The Meat Mafia Podcast

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Nico, thanks so much for joining me, man. Thanks so much for having me. So you made the trip out from Spokane, Washington, right? From beautiful Spokompton, heck yeah. Spokompton, is that what the kids call it? Oh yeah, or uh, what, Spokalahoma, there's a few good ones. Nice. So you're on a little bit of a roadshow right now, just spreading the goodness of your brand, Knickknack Naturals.

Heck yeah. And I gotta thank you because I think, um, so we probably have five or six people in our office. That have been crushing knick knacks to we've been going through it like fiends man. It's such a great product that you guys have on Hey, thank you so much. Really appreciate that. Yeah, you're fuel.

You're fueling our productivity, honestly Good to hear. Yeah. Yeah. I think they say that modern civilization was fueled off the backs of nicotine and caffeine And I would say that that's probably true Yeah, yeah, no comment on that but yeah You know, I gotta be super careful. Totally obviously nicotine is under a ton of scrutiny So, you know, I won't be making any claims today totally but uh Yeah, no, it's it that's awesome to hear and I [00:01:00] love getting your your opinion on it my yeah my opinion for sure man No, I'm super excited to dig into this because we haven't publicly talked much about nicotine, you know We're more of a podcast on nutrition on the food system.

We're digging more into like the general health and wellness space I think nicotine is a great topic. Obviously like every gas station you go to you see Zin's everywhere I know that that company has done an amazing job, like getting people that were using cigarettes and vapes and I'll still allow them to get the buzz of like, kind of like a clean nicotine hit, but there are some things about their product that I think could be improved, which is why we were so pumped when we came across you guys just to have the benefits of nicotine, but also have something that's like, Sweetened with healthy ingredients minimal ingredient in general.

I kind of checked all the boxes for us. Yeah. Yeah 100 percent I mean, there's there's probably 50 million plus nicotine users in the United States Yeah, and so it looks like there's probably about a millions in users. I mean, that's an amazing improvement Wow I mean, you know, we can go to detail [00:02:00] why vape Yeah, I mean, that's amazing, right?

I mean, that's a million less people that are, you know, putting something bad in their lungs or, you know, putting chew in their lip or whatever it is. A hundred percent. Definitely an amazing improvement. Um, yeah, I mean, it's an amazing job of kind of rebranding nicotine. Yeah, it feels like literally every gas station you go to you can get like every single flavor.

Yeah, you know, just an amazing success story Yeah, I mean they're the philip morris buyout. It's nothing to nothing to laugh at and yeah, you know, they launched I think in april 2019 So they're not even been on the american market very long. Yeah, and you know, obviously they've super blown up Yeah, I think a lot about like If, um, like when you think about the chocolate industries, there's Hershey's, and then there's like Hugh Dark Chocolate that was like the really healthy dark chocolate brand that blew up a couple years ago where you still get the deliciousness of chocolate, but like a single ingredient chocolate bar.

And I feel like you guys are almost like the Hugh Chocolate of the nicotine space. Totally, yeah, I mean we're just trying to like, we're, we're, [00:03:00] you're not required to put your ingredients on nicotine products, you know, we just do it entirely voluntarily. So like that's just part of our brand image and part of what we're trying to deliver to our customers is, hey, here's a product where we go out of our way to be transparent.

Yeah. We could have withheld information, but no, we want to tell you what our ingredients are so you can make the most informed decision. And have the best possible product. Totally. What do you think people should know about, like, the differences between tobacco itself and nicotine? Because I know that, like, If people know that I have like a nicotine pouch in or one of your nicotine mints in there, they're like, Oh, does that cause cancer?

Does that not cause cancer? There's like a huge misconception around that. Great question. Yeah. I mean, there's tons of people that give us a hard time that, Oh, you're going to get people cancer. You're going to cause strokes, whatever it is. Um, you know, even the WHO, they have, what is it? The international agency for cancer research.

They say, hey, there's no evidence that nicotine causes cancer, or even the U. S. Surgeon General, no evidence that nicotine causes cancer. [00:04:00] So, you know, this isn't from us, not our opinion, but, you know, the people at the top of medical opinions say that. There's no evidence nicotine causes cancer. Yeah, and you know, we can we can look at there's some interesting, uh models for rodents You know, we don't have long term science on humans using nicotine because it's it's honestly brand new right like it's in kind of launched that Yeah, so We can totally get into that science if you want to but you know, it's it seems that humans metabolize nicotine pretty well Yeah, you know, it's it we actually probably metabolize it better than like caffeine for example So if you get in like the half life of caffeine, you know, that can be five to six hours Mm hmm, whereas nicotine for most people one to two hours You know a guy like you probably 45 minutes Livers a little bit bigger.

