What Most Supplement Brands Won’t Tell You | Gnarly Nutrition CEO

In jiu-jitsu, they always say like you either win or you learn, right? There’s no losing.

And I think that is applicable to so many parts of our life. Like you have to pick yourself back up. And if you’re

really in it, you know, for the long haul, then you’ve got to learn, you

know, from your mistakes and iterate, figure out what to do next.

Welcome to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by E-Hub. I’m your host, Frank Dolce.

Dr. Shannon O’Grady.

Is doctor appropriate? Do people call you doctor? Do you prefer doctor?

I don’t. I always am looking behind me for someone in a white coat. So, I typically don’t like that. I do like putting the the PhD behind my name

because it took a lot of work to earn that. Although in early uh kind of business exposure, someone once told me that PhD stood for piled high and deep.

So um I know some people uh in their view of academia may may infer certain things about me based on that, but it

did take a lot of work and and I value it. So I do like like having that included, but that’s more of as as a

signature and and not so much as a as a greeting.

Okay. So please don’t call me doctor. So, if I doc, if I call you something like that, would it be offensive? Like, if I said, “Hey, doc.” Uh-uh.

Okay. I’m not easily offended. That sounds like a challenge.

Take it as you would like to. That sounds like a challenge. Okay. Dr. Shannon O’Grady with Gnarly Nutrition.

Uh, how long have you been with Gnarly?

Uh, it’ll be nine years this year. And you’ve been with Gnarly 9 years. And how long has gnarly been around?

Just over 10 years. Oh, so you you joined up early.

I did. Yeah. I um as you probably know, I was in academia for a minute. Um was a

research assistant professor at the University of Utah. Did some teaching at Westminster and um kind of had decided

that academia wasn’t the the route I wanted to take. Um, I had started doing endurance sports. Uh, had always been a

runner, but got into iron man and um, ultra triathlon and um, during that time and you can’t really be into endurance

sports without also knowing a significant amount about nutrition. So, graduate school was this great time to really dig into that as I was also doing

research for my thesis. a friend and I always used to laugh that there was like an inverse relationship between our V2

max and progress on on our thesis. Um where we had a lot of time to train, but in taking a lot of time training we got

less done with school work. Um and so during that time that interest was really building and it was adjacent to

my field of study. Um but it also kind of set in my sights this idea that I wanted to go into sports nutrition. Mhm.

And so when I finally decided one, I wanted to stay in Utah, I didn’t want to just move to any town where a tenure track position opened up and two, I

really wanted to set myself on a track where I would gain experience and um in sports nutrition and in dietary supplements. Um I started looking for

for jobs in that space and it wasn’t a direct connection with narutrition.

there were some steps which at the time seemed uh to be off of my path but in terms of

what I do now served me really well. Um we can talk a little bit more about that but um yeah I found gnarly fairly early

on through a friend that was a sponsored athlete.

Oh gotcha. Okay so tell me about this you were just saying this path that got you to gnarly. What? Yeah.

Yeah. So I think uh in my vision, you know, I I was very into the idea of like looking at the science of what athletes

needed to fuel and recover and then conver taking that science and applying it to products that athletes would then use.

Um but straight away, you know, I I believe this to this day now, like if you set your sights on something, you got to put yourself out there. If

there’s anything that academia helped me with, it’s building a thick skin. Like rejection is is pretty common in

academia both in terms of grant writing in terms of uh submitting papers to um to get published in peer-reviewed

journals in terms of uh you know the material that you give your principal investigator for review. You get

rejected and you get harsh criticism a lot. So, um, being in that space, I had a pretty thick skin and I just applied to all the

companies that I thought I wanted to work with, but I didn’t have a lot of experience at that time. Um, and so I took a a job early on with a company in

Utah. Obviously, the dietary supplement industry is pretty prevalent in Utah for a number of reasons. um in what they

called product development, but it was more uh label review and formulation review relative to FDA requirements. A

lot of people think that supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA, but they in fact are. It doesn’t mean that those regulations are what they should be, but there are regulations for manufacturers and brands.

When you say what they should be, are you saying they’re too they’re they’re overreaching or they’re not enough on the regulations?

Um I think they could be more. Um, but I would also say that the regulations in some levels do what they should do. They

just don’t there’s not enough enforcement of those regulations. So you get companies popping up everywhere that make outrageous claims about what their

products can do that don’t test their products for label claims and and for safety considerations. So yeah.

Gotcha. But so I took a job uh in ter looking at that looking at um certifications like organic

certifications and and what was required for that and and starting that process.

Um from there I took a job with a supplement manufacturer in quality. So, I was hired to bring a supplement

manufacturer into um compliance with FDA regulations and then secondarily get them NSF certified,

which is a third-party um quality uh certification, not just in dietary supplementation, but in a number of

realms of manufacturing. And so, neither of those were my dream job or what I wanted to do. But um it was around that

time that I found Gnarly and started doing contract work for them. But both of those served me really well in what I did for Gnarly or what I started doing

um both in terms of making sure like labels that we were putting out for products that we were formulating were accurate. Mhm.

Reviewing formulas and making sure that the inputs, you know, accurately uh led to the dosages that we were putting in a

product. um making sure that the manufacturers we used were um you know following GMP or good manufacturing

practices. Um we later got gnarly NSF certified which is one of the highest levels of quality certifications that

you can get in the dietary supplement industry. So why is that important?

Because as I mentioned FDA regulations although they exist for manufacturers and supplement brands um that doesn’t

always mean that they’re followed. And when you put either a manufacturer or a brand which both have direct interest in

getting their product to to pass a laboratory test because it costs a lot of money to go back and reformulate or

to relabel something when those are the people that are testing the product.

There might be a little bias there. And so having a third party that has no direct interest and is just going to,

you know, tell it straight basically your product passed or it failed and if it failed, these are your options. Um, I think that’s critically important. Like

I’m I’m not just the CEO of a sports nutrition company. I’m also a consumer that uses uh dietary supplements as an

athlete and and just as an individual that is busy and doesn’t always have a lot of time. Um, I want to I want one, my products to be safe, two, I want to

get what I’m paying for, and three, like as a scientist, if there’s nothing that pisses me off more than than,

you know, companies making claims that are totally unfounded, right? It’s marketing BS. So, um, those things are

are critically important to me, both as someone that puts those products on the market, but also as a consumer of those products.

You know, when you mention that, this is going to take a dark turn right from the start. Uh oh. Is this when I’m gonna say something controversial?

You might. You might. So, in in in our business, in in all business, I would say there are opportunities for

corruption. Opportunities for corruption exist. And that just popped into my head when you started talking about third party validation of your product.

And so, I’m just curious, have you ever experienced corruption in third-party testing? So

you’re you’re developing a product. You want this stamp of approval from the third party and is anybody paying off

that guy to give you the stamp of approval. Have you ever heard of something like that?

No, not at all. I mean they NSF has been around for a century maybe. And I mean you can open

your dishwasher and you’ll see a circle with NSF. If you look on the bottom of your pots, you see a circle with NSF. So

I think on many levels they have skin in the game in terms of the level of uh

expertise they have in terms of auditing manufacturing in many different spaces.

Um it also costs me a lot of money to get this testing done. Right. So, we are NSF content certified, which means all

of our products go through the formulations themselves go through review by a toxicology panel, making sure that the um you know, dosages or

the amount of certain ingredients we have in our products are safe for consumption given how we’re recommended or recommending that people take them.

Two, they’re tested for label claims.

So, making sure like in a serving size there’s 20 g of protein or 80 millig of magnesium or whatever the product is.

Um, three, they’re tested for uh microbial contamination to make sure they’re safe. They’re tested for heavy

metal contamination to make sure they’re safe. They’re tested for pesticide contamination to make sure they’re safe.

