds kind of funny now that I say it, but just being okay with that
1:14:08 is so important. And it’s just unlocked this level of like love of what we’re doing again.
1:14:12 When it comes to design, how do you go about anticipating what people want?
1:14:17 It’s become more data-driven. In the early days, I designed what I liked, of course. And young
1:14:22 entrepreneurs or people starting their first business, they have solutions looking for problems.
1:14:27 So that’s what they teach you in business school. Like come up with a solution and go try and find
1:14:30 the problem. Whereas you should be solving problems, right? You should be looking for it.
1:14:35 And particularly if it’s your first business, you should be solving a problem you deal with,
1:14:39 because otherwise, why are you qualified to do that? And so like I said earlier, I was solving
1:14:44 my problem of a pair of socks that could do it all. Figure out where your advantages are and,
1:14:49 you know, what product path you want to go down and why that matters. I’m not that unique. What
1:14:53 I like, there’s likely millions of people that are going to like these designs as well. And so
1:14:56 that was the simple start, not trying to guess what people wanted. I was really trying to just
1:15:01 solve my own problem. That’s evolved now to having core categories of what we know people like.
1:15:07 And like I mentioned earlier, the designs are a way that we get people into the business. So we
1:15:13 kind of design things around nature, animals, food, abstract, funny. And that’s really a way to
1:15:18 evoke some sort of emotional response from people. Give them that kind of like giggle or laugh that
1:15:21 maybe they want to buy that pair and it makes them feel a certain way. But ultimately, what’s
1:15:27 super exciting too is we found that designs act as a certain level of inspiration for people.
1:15:32 It’s one of the first pieces of clothing you put on in the morning. And what I would do with socks
1:15:36 is I would lay them out like how I’m feeling that day is the kind of design I would use. And I heard
1:15:40 that from customers and friends as well. They’re like, “Oh, I’ve got this important meeting today.
1:15:44 This is the pair of socks I wear for that.” So I think that’s a really cool aspect of the product
1:15:51 too is like, can our product be this thing you put on in the morning that inspires you to go
1:15:55 after your big goal? One of our internal kind of goals is to inspire personal bests. That’s kind
1:15:59 of why we do what we do at a brand level. We don’t really care if you get to the finish line
1:16:02 first. We want to make sure you get to the start line. You try and you set a goal and you actually
1:16:08 go for it. I think that’s just so important to move forward and kind of remove the outcome,
1:16:13 but like really focus on getting started. And yeah, so ultimately like the designs follow that kind
1:16:18 of pathway and we’re trying to inspire people, but also just give them what we know they like.
1:16:21 Our best-selling stuff and what people buy the most of are just really basic stuff. And I’ve
1:16:26 kind of evolved into wearing more basic designs. More both wearing basic versions of your socks.
1:16:30 That’s the season I’m in is more basic. Well, I got like more of a retro inspired kind of design
1:16:34 going on, which I really like right now. But yeah, the designs are just this fantastic way
1:16:39 people express themselves. And I love seeing what our customers, how they kind of move through
1:16:42 the world with them on. And I love to ask them when I see them, “Hey, why did you choose that as
1:16:46 well? Like, why does that mean something to you?” We’ve got incredibly talented designers now and
1:16:50 they use a lot of kind of insights and data. And then sometimes we’ll just throw shit at the
1:16:54 wall too. Like, I’ll have an idea, you know, like, of course, like founder has an idea for
1:16:57 something stupid and we’ll try it. And typically they just don’t do well. One thing I have had
1:17:02 to get better at is not letting my preferences dictate what goes out. So if I dislike a design,
1:17:06 I have to ask myself, I have to remove kind of my personal preference, be like, “Do I think our
1:17:10 customer base will like this design?” Because we’re now much bigger than my preferences. It’s no
1:17:14 longer the million or so people that are like me. It’s much bigger than that. And so that was
1:17:18 challenging because like it is your business and you ultimately kind of want it to be in line
1:17:22 with what you like. But again, it plays into that like it needs to evolve to be much more than you.