Well, it's actually nice to know because that that's the that's the issue with caffeine is like a lot of Times I'll find myself needed to bang out some work at like seven eight o'clock at the office You I'm a little bit tired. I could use a little bit of stimulation, but I don't want to drink a cup of coffee [00:05:00] because that's going to be in my system the entire night where it's like something like one of these mints.

I could throw one in and I could still go to bed by like 10 o'clock and it'll be out of my system. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Nicotine is really interesting. There's something called Nesbitt's paradox. And so with caffeine, You hit a threshold and then you start to get into that like really high cortisol area.

Mm. You get shaky or you know, you, you, you have some degradation and performance at a certain level. Um, nicotine's really fascinating 'cause when you do too much, it actually has, uh, a then a negative reaction. Mm. So when, when nicotine first goes into the body, you have this increase in dopamine. Um, which from, you know, is, has a lot of negative associations right now.

Yeah. But generally speaking, a little bit of dopamine keeps you awake. That's part of the stimulant effect. Obviously nicotine is known to also stimulate the acetylcholine pathway So both those things kind of contribute to more neurological activity But what's interesting is when the nicotine levels go too high Then you start to [00:06:00] see and actually that kind of a slowdown and that's why some people use nicotine to relax as well Oh interesting.

Yep. And so yeah, you don't get that like crazy overload like you do with caffeine. It's kind of interesting It's pretty cool how there's like two distinct use cases for it, too. Yeah, it's pretty wild You That's an unusual compound. Usually most compounds go one direction. So for you, like starting this brand knick knack, was it something where you maybe started using zins or nicotine pouches and you really enjoyed the, you really enjoyed the compound.

And then the more research you did, you were like, I think there's something here to maybe. Improve the space or what was that story kind of like for you? Yeah, I know totally. Um, actually I never used nicotine The first nicotine product I use is actually toothpicks Oh, because that was the only I could find that was that kind of met my criteria But basically I was just a huge nerd and really got into biohacking I did all sorts of wild like multi day dry fast and you name it.

I've done all sorts of weird stuff Wow So, one of the things I wanted to [00:07:00] try because all these people were hyping it up like Dave Asprey and, you know, you name him. Um, I was like, well, I want to try nicotine. It's really interesting. Like, I just want to do the experiment. So I got these toothpicks, tried it, and it's like, okay, well, nicotine, I personally really enjoy it.

It's like, and, and there's like totally this romantic side of nicotine that gets neglected that, you know, people used to use nicotine to like maximize enjoyment of things. And so for me, you know, every now and then I'll take a break. And I find that when I miss it the most is actually. Like when I'm socializing with my family.

Mm hmm, you know like It totally optimizes those those moments, especially like I come from a big family likes to argue Yeah, so for that we're like the social lubricant that that's awesome. That's my personal use case. Yeah, but anyways

You know, I I wanted to find a way that was better than a toothpick because toothpicks are frankly like Not a very good delivery system. Yeah, so I started investigating You know how people get [00:08:00] nicotine. What are the problems with it? How do we make it better? And you know, that's how we came up with knick knack and you know, I think we've accomplished that I think we've we found the single, you know, this is my opinion the single best way of getting nicotine into the human body Yeah, so that would be our argument and we can kind of get into details of if you'd like, you know Why I don't love vape or pouches, but yeah, well, I think it's I think you guys came up with like the best use case where I think everyone's been there where you throw in a nicotine pouch and you're out in public.

And you're like, what the hell do I do with this thing right here? And you're like stuffing it into your pocket where it's like, you guys put it in the form of like a delicious, but healthy mint. So if I need to, I can just kind of chew on it. There's no like discarding mechanism that you need to do or anything like that.

