MAFIA MOMENTS: Mark Sisson Shares Wisdom on Entrepreneurship and the Future of Food
Download MP3It's about the workout I did. It's about how much I love my kids. Rich people don't love their kids any more or less than poor people do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Warren Buffett or, you know, Jeff Bezos doesn't enjoy a hike in in the Aspen Highlands any more or less than than somebody who has almost no money is living in out of a backpack. It's the same hike. So all the things that make life the real things that make life enjoyable are accessible to just about everybody.
Speaker 2:Right. Alright, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Meat Mafia podcast. On today's episode, we have another mafia moments. This is our Friday series that we release every single Friday at 5 AM.
Speaker 2:And this is a time for us to go back in time throughout the history of the entire show and pull out some of the best nuggets, those golden nuggets from some of the best conversations that we've had. So I'm excited to share this one with you guys today. This one was from our conversation with Mark Sisson, and Mark was a remarkable guest on our podcast. We were, honestly, from the beginning of starting the show, Mark was our our number one dream guest to get. He's a great blend between entrepreneur and fitness enthusiast and health enthusiast.
Speaker 2:He's done so many amazing things from starting Mark Mark's Daily Apple to starting Primal Kitchen. Truly has given so much light into the world of health the health and wellness space, not only from a pragmatic and practical perspective. I think he approaches a lot of the problems that we see in the health and wellness world from a really nuanced lens and a lens that's also free from a lot of the dogma that you see in the health and wellness world. So truly appreciate Mark's perspective on health and wellness and also his open mindedness to consistently iterate through different versions of what it means to be a healthy person. I look up to Mark a lot and I just really think that he gives great advice when it comes to being healthy.
Speaker 2:And then there's the other side of Mark, which is this savvy business guy who's started several great companies. Some have done really well. Some have failed. But later in his life, he started Primal Kitchen, which absolutely crushed it. It was a concept built around the idea of creating healthy sauces and condiments for everyone to be able to use without having to worry about seed oils.
Speaker 2:And Mark has just built an incredible business and brand with that and was lucky enough to be able to sell it. And our snippet here today was from our conversation with Mark, and it really points in on this exact idea that that I just touched on, which is, what does it actually mean to be fulfilled and be happy? And, you know, success can come, success can go, but what does it actually mean to truly find joy in life? That thing that I think most everyone is going after, just finding joy in life. And for Mark, I think he really gave us a level perspective on really as as entrepreneurs, you know, for Brett and myself early on in our journey, it's really easy to think that you have to put everything on hold in life.
Speaker 2:And Mark kinda spoke some truth into us saying, live your life and continue to build the things that you wanna build, but don't stop living your life. And it was something we needed to hear, and this is an an extension of that part of the conversation where he goes a little bit deeper into how he ended up starting his entrepreneurial endeavors, how he ended up selling his business. It's an incredible story. I think there's a ton of value in here. I'll stop belaboring the point, but love Mark.
Speaker 2:Love what he's all about. Really appreciated him coming on the podcast, and I think you guys are gonna really enjoy this clip. If you love the podcast as much as you enjoy this clip, please go check out our Telegram group. We have great conversations in there. You guys get direct access to Brett and myself.
Speaker 2:It's a fun way for us to stay in contact with you guys, and truly, we love the nature of the podcast and just what it brings to our lives and just being able to share a space where we can just kinda hang out and be open to you guys and chat. And if you guys ever have any questions, we're just happy to answer them. So please go check that out. It's the Telegram link in the description below. And without further ado, Mark Sisson.
Speaker 3:You you were talking about your mindset of when you took out that $50,000 loan from your from your mom's husband. You had 2 kids. You had a wife. What was your mindset like at that period of time? Like, were there naturally some doubts there or lack of confidence, or did you just know like, did you just have that vision and that that trust in yourself?