So, all of our products are tested for that. Secondarily, um, we sell products to pro sports teams. So, not we don’t

sponsor pro sports teams like the billboards that you see when you drive down the highway. The athlete dietitians actually buy our products so that the

athletes can use them which means that every single lot of every single product we produce are tested for all 300 substances on the world anti-doping

agency ban substances list. So one if anyone could pay off NSF and it resulted in a bunch of athletes getting you know

popped for something that they didn’t consume that they got through a contaminated product that would reflect poorly on many different parties. So

yeah, I’d say NSF very much. It’s not a concern. It’s it’s a standard. Impeccable standard. Okay. Interesting.

There’s so many things that popped up. Yeah. As you were talking about all of that.

Uh I’m going to have this tendency and you’ll have to maybe just keep me on task here because I’ll want to start

talking about all of the gnarly products and how I can utilize those effectively.

Maybe we can talk about that a little bit. I don’t want that to overrun.

Yeah, sure. the the podcast. In fact, in doing some research, I I tuned into a podcast you were doing with another

group regarding collagen. And I’ve been thinking about collagen for a long time and whether or not

that would be beneficial for someone like me and how to use it. And I think that’s a another question that I have is like a lot of people

it’s like it’s a great question about collision. How do you use it? And so, okay, so let’s let’s think about that. We’re going to we’re going to talk about that another point.

Oh, okay. You got because you primed me. So now I’m ready.

So this is how this is how this podcast goes sometimes. That’s fine.

I I have the nickname the human detour and this is what happens. You’re a squirrel guy.

I don’t that’s not a nickname that I like, but it’s probably probably fits.

Yeah. I see something. And here’s a perfect example.

Mhm. You were talking a few minutes ago about how academia can be really harsh and I was thinking

who thinks of academia as harsh? Like nobody thinks of academia as harsh.

People think of like you know go to class and you’re taking notes and you take some tests and it’s you get a degree and talking about graduate school.

Yeah. So tell me tell me about how the feedback is. Tell me about that experience of getting harsh feedback on

something that you’re trying to produce and publish and have peer reviewed and and all of those things that you have to go through. So, one, I think that most

um paths to research or graduate school uh should contain more writing classes,

science writing classes, because I don’t think people realize how much writing you do. If you want to be a quote

unquote scientist or quote unquote professor, that’s a little different maybe in a teaching university than it should be communication classes, right?

because um to effectively communicate to me that’s the definition of a teacher is effectively

communicating a lesson such that everybody in the class understands realizing that everybody in a class probably learns a different way and that’s I think where a lot of our

academic institutions fail but for graduate school writing both in terms of writing proposals for research um

writing uh the results of the research up uh where it’s being sent to, you know, depending on what uh journal

you’re you’re submitting it to, they then send it out to experts in the field that you don’t know, they don’t know you. Um, and they’re reviewing your

research relative to all the other work out there. They’re looking at whether or not your study was designed well, whether or not the statistical analysis

that you used was the right one, whether or not your conclusions based on the results were um correct. and and they

are usually not nice with their, you know, comments. And then you have to write up, especially in graduate school,

then you’re, you know, if you’re lucky enough to get papers published, sometimes those can go directly into your dissertation, but some research you

have to write chapters, right? My dissertation had six different chapters.

It was like two over 200 pages. So it it is not like writing an essay about what

you did over summer break. Like it’s a specific style of writing. That was drilled into my head so much that like at work now when they ask me to write a blog or something.

I don’t I don’t I’m not a good like I I think in person I can explain things fairly well and I love teaching. So, I

really like to take things that are, you know, might be, I hate to use the word complicated, but people might not be exposed to on a regular basis. And you

have to if you’re in science, like you have to think a certain way or use a certain verbiage to understand that stuff. And I love taking that and and

helping people with nutrition or or other scientific concepts. Um, but my writing is very dry and boring and not

fun to read. So, um, it’s from multiple years. you know, I did graduate school.

I did two posttocks in, you know, a genetics lab and um and with a center for pediatric nutrition research up at the U. Um, and that’s even more writing.

So, yeah, it it drilled into me a very dry form of writing and I think that’s a critical skill that often science majors don’t get.

So, what is the most harsh feedback you ever received?

You can’t write. I don’t know. I mean, you get papers back with red all over them like Yeah. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it I think that’s where the thick skin comes from. It’s not personal. It’s it’s you’re trying to build a skill and it

most skills take work and that work involves failure and you have to learn from that failure and get back on the

horse and try again. I think it’s true in sports. It’s also true in in business.

Yeah, absolutely. I was going to make the same analogy. I mean, you’ve been an in endurance athlete for a long time and now you’re in involved heavily in

jiu-jitsu and I’m sure you fail regularly.

Oh, it’s Yeah. I mean, I I think um you have to be in love with the process cuz if you’re only in loved with the end

goal, you’re going to be disappointed a lot. And for me, that’s um you know, jiu-jitsu, I think, is a perfect example

of that. It’s empowering and and also very humbling on a regular basis. And

for me, it’s the love of that of learning new things and of testing new things and of, you know, jiu-jitsu is

like chess with your both your body and your mind. It’s totally strategic. And if you don’t love that piece of it and

you don’t understand how failure is almost a necessity, then you’re going to drop out of it early on.

So, how have you incorporated all of these lessons from

the academic side receiving harsh feedback and how you manage that and from the athletic side and dealing with

failure and overcoming obstacles? How have you utilized that in your

career? And how do you manage people or uh co-workers who need feedback that that may not be friendly?

Yeah. I mean, I think uh it’s all about the delivery, right? like that uh mentor that wrote you can’t write on

my paper didn’t need to be delivered that way like at the time when I was I don’t remember how old in my 20s I

didn’t take it like super well you know here’s an opportunity to get right no you know that’s me

retrospectively looking at that situation but it was harsh and I can’t say that I wasn’t totally crushed when like papers got rejected that I worked

really hard on or you know um but I think you have to take it in stride and life is full of

really challenging situations and um in jiu-jitsu they always say like you either win or you learn right there’s no losing

and I think that is applicable to so many parts of our life like you have to pick yourself back up and if you’re

really in it you know for the long haul then you’ve got to learn, you know, from

your mistakes and iterate, figure out what to do next. But I would say like with employees, um, I

always start with intent. Uh, I think I one of the hardest things that I’ve, you know, I’ve only been a CEO for a year,

although I’ve been with Gnarly for nine years and so I’m very much learning the job on the go. And I’d say one I I do

I’ve always believed and this was true in science as well because a lot of scientific pro projects are collaborative. You can’t be an expert in

anything in everything, excuse me. And I think anybody that thinks that they can is uh like

is is not looking at the situation uh in the most efficient way. Um it’s better to surround yourself with experts that

you trust. And I think through that uh building of trust then you’re creating a team that also trusts you. And so one I

I try to surround myself with people that I trust that are way better at their um expertise or their their skill

sets than I could ever be and I stay in my lane in terms of that. Um and then two um realize that we all have the same

intent and start with that. like when there are conflicts, when there’s confusion, when individuals are

misguided, go back to that intent and start there and then constructive feedback is is always the best way to go.

Did you when did you noticed that you had this affinity for

uh well, I guess a couple things. You mentioned your love of research and you said what about seven years old. Is that what you were saying?

Seventh grade. It was to get out of a stupid computer uh project we had to do on the voyage of

the Mimi. It was like some I I just remember my seventh grade science teacher was like I think there weren’t very many people signed up for the

science fair. And so he was like, “If you do the science fair, you you don’t h you can work on that and you don’t have to do this other like computer module

for um I don’t even remember what was on. I just remember the name of it, which I thought was dumb.” Um and I was like, “Well, hm, I’ll try the science

fair.” And my first project was looking at whether or not preservatives in bread are necessary, which is hilarious because it so much aligns with similar

like what I do now. But like I took, you know, bread that like Wonderbread, you know, and then I took uh, you know,

bread with fewer ingredients that didn’t have preservatives in it and I put it in all these different conditions and I measured time to mold growth and um,

yeah, so that was my first science project and I loved the idea of one being self-directed.

Mhm. like choosing what I wanted to study, deciding the best way to to, you know, I think this is another thing

people get wrong about science is they always think you’re like you’re trying to prove something, but really in science you’re disproving.

