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Speaker 1: New Week, New Hurdle. What's going on? Guys?

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Speaker 2: You are listening to episode fifty three of Hurdle, a

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Speaker 2: podcast that talks to everyone from entrepreneurs to top CEOs

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Speaker 2: and athletes about how they got through tough times hurdles

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Speaker 2: of sorts by leaning into wellness.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode, I'm chatting with.

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Speaker 2: ZVA CEO Patti Spence. Before we get to it, quick

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Speaker 2: shout out to my sponsor, Athleticgreens. Complete with twelve servings

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Speaker 2: of fruits and vegetables. Athleticgreens gives me just the boost

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Speaker 2: I need to kickstart every day off right.

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Speaker 1: They are offering Hurdle listeners a special deal. It's twenty

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Speaker 1: travel packs a seventy nine dollars value with your first

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Speaker 1: purchase for absolutely free. Just head on over to Athleticgreens

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Speaker 1: dot com slash hurdle to claim it. No code necessary again,

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Speaker 1: that's Athleticgreens dot Com slash Hurdle. One of my favorite

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Speaker 1: quotes from today's episode, Patti says, find the craziest risks

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Speaker 1: you can take and go after them.

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Speaker 2: The ZVIA ceo he reevaluated his entire life back in

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five after his brother passed away unexpectedly on

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Speaker 2: the job as a paramedic, and three months later, the

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Speaker 2: former Cashie vice president of sales left his job to

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Speaker 2: follow his heart. Now he had a stint in market research,

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Speaker 2: and then the Massachusetts native bought Zvia and his life

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Speaker 2: changed forever. In today's episode, I know I wasn't holding back.

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Speaker 2: I asked Spence all about the risks of diet soda drinking,

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Speaker 2: and then he really gets honest in me and gives

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Speaker 2: me the lowdown about their line of naturally sweetened zero calorie,

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Speaker 2: zero sugar sodas, energy drinks, and mixers. We also chat

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Speaker 2: about his biggest business failures. He talks to me about

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Speaker 2: how we cut out all sugar from his diet about

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Speaker 2: twenty years ago, which is insane to me and also

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Speaker 2: super impressive. And we chat things that we both love,

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Speaker 2: like endurance events and triathlons, and he tells me about

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Speaker 2: how he swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco, because that

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Speaker 2: is just something extraordinary humans like Patty do every.

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Speaker 1: Now and again.

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Speaker 2: Let me tell you, I recorded this episode a couple

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Speaker 2: months back in Los Angeles, and listening back to it today,

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Speaker 2: I'm reminded of just how awesome and refreshing It is

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Speaker 2: that I get to talk to such a wide array

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Speaker 2: of individuals on the regular. Patti is humble and intelligent,

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Speaker 2: and in a society today where the average American drinks

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Speaker 2: forty seven gallons of soda a year, he's really trying

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Speaker 2: to make a difference for the benefit of overall public health,

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Speaker 2: and I think that's pretty rad. I'm released in this

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Speaker 2: episode from London this week, and to be honest, I'm

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Speaker 2: super excited just to take a little bit of a

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Speaker 2: breather after a hectic April.

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Speaker 1: You guys know the drill.

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Speaker 2: Just because I'm in another country doesn't mean that I'm

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Speaker 2: not on the gram. Hit me up at Hurdle Podcast, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

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Speaker 2: Huge shout out to all of you for the awesome

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Speaker 2: feedback I got in last week's Hurdle Moment. If you

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Speaker 2: haven't had a chance to check it out yet, it's

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Speaker 2: for strategies that I used recently to get rid of

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Speaker 2: negative self talk. I got super vulnerable, and I really

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Speaker 2: appreciate the messages that I got from you all reaching

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Speaker 2: out telling me you appreciate it, telling me that you've

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Speaker 2: been going through something similar. I think it's really special

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Speaker 2: that we can have these open and honest conversations together,

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Speaker 2: and of course, feel free to shoot me your own

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Speaker 2: hurdle moments. You can email me anytime you want. It's

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Speaker 2: Emily at Hurdle dot Us. I promise I see your

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Speaker 2: messages coming in and I do my best, my absolute

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Speaker 2: best to get back to you as soon as I can.

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Speaker 2: And that's all for now. With that, let's get to hurdling.

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Speaker 2: I'm excited to be sitting here today with Patti Spence.

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Speaker 2: He's the CEO of Zva. Hey, Hey, let's talk a

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Speaker 2: little bit about what Zva is.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely so, Zbia is a product, a brand that makes

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Speaker 3: zero calorie drinks. And our business really grew out of

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Speaker 3: my own personal habits and my wife went off of

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Speaker 3: sugar almost twenty years ago, and I didn't know I

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Speaker 3: was a sugar addict, but I was a hardcore sugar

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Speaker 3: addict and started doing a food journal and realized just

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Speaker 3: how much sugar I consumed, and we knew there had

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Speaker 3: to be a better way, and so I found this

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Speaker 3: company eight years ago, and it was the first company

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Speaker 3: putting Stevia into a carbonated beverage. Sounds simple, right, Yeah, soda,

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Speaker 3: we know it's bad and it's largely the sugar or

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Speaker 3: the artificial sweetener. So let's just make a better mouse

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Speaker 3: trap here.

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Speaker 1: Interesting.

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Speaker 3: So that was eight years ago and we've really changed

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Speaker 3: the soda category since then.

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Speaker 2: And when you say you found ZEBA, you weren't the

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Speaker 2: person that created the company. You discovered the company.

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Speaker 3: That's correct. It was a tiny startup just pioneering this

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Speaker 3: new type of drink, and so I was able to

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Speaker 3: partner with the founders and I've been the CEO for

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Speaker 3: eight years now.

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Speaker 2: There's so much to unpack in that brief intro. The

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Speaker 2: first thing I'd love to touch on is what you

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Speaker 2: were doing before ZBA. So let's dial it back what

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Speaker 2: I like to do at the beginning here, real it

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Speaker 2: in and go and do your backstory a little bit absolute.

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Speaker 3: So I grew up in the Boston area in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 3: I grew up with a single mom in an economically

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Speaker 3: challenged household, and so from a very early age I

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Speaker 3: learned that if I wanted spending money, it was going

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Speaker 3: to be self generated. And so whether it was a

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Speaker 3: paper route or a lemonade stand, or mowing lawns or whatever,

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Speaker 3: I guess I was always into entrepreneurial ventures from pretty

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Speaker 3: early on. Coming out of graduate school, I ended up

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Speaker 3: somehow going to business school despite being a Latin and

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Speaker 3: Greek major in college. So that is useless major, folks.

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Speaker 3: If you want to get through college, study Latin and

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Speaker 3: you'll have a great time.

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Speaker 1: But can you still speak both? Can you speak both languages?

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Speaker 3: I can read, and I probably my vocabulary has slipped

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Speaker 3: a bit in the last thirty years. But so I

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Speaker 3: ended up at business school, and coming out of business school,

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Speaker 3: I just knew I wanted to do something that I

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Speaker 3: felt good about personally, and I wanted to work for

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Speaker 3: a small company. Through happenstance and writing one hundred letters

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Speaker 3: randomly at a time, I found this little company called Kashi,

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Speaker 3: and it was a serial company in La Jolla, California,

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Speaker 3: and it was one of those early brands to cross

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Speaker 3: over from natural foods kind of into the mainstream consciousness.

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Speaker 3: And so that was my intro to the natural foods

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Speaker 3: business back in nineteen ninety two. And so since then

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Speaker 3: twenty six years, I've been doing that same thing. He's

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Speaker 3: taking little natural brands and saying, what is it about

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Speaker 3: this brand that would excite regular consumers and how can

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Speaker 3: we use this to improve people's health just by one percent.

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Speaker 3: We're not going to cure cancer, but how can we

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Speaker 3: just make people feel a little bit better every day

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Speaker 3: through what we eat and drink.

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Speaker 1: I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with.