Speaker 3:Because I think there's a lot of people that listen to our show that are in the midst of building something out and don't have that financial success yet. So it'd just be amazing
Speaker 1:to see. There were sleepless nights. I mean, when I say I had confidence, I I had confidence in the daytime, in my ability to and I, you know, I'd I'd orchestrated that move to start this supplement company, but I also had, in place a couple of consulting contracts that I had arranged. So I I was, creating, bars and supplements for QVC and home shopping network and, Beachbody, which became p 90 x. So I had some consulting agreements that paid the bills while I was building this business.
Speaker 1:So I didn't know I didn't and the the idea of going to a private equity firm and raising money, that was that was early days for that. That that kind of thing in 96 and 97 didn't didn't even exist. Venture capital was still all about tech, and that was even early days for venture capital. So, yeah, I was I would stay awake nights. Like, what if this fails?
Speaker 1:What if I can't, you know, do this? What, you know, what am I gonna do? But I'm also confident enough in my skills and abilities that I could get a job. Right? And so part of the like, one of the, the caveats to living your life as a young person and building your business is try not to go into too much debt.
Speaker 1:Right? Don't don't live the high life on the credit cards and then find yourself in in that hole. But the point is you could be making $75,000 a year and living a great life and saving no money, or you could be making $250,000 a year having a great life and saving no money. In either case, you're having a great life and saving no money. The only difference is the the size of the place you're living in, the type of car you're driving, the the number of bottles of wine of great wine you're buying.
Speaker 1:You know, those are all kind of bullshit differences, but but it doesn't take a lot of money to live a great life. You've all it takes is a cell phone, a laptop, a big screen TV, a roof over your head, some form of transportation, and some food. Mhmm. Right? And and you're set.
Speaker 1:So that's not anybody can kind of use that basic set of guidelines and say, okay. As long as I've covered those basic needs, my enjoyment of life from there isn't about the McMansion or the car. It's about the hike that I took with my girlfriend or my wife. It's about the workout I did. It's about how much I love my kids.
Speaker 1:Rich people don't love their kids any more or less than poor people do.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Warren Buffett or, you know, Jeff Bezos doesn't enjoy a hike in in the Aspen Highlands anymore or less than than somebody who has almost no money is living in out of a backpack. It's the same hike. So all the things that make life the real things that make life enjoyable are accessible to just about everybody.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's just somebody some people are so caught up in the business part of it that they give up that hike. They give up spending time with their kids or their relationship, and that's the real sad part.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it's a great perspective. Like, we we talk about it and almost jokingly talk about all the time. Like, all we need is, like, a gym, a sauna, a bed to sleep in. Like shit.
Speaker 2:Then and, like, family and community. I mean, those things set you up for a life full of happiness. Right? Like, taking care of your body and and being with good people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I have a fair amount of money now. I'm very well off. Thank you. And I and I have a friend who's, one of my best friends who's essentially a billionaire, and we joke about how we walk around in, you know, shorts and a t shirt or a cutoff and and crappy shoes all the time.
Speaker 1:And Not anymore. And we take yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. Not anymore. Yeah. That's why I have these.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 1:But Yeah. And that's why, you know and so we'll but we'll do, you know, a hike in different parts of the world together. Now we were able to get to that different part of the world, but the hike is the hike. Right? You know?
Speaker 1:Or the workout is the workout. And some of the best workouts I've ever had are in are in really ragtag gyms, not, you know, a lifetime fitness with a 100,000 square feet of gym Mhmm. Space. Right. But, you know, Joe's gym down the street where he made his own equipment, and I got an amazing workout from that.
Speaker 1:So Right. You know, if you boil life down to those sort of essential moments, time with your family, time with your with your significant other, enjoying meals. I mean, some of the best meals I've ever had are at, very inexpensive restaurants or stuff I've cooked at home. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1:Of the worst meals I've ever had just in terms of, like, seriously? Are you kidding me? You charge this much money for for the for this fine dining experience. Right. So so much is available to to enjoy the moment, enjoy life, and not be caught up in if I bust my ass, one day I'll be able to have all this stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm arguing that all the stuff that you think you really need, you don't, and all the stuff that's important, you have access to right now.