Um, and so you set a hypothesis and you’re basically showing, you know, whe whether or not it’s false. Um, and so I

loved the idea of figuring out what variables were important to test to really get at that um, question. And um,

I think that just, you know, I did science fair all through high school um, and really enjoyed it. And that, you

know, I knew I wanted to be a science major in college, which was part of what drew me to Utah. Um, you know, I my my

dad went to Notre Dame and I had gotten into that school and I thought he was going to make me go there, but we had started skiing when I was uh we skied

together a lot when I was younger and and I just remember I had put a lot into this, you know, conversation that we

were going to have. Like I applied to University of Utah on a whim. We had been here skiing at Alta and I just was like, “Wait, how close is the

university?” And I knew they had a really good science department. Mhm. They had a great ski team as well.

I wasn’t that kind of a skier, but I I did love it. And uh and I just he, you know, very simply was like, “Well, you

could you could go make skiing part of what you do on a regular basis or you could go to Indiana where you roll a bowling ball across the entire state.”

Um and so he was just really supportive of the direction he knew that would make me a happy person. um which I I is

something to this day that uh I try to impart with my own kids.

Yeah. So is that uh at that same time did you were you also developing this

love of sport and athletics and endurance stuff?

I know you mentioned skiing, but is that something that you just found you loved or is that something your family did? How did you

develop that? Yeah, I I mean I I always did sports growing up, a bunch of different stuff. Um my sister had

started running. My sisters were both older, you know, six and eight years older than I was. My oldest sister uh ran cross country, I think. And I

remember training for my first race when I was six. She like trained me for like a mile run. Um what did that training? Cuz

I don’t even remember. I just remember like wearing a warm-up suit and like going on runs with her and I beat all the boys which I was, you know, that was

a big thing when you know when you’re in elementary. Well, it’s still a big thing. I like choking men out in jiu-jitsu all the time. Oh man.

Um but uh you know that was that was a a big thing. Um and so I always liked to run and I ran cross country in high

school. I had a heart problem diagnosed when I was in high school. So momentarily they didn’t know how to deal with that. I had to quit running.

started again in college once I had gotten that fixed and um I think just being in Utah with the accessibility to

the trails. Um I really, you know, migrated towards trail running and and spending time in the mountains. I had

already enjoyed skiing, you know, with my dad and part of the reason why I moved out to Utah. So, um really kind of took that interest in running and and it

morphed more into trail running and, you know, climbing mountains and stuff like that. And then did all of those things

I guess combine into this nut avenue of nutrition that you followed?

Yeah, I mean it did. I like I said I got really into you know I’m Irish so I’m stubborn and I got really into endurance

sports which where being stubborn I think can be um definitely positive thing. Uh, and you can’t really do

endurance sports unless you really lean into nutrition and what your body needs to, you know, run for 12 plus hours or

bike for 12 plus hours or whatever you’re choosing to do. And so, um, you know, it wasn’t until then, I think had

I found endurance sports early on, I may have looked at going into sports nutrition in graduate school. Um my

graduate degree was more in um looking at uh nutritional physiology like across

a range of of uh animals and the diets that they were consuming. Um I then followed up with two postocs that were

more directed on on human nutrition and fueling. But um at that point it was kind of all of the these avenues of

interest for me culminating in like an interest in that and that that was about the time where I was my brain was like

thinking of like new products that weren’t on the market that I could make and what was lacking and you know and so the wheels had started turning um even though I was still you know in the middle of of getting my PhD.

Gotcha. Okay. So, when you’re in the middle of one of your endurance events,

uh, did you were you ever thinking, man, I could really use this right now?

Was that how you started developing this product or were you like, I just drank this thing and it was

awful? I that I’d say it’s more the latter. Uh because in the middle of endurance events often you’re like I could really use a piece of pizza or cheeseburger and

that’s not what you want to consume during an endurance event. I mean maybe during some like insane like 200 mile races that’s okay cuz you’re going slow

enough that your body can process something like that but um I think during anything like 100 mile or less your your stomach’s pretty

sensitive because you’re still going fast enough that breaking down food and absorbing food is an issue. So, you have

to be a little bit more um on top of what that food looks like and whether or not you’re going to be able to digest it

while you’re exercising. Um it was more of I think bad experiences I had with

not necessarily bad products. Often it was like the misuse of products um on my

end or maybe how products were presented on uh by a race. Um,

but yeah, it definitely I think as you’re using the products, you’re you start thinking how they could be better or how the use of them could be better.

So, my my endurance events are more like maybe a 60 or 70

mile bike ride. That’s about as long as I’ll I’ll go. Yeah.

I feel like if I’m in a saddle for more than 4 hours, then like that’s no good.

I did load and I’ll tell you what, I never real long. Well, then you’ve done more than a 60 or 70 mile bike ride.

Yeah. Well, I mean stay like if I’m going for a long ride, that will be what I do.

Riding over a rumble strip on your road bike. That’s a lot of fun.

It’s awful. Yeah. In the wind and Star Valley. Yeah.

Okay. I never get to to the end of a what I consider a longer day like of

Loaja or even a 60ish mile ride when I feel like

uh I don’t have like an upset stomach or just don’t feel great. So the question I

guess my question is is that just because it’s a long event and that’s hard on the human body or is it because I’m not doing my nutrition correctly?

So it could be a combination. I mean I think you’re always going to feel fatigued and maybe a little off after a long event. Like it’s

although we’ve come far in terms of the science of fueling and people are consuming more than they ever have

before, there will always be somewhat of a gap between your energy expenditure, the calories that you’re spending or

expending while you’re riding and your body’s or your ability to replace them with um

exogenous or or external calories, so with food. Um, and because of that, that caloric deficit builds over time, right?

So, the the larger the caloric deficit, the probably crappier you feel at the end because, you know, you may have just

spent I’m just making up numbers, but let’s say you spent 5,000 calories and but you only replace 3,000. So, your your body is looking for those other

2,000 else where you’re not going to feel great. Um, secondarily, you know, um, I think it depends on a number of

things and I’d have to ask you a million questions to really try to get at why you are feeling crappy, but it’s like

what did your fueling like look like beforehand? Did you start fueled or did you start like with an empty tank? Like what is your intensity like during the

entire thing? Are you biking at an intensity that is low enough that your body can actually absorb calories? So that means that the training that you

did for your race was appropriate in order for you to actually race at the level that you want to and not be in the red zone the entire time.

Uh what were you eating the entire time?

And so qualitative like what were you taking in? Quantitative, how much of it were you taking in? What did your hydration look like? What you know

electrolytes were you replacing? I those I mean it’s it would I would recommend you sit down with a sports dietitian who would ask you all of those questions and

if that is a major thing that’s that’s holding you back from being where you want to be or feeling how you want to feel after you finish those things it’s

it’s definitely worth the time figuring out. But just like you train to get your f fitness level up to do a bike race, you also have to train your nutrition.

So you got to figure out like start keeping a journal on your rides. you know, what makes you feel good? What doesn’t make you feel good? How did you

feel after your ride? Were you feeling really low and then you had, you know, some carbohydrates after and you felt great? So, maybe you need to increase

your carb content. Maybe you start at 300 calories per hour and you felt great, but could you increase it to 400 calories per hour and would you feel

better? Like, these are things that you need to work on and train.

This is all way more specific than than I do during during a ride. Well, you are an

endurance athlete. It’s important. That that was generous to say I’m an endurance athlete.

I would consider 60 70 mile rides and the fact that you’ve done load that you’re an endurance athlete.

I’m going to put that in my title somewhere in my signature line.

You can abbreviate it as EA. I’m sure somebody will come up with some kind of demeaning way to No doubt. Well, this is a good segue

into Gnarly and what you guys are doing at Gnarly Nutrition. What what was the

concept of the company? What is the goal of the company?