I can throw it in for a podcast. I couldn't be podcasting with you. If I had a nicotine toothpick in, I would look pretty cool, but it wouldn't be ideal for a, yeah, there's no denying you'd look great. Yeah. But were there any other, um, use cases for that? That you were thinking about for knick knack [00:09:00] that ultimately didn't come to fruition that you were interested in Um, it kind of just like naturally evolved by itself, you know when I first started prototyping this thing I literally was making it in the kitchen.

Mm hmm So it was like learning confectionery techniques and you know, all sorts of wild stuff, you know Just basically freebasing nicotine and going for it Yeah, but you know cut it took a few years to really dial this in and get everything You To where we liked it and some of it was serendipitous.

Some of it was our own research. Um, but you know, that all those things kind of contributed to, to ultimately the product that we have. I mean, obviously like, you know, you see the, the pouches and the urinals, it's just disgusting. So yeah, definitely, definitely don't want doing away. We're doing away with pouches at knickknack my question for you.

So if I, um, I just chewed one of the winter green mints, if you chew it versus leaving it in, does it. Like, does the nicotine buzz hit you faster? Does it go away quicker? Or there's, is there really no difference? Yeah, there'll be a difference. Okay. Um, it's gonna depend on the person [00:10:00] and how fast you absorb it so so the actual mechanism that that we've patented for our company is The use of xylitol and xylitol is a really interesting sweetener because it will tell it's a polyol It's one carbon shorter than than glucose glucose is a six carbon.

So xylitol is just one carbon shorter What it does? The scientific term is it's, it's gram positive, but that means it preferentially feeds good bacteria while killing, while simultaneously killing bad bacteria and what that does in your mouth. is it gets rid of the bad bacteria that cause acidification.

You don't want acidity in your mouth, obviously that can reduce your enamel, all those bad things. So there's good indication that xylitol may even remineralize your mouth because it gets rid of all those acid creating bacteria and then it makes you salivate. And when you salivate, your body actually releases minerals [00:11:00] into your mouth.

And so it increases your oral pH. So what we patented was this mechanism, Um, of using xylitol to increase oral pH so that you absorb the nicotine. And the reason why that's so critical is nicotine has to be in an alkaline environment for it to be permeable across membranes. Um, and this is why swallowing nicotine makes you feel like crap.

Yeah. Oh. So, so if you, if you just swallow a mint or a pouch, or sorry, a lozenge, you know, if you ingest just nicotine of any kind, it's gonna cause all sorts of gastric distress because Basically, it's like, nicotine is inherently spicy, so it's like you just swallowed like a capsaicin capsule or something like that.

It's gonna irritate your gut. So, you want it to stay in your mouth, so that it's crossing that buccal tissue, basically your Your gums and going into your bloodstream doing what it's supposed to do. Got it. So that's why you guys use xylitol. What are um, What are some of the sweeteners that? Competitors use [00:12:00] because I've heard like that's one of the issues with like xan or some other P I don't know if you can speak to it or not But like just some of the ingredients in the formulation of like mass produced competitors that are out there might not be ideal Yeah, no, no, absolutely.

I'll speak about artificial sweeteners in general You know big food in general Loves artificial sweeteners. And the reason why is they're dirt cheap. They're the cheapest way to make food sweet. And the reason why is they're often 300 to 600 times sweeter than sugar. So you're talking about a very small amount can be used.

You know, they're produced chemically, super large badges. And this, you know, this is why Diet Coke is the number one for Coke. Like they don't ever want to stop Diet Coke because it costs them nothing to make. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because there's there's a minuscule amount that actually goes into the final product, you know, whereas Sugar, yeah, it's 20 cents a pound, but that's too much money for them.

Yeah. So, they want the cheapest possible thing, and that's how they do it. Um, so, there's a [00:13:00] number of artificial sweeteners, the most common being, um, Aspartame, some people call it Aspartame, uh, Sucralose, and Ace K, it's Asshole fame, Potassium. Um, you know, just to kind of really quickly go over, What I don't like about them, um, Aspartame in particular was rejected by the FDA, I think three or four times until it was, in my opinion, forced through.

Now you're called a conspiracy theory if you question why that happened, um, but I think there's good evidence. It's one of the most complained about substances to the FDA. People have bad reactions to it all the time. Um, so I think that, um, That safety research needs to be revisited. Sucralose is also a super common one.