Speaker 3:Mark, when you when that deal with, between Primal Kitchen and Kraft Heinz actually closed and you realized that you had created generational wealth that day, was there ever any fear of, like, oh, I've seen money change a lot of people. Like, I hope this doesn't happen to me, or were you just someone that's always really just trusted in who you are and your principles and knew that it's, like, the simple things that make you happy? I'm just curious, like, what your mindset was like on the day that that deal actually went through.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It was, it was an interesting day because it was the come culmination of of a lot of work and a lot of, you know, a a a 50 year overnight success story. Right? Yeah. And it was a it was amazing high because I I realized I was set, you know, for life, and I could do whatever I wanted to.
Speaker 1:And just as a just as a as a as a victory, as so often happens with sports, the next day I was depressed. I'm like, okay. Now what? Like It's like running
Speaker 2:an Ironman. Like, the next day, you're just miserable. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:It's like running an Ironman. Yeah. It's like this is the this is the greatest day of my life, and the next day is like, Jesus. So now what? Now how do I how do what do I do to follow-up that that yeah.
Speaker 1:How do I chase that high? So there was that. The general weight generational wealth thing, you know, that means how does it trickle down into, you know, my children and my grandchildren. I'm I'm not concerned about about any of that. My kids are, my daughter and my son are both extremely well adjusted.
Speaker 1:They it's interesting how the generations work. So that generation, they saw what it took to get there. Mhmm. They saw the blood, sweat, and tears, and they and they saw like, I don't wanna paint a picture like it was all fun, and it was all like I knew what I was doing. It was a lot of there was a lot of failure in there.
Speaker 1:So they saw that, and they saw what having no money looked like. And they saw what it took to get to build this. So there's appreciation of what it took to get there. With with most situations like this, it's the next generation that you have to be most concerned about because they didn't see it happening, and they didn't work for it. And so but, you know, it's it's I it won't be an issue with our family.
Speaker 1:We've got, you know, trusts and things in place that sort of prevent, wild abuse of, yeah, of any of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What what are your thoughts on the critique? There seems to be this critique online, at least, of people exiting their businesses and selling to big food and them almost, like, losing their mission. And and the reason I asked the question is we had on, Taylor Collins who started Epic Provisions. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And he's caught a lot of, slack from people for selling, to General Mills, which I think that there's a lot of positive things that came out of it. But just interested to hear how you think about that because, you know Taylor's a great example. He's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And So so Taylor would not be able to do what he's doing right now without that exit. So so Taylor took an early exit with with Epic, and I was in awe of what he'd done so quickly. I I thought their branding was exceptional. I thought everything they did. I don't, I don't it's not a product that I that I stay abreast of, so I don't know how much it's been, it's been altered or changed over time.
Speaker 1:I almost don't care because what Taylor's done with with his proceeds of that and and with force of nature is spectacular. And so he's going to 10 x the effect that he has on the world by virtue of the fact that he took the exit that he took. In my case, we had a number of suitors that wanted to buy primal kitchen, and the people on the team at, Kraft Heinz were so compelling in their desire to take on what we were doing, which was changing the way the world eats. We were we were reimagining how big food could look at mass produced, food offerings. So I was quite clear that, a, I didn't want them to change any of the team.
Speaker 1:I didn't want them to change any of the ingredients. And so that was sort of built into the agreement. So it's now, four and a half years since that sale. Mhmm. And my team is the same team it was on exit, except we've hired more people.
Speaker 1:But nobody got fired as a result of the transaction. Kraft Heinz has been an amazing partner in in supporting the marketing and supporting, the r and d that we lead. So all the r and d is you know, we're the ones driving. Like, we need this. We need this.
Speaker 1:We need this. They'll provide it. They've been an amazing partner, and they've been willing to listen to, you know, my observations about their other brands. You know, Kraft is is a great company. Warren Buffett owns, you know, part of it, a large part of it, and then a company called 3 g out of Brazil owns another large part of it, and the rest of it is publicly traded.