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Speaker 2: They feel like on a lot of things, whether it

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Speaker 2: is with their diet or their exercise routine, or whatever

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Speaker 2: the case may be, that they have to make a

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Speaker 2: dramatic shift when these one percent gains, Like maybe, for instance,

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Speaker 2: you want to become a runner. While becoming a runner

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Speaker 2: can be a little challenging, even though really all you

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Speaker 2: have to do is lace up your shoes and get outside.

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Speaker 2: But instead of getting up one day and saying I'm

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Speaker 2: going to run a five k, like, you don't need

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Speaker 2: to do that. You can just get up and run

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Speaker 2: for five minutes.

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Speaker 3: Well exactly. And I think so many people in today's world,

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Speaker 3: because we're so stressed and always crunched for time, we

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Speaker 3: want to find that solution, that magic bullet that no effort, boom,

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Speaker 3: it's done. And exercise isn't like that, family life isn't

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Speaker 3: like that, careers aren't like that. Now there is no

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Speaker 3: magic bullet, and so the idea of natural foods to

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Speaker 3: me is just a little bit better, something that I'm

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Speaker 3: I can consume, enjoy and it will make me feel

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Speaker 3: a little bit better than the fat laden or the

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Speaker 3: artificially sweetened or the sugary stuff.

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Speaker 1: So did you grow up eating really healthy?

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Speaker 3: Well? It's interesting, you know, everybody can look back and

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Speaker 3: find things about their diet growing up that were probably

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Speaker 3: really healthy and then things that were insane.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So my mom did shop at Bread and Circus, which

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Speaker 3: was a predecessor of Whole Foods, and I thought it

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Speaker 3: was normal to have deemed tofu for dinner. So yes,

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Speaker 3: I grew up in that world. But what was wild

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Speaker 3: was in beverage. We always had a two liter of

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Speaker 3: coke in the fridge. Yeah, and we didn't know any better, right,

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Speaker 3: you know, And there weren't zvas in those days, and

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Speaker 3: we didn't have better for you beverages. And so while

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Speaker 3: we had this freakishly healthy diet, in some ways, we

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Speaker 3: also had what we now know is a freakishly unhealthy diet.

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Speaker 3: And I think that's what's so fascinating. Even the most

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Speaker 3: dedicated person, you have those little achilles heels in your

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Speaker 3: diet or in your exercise routine or in the way

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Speaker 3: you conduct your world.

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Speaker 2: But so you grew up eating really healthy, which is

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Speaker 2: is that what triggered your interest to kind of go

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Speaker 2: and do these health conscious brands, starting at Kashi and

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Speaker 2: then moving forward or well.

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Speaker 3: I think for me, it's this idea that wellness impacts

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Speaker 3: the way we feel every day and the way we operate.

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Speaker 3: And I really do think of you know, my body

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Speaker 3: is just a machine, right, and we've all been through

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Speaker 3: that when you have that annoying noise and you're driving

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Speaker 3: and you don't even know what it is, but it

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Speaker 3: is so distracting, some banging or something. It's the same

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Speaker 3: way when you're going through your day and you don't

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Speaker 3: feel physically good or you don't feel mentally good, that

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Speaker 3: affects everything you do. So the whole idea of fueling

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Speaker 3: your body with products and foods and beverages that make

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Speaker 3: you feel good to fuel your performance both mentally and physically,

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Speaker 3: that's just core really to who I am and my philosophy.

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Speaker 1: So when did you stop consuming sugar in your diet?

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Speaker 3: So it was two thousand and I really do have

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Speaker 3: to credit my wife Jara for kind of the epiphany

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Speaker 3: because I thought I was healthy, and we both thought

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Speaker 3: we were healthy, and I was doing triathlons and shopping

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Speaker 3: at a natural food store inactive and then we sat

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Speaker 3: down and we did a food journal for a week,

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Speaker 3: and I realized that it was a game changer. Oh

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Speaker 3: my gosh. I realized I was getting two hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty grams of sugar a day, all from what I

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Speaker 3: thought were healthy products. So like what protein smoothies, a

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Speaker 3: bunch of energy bars, juice space spritzers, a little bit

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Speaker 3: of unrefined cane crystals in my tea. Well, at the

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Speaker 3: end of the day, all that stuff was sugar. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: And I thought I was being healthy by eating a yogurt,

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Speaker 3: Well there was another thirty six grams of sugar and.

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Speaker 1: It's unloaded yogurt.

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Speaker 3: Well, right, And so so much of what we do

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Speaker 3: with processed foods, even natural ones, they're full of sugar.

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Speaker 3: So it's getting a thousand calories a day from sugar.

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Speaker 3: And we went off of sugar cold turkey, went out

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Speaker 3: to a cabin in the woods, nearest grocery store fifteen

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Speaker 3: miles away, and we detoxed. And I typically have a

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Speaker 3: lot of skepticism about that whole concept of detoxing. I

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Speaker 3: physically broke out in hives. Yeah, head to toe, all

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Speaker 3: over my back itchy read Weltz because my body was

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Speaker 3: literally detoxing. Oh my god, what happens when you stopped

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Speaker 3: consuming two hundred and fifty grams of sugar? Your body

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Speaker 3: goes into shock for a couple of days.

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Speaker 1: That's insane.

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Speaker 3: So for a week I felt horrible. Finally that passed

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Speaker 3: and then started feeling better energy levels. I lost ten

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Speaker 3: pounds in a month, even though I wasn't trying to

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Speaker 3: h And that was eighteen years ago, and so ever since,

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Speaker 3: we've really made hained that low to no sugar diet.

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Speaker 1: Whose idea was it to go to the cabin?

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Speaker 3: The cabin was a key component of it all because

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Speaker 3: you can't cheat, right, And it was just the two

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Speaker 3: of us. We're in the middle of the woods, and

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Speaker 3: whatever groceries you brought is what you got, nuts and berries?

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Speaker 2: Right, I guess that's my next question, what were you

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Speaker 2: eating instead?

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Speaker 3: So for me, and one of the things we did

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Speaker 3: at the beginning of this detox is we really went

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Speaker 3: strict and so dairy has sugar from lactose, fruit has sugar.

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Speaker 3: So my wife actually did no fruit or dairy for

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Speaker 3: almost a whole month. I wasn't quite as strict, but

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Speaker 3: I was going really hard on protein and so tons

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Speaker 3: of I'm a meat eater, so it's eating a lot

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Speaker 3: of chicken, a lot of lean red meat. For the

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Speaker 3: first few days. It was all I could do to

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Speaker 3: kill the cravings.

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Speaker 2: I can definitely relate with this because I'm sure when

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Speaker 2: I was younger, I lost a ton of weight in college,

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Speaker 2: and in doing so, a lot of that was writing

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Speaker 2: down the things I was eating.

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Speaker 1: But it was more so to keep track overall.

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Speaker 2: And not so much to analyze specifically which foods had

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Speaker 2: a ton of sugar. It was kind of just a

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Speaker 2: food journal, pretty bland. I think today if I did

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Speaker 2: that again, I would really have an awakening, kind of

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Speaker 2: like you had, because I think a lot often about

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Speaker 2: the foods I'm consuming that do have a lot of sugar,

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Speaker 2: whether it's added or not. I definitely consume a ton

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Speaker 2: of fruit. I think there's a lot of confusion about.

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Speaker 3: That, well exactly. And I have a friend, one of

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Speaker 3: our sponsored athletes, who told me he was for a

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Speaker 3: long time a fruitarian. Yeah, and you know that's an

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Speaker 3: extreme diet and you're consuming mostly fruit in the form

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Speaker 3: of slav only fruit fruitarian. Yes, and you also can

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Speaker 3: consume things that are botanically fruits, so beans and legumes

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Speaker 3: as well tomatoes, Yeah, exactly. But so what was fascinating

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Speaker 3: about that diet is when you're on it, if that's

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Speaker 3: all you're doing, that works. And what he told me though,

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Speaker 3: is he developed the sugar addiction, that didn't realize it.

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Speaker 3: And so once he started replacing just the shakes with

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Speaker 3: regular foods, yeah, it was a disaster.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god.