1:17:26 Because I don’t like, for example, one of our best line designs right now is a cat and I don’t
1:17:32 like cats. So I’m just like, secretly, I’m like, I don’t want to see it do so well. But at the same
1:17:37 time, I’m like, “Hey, people love it.” You know? And like, cool, power to them too. Like, people
1:17:39 love cats. I don’t like cats. You know, I’m allergic to them. That’s why I don’t like them.
1:17:42 But I think that’s really cool. And that was important is getting out of my own way too and
1:17:46 realizing like that comes down to just hiring good people in general. It’s like, you hire them
1:17:52 because they’re better than you. It’s like, so guide them and have your inputs. But you know,
1:17:56 make sure you ultimately let them bring forth something that is better than what you would
1:18:00 have done as well. What have you learned about taking big swings? I think it comes down to
1:18:05 like, why are you taking that swing? So I’ve taken big swings that were authentic and they were like
1:18:09 the big goals, like even just starting the business or trying to go after certain, you know,
1:18:15 athletic goals. But then there’s big swings that are trying to solve problems in a faster way.
1:18:18 So maybe making a big hire that you’re trying to rush because you think they’re going to come in
1:18:22 and be able to solve all your problems. Just choosing a co-founder because you think it’ll
1:18:26 be more fun. Like, these are just never good reasons to kind of take big swings because
1:18:31 you’re relying on hope. And that hope is just generally a bad strategy. The big swings I’ve
1:18:36 taken where they weren’t in line with my authenticity and kind of why we’re doing them. Like, I talked
1:18:40 about earlier, that personal mission and drive of why are you doing what you’re doing? Like,
1:18:42 that’s what’s going to take you through the hard times. That’s what’s going to make you injure.
1:18:47 And if you’re going to take the big swing, you’ve got to know it’s going to come with a lot of
1:18:50 turmoil. It’s going to be challenging and you’ve got to be ready to back that up. When I think
1:18:57 about it now, I try to imagine I’m in a room with 100 people and I’m explaining my rationale for
1:19:02 taking a big swing. And I like to imagine that like, I need to do a good enough job that the
1:19:06 majority of the people will be like, that makes sense. At least that’s rational that the why you
1:19:10 want to do that. So I try to take myself out metaphorically, put myself into a room and be
1:19:14 like, would most people agree with this? And then the second question I like to ask is like,
1:19:19 would I be happy with this decision in five years? So I like to extend the time horizon on that.
1:19:23 It’s like, is this solving a short-term problem but creating a long-term one? It’s something
1:19:28 I’ve had to learn the hard way, of course, but I really try to do that now. And even if it’s going
1:19:32 to be short-term, good, long-term, bad, I just know way. It’s not worth it. What have you learned
1:19:38 about hiring? I learned that I got really lucky early on. And so that like I talked earlier about
1:19:43 the worst thing of like hacks or doing hard things that work out for you is that you get lucky. So
1:19:48 I got incredibly lucky with my first few hires who are all still with us. And they’ve scaled and
1:19:52 grown with the company and they’re leading major parts of the company, which is incredible. During
1:19:57 the period of high growth, we had to build the team and build it fairly rapidly because we started
1:20:05 growing pretty quickly. And honestly, I just was not experienced enough to really do that properly.