Speaker 1:And Warren said a couple of years ago, he said, you know, they had to write down the value of Kraft because they recognized the future of some of those brands was not was not bright, was not brilliant. And as as Buffett said, we bought a great company. We just overpaid for it. Mhmm. So, the idea that some of these brands are are not growing and their legacy brands that have been around for a long time.
Speaker 1:So Kraft isn't isn't even its own brand. It's Kraft Mac and Cheese. It's Heinz ketchup. It's Oscar Mayer. It's or it was Oreo and potatoes, Kool Aid, Maxwell House Coffee, Planters Peanuts.
Speaker 1:You go down the line, it's 50 different 50 different, companies that are under this umbrella. And, and they they they each have their own demographic and their own, group that they speak to. The primal kitchen happens to be an expanding group. We've grown significantly since we were required, and that pleases me because so many people are now have now have access to better for you condiments that they put on their food. Right?
Speaker 1:So we have 85 SKUs now. We have 85 different different products that we sell in the stores. And that would not have been as easy to do. If not, it may not have even been possible without the assistance of craft And they're well, not there. So they they own the company, but but they're looking to us, and they literally stand back and go, you know, show us show us what we can do.
Speaker 1:Show us what you can do, but then show us, you know, how we can maybe incorporate some of this these learnings into the rest of our brands.
Speaker 3:That's a good answer because there is just this blanket fear mongering of, oh, just because you sell to a larger company, that's inherently bad. And a lot of people don't understand the retail and distribution benefits of going with a large company. I have a lot of family friends that, you know, they shop at, you know, Wegmans or ShopRite or Costco, and now they have access to Primal Kitchen. They're getting the big bottles of dressing and buffalo sauce and stuff, and they never would have been able to do that if you guys didn't have the distribution of Kraft Heinz because they would never would have access to that before.
Speaker 1:No. And and I've seen it go the other way. I mean, I've seen it. I've seen brands get acquired and then get, you know, altered with the ingredient choices. But, you know, we were so based on our ingredients.
Speaker 1:That was what we brought to the table was this this choice of raw materials and ingredients that no one else had had before. It it's like why would a company buy us for that reason and then change that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It it seems like a lot of these there's a lot of these smaller companies popping up that are either trying to ride the wave that you've created, like this alternative health space, like no seed oils, maybe more regeneratively sourced. And I'm wondering, what do you see for as, like, the future of the food system? Because one of the things we talk about a lot on the show, we've had some regenerative farmers on. We think that there's a bright future there if we can get more people on board and understanding what that actually means.
Speaker 2:But can that coexist with what already exists with big food? And will these big companies come around to actually really improving the food system through real food and not just more ultra processed food?
Speaker 1:Man, that's a real tough question. That's an economics 101 question. Right? Supply and demand. I mean, the demand for crunchy, salty, fatty, sweet is always high, and that's why big food and and and, again, big food has this this bad, you know, reputation because of what they produce.
Speaker 1:On the other hand, they they are owned not by 1 guy, but by millions of people. Many people have some big food in their 401 k, and they want it to go up in value. And so the, you know, these corporations have to answer to their shareholders and have to demonstrate a profit and growth over time. And it's really tough to do when you're using expensive ingredients, and you're only selling to a small percentage of population. In terms of regenerative ag, I mean, I think that's how we save the world.
Speaker 1:I really do. I'm I'm such a fan of regenerative ag, which is why I'm a big fan of what Taylor's doing. And, there are a lot of these local local growers and local farmers who are, you know, embracing that concept. The good thing about regenerative ag is that it is that it doesn't lend itself to scaling other than from a a large organizational point because part of part of regenerative ag would suggest that you wanna get the animal you don't wanna put the animal in a, you know, in a in a in a truck in any configuration, whether it's a live animal or a butchered animal to drive 2,000 miles to the point of distribution. So the localness of, of regenerative ag is is of interest to me.