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Speaker 3: And so you know, philosophically, I'm a big fan of

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Speaker 3: just measurement. Right. If you measure think something, you can

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Speaker 3: control it, whether that's a workout or a diet or

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Speaker 3: your performance at work. And so what we've evolved to

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Speaker 3: at home is this whole idea of a sugar budget, right,

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Speaker 3: And so every day I consume fifty grams of sugar.

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Speaker 3: Now I can get it from any source. I can

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Speaker 3: eat a you know, half a pint of ice cream,

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Speaker 3: or I can have some milk and a banana and

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Speaker 3: some other things during the day. But that's my budget.

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Speaker 3: And some days I might go over, some days i'll

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Speaker 3: underspend it. But just using that as a baseline kind

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Speaker 3: of creates some measure of control over our behavior that

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Speaker 3: we've been able to sustain for almost twenty years.

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Speaker 1: Are you still writing everything down?

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Speaker 3: Not writing it down at this point? So it's more mental.

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Speaker 3: And again, it's like a budget. You know, I may

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Speaker 3: have a budget when I go travel. Gosh, at the

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Speaker 3: end of the day, I may have overspent it one

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Speaker 3: day and the next day we underspent it, but I

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Speaker 3: don't have to write every single expenditure down. So similarly,

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Speaker 3: and it's the kind of thing that we've pushed it

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Speaker 3: down to our kids now. So my nine year old

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Speaker 3: daughter wants a lollipop, Well, is that what you want?

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Speaker 3: Or do you want this banana? Or do you want

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Speaker 3: a beverage that sweetened? And typically, you know, the beverage

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Speaker 3: is the first thing they pushed aside. I'd much rather

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Speaker 3: eat ice cream than drink a lemonade. Yeah, But that

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Speaker 3: whole concept of having a baseline and having some quantification

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Speaker 3: of it makes it so much easier to stay on track.

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Speaker 2: It's really special that you're teaching your kids what's in

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Speaker 2: their food, because, like you, while I was growing up,

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Speaker 2: you know, we were my father's Italian We were making

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Speaker 2: baking egg and cheeses in the morning.

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Speaker 1: My mom makes an amazing omelet.

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Speaker 2: We at night, we're doing everything from Chinese food to

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Speaker 2: pizza because my mom worked nights, so Dad was just

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Speaker 2: trying to do the best steak code with what he had.

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Speaker 1: And I think a.

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Speaker 2: Lot about what we were consuming at the time, and

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Speaker 2: I wasn't really educated as so what was in my food.

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Speaker 3: Well exactly, And I think so much of bad habits

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Speaker 3: comes from just not knowing. Yeah, right, why did people

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Speaker 3: smoke cigarettes for so many years? Well, because we were

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Speaker 3: being fed livees that it didn't kill you, right, Right.

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Speaker 3: As soon as people were confronted with the reality that

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Speaker 3: smoking cigarettes will kill you early, guess what, cigarette consumption plummeted.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: People want to do the right thing, and so it's

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Speaker 3: just about knowing what you're doing. That's the first step

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Speaker 3: toward doing the right thing.

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Speaker 2: Before we talk a little bit more about your backstory,

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Speaker 2: I think I need to address the elephant in the room,

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Speaker 2: which is I need to talk just about the concept

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Speaker 2: of diet soda. I've read the research that says that

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Speaker 2: people that consumed diet soda, they had a seventy percent

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Speaker 2: greater increase in waste circumference compared to non diet soda drinkers.

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Speaker 2: I'm just trying to sort through all the stats.

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Speaker 3: Sure, well, and I think you know there's connection and

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Speaker 3: there's causation, and certainly there is a long, scientifically proven,

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Speaker 3: an established connection between diet soda consumption and weight gain. Now,

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Speaker 3: does that mean that dietzta promotes weight gain? Maybe? Maybe not.

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Speaker 3: We really don't know scientifically, but we certainly know that

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Speaker 3: people who drink dietza gain weight. And I think there's

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Speaker 3: a philosophical component to that as well, because this whole concept,

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Speaker 3: what is a diet? It's a temporary state that gets

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Speaker 3: us to a place we're not in today, right, because

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Speaker 3: it's not a life. Well already, that makes no sense

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Speaker 3: at all. What happens when we get to that place?

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Speaker 3: Do we give up? Do we go back to where

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Speaker 3: we were? It's not a diet if it's an ongoing state, right,

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Speaker 3: And so to your point, it's a lifestyle. Yeah, right,

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Speaker 3: what do we call it when we fix the banging

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Speaker 3: noise in our car or when we filled up our tire.

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Speaker 3: There's no name for that. It's called a car that

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Speaker 3: runs well, right, Right, And so you're when you've optimized

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Speaker 3: your nutrition. Is that a diet? No, that's just life, right,

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Speaker 3: And so so I think the whole idea of for me,

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Speaker 3: whether it's career, family, life, or health, it's a marathon,

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Speaker 3: not a sprint. And it would be great if we

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Speaker 3: could arrive and say, Okay, I'm in shape, now, I'm done,

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Speaker 3: or I'm healthy now, or I'm a great dad now.

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Speaker 3: Well guess what. None of those things have an endpoint.

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Speaker 3: And I may have been a great dad yesterday, but

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Speaker 3: I got to get up and do it again today. Right.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, So what do you at ZVA do to kind

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Speaker 2: of counteract a lot of this feedback that I'm sure

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Speaker 2: you're getting constantly from either your consumer or other people

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Speaker 2: in the industry that have an opinion about your product.

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean the first thing we say is

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Speaker 3: it's not diet. So this isn't about a diet. We

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Speaker 3: have a zero calorie alternative that is demonstrably better than

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Speaker 3: what people drink, which is sugary beverages. Okay, and so

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Speaker 3: that's one piece in your overall dietary regimen. Are you

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Speaker 3: never going to consume sugar? Of course not, but pick

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Speaker 3: your moments. And so one of the things. That's fascinating

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Speaker 3: that we're seeing, and I think it's a great sign

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Speaker 3: is that younger consumers today have really rejected that whole

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Speaker 3: diet label. Right from a psychological standpoint, it's horrific, right,

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Speaker 3: this idea that where there's something wrong with us that

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Speaker 3: we got to fix because of society. Right, it's called living.

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Speaker 3: And so young people have rejected the label diet, and

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Speaker 3: similarly they've rejected artificially sweetened diet products. And so Zba

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Speaker 3: shoppers who are younger a lot of times talk to

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Speaker 3: them and they have a classic coke sometimes, so they

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Speaker 3: have a sugary beverage sometimes, but their go to is

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Speaker 3: a zero calorie naturally sweetened drink like Zeba. So sugar

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Speaker 3: has a role as an occasional treat. Stevia, as a

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Speaker 3: zero calorie natural sweetener, has a daily roll. And why

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Speaker 3: do we need that aspartame stuff. It's just a bad

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Speaker 3: imitation of the stuff we want to indulge in.

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Speaker 1: So what's in zvia.

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Speaker 3: So Zba is really simple. It's basically for simple plant

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Speaker 3: based ingredients. It's water, natural flavors, Stevia, which is a

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Speaker 3: plant based sweetener with no calories and a little bit

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Speaker 3: of citric acid to control the pH of the product.

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Speaker 1: Where does the name come from?

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Speaker 3: So the name is almost synonymous with stevia, our primary

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Speaker 3: sweetening ingredient, and stevia, frankly is it's changed my life.

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Speaker 3: It's a plant in the sunflower family, so it's about

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Speaker 3: as basic and natural as it gets. And if you

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00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:55,080
Speaker 3: chew that leaf, it's literally two hundred times as sweet

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Speaker 3: as sugar, with no calories and no impact on blood sugar.

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Speaker 3: And we don't make any health claims around zevia, but

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Speaker 3: there is some emerging evidence that shows that not only

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Speaker 3: does stevia not impact blood sugar, it actually could help

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Speaker 3: control blood glucose levels. They found that in rats and mice,

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Speaker 3: so we haven't done those human trials yet, but wow,

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Speaker 3: that's pretty promising.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: So, when we think about what's really the biggest public

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Speaker 3: health challenge facing the world in many ways of sugar consumption,

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Speaker 3: in the next fifty years, a third of the world

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Speaker 3: would be diabetic and it's just because of our diet.