1:20:11 And hiring for what I would say now are probably the wrong reasons. Hiring for org chart, not really
1:20:17 what needs to be executed. Hiring in ways because that’s just how it’s been done because I was just
1:20:21 trying to look around what I’ve been. I’ve never done this before. Not really questioning if we
1:20:26 should be hiring or subtracting. So a lot of hiring happens because there’s just a lot of
1:20:30 inefficiency in the organization. And I think that’s a really important thing is like,
1:20:35 do you need a person or a process? Or do you need to stop doing that entirely? And so when we were
1:20:40 half the size we are now, we had twice as many people as we do now, which is crazy because we
1:20:45 were just so inefficient. I really didn’t understand the concept of subtraction and how we could
1:20:50 build efficiently. The biggest hiring mistake I made was thinking like, you know, going into a
1:20:54 second year of not hitting the growth goals, like I arbitrarily said, ego really attached to it. Like
1:20:58 we need to do better. We need to kind of keep the good times rolling. You know, COVID was this big
1:21:02 inflationary period for e-commerce businesses and drug consumer businesses. Like everyone started
1:21:06 shopping online, you got this huge boom and the market started to draw down really hard. And so
1:21:12 you’re trying to find growth and exceptional growth in a market that’s going down. It’s very
1:21:17 challenging, but I was kind of hard headed about it. And I was like, surely we just need an experienced
1:21:22 person to come in and lead marketing. I ran a good process in terms of diligence in the person that
1:21:28 I ended up hiring. But the mistake I made was not filling the top of final. I didn’t get enough
1:21:32 candidates of that same quality to compare and contrast them against. They were able to tell
1:21:36 me exactly what I wanted to hear. I got good references, you know, all the typical things.
1:21:40 Yeah. Ultimately, the lesson I learned there was like, I need to actually take what they’re saying,
1:21:45 compare it to other people as well. And so I took a big swing. This is one of those big swings that
1:21:49 I took that wasn’t authentic. It was like, it was trying to accomplish something. Trying to force
1:21:53 something. Trying to force something and shorten the time horizon. And it just went incredibly
1:21:57 wrong. You know, it turns out they were not exactly truthful about their experience. Like,
1:22:01 they weren’t as good at the job as they were. They were working other jobs during ours. It was
1:22:05 a remote. They were, you know, based in the US, we’re here in Canada. I got played. It felt like
1:22:11 almost violating because it was just like totally like, I’d never dealt with that before. It was
1:22:15 just, it was very weird. It didn’t only work. It caused a lot of internal conflict as well,
1:22:19 because like it was a big org shift. The guy currently had running marketing was now replaced
1:22:24 with this expert. And that’s, you know, wasn’t a great move on my part as well. And that was kind
1:22:29 of the last straw, you know, like last year, mid-year is where we kind of like, that didn’t
1:22:34 work out. That’s where I just like, wiped the table clean. I said, like, here’s everything we’re
1:22:37 not doing anymore, because we’re just going to strip this down. We’re going to subtract and
1:22:41 rebuild because this just isn’t working. And I don’t care about these growth goals anymore. Like,
1:22:45 we need to get back to a place where we’re operating authentically and doing good work and
1:22:49 fulfilling our mission. We’re just like, we’re not even listening to the customer anymore, right?
1:22:52 We’re doing things, trying to chase growth. And that chasing growth will,
1:22:56 will as a consequence, force you to start doing things that, you know,
1:23:00 aren’t inherently good for your brand or you’re going to new categories that don’t make sense,
1:23:03 or change messaging that’s out of line with why your customers are there in the first place.
1:23:08 And so again, as painful as that hire was and getting that wrong, it was just kind of the last
1:23:13 straw of like another lesson learned for sure. But last straw of like, no, I need to rethink how
1:23:18 we’re doing everything right now and the internal team. And that’s where you went for simplicity
1:23:22 and sort of focus. Yeah, that was July of 2023. I was like, this is
1:23:26 where we’re resetting. And that’s really like, the success we’re seeing now is the result of
1:23:31 a thousand things we’ve done over the last year. It’s not, we’re not doing anything special right
1:23:37 now, but the, the, the choices we made in July and subsequent choices after that all built this
1:23:42 forward momentum of doing the right thing that are now all working. And so people, you could
1:23:45 ask me right now, it’s like, what are you doing that’s leading to your growth this year? I couldn’t
1:23:49 really answer that question. Cause it would be, well, here’s how much time do we have, right?
1:23:53 Are we going to do eight hour podcasts? Cause there’s literally a thousand things we did.