Speaker 1:I mean, I have all these wild, ideas that just, if you find me executing them, come come remind me that I told you to stop me from doing this because I have this idea that we could we could train a generation of, of farmers in agricultural programs and literally give them each 400 acres, to to share crop and, you know, of a local farm to grow, beef and to, and chickens and and cows and rebuild the soil and then convert that soil into vegetables for some people. Mhmm. You know, that's a dirty word here. No. But but the idea that that we could first of all, the notion that that animal meat is bad for humans just drives me crazy.
Speaker 1:And seeing that on Twitter and on Instagram and, and being promoted by the World Health Organization and all of these World Economic Forum and all these these so called organizations that think they have our best interest at heart are actually it's one of the worst things that could happen is getting rid of meat. So I don't know if you've had, you know, Diane on on with sustainable dish. She and Rob wrote, the the, what's it called? Sacred cow? Sacred cow.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Great book, and everybody should read that. You know? So so I'm all about, sustainability. Now the future of food, what does that look like?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a big part of it. If we could get more, acceptance that meat is the ideal form of, like, high highest level protein for every human on the planet, that would be a big step forward. The fat thing, that's that's a tough one because I've been, my the primal kitchen's been the one of the largest buyers of avocado oil in the world, and it's tough. Avocados are are a tough, commodity. They're very expensive.
Speaker 1:They're they're hard to grow. They take a long time. Once you plant, you know, a grove, it takes years before it produces. Most avocado growers would much rather see that their avocado be on a table be table fruit than be pressed into into oil. So where does that leave us with access to, large amounts of, inexpensive and better for you oils?
Speaker 1:And so I'm I'm I'm and have been for a long time, a fan of the cultured oil thing that's that's cropping up. Mhmm. We we looked at that in 2016. We looked at doing a mayonnaise with a cultured oil. It just we couldn't get enough of it to to to mass produce, but it it tastes fabulous.
Speaker 1:It had the best fatty acid profile of any oil we'd ever seen. Wow. So I think there's, there's probably some allowance there for tech to come in and, and produce that essential type of fat that we're all looking for. But but that, up to now, we've had to rely on these industrial seed oils that have more problems than benefits.
Speaker 3:Does the concept of doing, like, a dressing or a mayo with something like tallow or lard, is that of interest, or is it just really tough behind the scenes trying to render that down and do it at cost?
Speaker 1:Well, so we have a lot so many factors that that have prevented other companies from entering this space for the longest time. Even an extra virgin olive oil salad dressing congeals in the in the, refrigerator. So you have to be able to refrigerate these products because you don't put preservatives in them. So they have a they're shelf stable with if they're unopened for up to a year. Once you open them, you have to refrigerate them, and you have to use them within a reasonable amount of time.
Speaker 1:But if you refrigerate tallow, it just you know, it turns solid almost immediately. True. Same with extra virgin olive oil. So there's a limit on the types of fats that you can use to make these, popular fatty foods, the dressings and the condiments, you know, the mayonnaise, and things like that. It's a it's it's quite an interesting challenge.
Speaker 1:There was a company that based their entire line on, extra virgin olive oil and no other oils in their salad dressings. And you you would keep it in the refrigerator, but you'd have to run it under the sink for 40 minutes under in hot water, and then shake it up before you could put it on the salad. So it was quite inconvenient. Or you could put it in the microwave, but that's sort of and, you know, contrary to everyone's idea of what an all natural, you know, best ingredient formulation would would would have to go through.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It seems like the tallow trend is here like, just in its early innings. Like, a lot of people are coming around at tallow as, like, a skin care product or just, like, all these different uses. Yeah. Like, I
Speaker 3:Masa chips.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Masa chips.
Speaker 1:Have you
Speaker 3:tried masa chips before?
Speaker 1:No. All that stuff is amazing, and and you're right. It's coming around full circle from a 150 years ago. You know? Right.
Speaker 1:Just like bone broth came full circle. Look. For the longest time, we made bone broth. I mean, not we, but our but our our ancestors, our grandparents, our even sometimes our parents would rend you know, take a chicken carcass and then boil it for a couple of hours and make a a broth or stock out of it. Same with leftover, full parts of of whatever beef or or pork or lamb that we had.