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Speaker 2: I forget what the stat was I read the other day,

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Speaker 2: and I'm gonna it's something wrong, but I want to

401
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Speaker 2: say it's like sixty to seventy percent of America is

402
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Speaker 2: now considered obese.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, where does it start. We drink forty seven gallons

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Speaker 3: of soda on average per year. Really, forty seven gallons Jesus,

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Speaker 3: So that is a lot of soda. And so imagine

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Speaker 3: if that's forty seven gallons of sugar, sweet and soda. Yikes, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's forty seven gallons of diet coke. Not so great.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, gosh, if you.

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Speaker 3: Could take forty those gallons and shift them to Zvia,

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Speaker 3: you've just taken so much sugar out of your diet.

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Speaker 3: And that's one of the things we tell people. So

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Speaker 3: statistics show half of added sugar comes from beverages. So

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Speaker 3: I said to people, if you want to be healthy,

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Speaker 3: you just want to do one thing. Eat all the

415
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Speaker 3: nachos you want, eat all the fat you want. If

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Speaker 3: you only took sugary beverages and swapped them out for

417
00:20:20,600 --> 00:20:23,760
Speaker 3: non sweetened or zero calorie beverages, you cut your sugar

418
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Speaker 3: in half.

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Speaker 1: Right, What drew you to ZBA to begin with?

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Speaker 2: Because if I remember correctly from our phone call, you

421
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Speaker 2: met the guys behind the brand at a booth.

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Speaker 3: At a trade show booth trade I said, you know

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Speaker 3: what I'm a consumer of one. But first of all,

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Speaker 3: what's the craziest thing you could ever do in business?

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Speaker 1: And what year is this?

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Speaker 3: This is twenty ten, twenty ten. If I thought about it,

427
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Speaker 3: what's the dumbest or craziest thing I could ever do.

428
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Speaker 3: I'm going to take Coca Cola on head to head.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to go and say, you know what, that

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Speaker 3: red can that billions of people around the world drink.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to replace that with a better beverage. That

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Speaker 3: sounds nuts, right, And in twenty ten it was, but

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00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:02,560
Speaker 3: no one had ever done it, and so that was

434
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,399
Speaker 3: half of the excitement. The other half was, Wow, here's

435
00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:09,560
Speaker 3: this can of cola, no calories, no sugar, naturally sweetened.

436
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:12,199
Speaker 3: I would consume this. There's got to be people like

437
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:16,119
Speaker 3: me out there. And so it started out as a

438
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:19,439
Speaker 3: fascination and over the last eight years it became a mission.

439
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 3: And so we started getting letters from people saying, Wow,

440
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 3: You've changed my life. I just had a baby and

441
00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 3: nothing that I wanted more than a cola Yeah, and

442
00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:32,560
Speaker 3: I just I couldn't do that to my kid And

443
00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:36,040
Speaker 3: I found zvia. Yeah I'm diabetic or I have kidney disease.

444
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:38,600
Speaker 3: I found ZeVA. I'm a CrossFit athlete and I lost

445
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:40,399
Speaker 3: one hundred pounds and I found Zevia.

446
00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:43,840
Speaker 2: Wait, but how did you kind of infiltrate the system?

447
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:46,399
Speaker 3: Well, one of the things we did first is we said,

448
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:50,280
Speaker 3: who out there wants a product like this? What's the

449
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:53,879
Speaker 3: first target? And so you start experimenting. Well, I had

450
00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,640
Speaker 3: a young family, and I knew what's the first thing

451
00:21:56,680 --> 00:21:58,520
Speaker 3: that a kid wants when they're five or six or

452
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 3: seven years old? They want soda? Yeah, And it's really

453
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 3: tough to explain to a young child why soda isn't

454
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 3: something I'm going to give you. Wouldn't it be easier

455
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:09,480
Speaker 3: if I just had something I felt good about that

456
00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:10,600
Speaker 3: I could give them. Yeah?

457
00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:13,879
Speaker 2: But how did you, Patty infiltrate the Zevia family? Like,

458
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:15,320
Speaker 2: did you just walk up to them and you're like,

459
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:17,400
Speaker 2: you guys, I'm going to come work with you guys.

460
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 3: Now, that's a great question. And I guess I got

461
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 3: them excited about that I'm ready to climb this mountain

462
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 3: and climb to the top or die trying. Yeah, And

463
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 3: I think it was just that excitement and that commitment

464
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:34,639
Speaker 3: to taking on the big guys, big Soda and changing

465
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,439
Speaker 3: the world. You know, when you start out, you're just

466
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:40,200
Speaker 3: trying to kind of sell a few cans and survive.

467
00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:42,399
Speaker 3: But as I said, very quickly we realized this is

468
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,159
Speaker 3: a product that's changing people's lives. This is really a mission.

469
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 3: And what's so cool is as we've grown now we

470
00:22:49,119 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 3: realize we're the only company in beverage who exists. We

471
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,640
Speaker 3: wake up every day to improve people's public health. I'm

472
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,160
Speaker 3: not sure many other companies, certainly not in the carbonated world,

473
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 3: can say. You know, at Monster Energy, Rockstar, Coca Cola,

474
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:06,399
Speaker 3: great brands, they're not trying to help people be more healthy.

475
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:09,399
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're working at Kashi and things are going well,

476
00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:12,640
Speaker 2: and at that time you told me that you were

477
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 2: dealing with a lot in your personal life.

478
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. You know. In nineteen ninety five, my

479
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,240
Speaker 3: brother was killed tragically in a car accident, and on

480
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 3: the job car accident, twenty six years old and not

481
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 3: something I ever imagined would happen. I think of my

482
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:32,119
Speaker 3: life before Colin died and after two different lives. Yeahly wow,

483
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 3: And you know, I remember it's twenty plus years later.

484
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:40,360
Speaker 3: It's like it was yesterday and that next that day,

485
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 3: everything changed for me, and I had never experienced loss

486
00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 3: on that level. This is the person I was closest

487
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:49,359
Speaker 3: to in the world, and it really completely changed the

488
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 3: way I thought about everything in my life. And starting

489
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:55,159
Speaker 3: with I guess this idea of risk, you know, the

490
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 3: whole idea of what risk is was turned upside down

491
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 3: because we're led to believe that so many things in

492
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 3: our life are consequential. When you know, whether it's how

493
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 3: does my hair look today, or did I get to

494
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 3: work on time or whatever, and ultimately, in the grand

495
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 3: scheme of things, those things are fairly meaningless, right, And

496
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 3: when you lose someone very close to you, I think

497
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 3: you realize what loss is and what risk is. Going

498
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 3: bankrupt that's like a joke compared to losing your best friend, yeah,

499
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 3: or your brother, or your mom or whatever. And so

500
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 3: for me, it was I realized that my life could

501
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 3: end at any moment like his head, and that I

502
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 3: had to make the most of every day and that

503
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 3: all these things that I thought were so scary and risky,

504
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 3: ultimately we're pretty inconsequential.

505
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:42,439
Speaker 2: So what were some of the risks that you were

506
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 2: kind of avoiding before this, Well, you know.

507
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 3: From a business standpoint, you have this perspective that's been

508
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:51,440
Speaker 3: told to you that you kind of work your way

509
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 3: up and you do things that are gradually more and

510
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 3: more challenging, or you roll rise within an organization and

511
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 3: then suddenly you're at the top. And I realized, well,

512
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:03,120
Speaker 3: that's garbage, right, I can go out and start a company,

513
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 3: you know, pushing your body. What's the craziest thing I

514
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 3: can do? Well, I'm not an awesome swimmer. Maybe I

515
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 3: should try and swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco. We

516
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 3: did that after really scary and I did that and

517
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, we don't know what's going to happen, sharks, current,

518
00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 3: cold water, but I survived. And then I think that's

519
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 3: the kind of thing that to me was able to

520
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 3: bring the joy back into life, is to realize that

521
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:30,439
Speaker 3: I could do things and the consequences were, you know what,

522
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 3: I'm still here and this is what life is about, Yeah,

523
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 3: is challenging yourself and pushing yourself and taking those risks

524
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 3: because we don't know how long we're going to be around.