1:23:57 It started with subtraction, but it goes much deeper than that. It goes, it goes, you know,
1:24:01 into everything that we do. And it’s been so fulfilling to do that though, because like
1:24:06 from that point on, we’ve just been building and it’s just been, it’s, it’s felt way more
1:24:09 like it did previous to like the tough times. I remember we went for a walk
1:24:14 July last year and we were talking about Bill Walsh’s book. The score will take care of itself.
1:24:20 Instead of focusing on the revenue, the score, just focus on the things you control.
1:24:25 The revenue will be the revenue, right? I can’t like go, like the early days where I could force
1:24:29 my classmates to buy a pair. I can’t go force people to buy socks now. And I think like,
1:24:32 it’s not going to move the needle if you’re knocking on doors.
1:24:35 Well, exactly. Maybe a little bit, but yeah, not, not, not where we needed to,
1:24:38 and I’m not shy to still get out there and hand-to-hand combat. I will do it. If you’re
1:24:42 focused on the work and you’re focused on fulfilling the promise you have to your customers,
1:24:46 like the results will come. If you, if you do a good product and you market it well,
1:24:51 the goal for us is socks on feet. The product is so damn good. I want to get more socks on feet
1:24:54 because then people will come back. So how do we do that effectively? The same is true of sport,
1:24:58 right? Like every time I got to the start line to race, like anything could go wrong. There’s no
1:25:03 guarantee I’m going to win. Like if I focus too much on the results, you lose sight of everything
1:25:07 else that’s important of just actually executing. Like my job was actually just to do what I trained
1:25:10 for. And that’s all you can really do, right? Like those people out there would be like,
1:25:13 we don’t have goals. I think goals are still important. I think goals are incredibly important.
1:25:18 You need a North Star, but that’s how we think about goals. Much more of a North Star than like
1:25:22 we need to hit this. Like cause those are fairly arbitrary. You know, we’re not a public company.
1:25:25 You know, we’re not having to like do orange reports that are going to move our stock prices.
1:25:30 Like it doesn’t matter, right? If we’re doing good business and we’re growing and our customers are
1:25:36 happy and we’re profitable and we can do that over 20 years, we’ve got a pretty damn good business.
1:25:41 I was saying with the kids, which is the lack of patience changes the outcome. There’s a natural
1:25:46 pace to a lot of things and we get into a lot of trouble when we try to speed that up.
1:25:50 I agree with that wholeheartedly. That has been kind of the theme. Sometimes these things can work,
1:25:56 but I think very rarely over the long term, they do. That’s not to say don’t try things as they come
1:26:02 up to you. I think like I always try to be cautious of telling people like, oh, don’t try the hacks.
1:26:05 Just focus on the long term. Sometimes you need to try things and you need to like touch the stove
1:26:10 once or twice, but generally speaking, if you prioritize the long-term and do good business,
1:26:15 it’s going to work well. Even with just health, it takes so long. It’s just like if you actually
1:26:19 want to build a resilient body and a healthy body, it’s just it takes time. Same with the
1:26:25 business and sport and results. It’s just like be kind to yourself, I found. It’s like you don’t
1:26:29 need it all right now. You’re just like one foot in front of the other, steady progress.