Um, that's chlorinated sucrose. Which, you know, doesn't sound that bad. You know, there's a lot of chlorine in a lot of things. It's not, chlorine isn't an inherently bad molecule. Like, salt is critical for living. Uh, for example, which is sodium chloride. But, the problem with sucralose, it appears [00:14:00] is that it can degrade into something called sucralose 6 acetate.

And when it degrades into that, the initial research indicates that it's genotoxic, which means it's bad for your genes, aka potentially cancer. You know, I think more research needs to be done there too. I wouldn't say anything decisively that, you know, causes any of these problems, but something like 20 to 30 percent of sucralose isn't accounted for, you know, when you consume it.

Um, you know, the other 70, 80 percent you can see is like. excreted. But where's that other 20, 30 percent go? I mean, it's possible it's excreted over a longer period of time. It's also possible it's degrading and turning into a genotoxic compound. Um, so they also could be bad for your gut. There's the potential that they cause gut dysbiosis, aka, you know, basically like an antibiotic effect.

Yeah. Like damaging your gut flora. So I'm not a fan of artificial sweeteners. I think that there should be a lot more rigorous safety studies on those. [00:15:00] Definitely. I didn't know that about. Diet Coke, but that intuitively makes so much sense like a sweetener You know synthesize in a lab versus sugar that actually has to be harvested out in a field Of course, that's cheaper and that's what coke would want to be pushing to yeah And and again, you know synthesizing chemicals isn't cheap like if it was the same amount Making a chemical versus getting sugar from a field, getting sugar from a field is way cheaper.

The reason why is that sweetness factor. So if something's 600 times sweeter, you need just a minuscule amount. And so that's, that's the idea is that, you know, you can, you're replacing, you know, a large amount of a chemical with a tiny bit. Wow, 600 times sweeter. Yeah, that's incredible. Have you ever read the book?

Um, I've talked about it a bunch on the show. It's called The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker before. I haven't read it, but I've hung out with food chemists and yeah, any food chemist will tell you that Doritos are like the ideal food. They're the most perfectly balanced. engineered food ever made. Yeah.

There's actually, you probably already know this from this [00:16:00] book, but there's something in your ear that creates pleasure when you chew. And what they did with Doritos, the combination of like salt, MSG, and that, the crunching sensation, they literally designed a product that you can't stop eating. You know, for a lot of people.

Obviously, some people have more self control. Definitely. But, yeah. That was, it's one of those things where it's, it was obviously very devious, but they certainly accomplished their goal. Yeah. That's one of the things that we say is that um, If you're eating a product that needs like a food scientist to make it, you probably just should stay away from that product altogether and you'll be way better off.

100%. Like, use God as your food scientist and you'll be okay. Definitely. Definitely. I mean, everything is engineered to be as addictive as possible. Definitely. Or as cheaply as possible. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, that, that book is fascinating because he actually kind of like deep dives all these flavor, these artificial flavoring houses.

And strangely, a lot of them are headquartered in New Jersey for whatever reason. And exactly what you talk about, like interviewing these scientists that do all this research on the perfect [00:17:00] combination of like crunchiness, saltiness, umami, et cetera. To the point where just the perfectly designed product where you could know how terrible a Dorito is for you.

But if you're sticking your hand in that bag, you're not just getting a handful, you're eating the entire thing. And then you're starving an hour afterwards because your body is still craving micronutrients because they got nothing, just a ton of calories. A hundred percent. Definitely the, uh, the poofas.

The poofas. The poofas are bad news too. Yeah. You want to stay away from those. Yeah. Um, so how difficult is it from a legal perspective to actually like build a nicotine company in the U. S.? Cause I've heard it is a ton of work to actually get a product off the ground and get it legalized. Yeah, it's a nightmare.

Yeah. Yeah. To keep it brief. Um, yeah, it's a very difficult process, it's very backwards, um, you pretty much are constantly in a fight. You're constantly, like, you know, are on edge that someone's gonna come after you. Yeah. So it's a nerve wracking experience. I don't recommend it for anyone who [00:18:00] wants. Um, a comfortable or stable profession.

Mm hmm. Um, it's very difficult. You have to work directly with the FDA. You have to do incredibly expensive studies. So we're, we're constantly doing these, these ridiculous studies. Well, my opinion that they're ridiculous. Yeah. But, um, you got to do this stuff and, and show for whatever reason that your nicotine is, is, you know.