525
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,679
Speaker 2: So would you say you're more of a risk taker

526
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 2: after I mean, you said that not happened in nineteen

527
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 2: ninety five, So you're more of a risk taker.

528
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 3: Now, yes, yes, I mean I think I was a

529
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 3: risk taker without realizing it. Yeah, but again, the calculation

530
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 3: of what risk even was and the consequences completely changed

531
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 3: after that.

532
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: Swimming from Alcatraz to the coast is frightening.

533
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 3: It is the most terrifying thing I've ever done. The

534
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 3: first time ever did it, I threw up, how long

535
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 3: is that?

536
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 1: How long is that distance?

537
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 3: It's a mile and a half. And for folks who

538
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 3: are strong swimmers, you know that's not as much a

539
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 3: daunting distance. Yeah, it's the current that's really tough. The

540
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 3: water's freezing cold. There's definitely waves, and you know, in

541
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 3: a controlled environment they're going to save you. But in

542
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 3: real life you'd get swept out to see if you're

543
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:29,120
Speaker 3: not fast enough. Right, So yeah, it is like it's

544
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 3: one of those gut wrenching things. You finish and you're like,

545
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 3: I can do anything. Yeah.

546
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 1: I mean that's how I feel running marathons.

547
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 2: It's like you cross the marathon finish line and like

548
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 2: life is your oyster and I can do anything.

549
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 1: I set my mind to and I'm victorious.

550
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 3: Well exactly, And I think that's that's for me such

551
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:48,719
Speaker 3: a key part of how I get inspired is finding

552
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 3: little things like that that just become victories. And ultimately

553
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,159
Speaker 3: you can find those things in smaller and smaller and

554
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:57,919
Speaker 3: smaller ways. You know, I made it to work on

555
00:26:58,000 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 3: time today. I got the kids to school on time.

556
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 3: That's a tiny victory. Yeah, you know, against all odds,

557
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 3: we left the house early, we got a couple of

558
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 3: good traffic lights, and we made it.

559
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: Yeah.

560
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 3: So I try to find those little victories and challenges

561
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 3: and everything.

562
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 2: So did you find that after this tough time in

563
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 2: your life you were working at Kashi, did you kind

564
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,159
Speaker 2: of reevaluate where you were in your business and your career?

565
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 3: I did, and within a month I left. I resigned, Wow,

566
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 3: because I said, you know what I need to I

567
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 3: need to go out and find what it is that

568
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 3: I need to do. And ended up starting a business

569
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 3: almost immediately after that. What business it was a market

570
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:39,679
Speaker 3: research company. Basically we got data from retail stores like

571
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 3: Whole Foods and what they were selling and then provided

572
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 3: that to brand owners. So that was started ninety five

573
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 3: and companies still around one hundred and something employees and wow,

574
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's gratifying. But again that never would have

575
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 3: started if I hadn't said, you know what, there are

576
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 3: billion dollar companies that sell data, but I can do

577
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 3: it better, and I can just go out there and

578
00:27:59,000 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 3: try and do it.

579
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: Are you still involved in that at all?

580
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 3: I'm not, but I'm a user of the data now,

581
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 3: and so I'm happy to say we did benefit companies

582
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 3: like ZBA in terms of having information on what's happening

583
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 3: in the market.

584
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: So you were there until twenty ten.

585
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 3: I was there actually till three and sold the business

586
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 3: in four. And then I spent a few years in

587
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 3: hair and skincare, again something I know nothing about what

588
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:26,239
Speaker 3: I have here, but I didn't know anything about it.

589
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 3: And again, for me, it's about learning great like gosh,

590
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 3: what could I learn? Well, I learned how shampoo's made.

591
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 3: I learned a lot about anti aging skincare. I then

592
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 3: got into color cosmetics, and I know a lot about

593
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 3: loose versus press powders and all sorts of crazy makeup stuff.

594
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 3: So for me, it's just about learning and being stimulated

595
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 3: by what I'm doing and getting excited about is it not?

596
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: Was it natural makeup?

597
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 3: It was? Yeah. We had some non natural stuff as well,

598
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 3: and I learned, you know, what harsh chemicals like benzol

599
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 3: peroxide do to your skin. But it was it was

600
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 3: a great experience, and again it's just about learning and

601
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 3: trying to help people.

602
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: When you met the guys at the trade show, what

603
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: were you there doing?

604
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 3: I was there looking to figure out what I was

605
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 3: going to do next. Oh wow, yeah, And and you

606
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 3: know I saw this product zeb and I said, Wow,

607
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 3: this thing could change people's lives and I could really

608
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 3: get excited about selling it.

609
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to give a shout

610
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 2: out to my sponsor, Athletic Greens. Guys, I've said it before,

611
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 2: I'll say it again. If you've never had a green

612
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 2: juice that you've liked, Athletic Greens is.

613
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Speaker 1: Going to change that. Not because it's a juice, of course,

614
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Speaker 1: it's a powder. You shake it up with water.

615
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 2: But I have never liked the taste of Greens anything

616
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Speaker 2: until I opened my first bag of this. It's not bitter,

617
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 2: it's got a hint of sweetness. And when I shake

618
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: it up with about ten to twelve ounces of water

619
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 2: in the morning, it's a refreshing way to start my

620
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,160
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621
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,480
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622
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623
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624
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625
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626
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,680
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627
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 1: Let's get back to it.

628
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 2: So often I'll hear someone talk about their day to

629
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 2: day and that they're not exactly they don't love their

630
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 2: job or what they're doing. And my question is always,

631
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 2: then what are you doing to change that? And I

632
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 2: think to put yourself out there and to even go

633
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 2: to something as simple as a trade show and try

634
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 2: something new, it's such an easy thing to do. I

635
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 2: mean there's trade shows all the time, right, but no

636
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 2: one does stuff like that well exactly.

637
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 3: And I think even more so, we all do things

638
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 3: in our personal lives that frankly could become businesses. Yeah right, So,

639
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 3: years before zeba ever existed, my wife and I used

640
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 3: to make our own ginger ale. You know a little

641
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 3: bit of carbonated water, liquid, stevia, ginger and lemon. That's all.

642
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 3: It's engineer all, Yeah, we were doing that ourselves and

643
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 3: so it's not rocket science to put that into a can, right,

644
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 3: And yet I think, you know, what are the things

645
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 3: that prevent people? It's not technical, it's really not financial.

646
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 3: It's that terrifying feeling of what if I fail. Well,

647
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 3: after you've lost someone, you've already experienced. The worst that

648
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 3: you're ever going to failure is tiny who cares well?

649
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 3: You know, we fail every day. And it's one of

650
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 3: the reasons I love doing martial arts is I get

651
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 3: my ass kicked every single time I go to a class,

652
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 3: and it's usually by someone smaller or less experienced or whatever,

653
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 3: and it's just humbling. Yeah, it makes you realize, you

654
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 3: know what, we're going to fall down and we've got

655
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 3: to get back up again.

656
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 1: How long have you been doing martial arts?

657
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 3: A long time. I started wrestling in fifth grade, so

658
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 3: I did eight years of wrestling, and I've been doing

659
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 3: Brazilian jiu jitsu since two thousand and one with some

660
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 3: breaks in between, and kickboxing for seven years time. But

661
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 3: it's one of those things there is no endpoint, you know.

662
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 3: Bruce Lee famously said, no one knows karate. We all

663
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 3: practice and study karate.

664
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: It feels like yoga. When you call yoga practice.

665
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't know yoga. There's no point where you're like, Okay,

666
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 3: I'm done. No, never I mastered it.

667
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: I never feel like I'm done with yoga.

668
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 2: On the subject of failures, what would you say has

669
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 2: been one of your most quote unquote successful failures to date,

670
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 2: either with ZBA or with aside from that completely.