1:26:34 You went through a process recently to learn not to care as much about what other people
1:26:39 think about you or what you’re doing. I kind of had this current fear. I got to a certain level
1:26:46 in my cycling career where I peaked, but it wasn’t where I wanted to peak. It wasn’t kind of the
1:26:50 ultimate goal of, well, the ultimate goal had been winning, being the best in the world. I never
1:26:57 got there. One year I was number one in Canada, but I don’t feel like I had unfinished business
1:27:01 there. I just didn’t reach the top. And looking back, there were a lot of things I wish I did
1:27:05 differently. When I was looking here, I don’t want that to happen again. So I was trying to
1:27:11 search for what am I not doing? What have I never done before that I should be doing to try
1:27:15 and challenge myself and grow? So I actually texted a mutual friend of ours, Andrew Wilkinson,
1:27:18 and I was like, here’s kind of what I’m going through. I didn’t know if it was therapy I needed
1:27:24 to do. I didn’t know if it was a business coach. I just knew I needed to work through this and
1:27:30 understand myself better and just learn more about what is my superpower ultimately? Where
1:27:34 should I be focused? And I just want to make sure I’m doing everything I can. And he mentioned
1:27:41 this guy, Jack Skeen, who does this roadmap process where Andrew had done it and a few
1:27:45 other people in the business community had done it. And it’s this kind of extensive process where
1:27:50 you work with Jack and you do some clinical psychology tests, understand kind of your
1:27:57 tendencies. And he does interviews of your close friends and family, people that have opted in
1:28:02 to being around you for the most part. They see something in you. And then interview calls and
1:28:08 coaching calls with him. And the goal of that is to kind of understand yourself better and understand
1:28:15 what your superpower is. And I didn’t go into it with the goal of trying to care less about what
1:28:22 people think. That was an outcome of the process. I actually didn’t know what to expect. I just knew
1:28:27 that I wanted to be taken apart and put back together. I wanted to actually piece by piece
1:28:32 really understand myself. I wanted to dig into the childhood and be like, what does drive me?
1:28:41 Why do I do the things I do? Why am I so intense? Why do I have these goals and need to achieve them?
1:28:46 Why are my expectations so high? A lot of why I was moving through the world was acceptance and
1:28:53 caring about what people thought, like attaching my worth to how other people thought about me.
1:29:00 And that was a really unique insight of just like, I wasn’t living authentically, and I was kind of
1:29:09 limited by the belief of others. I never really struggled with caring what people think,
1:29:15 unless I admired them or cared about their opinion. And I think it’s important to prioritize what
1:29:20 people you care about think, but that can’t limit you and it can’t change what you feel is right
1:29:27 and what you need to do as well. And so going through that process and building the systems
1:29:31 and kind of building the understanding of how do you deal with that, like one thing I did daily
1:29:37 is I’ll kind of like do some journaling. And I just started asking myself every day,
1:29:42 when did I not say or do what I was really thinking or feeling? Because I didn’t want to
1:29:47 moderate myself anymore. That’s not to say be rude, but it’s not to like, if we’re having a
1:29:52 conversation and I disagree, like I want to be more willing to say that because I don’t want
1:29:56 to have a fear of thinking that the other person across the table is going to not like me anymore
1:30:00 because I disagree. Is that a good friendship anyways? It sounds obvious, but a lot of people
1:30:05 operate that way, right? It’s very natural to like want to fit in and want to kind of be
1:30:10 accepted. And so it can be a bit scary to kind of like be really authentic.
1:30:12 And it causes resentment if you’re holding that in.
1:30:16 Well, totally. Yeah, it’s exhausting, right? Because you’re actually not living your true
1:30:20 self. You’re like a chameleon. And that’s where a lot of people who think they may be introverted,
1:30:24 I think, are just actually limiting a lot. They’re just kind of molding to their environment.
1:30:26 And that’s why they’re so exhausted after this. They’re just around the wrong people and they’re
1:30:31 not being authentic. So learning like strategies on how not to care, that’s a lot easier said than
1:30:36 done. But asking myself that question and kind of like knowing I have to be accountable to that
1:30:39 allows me to be more authentic because like I don’t want to answer that question. Like here’s
1:30:45 where I moderated myself. And I’m happy to say like I’ve only like once in a couple months had to
1:30:50 like answer that question and not be like, yeah, I’m moderating myself here. It was just out of
1:30:54 fear was like a public speaking. I didn’t want to get up and talk. It’s like, I don’t know,
1:30:59 I cared what people thought for some reason. And it kind of affected me outside of not caring what
1:31:04 people think. The real kind of unlock there was I said superpower. And like it came down
1:31:10 that, you know, like my love and appreciation for socks and the utility and how they can
1:31:15 improve what I see there. And learning how that can be enough, you know, like learning that
1:31:20 I would like I mentioned earlier is insecure about socks being enough. Like I do now feel
1:31:24 I’m in a spot where I know a lot about business. I’ve got a lot of experience. I kind of had this
1:31:29 this angst of like our socks, the best utilization of these skills that I’ve built.
