Derek From More Plates More Dates: His +$100M Business Empire, Bryan Johnson & TRT

30:47If something is working, that is literally me being able to at scale, educate and impart value about that. It's hard to see me deviating from it to be able to do what that again. It doesn't really, I don't know, maybe I'll change my mindset as I get a bit older and I have kids or something. but right now, not really. That's kind of all I could say as far as concrete goals on a piece of paper financially and also my path in terms of what I'm passionate about. Have you raised financing or funding for any of these businesses? No, never. Dude, that's crazy because like, all right, you have 1.8 million subscribers, 1.9, close to 2 million.

31:29That's a lot, but that's not a lot, a lot. You know what I'm saying? I mean, that's like if someone grinds for 10 years like you could get there. What's crazy is that, I mean, that's just a huge number to have two multi-billion dollar, two, let's just even say 100 million plus brands off the back of 1.9 million subscribers. That's a significant amount. You have to keep in mind to our influencer marketing is pretty dialed, especially on the guerrilla side. We have a lot of people who believe in what I'm doing and my passion and path forward to and trust me. So they will also trust that I'm going to put them in the best spot to accrue the most value from whatever company they're partnering with and have mutually beneficial relationships as they develop their business careers too.

32:18So especially on Gorilla, there is no way we'd be anywhere near where we are. Well, I don't know what we'd actually be at, but a lot of our influencers behind us are huge needle movers, huge. Like I would say our combined following is like, I don't know, in the tens of millions, if not 100 million plus. Is it contingent on you getting more popular, do you think? Or do you think that they've grown beyond that? Yeah, I think they're big enough they can be their own thing. And I think fortunately for me, it has allowed me the flexibility to reel back on the content frequency a bit because I used to be very heavily output oriented, which I should be still.

32:57But the trust factor is very high. and the success of the company stands, it has its own, I don't know, resume of credibility through what it's done, like being, I don't know, one of the top selling pre-workouts on Amazon, for example, against companies I literally bought when I was 17 years old and edging some of them out now, like that's wild to me. And those kinds of things help us get into retail and help us do things from a global expansion standpoint that aren't contingent on me. Sure, it helps that I'm a face of the brand, and what I've done. And you know that when you work with us, I'm going to be the one formulating your products too.

33:37For example, like when influencers work with us, if you're going to have a collaborative pre-workout that drops, knowing that I'm indirectly endorsing it and making it for you too is a huge plus. Whereas most owners are not even faces of the brand and no one even knows who they are. So that kind of stuff, I think, gives us the latitude and flexibility to grow moving forward outside of having this influencer treadmill mill where we're having to acquire new people to get exposure to then sell more. I think there is absolutely a diminishing returns point. And for us at this point, it's very, uh, global expansion oriented and retail going heavier into retail on some of the, uh, some of the products like the energy drinks and whatnot, but, um, to be determined.

34:20So it's all a bit of an experiment, to be honest. I went, I went and read your blog and, uh, prep for this and I read a bunch of, bunch of posts. And you said something, you said, when I was 18, what were my priorities? You said, well, I wanted to make more money. I wanted to date hordes of gorgeous women. I want to have a killer physique and I wanted to do well in school to set me up for my future. And you said, you know, I had these four goals and those all sounded like totally worth pursuing. And they all sounded like things I should be working on. I'm in school, so I should probably work on school.

34:52I'm, I'm, I'm kind of, you know, 18 to 21 years old. I should probably try to date women or work out, make money. All of these things seemed like good ideas at the same time. And then you realized I should go all in on one of these goals right now at the expense of the others. Why did you have that philosophy of go all in on one life goal versus try to have kind of this balance or pursue all four? Yeah, it's tough because it's not like I would claim it to be the correct way to live your life, but I think a lot of people live, especially in the entrepreneurial world in stages. It's almost like seasons of your life.

35:30And there are certain seasons where you can complete certain things of prerequisites for the other. Um, and I would say that when it comes to, um, getting women, for example, when you were young, you do not need exorbitant amounts of funds. You actually don't even need to have the ability to support somebody in a long-term relationship. If you're young, you can have a piece of crap car and live with your parents and still crush it with literally objectively 10 out of 10 girls in your age bracket. And being able to kind of get that season of your life out of the way and develop those social skills, at least at the time when I was broke too, I felt like was worth getting out of my way, so to speak, before I went down the road of entrepreneurship, which I knew would consume the majority of my free time and dating, especially large amounts of women when you're trying to kind of, I don't know, get your anxiety out of your system entirely and become even used to this dynamic of being out with attractive women.