671
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 3: Well, here's an example of failure at ZEBA that then

672
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 3: we were able to turn around. So one of the

673
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 3: things we did a couple of years ago is we

674
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 3: took caramel color out of all of our products. So

675
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 3: typically things like cola and root beer are colored brown

676
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,719
Speaker 3: because of caramel color. Well, we started getting letters from

677
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 3: our fans and we did some additional research and we

678
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 3: found that caramel color in zero calorie drinks was linked

679
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 3: to cancer. Well that sounds horrible, right. We had a

680
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 3: moral obligation to remove that ingredient, and so we did so.

681
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 3: But as any neuroscientist will tell you, our brain receives

682
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 3: indications by what color of beverage is as to what

683
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 3: it's supposed to taste, like colon is supposed to be brown.

684
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 3: We got literally thousands of letters from fans saying, this

685
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 3: stuff tastes horrible, it's not brown. Well, so that's a disaster,

686
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 3: right when your number one product, you're getting literally thousands

687
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 3: of letters from people saying this is messed up. So

688
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 3: what do we do? Well, we said, well, gosh, we've

689
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 3: got to go back to these people and involve them

690
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 3: in the solution. So we actually engage three thousand fans

691
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 3: of ours in a co creation exercise. We went back,

692
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 3: worked on the products, and we sent them cans and said, okay,

693
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 3: can a can be? Which do you like more? And

694
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 3: we got fantastic feedback from the people who care the most,

695
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 3: the people who drink the product every day. Long story short,

696
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 3: we put that revised formula into a can and sales skyrocketed.

697
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: Interested and is it brown? No, it's clear, it's stock clear.

698
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 3: But we were able to just tweak some of the

699
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 3: flavor notes and ultimately people realized, do I want to

700
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 3: drink a cancer causing chemical or do I want to

701
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 3: have this stuff that looks a little different but I

702
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 3: feel better about?

703
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:12,320
Speaker 1: Yeah?

704
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 2: What about personally, in terms of some hardships that you've

705
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 2: gone through, what would you say has been one of

706
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 2: the most difficult times.

707
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: That's taught you the most.

708
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:24,479
Speaker 3: This last year, I had a health issue. I woke

709
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 3: up one day and I got a detached retina.

710
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

711
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 3: And it wasn't kickboxing or jiu jitsu. It was out

712
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:33,720
Speaker 3: of nowhere. And between June and October of twenty eighteen,

713
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 3: I had four eye surgeries.

714
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.

715
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 3: And for folks who haven't had eye surgery, it is

716
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,320
Speaker 3: not fun. I've had a bunch of sports surgeries, and

717
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 3: those were easy by comparison, because when you're recovering from

718
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:47,879
Speaker 3: eye surgery or at least retina surgery, you can't read,

719
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 3: you can't write, you can't work out at all, you

720
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 3: can't lie down. And everyone's different, but my position, as

721
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 3: it were, I had to sit up for four weeks.

722
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 3: During that time, I was a horrible parent, and I

723
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 3: wasn't a good friend, and I probably wasn't a very

724
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 3: good coworker, and I certainly didn't work out with any

725
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 3: of my training partners, and so I felt like I

726
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 3: was failing in the worst way possible. And yet I

727
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 3: still was alive, and I still had to go through

728
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 3: all that and figure out how the hell do I

729
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 3: get through every day? Feeling physically lousy, feeling mentally terrible,

730
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 3: and feeling like this is never going to end.

731
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: So what'd you do?

732
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 3: So I meditated a lot, and I just focused on

733
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 3: what I could control, which is frankly, my breath, and

734
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 3: listened to music and said, Okay, it's one o'clock. I

735
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 3: know two o'clock is going to come, and then it's

736
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 3: going to be three, and eventually I'll be able to

737
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 3: go to sleep and wake up tomorrow. And it was

738
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 3: really really tough. And one of the things that were

739
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 3: not good at a lot of times is being vulnerable.

740
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 3: You know, my kids saw me in the States. They

741
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 3: had never seen me before, and for the first time,

742
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,360
Speaker 3: my nine year old started saying, Dad, are you okay?

743
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 3: And that's not something kids typically do with their parents,

744
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 3: and so what a humbling experience to have your small

745
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:05,839
Speaker 3: children say are you okay? Are you doing okay? Dad?

746
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 3: So it was really tough, and again I focused on

747
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 3: trying to be a little bit better at trying to

748
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 3: heal one percent every day.

749
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:17,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it's really hard as a parent,

750
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 2: or as a friend, or even as a partner, whatever capacity.

751
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: We always want to.

752
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 2: Be okay for the people that we surround ourselves with

753
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 2: and to be able to be vulnerable and honest, it's scary.

754
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:34,839
Speaker 3: It is. And there were long periods of time where

755
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 3: I didn't even want to go outside because I felt

756
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 3: so vulnerable. I didn't want people to see me. And so, yeah,

757
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 3: what a humbling experience. And again, though that idea of

758
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 3: tomorrow is going to just be a little bit better,

759
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 3: just I won't have that pain like nail being hammered

760
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 3: into the back of my eyeball, or my vision might

761
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 3: be a tiny bit better or whatever. And so it's

762
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 3: just kind of one step at a time. Let's just

763
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 3: get through the day.

764
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: How are you handling your business while you were kind

765
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:05,720
Speaker 1: of in this recuver.

766
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 3: Well, I am so fortunate. My wife is just unbelievable.

767
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:11,800
Speaker 3: We woke up the first day after my first surgery

768
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 3: and I had one hundred and fifty emails in my

769
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 3: inbox and I couldn't read. Yeah, and she read every

770
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 3: email to me and I dictated responses and it was

771
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 3: one of those things you're either going to hate each

772
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 3: other after a day or you're going to figure out

773
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,959
Speaker 3: how to make it work. Yeah, and we made it work.

774
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 3: But thank goodness for Jara because it was really challenging.

775
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:33,319
Speaker 2: I think that that's also something when people don't want

776
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:36,120
Speaker 2: to find a solution, they won't. But if you do,

777
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 2: then you find the will inside to pivot and figure

778
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 2: out how to you know, navigate going on.

779
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 3: Well, not only that, but you also realize, you know,

780
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 3: there were some things that I thought so that I

781
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 3: was so certain about that turned out to be totally wrong. Yeah,

782
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 3: like what, Well, like gosh, if I don't get involved

783
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 3: in the color on this new can that we're creating,

784
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 3: everything's going to fall apart. Well, guess what. I was

785
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 3: out of the office for eight weeks, pretty unavailable, and

786
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,479
Speaker 3: things worked really well, and so one of the things

787
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 3: I was able to do is start to try and

788
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:08,319
Speaker 3: make that list and figure out what I could let

789
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 3: go of. Well, I certainly realized that staring at my

790
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 3: phone all day wasn't adding a lot to my life.

791
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 3: And so when I couldn't read for eight weeks, guess what,

792
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 3: I didn't look at the phone at all and the

793
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 3: world continued. Yeah, and so little things like that, and

794
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 3: it's it's about then, just that idea of kind of reassessing.

795
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 3: And you know, we talk about spring cleaning, Well, we

796
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 3: can do spring cleaning in our lives. We can do

797
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 3: that almost every week, and we can say, what are

798
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 3: the things that I'm doing that maybe aren't adding to

799
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:36,399
Speaker 3: my life? What are the things that I really want

800
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:37,439
Speaker 3: to do more of? Yeah?

801
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 2: What else during that time did you realize you needed

802
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:41,399
Speaker 2: to kind of sweep under the rug and get rid.

803
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 3: Of Well, certainly phone addiction. This idea that vulnerability, I

804
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 3: think is really important. And so the idea that I'm

805
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 3: going to go through life just kind of everything's perfect. Well,

806
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 3: that doesn't work anymore. I got a bad eye now.

807
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 3: I didn't realize it ever have a bad eye.

808
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:59,839
Speaker 1: Right right, I never realized that was going to happen.

809
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 3: No, No, And you know when you get eight stitches

810
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 3: in your eyeball in a four month period, you realize, wow,

811
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 3: this really sucks, and so regular life is that much sweeter.