1:31:34 And I kind of mentioned that to Jack. He’s like, well, that’s kind of silly. Like
1:31:38 if you were doing shoes, would that be enough? What about tennis rackets?
1:31:41 And I was like, oh, I’ve never thought about it that way. I was like,
1:31:47 you know, Nike’s a great business, right? It was shoes for such a long time. I was like,
1:31:51 no one ever was like, that’s a lame business. I was like socks. I was like,
1:31:54 I’ve mentioned a couple of times, it’s a big market. I was like, why isn’t this enough?
1:31:59 Why in my head are socks, you know, not as good as shoes or rackets or some tech thing? It’s like,
1:32:05 it was just this kind of like, self-imposed sort of limiter of like, I don’t know, of like,
1:32:09 I guess caring what people think because I don’t have a better idea right now and I really love
1:32:13 what I do. And so it was really helpful to understand that because it, like I said, it
1:32:17 helped me. I was already falling back in love with kind of the process, but it was like,
1:32:22 it almost allowed me to kind of like fully commit to it again and be like, oh, no, socks,
1:32:25 you know, are enough until the next idea comes. I kind of challenged them because I was like,
1:32:30 oh, I did all this work and like, socks are my superpower. And he’s like, no,
1:32:35 they are right now. Your ability to like, take a product and see how it can be improved is your
1:32:40 superpower, but you don’t have another product in mind right now. He’s like, that will come and
1:32:43 you’ll know when it comes. He’s like, he’s like, be okay with where you are. And that’s been a kind
1:32:48 of theme for me is, you know, I got to see the feedback and read the report. And, you know,
1:32:52 one of the things that like Rob tries to rush through life and I do like, I’m always like,
1:32:57 onto the next thing. I don’t celebrate the wins. And it’s just like, I’m trying to rush to the next
1:33:02 thing. And it’s like, as I get older too, and I’m trying to appreciate the moments and smell the
1:33:07 roses. And a good example of this is when I was cycling, I got to travel the world and see all
1:33:13 these incredible places. I was so intense and so focused that I would not enjoy anywhere. I’d be
1:33:19 in Spain or Italy. And I would be so tunnel vision that I didn’t even give myself time to like,
1:33:23 appreciate where I was. And I always told myself, I’ll be back. I’ll appreciate it later. I haven’t
1:33:28 been back, right? Like it just ended. And I look back, I’m like, I think I would be a lot more
1:33:33 fulfilled if like, I actually just smelled the roses, right? Cause like the results are one thing,
1:33:39 but like the experiences and the opportunities to like be there. And like, we always look back and
1:33:43 like, we don’t talk about the results. We talk about the experiences and the journey. And unfortunately,
1:33:49 I just like didn’t take time to appreciate the journey. And so I’m really trying to do that now.
1:33:54 And you know, it’s just way more fulfilling to be like, we’re in it. One of my favorite quotes is
1:33:59 one of my favorite shows, The Office. And it’s like the final episode and Andy says, he’s kind
1:34:05 of reminiscing. He’s like, I wish someone told us we were in the good times, like in the good old
1:34:09 days, right? He’s like, they’re looking back and they’re like, I wish they would tell you before
1:34:12 it ended. And I’m kind of getting goosebumps talking about it. It’s like, I’m in the good old days
1:34:17 right now, right? Like I know when this business is over as tough as it is or whatever we’re going
1:34:20 through or even like raising young children, I try to remind myself like, these are the good
1:34:25 old days. Like another thing I read was like, you know, like, it can be hard to take your dog,
1:34:29 I have a dog, hard to take them out in the rain. But when they’re gone, how much would you pay
1:34:34 to take that dog for a walk right now? It’s almost like rewinding a little and just being like,
1:34:40 remember when you wanted what you have now and just being happy and content with that. But also
1:34:46 still, you know, striving for more. And maybe there’s a title of a book by David Sokol, which I
1:34:51 like, which is pleased but not satisfied. And it’s sort of like, you can be happy where you’re at
1:34:54 and you can still drive for more. That’s something I’ve struggled with is like,
1:35:00 I’m incredibly happy this year. And like, and I’ve been, you know, struggling with like,
1:35:04 people ask, what’s your biggest challenge right now? And I’m like, or what’s your biggest problem?