36:35It's not something that I feel you can juggle both simultaneously dating as a full time job, honestly, like if you're single, you can definitely agree with what I'm saying that it can be as consuming as a full-time job in itself. So for me, you know, trying to, and I also was way more hardcore about bodybuilding at the time. So I would actually dedicate blocks of time to cutting and bulking phases. And the cutting phases would be getting striking distance of stage ready condition, which is something that is super mentally sapping and demanding of your body and more extreme amounts of cardio, caloric restriction, et cetera.

37:11And And it's not trying to do everything at the same time. I feel like you'll just fail or do everything kind of half-assed, essentially. You will not get anything done with exceptional quality. So that was at least my thought process and logic at the time. And I would still probably agree with it, even though that blog is... I don't even remember the last time I wrote an article on that blog. It is super outdated, but it is something I would still resonate with, probably. I think people should be segregating things into seasons personally. Yeah, I mean, we talk about seasons a lot. And I think like, what's that quote, Sean, about the line and the cow, like cows graze, lines rest and then pounce.

37:52And like, oftentimes, it's a little bit easier in business to be like the line instead of just like, you know, instead of like a constant 40 hours a week, maybe like sprints is a little bit easier. And I was watching some of your videos. I remember there was one recently where I think you got back from Europe. you're in europe and it sounded like you're with a girlfriend or a wife or something like that um so i assume you're in some type of long relationship has building these companies been a lot easier once you're you have more stability as opposed to dating yeah dude it's a night and day try if i was single right now i would get half as much work done probably yeah yeah dude haven't and like i i remember when i was building my first company um there was probably twice a week i would lay on the floor and i'm like this isn't gonna work i feel miserable uh like i'm just gonna quit and like having a spouse or she was my fiance or girlfriend at the time to be like no you got this like that is just like it was like the greatest thing ever that's when i knew i'm like dude having a a wife is so much better than she's like also move out of the way i'm trying to get to the kitchen you're just laying on the floor no yeah i would i i yeah i totally agree with that sentiment for sure you've got these you know you have the content machine running you got the business machine running have you figured out what you want to do with your money so do you uh have you learned kind of like you know how to either spend it in ways that are interesting or invest it uh how much time and effort have you put into that what do you do with your money i've learned what not to do with it which is good what have you done what have you done so um don't go with wealth management portfolio uh guys who will even if it's with a big bank because they get their management fees even if they suck so and oftentimes they will make it sound like they're doing great things when objectively they're underperforming a basic you know index fund so i would be very weary of that as a wealthy entrepreneur because a lot of those guys are the primary targets of those wealth management guys.

40:04And they will shockingly stay with them for years despite underperforming just objectively. And then they just get rinsed the entire time while the management fees make the other guys rich. So I've learned not to do that the hard way. The thing that's tough is on the Canadian side, there is so much more complicated tax planning that goes into it. I've spent more time than I want to admit on figuring out how to not lose money than actually making money with my money. So it's tough. I'm still figuring out how to put myself in the position most optimally to make my money work for me. But oftentimes, even knowing what side of the country I should be keeping it on.

40:53It's been an ever-learning process, and there are certain corporate structure things that I've been very hesitant to pour money into an insurance fund that down the line is going to build money interest-free, and I can then re... I've been very careful to not dive into any of those before I fully understand them, even though they could make me a lot of money, because I know once you're into some of those things, you can't unravel them. So, you know, as a Canadian, it's a lot more complicated, unfortunately, than just dollar cost average into the index. So if you're if you're portfolio, you know, let's just say you're, you know, we'll do the pie chart thing without.

41:28So just percentages and not including your private businesses. Where do you where do you keep your money? Is it mostly equities or are you investing in other private companies? What are you doing with it? I do some angel investing, but it's very minor. Like, for example, media kits. you guys are familiar with kieran that's how we met like his company for example i invested in um i don't know some some stuff like that but not very often uh but primarily it was you know wealth management was overseeing a lot of it and then i realized how not ideal that was and liquidated it all recently at a loss but um yeah it's just sitting in bank accounts right now doing nothing as no shit really yeah yeah so i'm like all cash right now i have a decent amount of crypto but i always forget i have that until somebody asked me like what is your portfolio comprised of so i guess technically some crypto um and then i guess it's the value of the businesses and whatever cash sits in those accounts but yeah it's uh mostly just just chilling doing nothing useful i remember i remember you you i think you bought a lamborghini or something like that and you like made a video about like the hedonistic or hedonistic treadmill and you're like this is kind of bullshit is there any what what have you spent money on that you think is thought would make you happy and it was bullshit versus where you actually like where do you like to spend money on and you're like this actually makes me happy that's tough man because i don't other than that i haven't really spent egregious amounts of money on anything that i would deem to be irresponsible that was outside of a business capacity.