Yeah. So, I the company was originally founded on the idea that there was a gap between, you know, and this was 10 plus years ago. So, there was a gap between

products that were formulated with quote unquote, I’m saying that it that way because I think it’s an overused term, natural ingredients, so ingredients that

you could identify and understood why they were in a in a product. Um, and products that had kind of a cool

lifestyle feel around that, like good branding. So, all of the products that were more natural products were like grandma’s protein and they were in brown

containers and they didn’t taste very good and they were gritty and all of the other products were like blue raz with

three Z’s berry and had a bunch of artificial crap in it. Um, and so there was a gap between those things and the

founders of Gnarly saw a need for products that had a cool lifestyle brand that appealed early on to mountain

sports and also um were formulated um with ingredients that people could trust and tasted great so you would actually

enjoy taking the product. And that’s where gnarly started. Um when I came on board um I brought more science behind

it. So we changed some of the formulations. We removed what are called proprietary blends which are rampant in

the supplement industry particularly in products like green. So everybody loves AG1. Um this is one of my biggest pet peeves and right they don’t actually

tell I’m not going to take you into my office.

Yeah. So you don’t know how much of any of the ingredients. I mean you know vitamins and minerals but but it has all the ingredients. It says it right there. It has all of it.

Yeah. Do you know how important dosage is? M yeah. So if you could take like right that’s why like water can be really

hydrating but if you over consume water it can kill you. Magnesium can be great to take it but if you over consume magnesium it gives you diarrhea. Like

dosage is critical and that’s why you know they have dosages of prescription pills. You also need dosages of these

active ingredients to know if they’re included in your product in an amount that is actually going to be helpful.

Secondarily, if a supplement company puts something in a proprietary blend and of course gives it a fancy anti-inflammator

inflammatory adaptogenic super mushroom blend or something like that. Well, you’re like, “Oh, all of those ingredients and that combination do that

for me. that company’s not actually tested that. And because they’re in a proprietary blend, they don’t actually have to test those ingredients for a

label claim because they haven’t told you how much of those ingredients are actually in the product.

So, what does proprietary blend mean for a consumer? It means BS. Yeah.

Okay. So, I mean, a proprietary blend is is what? Like it’s a bunch of things put together and then they don’t have to tell you exactly

what and how much. Only thing they have to do is include those ingredients in order of occurrence in the product. So

our anti-inflammatory super adaptic adaptogenic mushroom blend, right? The first ingredient is going to have the most. The last ingredient that blend is going to have the least.

Typically like my first ingredient could be I’m just making this up. Alalfa, which is super cheap.

99% of the 5 g of that proprietary blend. So whatever 99% of 5 g is like 4.99 could be alalfa which is super

cheap. The other 10 ingredients could be that all the good stuff but could be the more expensive ingredients that collectively make up the other 1%.

But because I’ve put them on the label, you think that they’re helping you and that they’re included in a dosage that’s

going to be beneficial for you. Yeah. I don’t have to test them.

I don’t have to test them for a label claim. There’s actually no way to test them because I haven’t told you the amount that’s in there.

So, one, it’s deceptive.

Well, that’s really what it is. It’s deceptive on many levels because you don’t know the dosage because you are assuming that it’s in the product in a

quantity that’s going to actually do something. Mhm.

It’s likely costing me less money because I get to put it on the label, but I don’t I’m not putting a lot of it

in the product. And I get out of having to test the product for all of those ingredients. And all I say is includes 99 super ingredient.

Yeah. Foods or superfoods.

Superfoods, which is what you see across greens products. So like gnarly gnarly’s performance greens we have a much fewer

or many fewer list of ingredients but we include the dosages of every ingredient.

So we put turmeric in the product we put 500 milligs of turmeric in the product which is an effective dose. We put beetroot powder in the product. We put

400 milligs of beetroot powder and because it’s an effective dose. So we tell you exactly what’s in the in the product. We’ve only included ingredients

that have either performance or recovery implications for athletes that do have some scientific research uh showing that

they can be helpful for athletes. And then we have to test to make sure that our product meets those label claims.

Is there any nutritional value to alalfa by the way? Fiber maybe.

I mean I I made that I don’t I don’t even know. I actually alalfa probably is in uh AG1, but I’m not sure. They have so many ingredients I can’t keep track.

I think I’ve read all of the well everything they list. I haven’t noticed alalfa.

Yeah, I just made that up because it is one of those ingredients that is super cheap and you you know it it you doesn’t

have a direct benefit. Indirectly, it could be good for your micrllora.

I mean, you’re running a business, right? I mean, and and so you’re uh

and you’re paying $100 for that product re Yeah, revenue is important and profit

and you know all the all the business things.

So, but you can also be so more could you be more profitable by doing would you be

more profitable by including a proprietary blend? Yeah, probably because it would one uh cut

down on my cost of goods because I’m including more of less expensive. So, I’m assuming that that’s what AG1 does, but that’s really the only reason to

include proprietary blends. And I will say AG1 does some things, correct?

They’re NSF certified. Um, they also have I forget what it’s called. It’s an Australian quality certification. Um,

that’s great. Uh, they do test all their vitamin and mineral claims. they have to because they include those on the label.

Um, so they do some things that are good that, you know, but I I just uh I really would challenge them to be better in

terms of uh letting their consumers know the amount of those active ingredients that are actually in the product. Like

for example, right? Um we have in our gnarly performance greens, we have

cortiseps. Um which beyond being the the uh you know scary mushroom and the last

of us um also has a potential for increasing the oxygen carrying capacity um of red blood cells for for athletes.

Okay, I don’t want you I don’t want you to lose your train of thought, but I’m going to jump in. So

say that again. It has the it has the potential of increasing the oxygen carrying capacity of your red blood cells.

Yeah. Which would help with delivery of oxygen to your working muscles which would help with performance.

Okay. So when you say that here’s what I think when you say it has the what did what did you say? It has the potential for potential. Okay. Is it just potential?

Like is that No, there are studies that have there studies that have shown that. If anything in science once again we’re not proving his hypothesis we’re disproving

hypothesis and science is ever evolving it’s never like you know full stop right yeah

you continue to do studies studies are repeated they’re done by different labs they’re tested under you know so very rarely am I going to like say

definitively this is the way it is okay and anybody that does say definitively this is the way it is also once again

 Um, well, once upon a time, the food pyramid was definitive, wasn’t it?

The food pyramid is still pretty based on some good science.

You still like it? I heard the food pyramid was a bunch of hoie.

I don’t want to get into politics, but that’s probably I think we have a bunch of hoie going on

right now. Um, but moving on back to the mushrooms.

Yeah. So um for for instance AG1 the super mushroom blend that they do have which I think includes cortiseps and

rishi I think the total amount of the blend I mean you can go get your bag in your office and check is like 150 milligrams and it contains something

like eight ingredients. So we have cortiseps and riichy in our product.

Righty has implications for immune health. I don’t remember the exact amounts off the top of my head but I think we have 300 mg of cortiseps. more

than the entire proprietary blend found in AG1 and like 200 milligs of rishi once again more than the entire proprietary blend found in AG1. So once

again like it’s the inclusion of ingredients at amounts that are going to literally do nothing for you.

I don’t know what their margin is on their product, but I know our product, you know, and I want everyone to switch

from AG1 to greens. Obviously, that would be great for my company, but we have a healthy margin on our product to

sell in retail. Like, we just got into REI. We’re going to be in 130 stores at the end of this summer. Greens is one of the products that’s going to be in

there. Um, and I have to have healthy margins uh to both give me a margin, but

also give my retailer a margin. Like, it has to exist like that. And my product is 30% less expensive than AG1 the AG1

product is. On top of that, the volume I mean their marketing budget is like $und00 million. The volume of product

that they produce given that it’s one of the only products they produce. They get volume based discounting. So the I I

can’t even imagine how much they’re making off of each bag. Whether you buy it full price, which is like 100 B bucks, or whether you buy it on a

subscription, which is like 70 something. Mhm.

They do have these new sticks. They’re really nice because you can just pour them, right?

Yeah. Go to REI and buy the gnarly performance greens water bottle at the end of the Would you say the core of All right. I’m

sold. You You went so You went way above and beyond. I’m sold.