812
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,439
Speaker 3: And at the same time, you know, fifteen hours into

813
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,359
Speaker 3: a day, my eye is telling me, hey, you got

814
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:18,760
Speaker 3: to stop reading now because those eight stitches are getting

815
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 3: really dried out and uncomfortable, and I feel like I

816
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,399
Speaker 3: got a hair in my eye. Yeah. So so those

817
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 3: reminders and those kind of things that say, you know what,

818
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 3: enjoy what's good keep in mind that things aren't always

819
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 3: going to be perfect.

820
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:32,720
Speaker 2: I think, especially also as a parent. I was watching

821
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:34,879
Speaker 2: the Today Show last week and I want I think

822
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 2: his name is pronounced Deva, and still his daughter had

823
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,879
Speaker 2: cancer and for so long that both of them were

824
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,439
Speaker 2: trying to be strong for each other, and he wasn't

825
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 2: crying around her and she wasn't crying around him, which

826
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 2: is so wise beyond her years, because she's so young.

827
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 2: She finally said to him, like, it does this not

828
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 2: upset you? And he was like, I've been trying not

829
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 2: to be upset in front of you. I've been trying

830
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 2: to be strong for you. She's like, it's okay to

831
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 2: be upset. She's like, cause I'm upset, right, And and

832
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 2: that's like such a strong lesson and oh my god,

833
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 2: to learn that type of thing at such a young age,

834
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 2: it's invaluable.

835
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and I think we have to accept that.

836
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 3: You know, we're going to have failure in life, We're

837
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 3: going to have loss, and if we can be comfortable

838
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 3: with that and just try and do our best and

839
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 3: enjoy the good parts, you know, as they say, if

840
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 3: you don't have sadness, there's no such thing as joy right, wow, right,

841
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 3: what is joy in the absence of sadness?

842
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: It's just right, you're feeling right, Yeah, So.

843
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 3: It's the negative allows you to understand the positive.

844
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 2: So what are some of the things in your day

845
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 2: to day now that bring you joy?

846
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 3: Watching my kids get inspired and learn, so, you know,

847
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,400
Speaker 3: one of the best experiences we've had in our family

848
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 3: in the last few months has been watching my nine

849
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 3: year old daughter start to do sports. So she's never

850
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:51,839
Speaker 3: competed in any kind of sport, and she started doing

851
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 3: cross country running in third grade. Okay, so well, they

852
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 3: competed against a lot of running clubs, and these kids

853
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 3: in nine year old in a running club are very

854
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 3: serious and so it was really, really tough. And my

855
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 3: daughter had never done a race, and and the first one,

856
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:08,919
Speaker 3: I was like, that was kind of a wake up call.

857
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 3: She's like, yeah, this is really hard running two miles.

858
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 3: But over the last few months she's realized how to

859
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 3: push her body, and she's realized that, you know, each

860
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 3: race was more fun than the last, and it didn't

861
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 3: matter if she was last or second to last or first,

862
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 3: and that was ross exactly. And so just this idea

863
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 3: of pushing yourself and feeling the good things that come

864
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 3: from that has been incredible.

865
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 1: And how old is your other daughter?

866
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:39,359
Speaker 3: My other daughters seven, so you know, similarly, she's been

867
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 3: pushing herself in ways. And so this Saturday we were

868
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 3: at a spelling bee and wow, you know that is

869
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 3: really get up in front of one hundred adults and

870
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 3: kids and spell words on stage.

871
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's scary.

872
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 3: It's really scary.

873
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: I think I'm still scarred from spelling bees when I

874
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: was like that.

875
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 3: And at the same time, it's so exciting, you know,

876
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 3: seeing somebody spell garbonzo and it's looking at me and smiling,

877
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 3: knowing they know how to spell garbanzo because we practiced it.

878
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 2: You meet the guys at the trade show, you start

879
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 2: here at ZBA, what would you say so far in

880
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 2: your time here has been one of the biggest lessons

881
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 2: that you've learned in your current position is to think big.

882
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, is to do crazy stuff. And when

883
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 3: we started, it was just about can we sell a

884
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 3: few cans of this thing that's better than diet coke?

885
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 3: And then suddenly we realize, Wow, we're changing people's lives.

886
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 3: And now, you know, we got a statistic the other

887
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:36,800
Speaker 3: day that in the total soda category. In zero calorie soda,

888
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 3: ZBA is adding the third most dollars to the category

889
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 3: after diet coke and Coke zero. Those are billion dollar brands,

890
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 3: and then we're growing almost as much as those guys.

891
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 3: That's incredible. We're a tiny little brand and yet we

892
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 3: are changing people's lives. And so I think the most

893
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 3: exciting thing is this realization that there's billions of people

894
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 3: around the world who could benefit from what we have,

895
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 3: and we're going to find a way to get our

896
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 3: product to them.

897
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 2: What types of offerings does Zeba have, because it's not

898
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 2: just Zba's version of cola well exactly.

899
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 3: So we started out with soda because that's a drink that,

900
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 3: as I said, forty seven gallons a year the average

901
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 3: American drinks. Ninety percent of Americans drink soda. And then

902
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 3: we started looking at other categories and we said, gosh,

903
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:25,320
Speaker 3: energy drinks. You know, great idea. We all love caffeine,

904
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 3: but what about tourine. How much are we supposed to

905
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 3: drink of that and all these other weird chemicals and

906
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:32,919
Speaker 3: colors and stuff. So we made a clean energy drink,

907
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 3: We made clean mixers. You know, people love drinking Moscow mules,

908
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,240
Speaker 3: But who needs fifty grams of sugar from the ginger beer?

909
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:39,760
Speaker 1: Right?

910
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 3: And sparkling water and now organic tea. You know, I

911
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 3: grew up loving tea and wouldn't organic tea be awesome

912
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 3: if it didn't have thirty grams of sugar? So one

913
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 3: by one we're just finding those ways that we can

914
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:54,520
Speaker 3: improve people's lives for every member of the family every

915
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:57,120
Speaker 3: time a day, and how can we give people something

916
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 3: that they can trust and believe in.

917
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 2: So that's a huge less than what do you think

918
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:03,239
Speaker 2: has been one of the biggest challenges.

919
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 3: Well, certainly you know, fighting Coca Cola company every day

920
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 3: and PepsiCo. You know, those are one hundred billion dollar

921
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 3: companies with one hundred years of expertise, and eight years

922
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 3: ago I had never sold the canisda in my life. Yeah,

923
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 3: I was a rank amateur. And so the idea that

924
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 3: you know, it's so humbling competing against folks who've been

925
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 3: doing it for one hundred years. So that's the toughest

926
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:31,320
Speaker 3: thing is you know, Coca Cola is one of the

927
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 3: most recognized brands around the world, and so that's the challenge.

928
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 3: The opportunity if you ask a hundred people who wants

929
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 3: to drink more coke next year, not many will say yes, right,

930
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:43,760
Speaker 3: And so that's what's so exciting. We've got this everest

931
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 3: we're trying to climb, but we know if we can

932
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:47,840
Speaker 3: get part way up that mountain, it's going to be

933
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 3: really fun and exciting.

934
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:53,479
Speaker 2: In terms of obviously cutting out added sugars and keeping

935
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:56,320
Speaker 2: a budget every day, what are kind of other nutritional

936
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 2: guidelines that you adhere to or things that you keep

937
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:00,839
Speaker 2: in mind when you're going about your day.

938
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, for one of the things

939
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 3: that I think is always hard for anyone who's trying

940
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 3: to restrict their intake of something is you got to

941
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:12,760
Speaker 3: replace it with something. Yeah, right, And everything is a fat,

942
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 3: a carb, or a sugar I mean, or a protein.

943
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 3: Excuse me. And so if we take out a lot

944
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 3: of sugar, we're taking out a lot of carbs. So

945
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 3: what are we going to eat? So for me, I

946
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 3: try to eat a lot of protein. We do a

947
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:27,280
Speaker 3: lot of lean meat. I consume a lot of dairy

948
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 3: just because that works for me. But I consume a

949
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 3: lot of peat protein as well. And then you know,

950
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:35,920
Speaker 3: we consume a fair amount of fat egatiating. You know,

951
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 3: cashews and almonds are very filling in high calorie, but

952
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 3: they don't have any sugar.