43:08Like I will invent, you know, always go first class because of the convenience and just leg room, just like basic stuff, which is, um, and other than that, I don't really buy anything luxury other than groceries, which, you know, getting high quality food I think is justified every single time. Um, yeah, I haven't really spent money on anything I could think of off the top of my head. That was stupid. What was the origin story for the business? So what order did they come in and what triggered the thought of like, all right, I need to start this? Because I think you kind of, you're in an internet marketing affiliate game.

43:47When did you transition to like, I want to own my own businesses? Yeah, especially prior to influencer integrations. When I first started affiliate marketing, it was still very SEO driven, blog heavy. There was not as much flat rate, you know, paper integration type stuff happening, or at least I was not that aware of it if it was happening at scale. What were you selling? Oh, an array of things. Whatever I use personally, Amazon links to it, etc. So I was getting, you know, 5 % commissions on shampoo that I would use for hair loss prevention. And was that like beer money or that was like, wow, I'm making stupid money doing this somehow.

44:27How successful were you able to be doing that? Well, I guess success is definitely subjective. So at the time, I felt extremely, but in proportional terms, perhaps not now. But back then, that was the stuff that funds your ability to actually start your own businesses. So I would say in that sentiment, definitely successful. And I think the thing that helped me the most and what I typically recommend people to do as when they're wondering, what do I even get into as a product or service or what have you? It's organically integrating things that you already use and truly believe in. Because if you just plug nonsense and you start to be a ad horror, essentially, where you just take whatever comes your way when it comes to integrations, even products you don't believe in or care about, and you just become a robot mindlessly reading scripts for, you know, dollars, you kind of get your credibility goes out the window and people don't listen to your product recommendations anymore.

45:25And for me, it was always how do I monetize stuff that I use anyways, and would tell people for free, you should use this because I use it. So oftentimes that was taking piddly little affiliate commissions or none on products that I actually used and wanted people to also try to get results with. And that would include, but not limited to, you know, supplements, hair loss prevention products, um, sometimes random diet hack related things. I don't know. It varied significantly, but across the board, it was basically what has an affiliate program that is a product I already use. And I can get a commission for telling people something I would tell them anyways.

46:07And that is how I kind of built up my initial funds to then start some of the businesses that replace the affiliate recommendations that I would have been making anyway. So it's, it was kind of stemmed from just what are the things I'm most passionate about personally and promote them. And cause I would anyways, and then replace them eventually with things that I feel are higher quality and reflect exactly what I would want to see as a consumer in that niche. So that was kind of how I went down the rabbit hole of dietary supplements. I've always been a formulator. I've always dug very heavily into the chemistry and pharmacology side of things.

46:47And it was just an eventual inevitability that I was going to get into it at some point. And once it became viable financially, that was kind of my segue into that. And then air loss prevention products, I've been recommending certain things for years. And that was my segue into Intelligent Elephant, which is another company. And then telemedicine was, I was making content for years about preventative medicine and how to interpret diagnostics and blood work and hormone optimization and PEDs, ergogenic aids, et cetera. And it was, that was such a no brainer for me to get into too. So across the board, that's kind of what I look for as the highest lever opportunities, at least how I kind of ended up starting those businesses to begin with and funding them.

47:35We had our buddy Saeed on, and what he did was he had a high traffic blog that was helping people out with WordPress. He's like, oh, yeah, I recommend using this email pop up. And he would just basically see, oh, OK, you know, the highest the things that people click on the most because they're looking for a solution are X. maybe that's a business I should go into. So what he would do is he would just go buy that business or buy the number two player, improve it, and then make it his recommendation. And he just went systematically. It's almost like you did that for the body. You were like, cool, I got this high traffic.