What it What is that? So would you say that’s the core of gnarly nutrition is

your standard for your like you just operate at a higher level your sta the standard for your product and it still

has to be profitable obviously uh but the standard for your product is higher than competitors

that’s one of our core values um I think supplement can be a dirty heard in so

many circles like oh you’re on supplements or you’re selling supplements you know supplements in and of themselves I think are often thought

of being synonymous with marketing um and it’s my goal to be the antithesis

of that to be transparent to be honest both in terms of how we formulate our products and what they can actually do

um and we do that with NSF testing we do that by n by I mean we are one of three products I know of. And there are a

million greens products. Like go into any grocery store and pick up and you will find proprietary blends on literally almost every product you pick up.

Will it actually say proprietary blend? How do you know there’s proprietary?

It will list some fancy marketing like title like I was, you know, the super antioxidant adaptogenic super mushroom

blend. I made that up, but it’s something like that. Um, and then it will have an amount for the entire blend. And then it will have anywhere

from like five to 80 ingredients listed under that, but you will not see like turmeric with a specific amount. You

will not see beetroot with a specific amount. You won’t see cortiseps with a specific amount. So, you don’t know. You just know how much of the blend is in

the product. And no research. Those those blends are not trademarked.

They’re not patented. I mean, you could trademark the name of it, but they’re they’re not patented because there’s no research showing that those ingredients

or the combination of those ingredients in whatever amounts, poultry amounts, fairy dust amounts that they’re including do what the title is inferring.

Okay.

Okay. So how like so one product has 150 mg of something

and another product let’s just say gnarly has 400 milligrams of the same product.

Well, as a consumer, isn’t there some benefit to having the

the product? Like just having that particular ingredient?

Not if you’re not taking it in a dose that has an effect.

And how do you know what the effective doses?

Hopefully you’re you if you are not in the scientific literature, you’re not necessarily concerned with it. That’s exactly what I said.

Now you can ask now you can ask AI because there’s so many like you say how what what is an effective dose of cortiseps? Put it into Google. If you

don’t care that’s fine too. If you if you just take No, I think that’s the question is like

I want to care about that. But I like it’s I’m not in that world, right?

I just want to find a good product and there’s you walk into the store and there’s a thousand products. We’ll just say green. the thousand greens products.

First step is one, if a company is using proprietary, there’s not a good reason to use proprietary blends. There is no

good reason as a brand beyond it. It makes more money for me. Like, so

look for a greens that does not have proprietary blends. There are a few out there. I’m only going to tell you alongside going to tell you of gnarly

because I want everyone to go around and go and buy ours. But there are a couple others out there um that do not have

proprietary blends because they are one doing the right thing and include likely

including at dosages that are going to have more of an effect than the dosage included in the version with proprietary

blends. Secondarily, look for a product that’s third party tested. So NSF is an option, informed choice is an option.

USP, which is US Pharmacopia is an option. If you turn around your supplement brand and it says CNGP which

is cert uh good manufacturing pract practices certified there’s not a good manufacturing practice certification

like that is a badge that someone in their graphic design department made it up and put it on

there. What? So there are good manufacturing practices that brands and manufacturers have to follow, but you

don’t get a certificate afterwards. It just it doesn’t like you get inspected and and you either pass the inspection

or you don’t, but they don’t say like now you can put this badge on your label. Like usually you have to pay a lot of money. like NSF, the amount of we

pay in testing is ridiculous and definitely cuts into my bottom line, let me tell you. But one, that trust between

a consumer and our brand for me is critical. So, it’s worth it. And our products are a little more expensive because of that. Not as expensive as H1 though.

Okay. Well, I hope I wasn’t I was trying to poke you a little bit. No, you let me stand on my soap box.

Thank you. I have given very lively um monologues on this topic before if you haven’t been able to tell.

I’ve listened I’ve listened. I I just think it’s interesting like the differentiator one of the questions that I like to ask is and and we can talk

about that but I was you know like what does gnarly nutrition do really well?

And as we’re talking about this, I think the standard that you set for the company is one of the things that you do

really well. And having a consumer, a a concern about the consumer is a priority. You still have to make money.

You still have to run a business, but revenue isn’t the driver. It’s are we building products that are good for the

consumer, that are safe, and that are effective.

Yeah. And I would say in this day and age, you ha also have companies and individuals, you know, we kind of talked about this before the podcast, demonizing ingredients.

Um, and I’d say that’s something else we don’t really do. Um, I’m not going to be someone you we’ve never been one that’s

like carbs are bad or fat’s bad or you can’t have this this one ingredient in it because it’s been shown to cause

cancer in cell cultures. Like, no. I I know how to read scientific literature. I know when things are over inflated.

Yeah. Really really boring writing. Um I know when it’s over inflated. Um I know when pe because that’s another thing

that people do is they point fingers at things to try to make you think that like you know I think uh a good good ver

you know example of this is although we don’t use um artificial nonchloric sweeteners in our products we use stevia

which a lot of people hate. I feel like it’s like cilantro either you like the taste or you hate the taste. Um but it’s a it’s a natural sweetener

there. It’s pretty safe. There’s a lot of research showing that it’s safe. Um, but a lot of people there’s have said things like

aspartame or sucralose can be bad for you. There’s actually not a ton of research showing that in doses that humans consume on a regular basis, it’s bad for you.

Aspartame. Yeah.

Wait, it doesn’t cause cancer. Oh my gosh.

This is the this is the mind-blowing segment of this of this podcast.

Yeah. I mean, there’s research showing in really high levels that it causes. I would have to revisit the research, but

there’s research showing in really high levels it can be cancer causing. I believe in cell culture. I’m don’t remember if that is also in rats. But

we’re talking about like you would have such extraordinary amounts that you could never scaled that up to a human.

It would be like instead of a bowl of cereal probably having a bowl of aspartame. I’m being I’m exaggerating here. I need the studies in front of me, but I’ve looked at them in the past.

Also, researchers that I put a lot of trust in have looked at them in the past. Um, and if you look at the positive aspects, like I I put diet soda

into this category, right? I’m not a soda drinker.

Um, just because I don’t crave it. My mom never let us have it growing up.

Like, it’s just not something um that I crave. But is there I was going to say but I think well what I’m saying is like

if you look at the impact that switching from regular soda to diet soda can have

on weight loss on people with metabolic disease. Like that impact is huge and

amazing and vastly more important than the potential negative impact that an

artificial sweetener could have on your health which is over it. It doesn’t have an impact. It there’s some research

showing that it might impact your micrllora. Everything impacts your micrllora. like, you know, I I just I

think people get lost on small minute things that really have a little It’s like losing

I always forget if it’s trees for the forest or forest for the trees, but you know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed enjoyed this last several minutes. These are all things that have been on my mind and maybe on lots of people mind like

I’m sure the interwebs will have a lot to say and diet soda. No, you shouldn’t drink diet soda. You should drink regular because diet soda has all of these

chemicals and everything else. But then you laid out all of the reasons why if you’re going to make a soda choice then

maybe diet is the right way to go. Like this is such of an interesting debate in

society and I think you just cleared it all up. I just think people Yeah.

I love that you said you don’t demonize the ingredient wellness.

No, I think I mean I’m very much a everything in moderation, including moderation type person, but I also think that getting

hyperfixated on things like this.

There are just much like focus on how many fruits and vegetables you’re eating. How focus on hydration. Focus on getting in lean proteins. Focus on

sleeping enough. Focus on spending quality time with your family. Focus on stress relief. Focus. These are all things that those are things that you should be spending time thinking about.

Not the minutia. Oh, so good.

We as a shipping and logistics company, we try to help our clients make datadriven decisions. So we we try to

provide a lot of data about costs and transit times and carriers and

reliability and all of these things so they can make really good decisions.

Okay. How I know the answer to this but I want you to talk about it like how you’re a researcher. How important how meaningful is the date?

Now I’m pretending to be CEO so I’m not a researcher anymore.

you were a CEO, former researcher, like the data has to be

I mean could you produce anything without the data uh products? Yeah. Could Could I? Yeah. Yeah. Do other people?

Yes. Okay.