Okay. Yeah. But cigarettes are still allowed. Yeah. They're still allowed. Yeah. Um, did you know the difficulty of getting this product to market when you were ideating on knick knack or is that just something that you figured out when you were just in the trenches building it out? Uh, we actually experienced the, uh, the plot twist of, uh, Synthetic nicotine becoming tobacco magically and so this happened.

I think in 2021. Um, we use non tobacco nicotine. It's also called synthetic nicotine. Um, because it wasn't tobacco. You know, [00:19:00] nicotine is is a common compound found in nature. Um, you're it actually appears to be a metabolite within your mitochondria. And so, we weren't under any regulations. And then, as part of some random omnibus bill, they just threw in that nicotine is now tobacco.

And then, that was a really bad day for us because they were like, Dang it, now we have to report to the FDA. And so, we've been learning and adapting to that process. It's not easy, but, you know, we're, we're keeping our heads above water. So even though you're using non tobacco nicotine, they just decided to classify it as tobacco.

Correct. Correct. That's insane. Yep. So just a random bill. It's, yeah, literally an omnibus bill that is randomly to some subline. Oh, by the way, all nicotine is now tobacco. I feel like when you start to do your research, you just like, you're, you're just almost blown away by these like classifications and these laws that are just passed to like, even with the meat industry, there's a specific type of law where.[00:20:00]

As long as the cow was, was fed grass at some point in its life, even if it was fed grain like eight months before it was slaughtered, you could still legally label it as grass fed meat. And so people are like at Walmart, they're like, oh wow, I can buy grass fed meat for 7 and it's good for me, when it's really just grain washed beef.

So like, whether it's meat, whether it's nicotine, whether it's the beverage industry, there's just all these weird like, legalities and loopholes that just don't make any sense that you're beholden to. 100%, yeah. No, it's, it's, it's a mess. Thanks. Yeah, yeah, so you guys have to report into the FDA, um, how long did it go from idea in your head to like being able to actually sell this product, D2C, on your website?

Uh, it took us three or four years, I mean, I, you know, we're still a new company, we've really been at this for real for about a year, and, and we're still perfecting things, you know, we still make mistakes, um, but we're trying to get everything as dialed as much as we can. Um, but yeah, about, about three to four years, you know, to really, to really get [00:21:00] humming.

I love it. Um, what were you doing before? Um, I, I, I've had a, a mix of stuff, so, yeah, anyways, I started off as an electrical engineer. Um, I did some defense stuff in California. I didn't feel good about that ethically, so I got out of that, and then I, you know, as an electrical engineer, it's like, okay, what are my options?

So I was like, well, I'll get into the utility space, like, the scale seems cool, tried that out, way too dull, got bored of it so fast. Um, so I got my MBA, and then I started working for my dad's company, which was in, um, specialty sweeteners and supplements. And so that was kind of an opportunity for me to follow my passion, which was already health, nutrition, biohacking, all the stuff that I loved.

And I developed that love just in college because love the gym, love playing sports, and Also had also like really bad migraines And so you know that's it kind of came out that migraines are probably causing brain damage every time you have one And I was like, well, that's probably not good. Yeah [00:22:00] So so I got really committed to to getting better Getting rid of my migraines naturally getting healthy because I was just not healthy, and I was raised in Born in the 90s raised on raised on taquitos and diet coke, you know, yeah so You know still still going through that health journey, but we got really committed to that Got healthy enough where, you know, I haven't had migraines for years, which is just amazing that, like, that's possible.

But anyways, got to pursue that passion, working for my dad. Learned a ton about sweeteners, ton about supplements. And so that was pretty cool being in the industry and then just, like I said, one of those things that kept popping up was nicotine in the literature. And so I wanted to learn more about it and I was like, well, here's a major problem.

Let's see if we can solve it. Yeah. It feels good to attack a major, major problem too. Like, I know that there's probably been You know, especially as a founder right there. I feel like sometimes as a founder, you almost feel bipolar where it's like this constant fluctuation between the biggest win and the biggest high you've ever had.

And then like, it feels like everything's going to blow up the next day [00:23:00] too. But I, there's just so much respect that I think people have for founders that are truly attacking a difficult problem where it's like, there's obviously like a thousand different products that you could have done that probably would have been easier to get it to market.