48:06And I have this ability to get a bunch of high traffic. I can start with affiliates and see what people click. Even if they have a crappy affiliate program, at least I know that's a category that I know I can drive a lot of customers to. maybe I should be the supplier instead of the affiliate. Yeah, it's crazy how much stuff has evolved just in the past, I don't know, not even 10, like six or seven years too, in terms of where people get their recommendations from. Like SEO is so irrelevant now to where I shop and where most of our customers shop to. Back in the day, it was if you're top ranked on Google, maybe for some services, it absolutely is still relevant.

48:43But for certain products in the e-commerce space and whatnot, it's like no one gives a shit at all. Whereas back in the day, it was all about how do I get top ranked on Google for buy fill in the blank or top three fill in the blank. And that was a lot of my affiliate stuff came through my blog articles back then and lesser YouTube. But now it's so heavily social media. The New York Times had this article come out a few weeks ago and it was like, my guru is better than your guru or something like that. And it was about how, I mean, this has always been the case, but it's just there's more now and they're bigger about how audiences will attract what will go towards a certain like health and wellness person.

49:24So like there's you, there's Huberman, but then there's also Mark Sisson. Is that the same Mark? The older guy who started a primal kitchen. And then there's like five or six or 10 or 20 other ones. And they actually but the article was saying, and this is true, that they say different things like not everyone agrees. So there's like, you know, eat a lot of plants, but then there's like carnivore MD. And then, you know, you did your whole thing on the liver king. Like they don't they oftentimes will say like different stuff, but you just get behind someone and you just do whatever they say. Like if you if you talk to Andrew Huberman, like the most common question he gets, and I'm sure you get this, too, which is just tell me exactly what you do.

50:06And I'm going to do the exact same thing. You know what I mean? And on one hand, that's maybe dangerous because it doesn't always apply to each person. But on the other hand, it makes a great-ass business because it's just like, whatever Derek says, I do and I buy. And I think that you've had videos where you're like, my supplement company, I'm not going to just make a ton of product because I have to make the quality good. But you guys are buying so much of it that we need two weeks off in order to restock. You know what I mean? So it's good for you as a business owner. Yeah, I think trust factor is everything nowadays, especially because there is so, especially in the health niche, it is so hard to know who to trust because oftentimes the charlatans will get platformed too because they say outrageous things.

50:54you'll see them on big podcasts even sometimes just because they'll say something that seems so contradictory to what is accepted as you know scientific fact or whatever just to get a good hook not even necessarily because they're the authority or foremost expert in a certain area and it's super confusing for the layman who was just trying to you know learn something and then they hear 17 different versions of recommendations for something that should be basic and yeah trying to even what I do too. And I think a lot of people should do when they're self-educating is find a, you know, handful of people that through all evidence provided are have highest trust factor and knowledge simultaneously, because the two coupled are what are going to lead you to what I feel to be actual recommendations that are practical and, um, valuable rather than just, you know fall it's wild how many you know bad uh educators there are out there for sure and how did you become an expert like uh you know huberman's like a professor at wherever it's like at least like a stanford lab or something um you know you when i first saw your thing you're like oh i think i was clicking like some of the videos that were like what is conor mcgregor taking or john jones or whatever.

52:15And you're talking about the pulsing effects of picograms of whatever that John Jones got popped for. And I was like, how the hell would this guy know? It doesn't even seem like USADA even understands like what the hell's going on. Like, where is the literature of this? How would this random YouTuber know about any of this stuff? Um, largely through years of self-education, but also through educating myself through experts and being, I feel I'm very good at extrapolating out and determining what is valuable information and then assimilating it into my own consolidated framework. That's one of my strong, uh, strong suits.

52:57So it's taken years. I've been researching like a maniac since I was, I don't know, like 10, 10 plus years at this point. So for me, uh, I don't necessarily claim to be an expert. Oftentimes people will, you know, label me as such, but I'm just a guy who's a nerd and learns a lot of shit, and it's been good to date. But yeah, a lot of this stuff is available, though, too. It's just hard to translate into layman's terms. Like somebody who's in the lab determining if an assay is going to be implementable for the USADA in the future to catch people doing fill-in-the-blank. Like the USADA, I don't know, spokespeople don't necessarily understand the chemistry and the science.

53:43They're not going to go out and go into elaborate detail about why you could still get away with micro dosing, for example. Like that kind of nor is it beneficial for them to assert publicly that it's possible to do such. So a lot of this stuff is just swept under the rug and no one talks about it because they either don't understand it or it's not very, I don't know, readily circulated. So, but it's all publicly available. It's just a matter of being able to dissect it. So, you know, that's kind of been it. What do you think of the, uh, the sort of the tech tech, uh, testosterone movement that's going on?