Back to the This is the differentiator for gnarly.

Yeah. And I And there are other companies out there doing doing this. I don’t we’re not the only ones. It’s just there are a lot of bad actors in the

space. Um, you know, people always say like at family gatherings you shouldn’t talk about politics and you shouldn’t talk about religion. I almost put

nutrition in that space too because it’s become this thing that it just is very polarizing. Um, and I

try to, you know, I think I have a lot of strong I have a lot of strong feelings. I have a lot of strong feelings about diets and diet culture

and um body image and not just what we perceive as like attractive, but what what we perceive an athlete looks like

and a number of things. And I think you know one of the other values that like you know gnarly tries to um stand behind

is like inclusivity in sport but also like this expansion of what an athlete looks like. you getting up off your

couch and you’re training for your first 5K. You are an athlete to me. Like you are setting a goal. You are dedicating

yourself to to your goal and you’re um dealing with, you know, getting on the road to that goal and dealing with

failure along the way and everything that comes with doing something that’s hard. That to me is is an athlete. Um

I and I think that is something else that we do and try to talk about a lot that might be a little different. Um but

in the end the trust between the consumer both in terms of how we formulate our products, what we put in

our products, what we say we can do that comes first and foremost. And then, you know, we try to make our products taste really good, too, because as I said, you

know, taste is something that’s very um individual, but uh we we try to to make

people enjoy taking our products, but in but it’s also true that like some people just because of the way they eat might

feel better on a low carb diet. You know, that might work more with their lifestyle. I have strong feelings about the demonization of carbs because as an

athlete like you know how important they are.

I know I feel terrible every time I eat carb.

I feel wonderful. But some people um some people feel better with a lower carb diet. I’m not going to tell you that the way you react to food is wrong.

No, you know yourself better. You know your energy levels better. What I will tell you is that at exercise intensities

that are high, your body does not burn fat and your body rarely burns protein for fuel.

Wait a second. At exercise intensities that are high, your body does not burn fat and it doesn’t utilize protein.

No. So your body Okay. So when when you say what is that what does that intensity look like? So anorobic uh metabolism cannot use fat as

fuel. So aerobic metabolism which is basically zone 1 zone 2 might be in the background at zone in zone 3 but once

you hit like zone 3 or you hit your aerobic threshold which is when your body cannot take in enough oxygen to

basically use fuel aerobically you kick over into anorobic metabolism.

Anorobic metabolism can only use carbohydrates.

So fat your body is not burning fat it as a as a fuel at that point. You need

to take in carbohydrates because at that especially if you burn through your glycogen stores which there are a very limited amount of glycogen stores in

your liver and your muscle usually exercise over 90 minutes and you’ve gone through those. That is why carbohydrate

fueling espec especially if you’re at higher intensities. So zone 3 and above is critical. In zone 1 and zone two,

you’re burning fat you have on board that becomes part of your fuel source.

And at you know shorter bouts of exercise, you’re also using those glycogen stores. So fueling isn’t

critical in low inensity exercise under 90 minutes, especially if you fueled beforehand. But in longer bouts

that start edging above zone two into zone three, you have to take in carbs.

And do you can you loosely determine the zones based on heart rate or is it much more

is is it is it much deeper than that to determine where your zone one, zone two, zone three, you can you can do that. Um you can also

use perceived exertion. Typically the way they so if you can talk zone two. Yeah. And if you’re

luffing and puffing and getting a few words out at a time, are you moving into zone three? And then yeah, I’d say um even before a few

words, if you’re have if you cannot speak in sentences like because you are breathing at a heavier rate, then you’re

out of zone 2. The other way I feel like it’s is it 180 minus your age is a rough and then there are some like additions

180 minus your age and then there are some additions for how long you’ve been training I think give you an idea of where your upper end of zone 2 would be.

Gotcha.

Yeah. But so I mean I I forget how we got on the topic. I think I was saying like I’m not going to tell you what diet works best for you. What I will tell you

is the science behind the importance of carbohydrate fueling for endurance exercise, but ultimately you know how

your body feels and you can test it and say, “Well, Shannon told me I need to take carbohydrates when I’m over zone 3 and I’ll start feeling better.” And you

can test that and it’s either going to work or it’s not going to work.

So, all I have to do is get to a point where I can’t speak in sentences and then I could start loading carbohydrates. Is that what you’re telling me?

Not exactly. I’m saying carbohydrates are important at that point. How what types of carbs and how many you take in as we talked about are something you have to practice.

Did you ever watch Saturday Night Live? Always. Yeah.

There is a skit once upon a time with John Belalushi.

John Belalushi when he was I think they portray portrayed him as an Olympic athlete and he he had a body type that

didn’t necessarily look like an Olympic sprinter. That’s all I’ll say. But he was a sprinter and his fuel

for the the sprints for his race was Little Chocolate Donuts. Do you remember this?

I don’t remember. Here’s the question.

What I remember is Down by the River, the van. Yeah, down by the river. Yeah, that’s a good

one. Okay. At what point in my endurance event is it appropriate for me to start eating little chocolate donuts?

Uh, I’d say if you’re zone two or below if you want to have them. Yeah, I would save the little chocolate donuts for

either before or after. For me, like that’s, you know, it I am I eat a lot of carbs in my life.

Um, I love cookies. I eat cookies. I don’t I feel like denying yourself things that you enjoy lead to overconumption later. So, I’d rather

include them in moderate amounts. Um, but like if I’m going to have cookie or candy or something, the best times to

eat them really are before because my body’s about to use them. So, they’re providing energy or after when I need to replace all the glycogen I just spent.

So timing them around workouts like for me that’s like it’s cheap version of uh you know sports nutrition

you know it’s really sad because I really do like chocolate donuts and more recently

like when I was younger and I would go on a long ride or something I could have a chocolate donut in the middle of the ride and I was like oh man this is it’s

the best but if I do that now then I just feel terrible like like physically terrible. Not I don’t feel bad about

myself. I just feel yuck.

Yeah, I would say that um it might be because of the donut itself and not because of the carbohydrates. Your

body’s just having a harder time breaking it down in that form. But like I did uh the Leadville 100 mountain bike

race and um pretty much did a lot of that race on uh brown sugar and cinnamon pop-tarts and sweet potato fries.

You had sweet potato fries tucked into your kit somewhere.

I had this bento box type thing that I had strapped to the top of my bike and I had the sweet potato fries in there and then Pop-Tarts because they’re so thin.

Fit fit really well in your back pockets. I mean, I had other food, too, but those were my two. Those were your go-to.

How were the I love sweet potato fries, but did they stay in a consumable format over the course of a 100 Wait, is it 75 miles?

No, it’s 100 miles.

100 miles. Leadville 100. Well, it’s the Leadville goes up to 13,000 ft like a few times.

Yeah. Um, so you have, especially for a race like that, you have a crew that can meet you at certain points and so I

definitely had to reflect air like replacements.

I’d say at the end that bento box looked disgusting, but I’ll bet.

Yeah. And I think you know, you probably know this from longer rides, like certain things seem like palatable and a good idea at different times of the race.

I did a long ride several weeks ago.

Well, my long ride several weeks ago, and I stopped at a a standard place where we stop and for some reason like

salt, vinegar, potato chips sounded really appealing. And I ate almost the whole bag and

it was terrible. It was like the worst thing. It was felt so appealing at the time.

It’s probably the salt, but your body um so fat slows digestion. So, you have to watch out the amount of fat you consume.

Potatoes are actually an amazing cuz they’re so high in starch and be amazing fuel. So, I used to make um when I rode

my bike a lot um I would make those like baby red potatoes and I put uh roast them, roll them in a little

olive oil and then in um sea salt and then put them in a bag.

Better kind of sameish. You don’t have the the vinegar but a little bit different. Um less fat, not processed.

Um well, you know, no demon.

Depends on Yeah. And it depends on what you know, a lot of food is processed.

Okay, one last question about Gnarly and then I have a a lot of other questions.