1:35:08 I’m like, I feel like I’ve spent two years fighting problems that like, I’m in kind of like a solution
1:35:13 phase right now on one hand, hyper ambitious, but on the other hand, content, because tend is almost
1:35:17 like counter to ambitious, right? And it’s how do you balance those two things, not to use balances.
1:35:22 It’s like, but how do those two things live simultaneously? And maybe it comes down to
1:35:25 seasons, but that’s the thing I’ve ultimately been like, when I’m in a creative space,
1:35:33 it’s not tied to the result as much. You know, it’s not like, yeah, I’m in a place now that’s
1:35:38 incredibly hard to even imagine 10 years ago, but there’s still so much more I want to go. And,
1:35:42 but I’m not driven and I never was driven. I think that’s why I go back to sport is like
1:35:46 the ultimate motivator where I said everything’s earned, not owed. The goal of starting my business
1:35:54 was never financially driven. It was this deep desire to accomplish something and that hasn’t
1:35:59 gone away, you know, and that won’t go away. And so there’s no level of income where that’s going
1:36:03 to kind of leave me. And so it comes down to like, how are you resilient or why are you doing it?
1:36:06 It’s that personal mission of like, why are you doing it and being authentic?
1:36:11 I think that’s a great segue to the question we always end with, which is what is success for you?
1:36:16 This changes over time because my life’s changed so much over the last few years. I feel like I’m
1:36:21 learning a lot of hard lessons and a lot of great lessons. And I look at my young children, I’m like,
1:36:27 I want to do the best job I can to share these with you and give you kind of a bit of a head start.
1:36:32 You’re going to go through pain, you’re going to go through tough times, but I want to do as good
1:36:37 of a job as possible to prepare them with these lessons that I’ve learned. And I try to do that
1:36:42 through young entrepreneurs too. Like I do a lot of work with the local schools and I try to
1:36:45 share these lessons on different platforms too, just because like I didn’t have anyone to go to.
1:36:50 You know, like I didn’t have that or my whole network was athletes and all that. So like when
1:36:53 I was going through all the early challenges, it was kind of me and just internalizing and I’m like,
1:36:59 I want to be that voice that says, you’ll be okay, right? And I think success looks like being able
1:37:05 to show my kids what hard work looks like, show them what doing that while having like a great family
1:37:10 life as well and you know, honoring my partner and that just sharing the lessons, you know,
1:37:14 that would be, that would be success if the kids grew up and they’re in a good spot, you know,
1:37:19 like what’s more important than that? And I think ultimately having fun while doing all that,
1:37:25 operating in this zone of being healthy and being happy and that would be success and that would
1:37:38 be winning. Thanks for listening and learning with us for a complete list of episodes, show notes,
1:37:44 transcripts and more go to fs.blog/podcast or just Google the Knowledge Project.
1:37:51 Recently, I’ve started to record my reflections and thoughts about the interview after the interview.
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1:38:21 The Furnum Street blog is also where you can learn more about my new book,
1:38:26 Clear Thinking, turning ordinary moments into extraordinary results.
1:38:30 It’s a transformative guide that hands you the tools to master your fate,
1:38:36 sharpen your decision making and set yourself up for unparalleled success.
1:38:46 Learn more at fs.blog/clear. Until next time.
1:38:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]