54:16So you got Bezos retires, gets jacked. You got Zuck becoming a MMA fighter. You have, um, who else is, who else is doing it? There's a couple of Brian Johnson, uh, he was on semi-glutide. So he's at least trying to get ripped, not necessarily sauce to the gills, but he's trying going to get you know i'll lose weight yeah what do you think of uh what do you who's doing it right who's doing it wrong what do you what do you see in the uh tech uh tech bodies i think it's uh good that guys are prioritizing muscle mass and quality of life and whatnot over just you know existing so i think it's an overall good thing to have um i don't know be pursuing kind of the masculine type, I don't know, path.

55:04But I don't necessarily know who's doing it wrong or right because they're not very outspoken about their protocols. And what about Brian Johnson? Because he's meticulous about like, you know, publishing what he's doing. What's your take on what he's doing? That guy, it's tough because I do see the value in what he's doing. But I think a lot of it is totally contradictory. Like, for example, the guy will calorie deprive the hell of himself to the point of having hormone suppression, but then a supplement with testosterone. It's like, dude, make up your mind. Which one is going to be conducive to longevity versus not?

55:40Because you're kind of just correcting what you screwed yourself up for to begin with. Why is your body trying to fight back against you just to manually administer something to correct your deficiency self-induced from literal nutrient deprivation? There's clearly some sort of, I don't know, contradictory actions in his protocol, in my opinion. But overall, I think it's interesting for sure seeing what he thinks is impactful versus not. But as he starts to roll out some of the products and services related to his stuff, you start to wonder, you know, how much of it is just, you know, noble intentions versus, you know, the entrepreneurial, you know, aspect of it, which is fine.

56:23But it's like, do not, if it goes down that road where he goes heavy into selling, I really hope he is very candid about his desire to monetize and not make it seem like this noble, you know, thing entirely, because it's certainly not, you know, your private label olive oil, like other people could have got it. You could have just recommended a good company. You didn't have to go do it yourself necessarily. You know, you use some other companies up until a certain point. Why not just talk about them and give them the business? There's some sort of monetary incentive there, which is fine. I think a lot of the stuff he does is way overkill and I think it's kind of hard to track anything with any relative certainty when there's a billion different variables and I also think he puts way too much credence into certain trackers like the age clocks those are complete bullshit essentially and I don't think it's of great utility to be tracking those meticulously as if that's reflective of exactly what's going on and why are the age clocks bullshit?

57:22That I would need to dig into more, but a lot of it is based on your current, what is going on in your body in this current snapshot of time and then trying to reflect, okay, your velocity of aging equals this because you had a transient, like better blood sugar or fill in the blank biomarker. you could just as easily screw up your blood work and make it look like you're way older than you are in a matter of days. So it's like, obviously, your chronological biological age didn't shift that much in a matter of days. But just based on your current health status in your blood, in your body right now, you can make it look like you're plus minus 20 years.

58:03So to actually take that and make it assert that, oh, this is it equals I'm this young now. It's like, no, you're maybe your current snapshot in time reflects something that looks like that, but it is not indicative that that is your overall health status. So I would have to do I probably should do a video on it at some point. But it's most credible people that I trust think it's bullshit. Personally, I test all of them. So I've done inside, I think inside tracker or insight tracker and then true diagnostics. And then like, I've done all of them. They're there. It's messed up because I know in my head that this is theory and that it's like, I know it's a gimmick, but it's so fun.

58:48You know what I mean? They come out the same, Sam, when you try it across multiple services? Yeah, those two came out the same, which was basically like, my blood work is great. And I think they give you actually a number. So they're like, you're 34 biologically, you're 23 chronologically, or what is it? Chronologically, you're 34. Biologically, you're 23. So it said I was great. And then they have this other score where they look at is it the hang on hang on you're 23 biologically yeah like according to this shit it's so which is which is like a false sense i know derek just said it's bullshit but i'm not gonna lie kind of admire you for that but just went up in my books but that's my thing is i see that i'm like oh sick i'm doing everything great but i'm like i'm pretty sore though like i don't know like you know like i don't know if i'm doing everything perfectly and what's it called what What do they look at?