We’ll get to those, but uh Okay, it feels like we’ve talked about a lot of things that you do that you’re proud of

with Gnarly. Are there ways if if you from your CEO seat and you’re looking at the company, are there things that you could be doing where you could improve?

Yeah. Uh definitely. Um I mean we’re a pretty small company so but we’re as I said taking some big strides this year

so getting into REI 130 storesing is huge.

Um so we’re really excited about that and as we are approaching that like scaling standard operating procedures

not dealing I mean we’re very have been historically very much like putting out fires that are in front of you. So,

doing more pre-planning, doing more prioritization.

Um, when you’re a small team, everybody wears a lot of hats because they have to, but I think that can also lead to

just a lot of chaos. So, we’re trying to take some steps back and and clean that up. Um, another one of the values that we are working towards is more sustainable packaging. Mhm.

Um and a few years ago we took a big step in that direction with the moving a

lot of our products from uh you know your typical plastic protein uh containers which um RHDP or PET which

are forms of plastic that are thought to be recyclable but sadly because the US doesn’t have recycling infrastructure

for plastic and because in 2018 China stopped taking our um plastics for recycling because they increased um the

stringent stringency of what they would accept. Um less than 5% of all plastics are actually recycled and that’s no

matter what you put into your recycle bin. It has nothing to do with consumers not recycling. It’s actually what is

submitted less than 5% of that is recycled. So then we all know about microlastics everywhere. So it was something we are looking to reduce. um

got ahead of myself in terms of a solution um for that uh got too excited about making the change and we’re a

we’re company size where we can’t go to a manufacturer and say like make this for me right I can’t design what I want I have to because we there’s minimum

order quantities I have to deal with what is already on the market and so what the solution uh in terms of what we could replace it

with was fairly limited and jumped into that without necessarily thinking through shipping logistics and damages

incurred in shipping um without thinking through uh user experience and and uh whether or not users would be confused

or unhappy with this new opening experience. Um, so we’ve tried we’ve had to take a step back from that and we’re looking at other solutions now. But that was a huge learning experience for me.

Um, not jumping into it without fully testing all the different aspects that go into a what a great what a great lesson.

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m glad that you brought shipping and logistics into that. Those are things that we think about regularly. By the way, as you

probably know, sustainable packaging is is becoming more and more prevalent in the in the shipping industry.

It is, which is amazing. Yeah, it’s um you know, less bubble wrap. Yeah.

Less styrofoam, less of the fun stuff. I know. Okay.

Three random questions. I call them three random questions. And then our marketing team, remember how you mentioned marketing is a bunch did you

say it was a bunch of magic or fairy dust? No, I can’t remember what. No. it proprietary blends are are fairy dusting

of ingredients just to include them on a label.

Yes, I wanted to incorporate that into marketing cuz they produce this podcast. Okay.

Marketing gnarly marketing. I value you and love you and you do a lot for our company.

Wait, the marketing guy is your co-host, right?

Uh had Yes. Our our previous marketing director was our co-host. Now my sales director is my co-host.

Oh, yeah. We we had to switch a change. You had to switch it up a little bit.

All right. Well, sometimes you have to do that.

You do. That’s another part of being a CEO.

Well, we’re going to get to that. The hard part of the podcast is coming up and we only have like 10 minutes. Okay.

But first, we have some random questions. Maybe three, maybe not. But do you hate the Liver King? Yes.

I didn’t think you would say yes.

Why? Because I’ve I have been one I have been within 5T of the Liver King. No, you can smell him coming and he is as red as you think he is.

Wait, let me ask you this question.

Yeah, because the Liver King at one point when he started, I was like, I’m in. I’m totally in. Whatever he’s You were on the keto diet, weren’t you?

No. I was like, whatever he’s eating, organ meats, I’m going to steroids all that stuff down. I’m gonna walk around

the neighborhood with chains hanging on my body. Yeah. I’m gonna carry heavy stuff around. And then he found out he was cheating.

And then I kept looking at him like, there’s no way that he could do that by just throwing spears around and carrying

heavy chains and eating liver and eating organ meat. Yeah. And then it came out. I’m glad that you figured that out. Yeah.

And then you called him in one I think you called him greasy in one podcast. He uh there’s a the like the jiu-jitsu kind

of Olympics which happens every two years is called ADCC and I was there watching it and uh he happened to walk

down the aisle where I was sitting and literally you could smell what what does that mean? You could smell him. What does that mean? Did he

smell like the emanating or body odor from him was not pleasant? Ah, is that because of Okay, let me ask you this.

Your body order changes based on your diet.

Yeah. Okay, that’s what I was going to ask you. And so, was it because his diet consisted mostly of steroids? I’m inferring that.

Yeah.

And I’ll just say it wasn’t good. Was he as imposing? He had his shirt off.

Well, of course he did. He’s the liver king. Was he Is he as imposing as he looked?

By the way, his recent stuff is pretty with Joe Rogan.

He was crazy. Yeah, he has a restraining order against him, doesn’t he?

Yeah, there’s some He has a lot of things. Yeah, he seemed jovial. Uhhuh.

That’s That was my takeaway. Like, oh, that’s a happy, smelly big red guy. That’s could be worse things.

It’s the Liver King. I mean, I it was kind of like not starruck cuz I don’t really have a lot of respect for him, but kind of starruck cuz I was like,

“It’s the Liver because it’s the Liver King.” Was he as like what if he walked in the room would I say, “Man, he’s enormous.” Or would I

say, “No, he’s kind of normal size, but he’s like really bulky.” No, he was enormous.

It was enormous. Yeah, it’s all Yeah. Okay. Well, I’m glad we cleared that up. Good question.

What’s the Is the Mediterranean diet the right diet for everybody?

I don’t think there’s any right diet for everyone, but I think it’s a good start. Why? Why is that?

Um, good amount of fruits and vegetables. Uh, I think fish, if you’re choosing fish from sources that are

aren’t high in heavy metals or aren’t an issue with over fishing, fish is a great way to get in good amounts of protein, great healthy way, especially fatty

fish, which has omega-3 fatty acids in it, which we need. Um, good amount of healthy fats. Um, I just think it’s a it’s a good basis for any diet.

Hm. H.

But once again, there’s no oneizefits-all. And do you hate the carnivore diet? Yes.

Is there any redeeming quality of the carnivore diet?

I don’t personally like organ meats, but they are really high in um certain micronutrients, so vitamins and and

minerals. So, I think that the inclusion of them is good. But um you know I don’t think eating a lot of protein is

necessarily bad. My issue with the carnivore diet is what it doesn’t include um which is fruits and

vegetables and and fiber which your body definitely needs um both to foster a healthy microfllora and because there

are a lot of vitamins and minerals that you will find in fruits and vegetables that you won’t find in other things and because clearly I’ I’ve stressed to you

that I think carbohydrates are important in the diet. I know. Yeah.

Can you overeat fruits and vegetables? I think you can overeat anything, but it it’s harder to overeat fruits and vegetables.

Okay, this is the last question in this.

I ask this to everybody. People manage it differently. It’s a shipping and logistics Oh gosh. question. I’m intimidated.

Would you rather ship your pants or ship your bed?

Well, I’ve already shipped my pants many times.

Most endurance athletes have, so I would say pants.

that one of the best answers of all time. By the way, if you’re at a a marathon or at in an endurance race and

you’re paying attention, you’re just a spectator, you’re going to notice waddling,

an occurrence. Do you know how many times in this podcast I’ve asked that question and people have really

legitimately tried to determine which is the best to ship? which they would rather ship pants or bed.

You jumped. You knew it right away. You got on it. You jumped on it.

Well, I’ve done one and never done the other. So, I’m going to go with that. I’m going to go with experience.

With your extensive business education and background.

I don’t have Wait, what?

Wait, you’re a CEO? What are you talking about?

New CEO. I’m a baby CEO. I’m figuring it out. Oh, surrounding myself with pe people far smarter than myself.

Find it challenging to be a scientist now sitting in the CEO’s seat. Well, but listen, you do have business experience.