953
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 2: So obviously you've come in here and done a lot

954
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 2: with ZVA, and you have a history of doing a

955
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 2: lot with some really great brands.

956
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,719
Speaker 1: So what do you think is on the horizon.

957
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:54,839
Speaker 3: Then, well, our categories that we compete in, our six

958
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,840
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty billion dollars globally. Wow, And as I

959
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier, you know a third of the world is

960
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 3: going to be diabetic in the next fifty years. This

961
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 3: is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, public

962
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 3: health challenges globally. You know, I think today we're just

963
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 3: in the US and Canada, and yet every day of

964
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,879
Speaker 3: the week we're getting inquiries from around the world. And

965
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 3: sugar consumption is a global public health challenge. And people

966
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 3: in Malaysia and people in France, and people in Iceland

967
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 3: are concerned about it, and people in Mexico, and so

968
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 3: there's global demand for products like ours, And I think,

969
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 3: you know, I won't be satisfied until people around the

970
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 3: world can get off of sugar using ZBA. Nowadays, when

971
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:36,880
Speaker 3: I travel around the country, I can always get ZEBA

972
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:38,319
Speaker 3: within a mile or two of where I am.

973
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty impressive.

974
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 3: So we still got some work to do. If I

975
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,359
Speaker 3: go to the airport, you know, tougher to find. If

976
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 3: I go to a movie, if I'm going to a

977
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 3: college football game, but those are all venues we're working on.

978
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: I love that college football game. Walk into the stadium,

979
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: and that's the first thing I'm running for exactly.

980
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:56,279
Speaker 3: Well, Hey, if I go to a CrossFit event, that's

981
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 3: the first thing I'm going to do is get my ZBA.

982
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 1: They have it there. Yeah, have you been the Games before?

983
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 3: It's incredible And so you know, when we think about inspirations,

984
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 3: I do have to name Brent Pakowski as one of

985
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 3: our athletes. Brent is phenomenal, Catrin David's daughter, two time

986
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 3: winner of the Games, unbelievable, But honestly, for me, my

987
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 3: biggest inspiration is a young woman named Kayla Stefano. Kayla

988
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 3: is last year, as a seventeen year old, competed in

989
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 3: the CrossFit Game. She's won it twice before as a teenager,

990
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 3: and last year she finished third and it was just

991
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 3: wild watching her and watching her demeanor during the games.

992
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 3: And I learned so much from this young woman. When

993
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 3: you've won twice and then you come in third, how

994
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:38,959
Speaker 3: do you deal with that? Well, the way she dealt

995
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 3: with it a smile on her face, a hug for

996
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 3: her competitor, and just the most incredible attitude of perseverance

997
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 3: and learning. And wow, Yeah, that's what I want to

998
00:47:48,960 --> 00:47:50,320
Speaker 3: be like. I want to be like Kayla.

999
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: Stefano seventeen years old. She's incredible lifting any lifting.

1000
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 2: The amount of weight that they left on the regular

1001
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 2: already blows my mind, but to think about being able

1002
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 2: to do that at seventeen is mind boggling.

1003
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:07,879
Speaker 3: She's also the junior national champion and Olympic lifting. Yes,

1004
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 3: she is a powerhouse.

1005
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 2: Aside from the crossfitters you mentioned, who else are ZEBA athletes?

1006
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,240
Speaker 3: We also have a bunch of UFC folks, so Nathan

1007
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:22,760
Speaker 3: Diaz in the UFC, Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnson to fighters,

1008
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 3: ore ZBA athletes. So you know what's neat about our

1009
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 3: brand is there are people who are just trying to

1010
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 3: do extreme things and sometimes that extreme thing is just

1011
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:36,399
Speaker 3: fight kidney disease, or lose weight because I just had

1012
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 3: a baby, or keep my kids healthy. But you know,

1013
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 3: we're a brand that fuels those adventures for people of

1014
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:45,360
Speaker 3: all walks of life, and that's what's so cool.

1015
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:48,239
Speaker 1: So these crossfitters inspire you. Who else outside of that?

1016
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 3: You know, I'm inspired by a lot of folks. I'd

1017
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,319
Speaker 3: say in the natural foods business, there is a number

1018
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 3: of people who have really changed the world who inspire me.

1019
00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 3: There's a gentleman named Mark Reetzlof, and Mark is amazing.

1020
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 3: He started Horizon Organic Dairy, the largest branded organic dairy

1021
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 3: products company, and I'm a big Horizon fan. Mark also

1022
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 3: started an original natural foods business retailer called Alfalfaz, So

1023
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:16,920
Speaker 3: he's been kind of in the early stage of many

1024
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 3: of these classic natural foods brands. He's a guy who's

1025
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 3: in his early seventies and he's still working, and he's

1026
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 3: still working to help the next generation of entrepreneurs kind

1027
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 3: of navigate this whole landscape. So folks like that inspire me.

1028
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 3: I had an opportunity to meet Bud Selig, who at

1029
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 3: the time was the outgoing commissioner of Baseball. Mister Steeling

1030
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:40,000
Speaker 3: was eighty years old when we met, and just so incredible,

1031
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 3: scary guy to be negotiating with. I'm sure I don't

1032
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:44,879
Speaker 3: know if I want to be across the table from him,

1033
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 3: but as an individual so inspiring, he had already decided

1034
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 3: what his next job would be. At eighty he was

1035
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 3: retiring from baseball and he was going to go teach

1036
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:56,400
Speaker 3: a class at University of Wisconsin in the history of Baseball.

1037
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 3: I was like, Man, that's what I want to be

1038
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:00,720
Speaker 3: like at eighty. I want to have my X challenge

1039
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 3: already mapped out.

1040
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, what a cool way to segue into retirement.

1041
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. And I think you know that when you

1042
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:12,320
Speaker 3: realize to him, that's not even retirement, that's just life.

1043
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1044
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 3: Life is going through and inspiring people and sharing what

1045
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 3: you've learned over the years.

1046
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,399
Speaker 1: I love that. Okay, so we're winding down here.

1047
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 2: What I love to ask my guests, kind of as

1048
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 2: a closer of sorts, is if you had the opportunity

1049
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 2: to offer yourself a piece of advice back in nineteen

1050
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 2: ninety five, your brother just passed away, You're obviously going

1051
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 2: through a lot emotionally, and you're kind of re evaluating

1052
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 2: your entire career path.

1053
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:40,600
Speaker 1: What advice would you offer Patty?

1054
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 3: Then I would tell myself that find the craziest risks

1055
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 3: that you can take and go after those. Yeah, And

1056
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:54,759
Speaker 3: unfortunately I think I did end up there, but I

1057
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 3: might have done some other things differently in the meantime

1058
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:00,719
Speaker 3: because I did, I think follow to some extent what

1059
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 3: people thought I should do versus what was really in

1060
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:06,399
Speaker 3: my heart at times. And so you know, I would

1061
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 3: tell people to follow what's in your heart. And as

1062
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:10,600
Speaker 3: long as you're doing that with all of your energy

1063
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 3: and all of your commitment, it's probably gonna work out well.

1064
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: I love it, Patti, Thanks so much for sitting down

1065
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:15,800
Speaker 1: with me.

1066
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you for having me amazing.

1067
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 2: Please take a moment to leave a quick review by

1068
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 2: clicking the link with the description to this episode. We

1069
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 2: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear

1070
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:28,360
Speaker 2: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at Hurdle

1071
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:31,360
Speaker 2: dot us. Connect with the podcast on Instagram and Twitter

1072
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:34,919
Speaker 2: at Hurdle Podcast Patty. Where do they find you? Where

1073
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:37,160
Speaker 2: do they find ZVA? Give me all the deeds.

1074
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:40,879
Speaker 3: So they can go to any local grocery store, natural

1075
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 3: products store, ZVA dot com, ze Va dot com or

1076
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:46,360
Speaker 3: Amazon dot com.

1077
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 1: And are you active on social media?

1078
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Speaker 3: Yes? Go to our Instagram at zvia.

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Speaker 2: Perfect, Perfect, Awesome. I am at Emily Abadi, another hurdle conquered.

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Speaker 2: Catch you guys next time.