Speaker 1:There was always some sort of a stock, a bone broth that was that was, ready to be used in a soup later on or consumed, on its own. For some reason, the convenience, the hectic pace of modern life, and the convenience of just eating the choice cuts of meat and just not even having to go to the butcher anymore, but just going to the supermarket and getting a saran wrap, you know, flank steak, and that's all you need, kind of got us out of this habit of consuming bone broth. And so my thesis was one of the reasons that people, especially athletes, had injuries so much in the eighties nineties and early 2000 was because we no longer ate bone broth. We didn't eat any other parts of the animal, so we didn't eat nose to tail, which is where a lot of the collagenous material comes from. In in my youth, we ate Jell O.
Speaker 1:It was a dessert, and it it's gelatin.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Or beef gelatin?
Speaker 1:It was Jell O.
Speaker 2:It was just you
Speaker 1:know, it would derive from from beef Jell O, but it was Jell O. But then, you know, and then in the nineties and 2000, it got a bad reputation for being, you know, full of sugar and it's and too much of a sweet treat for kids. And so it kind of fell out of favor. So now we're not eating bone broth. We're not eating nose to tail.
Speaker 1:We're not eating any of the nether parts. God knows the bodybuilders ate skinless chicken breasts for years years. And and we had no access to collagen in our diet. And so all of it connected, the ACL tears, the MCL tears, the the Achilles issues, the ruptures, the the the the tendinosis. My thesis is that's all a result of depriving the body of the basic bodybuilding or building ingredients, the building blocks it needs to repair connective tissue, fascia, tendons, ligaments, cartilage.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so so that's when bone broth came back on the scene about 10 years ago. And then, collagen supplementation. I got so into collagen supplementation that I started to produce primal kitchen made its own collagen. And now, you know, with with the idea that we're not only supporting skin, hair, and nails, which was always sort of a marketing thing for women for collagen.
Speaker 1:Now we're supporting the healthy, tendons, ligaments, fascia, connective tissue, and things like that.
Speaker 3:That that collagen with some raw cream is so good in coffee. I've I've done that, I think, since, like, 2020. It's incredible. You're one of the first guys that I remember saying you should not, like, not on chicken bones to get some collagen into.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And every kid, you know, growing up would gnaw on on on on a on the soft end of a chicken bone.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I I remember very distinctly being a child and loving that part of the chicken.
Speaker 2:Are you a Weston a Price fan?
Speaker 1:I mean, I yeah. Over time, sure. Sure. I mean, I think he was he was way ahead of his time, and, you know, his his recognition of the dental health of of, indigenous peoples was pretty spot on. You know, where where he started to lose me was the, the amount of time spent in preparing grains and seeds and and nuts and things like that because I'm I become less enamored of those over time.
Speaker 1:And I think as our buddy, Paul Saladino, would say, a lot of those are emergency foods. They're not necessarily the, you know, they shouldn't be the highlight or basis of of a diet in in my estimation. Ironically, my, downstairs neighbor is Dan Buettner.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Do you know who Dan Buettner
Speaker 2:is? No. No. Blue
Speaker 1:the Blue Zones diet guy?
Speaker 2:Oh, gotcha. Okay. Cool.
Speaker 1:So we have these. We have we're and we're very good friends, and we you know, we Do you
Speaker 2:guys take the same elevator?
Speaker 1:We take the totally take the same elevator. Exactly. And, we become very good friends, and he's a great guy. And we have a we have but we have a lot of fun talking about all the, you know, in the blue zones concepts, of this seven basic things that that define the habits, of of, centenarians, the source of protein is just a tiny subset of one of them. Right?
Speaker 1:The rest of it is all moving around a lot, community, having strong relationships, play, you know, things like that. So but it's on this, source of proteins that we differ. And he's like, you need to have a cup of beans a day, you know, for the rest of your life to to to live to a 100. I'm like, no. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's like so so the back to your Weston a price thing. I mean, he had some amazing early investigation into, the lifestyles of of, people indigenous peoples who had exceptional health.
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