I mean, you you’ve been a COO of this very company, the CPO of this very company, and now you find yourself in

the CEO seat. Lot of letters, strict science, and you’re a PhD. Strict science background. Would that be fair to say?

It would. Um, I would say my experience qualifies me to run

operations if we’re talking about logistical operations. So, um, and I

think I’m learning about other business ends. I have an amazing CFO. She helps me with finance. Um, I have an amazing

sales director. He’s done got us into REI, has done amazing things. Um we’ve had amazing marketing professionals just

brought in an amazing marketing director which I’m really excited about um and have a lot of uh great opportunities um

in the next year which we’re really excited about. So once again, for me, surrounding myself with experts and

being the north star of the company in terms of the direction we’re going and making sure all of our decisions

align with our values that I feel like I, you know, my scientific background is right in line

with that. So um I’m learning more about business as I go. Um, but I’m also relying a lot on on my team.

Yeah.

What has been the most eye-opening thing you’ve experienced stepping into this role?

How hard human resources is. Amen. Yeah.

Oh my. I feel like if we could rid ourselves of

the HR department, we’d be a much better I can’t I want human resources personnel.

I’m only saying that because like man I don’t I we we don’t have I mean we as I said small company many

hats so um we tag team HR and uh do you have an HR director?

We do not at this moment. So, do you use a third party or do you do it internally?

We use a third party and we do some aspects of it internally.

And how does that work out? Because HR is tough. Like that’s what I mean. Yeah, it is tough.

Yeah. And I just read an article about uh how HR is becoming more and more prevalent

and how it in instances is holding companies back like it’s it becomes

overreaching. Have you experienced any of that? No, I haven’t experienced any of that.

If anything, I’m usually wanting for more expertise. And I think as we grow, that’s a a position that we’ll be

adding. I mean, as I mentioned, we have great sales, great marketing. Um, our director of operations does a fabulous job. And as we’ve started to scale, that

becomes critical as well. Um, but that piece is it just often is a challenge.

um even in small companies I think can be a challenge and probably continues to grow as the company grows. But um I

think getting a a really good person in HR is is something that we’ll be looking to do for sure. But that has been eye

openening to me because I’ve always been a pretty good team player and I am always been pretty good at working across the aisle

and um finding common ground and um it’s just complicated. It is.

Yeah.

Very. Do you have you found yourself

thinking some training, certification, education in the business world would be helpful?

I think it would be helpful. I just don’t know when when you can do it.

Yeah. I mean, I have two kids. I um obviously work more than full-time. Mhm.

Um, you know, my kids are 13 and 10, so they’re young. I’m trying to be present for them and supportive of them. And, you know, anybody that’s a parent

realizes that you’re really a taxi service. So, that’s, you know, hard. And then, um, I’m very, very passionate

about getting the time that I need in sport. So, whether it’s So, you haven’t jiu-jitsu, whether it’s getting out on

trails, you know, running. I get up at 5:30 to work out in the morning and then sometimes, you know, in the evening as

well. That I know I need to show up as a good partner, to show up as a good parent, to show up as a a good team

member for, you know, my company. Um, if I don’t get that in, like then everything else starts to fall apart. So

between all of those things, like I think if I could find a way where I could set I I agree with you that that would be immensely helpful. Um if I

could find a way to get that training on my my own timeline, I would do that. In the absence of having done that, what I

have done is looked for mentors in the space or tried to facilitate conversations with people that are more

experienced than I am. Um, in many different departments, not necessarily just CEOs, but talking to people that are leading marketing teams, talking to

people that are leading sales teams of much larger companies.

You’re doing education along the way, like you’re surrounding yourself with all of these aspects. And I mean, that’s the secret to life. Never stop learning.

I know. Was that all said that? Did some somebody famous?

I don’t know who said that, but I I’m not famous. But that’s for me like learning in jiu-jitsu, learning about nutrition, learning how to be a better

partner, learning how to be a better parent. That’s always I’m learning in all the things trying.

Okay. So outside of like classic going to MBA school or you know going through the accounting department at the

University of Utah or something and getting this business background and training. By the way, I was going to mention since you mentioned surrounding yourself with good people, Dick Vermile,

who is a Super Bowl winning head football coach and considered one of the greatest coaches of all time said the secret to his success was surrounding

himself with better people than him. So, it feels like maybe you guys kind of align in that way.

Dick Vermile. I’ll have to look him up.

Yes, there’s a great movie that includes Dick Vermile as part of it, but Okay.

Anyway, I don’t I I follow team sports a little bit and I definitely watch movies. Yeah. Amazing.

And read a lot of books. I Yeah, always learning. Hey, let me ask you this because you mentioned like jiu-jitsu and your endurance stuff and you have to get

that in and you’re a better person if you do that. Are there lessons that you take from those aspects of your life that you can incorporate into your role as a CEO?

Perseverance, resilience, enjoying the process, all of those things. Um, yeah, everyone should do martial arts. I feel

like it’s really a microcosm for how to get through this world and it I mean I I think especially

in this day and age where I think things can be so polarizing it’s common ground

like you know I I my gym jiu-jitsu gym is just down the road from here unified jiu-jitsu and I have friends that from

all walks of life um you know whether it’s job jobs they do whether it’s political belief beliefs, whether it’s religious

beliefs, whether it’s um you know, economic status, whether or not they’re married or single or whatever, like

our common ground is jiu-jitsu. And um I think having that common ground then creates a bridge to discuss other things and that’s what we need.

Oh, I could not agree with you more. We need to find common ground. I’ve done the same in my own gym where I don’t necessarily align outside of the gym.

Yeah.

With people, but in the gym, we’re all doing the same thing.

If I walked into your jiu-jitsu gym, would people be like, “Oh, who’s this guy?” And then make fun of me and then it would be super harsh and then I would want to quit.

No. I thought about jiu-jitsu a long time.

We used to have a guy who worked here who did it all the time and I couldn’t do it.

Um, I haven’t started. I think it can be intimidating, but um super intimidating and it’s, you know, it’s a sharp learning curve in some ways, but there’s also a ton of support.

Um if you’re at the right gym, everybody’s been there. Everybody’s been a white belt. Everybody’s been new to something. And um everyone should

remember that and have patience and be supportive.

You’re giving yourself that’s your own advice as the new CEO. Well, a year in be patient with me, people.

Be pat Okay, one last question. I know you have to run. If there was any uh if there was anything you could have

learned or trained or been educated on prior to taking the CEO role,

what would that have been? And on more of a business side, finance.

H that’s a good I think that’s I think I would agree with you.

Yeah. I mean, if I I have the utmost trust in my CFO. She’s amazing.

Um and if I didn’t have her, I would be lost. So, um I think the finance piece

of it um is critical. Like in the end, that’s the bottom line for a business and whether or not you’re going to sink or swim.

Yeah. And it feels like all the most successful people that I know have some affinity for the finance side.

Yeah. I like numbers. I’ve always been good at math, but I think Yeah, actual training is different.

Yeah, I agree. Dr. Shannon O’Grady, it’s been so nice talking with you. I’m not kidding. I hope you’ll come back and we got to look at your nutrition plan and talk about collagen.

Wait, we never got to is collagen.

Take it before you exercise. Not everybody needs it. It’s one of those gray areas in sports, but if you have joint related pain or right now.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So, take it um in the 30 to 60 minutes. You’re going to want uh 15 grams of hydrayzeed collagen. Take it in

30 60 minutes before you exercise because there not a lot of blood flow to your joints. So collagen is a major structural protein in in our bodies.

There’s nothing telling it to go to your knee. So you want to use the increased blood flow to that joint from exercise

to help get the the peptides um to that joint. Uh I personally used to be a

collagen skeptic but um had joint pain and saw a benefit from adding it. So um it is one of those gray areas in

research though. It’s it’s ever evolving.

Gotcha. And Gnarly has a nice collagen product. We sure do.

Yeah. And there’s no such thing as vegan collagen.

There is no such You did listen to my podcast. Of course. I told you I did. Thank you. Absolutely. It’s been such a pleasure. It has been a pleasure. Thank you for joining us.

Yes, this was fun.

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