59:35Is it the methane? Methylation. Methylation. They look at that and they're like, oh, you're kicking ass. Your rate of aging is super low. So I'm like, sick. I'm not going to change anything. But that's not exactly the reality because I don't always feel great. You know what I'm saying? I also went on a kick. I've tested everything. So I've tested the semi-glutide. I've tested TRT. I don't do any of that now. And then I use anastrozole, which is like, in my opinion, the worst thing ever. I fucking hate that. It made me feel miserable. i've tried clomid now i don't do anything but i've gone through i've tried it all because i like experimenting with all these stuff and then i like doing the blood work it's like an addicting thing it's like someone who's obsessed with different gadgets you know i'm saying why did you come off of uh trt um because i would so i got like strong so i like uh i wanted to do it because i was really low for years like 130 and i was like all right let's get this right and figure out what's going on and so i did it and i got low body fat i got strong i was hitting like record squat and bench numbers and then i was like all right well let's try without it let's just see what happens if i don't take it and i still felt great and so i was like well you know if i don't have to take it and my testosterone level actually went down but i still felt wonderful and i was still lifting wonderfully and my body felt great so i was like let's just try not doing it for a while how long ago did you come off uh last summer a year yeah okay oh what's your test now dude it dropped it was 800 and then it went to uh 400 420 you said it was like 130 or something before you started yeah man yeah and i was 26 body fat and i felt miserable i was also running my company and i was stressed and i didn't get and um for a year i tried eating healthy and lifting and i just didn't get it right and then i uh sold my company so i got financial security i was pretty pretty ripped.

1:01:25I was pretty strong. My I got married and my relationship was awesome. And I just felt happy. And I ate well, I all natural foods and I just felt dialed in. And then I just went off of it in my testosterone drop. But I didn't feel horrible. Interesting. Well, yeah, if you don't need it, you know, probably better to wait if you don't want to be. How old are you? 30? Are you Are you on it right now? Yeah, but it's for me more so because when I was younger, I did a lot of hardcore bodybuilding stuff and shut down my system. And now with what I know now, I could probably restore natural function similar to what you did, but it would be a lot more aggressive of a recovery phase and more arduous.

1:02:09And putting myself through that right now isn't necessarily top of mind. So it's kind of just been a stay on it right now and optimize everything around it. but yeah that's kind of how i ended up on it there's there's a few of the things that i really like though what's it called the is it bp 157 like some of the bpc like some of these peptides that like for example if i strain my achilles and as i get older i'm like not my my injuries aren't healing um which is like the most depressing thing about age is that you just like heal slower or like and you get hurt easier oh you're 23 what do you mean well that's why those tests are that's i'm saying those tests are bullshit they like say that you're young i'm like i don't know man my shoulder freaking hurts and it's been hurting for a month uh and uh like i've been really interested in some of those recovery drugs or peptides or whatever you want to call them um what do you think about those i think they can be useful for sure as long as they're context specific and not overused because a lot of them are pro for example bpc is increased to something called vegef expression and it's pro angiogenic meaning it will literally create it it can induce blood flow that essentially was not present.

1:03:19So you could also have a pro carcinogenic type proliferative effect with cancer cell development. If you have existing cancer cells that could be, you know, exacerbated. So I think some athletes use it preventatively a bit too much, but in the context where you actually have an injury, there's a little blood flow to it. You can actually have a use case for I think it's super high utility, very valuable product. From my very amateur point of view, I think that the semi-glutide and metformin and some of these other, what's it called, the GLB limiter or, you know, am I using the phrasing correctly?

1:03:58GLP-1 agonist? Yeah, like these things that limit blood spikes or blood sugar spikes, those seem really fascinating. They even seem fascinating to the point of, I think they can help alcoholics, not become alcohol or, you know, get off alcohol. Like, like, there's some like, weird things about these drugs that they can do other things and what they are intended to do. And that's super fascinating to me at the moment. But I know that you were, I think you were on semi-glutide. I don't know if you are anymore. Yeah, I've tested most of the GLP-1 agonists for appetite suppression. And yeah, they definitely are.

1:04:34Of the available appetite suppressants in the pharmaceutical world are probably the best overall mechanism in how they work. Because previous to that, it was people just abusing the hell out of Adderall and fentramine and crazy stimulants to shut down their appetite. But it also screws up their heart, their brain. I wouldn't say that semaglutide or some of these drugs are risk-free, though. And they certainly have question marks around their long-term use, especially in children who were developing but um yeah i think they have like a children's dose now don't they yeah yeah yeah i think so we do there's like an ozempic juniors yeah which is fucked up right it's just i would want the answer to be just eat less but yeah the thing though is is it are those children ever going to become optimal without it and then is the roi worth it and you could easily assert that those fat kids that would have been fat kids regardless are better off by taking it for sure yeah so and i wouldn't say well generally that's the answer for anybody who's overweight of course because there are certain uh certainly ways to educate and help people get on the right path that don't involve drugs and i've seen plenty of people do great that were formerly very fat and then end up down a different life path and are leaning around and have amazing lifestyles and get into a habit and cement it into their everyday life but you know some kids are i don't know just might need it for all we know you did you did this good thing i mentioned your europe video and the interesting thing to me was actually that you said that you weren't training that hard and you i think you like indulged in bread and food like you you you live like a tourist you know you ate a lot but you're like i didn't i felt great because a i was walking a ton and i don't remember if you said this or if I read this from somewhere else, another person's experience, but you're like, the groceries and food just seem to higher quality, whether that involves regulation around the FDA and certain chemicals are or aren't allowed.

1:06:36You said you spend a lot on groceries and you get high quality stuff. Are you buying most of your foods from popular grocery stores or do you buy online from niche providers? What are you doing for that? I go to a butcher for bison, liver, and things of that nature, mostly my meats. But a lot of the other stuff is local grocery. In Canada, there's not a lot of flexibility, unfortunately, on quality or just availability of some of the foods that you might otherwise buy at higher-end places in the States. So as much as I'd love to have, if I could, the highest level of everything, sourcing is a huge issue in Canada.

1:07:15as absurd as it sounds, like sourcing for basic foods. So yeah, when I can, I get the best available. But for example, bison, I think, is the leanest, most nutrient-dense red meat, essentially, that you could get. And I will buy a ton of that, even though it's three times more expensive than extra lean ground beef at the grocery store. So that's one example. We talked about this company. I don't remember, Sean, if you said Huberman helped get it going or was an affiliate or something. or whatever yeah man that thing was cool like i i ordered a bunch of stuff like the but i have no idea if i'm getting sold in the marketing or not but like the story behind it like they got me bought in like they got me so bought into it no i was at a peter retia's place a couple weeks ago and i had the venison sticks or whatever that they sell and pretty damn good um and yeah i trust him and his recommendation so i would imagine it's on the up and up and everything's probably pretty top tier yeah man i that story like totally got me bought in i thought it was a cool business um okay and i've been watching some of your videos and it's made me nervous about just like my food and like the quality of food and like whole foods for the longest time was like the gold standard and now i'm like no man that still might even be shit like i it's it's to the point where i want to start raising my own animals you know what i mean or oh yeah it's tough because it's a lot of people will swear off supplements and say buy whole foods but then other people will say the whole foods or the soil is depleted of nutrients so then you should supplement but then this you know there's uh trying to know what you're doing can be quite arduous and uh sketchy even when you're trying to optimize even when you have the financial means it's trying to even figure out what to spend your money on can be uh overwhelming at times for sure well we appreciate you coming on man i've been a big fan of yours for years i know sean has too um you're I think what's going to happen is in the next four or five years, you might have an exit or there's going to be some type of article that reveals how big your empire is.

1:09:17And I think a lot of people are going to be surprised at some of the outcomes that you have. I believe that you can build multiple billion plus or nine-figure companies off the back of this audience. And I think it's going to be really cool when that story finally comes out. I will see where it goes I appreciate you guys having me on and being so patient as I get back into content here because I know you guys have been trying to Kieran has been trying to get me on for a while so I'm glad we were able to make it happen yeah shout out to him thanks Kieran we appreciate that right on alright that's it that's the pod

1:10:09hey let's take a quick break because there's a quote that i love i want to read you it's that we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us and you know as an entrepreneur if you're using a bank that was built in the 90s? You're operating like you're in the 90s. And trust me, I've been there. Clunky portals, random holds on your money,$50 wire fees, and then being told, please visit your local branch. Well, that's why I switched to a different type of banking solution, Mercury. It turns your financial chores into a smooth workflow. You can do wires, invoices, cards, reimbursements, two clicks, and I'm done.

1:10:39If you're already using Mercury, respect. If you're still using one of the old big banks, I got questions for you. So go visit mercury.com and give it a test drive. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, column N-A, and Evolve Bank and Trust members, FDIC.