But I think the weight of your success is also beta based on like the weight of the difficulty of the problem that you could, you could attack too. Um, I think a lot about, I don't know if you've heard of Ziki. It's this, uh, it's a food truck in Austin. It's like, there's probably about 10 in Austin. It's all seed oil free.

They're basically this, these modular pods where the founder get, he gets them made at the Tesla Gigafactory. It's all regenerative food, so it's like Greek Mexican fusion, but everything's cooked in beef tallow, and it's regenerative, like, organic ingredients. Sounds amazing. Yeah, right, so like, attacking one of the hardest industries with the lowest margins, with the most expensive ingredients.

And, uh, It's so difficult to be able to get those trucks launched and people just like line up and crave it in town because this is like a problem that so many people want is like look when I'm not cooking at home I would love a great but delicious option when I'm out and [00:24:00] he's getting rewarded for that success and I feel like it's very similar to you where like there was something in your head that was just calling you to explore this thing and it's obviously incredibly difficult but it's a problem that you're solving for people and it's going to be rewarding as part of that journey too.

A hundred percent. Yeah. We have customers emails all the time, you know, just amazing stories. And it's, it really helps you step back from the day to day monotony of just fighting, you know, especially with startups, you know, it's, they're incredibly demanding, you know, it's just some when, just when you think that things are starting to turn a corner, five other things pop up and it's just without fail.

Yeah. And, and I'm sure it'll be that way for a long, long time, but yeah, I know you have to step back. You gotta, you gotta appreciate your wins. So, step back, appreciate your wins in the big picture, because, uh, they've certainly been earned. And then also, yeah, for sure, you gotta look at those, those little gems and appreciate them.

Because they totally make it worthwhile. Yeah, you, you almost, you almost have to have a sense of humor in this whole process too. Like, sometimes with my, my partner, Harry, [00:25:00] who couldn't be here today, like sometimes when shit just blows up, we'll just look at each other and laugh because it's like, what else are you supposed to do?

You get nothing else you can do. Yeah. Yeah. Just gotta make the best of it. Do you feel like. Because we talked about popping our crosses out before the podcast started. Do you feel like being an entrepreneur has given you more faith in God? Because I feel like it definitely has for me and I'm curious for you too if you feel that at all.

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I believe in providence. So, it's, uh, it's just become more evident that God's hand is involved in everything we do, so, um, And I think that's true even when things don't go well, you know? I think that's, uh, Not to get too theological, but submitting to divine will. So, that's probably one of the more difficult things to do in life, but ultimately the most fulfilling.

Yeah, we can get as theological as you want, by the way. I'm easy, I'm easy. Yeah. I've found, I was actually just, we do this little Christian men's group in town called The First Appointment. So it's supposed to [00:26:00] be like the first appointment of your day. So we'll hit like a 30 minute run and then we'll read some scripture afterwards.

And one of the things that we were digging into in the men's group today, I find particular with me where. When things aren't going well, I'll pray to God, and then things start to go really well. And then I notice that my prayer almost becomes a little bit less frequent, not intentionally, but I think there's a subconscious thing of like, alright, I've got this.

And then things will go wrong, and then I'll go back and pray where I'm like, No, when things are going great, you should be praying just as frequently as if things aren't going well. And you should be grateful regardless of the highs or the lows too, and I'm sure that's something that you resonate with.

A hundred percent, and I'm totally guilty of the same thing. You know, it's, it's very easy when things are going well to just be, you know, Yeah. Yeah. And it's easy to forget. Yeah. And, you know, you know, gratitude is something that we really ought to cultivate. You know, it's, it's so critical. It's so critical for, for longevity, for outlook, you know, you know, especially if you have kids, I have kids.

[00:27:00] Yeah. You know, for raising a family. Cause it's, it is hard, you know, it's, you know, you, you work pretty much, you work all day long. That's pretty much all you do. And you got to be grateful for your wins, be grateful for your family and yeah, no, that's, it's, it's. Definitely, definitely good, good for both.

Yeah. It's good to remember. It's cool how you have that electrical engineering background and then you're also really spiritual, too. Because you would almost think an outsider would think, Oh, those things are probably mutually exclusive. Yet, I've actually met a few different engineers that are also very faith based, too.

So, is that, were you always faith based? Or was it something that you kind of came into later in life? I'm just curious. Um, I've definitely gotten more into it. Um, I'm a, I'm a cradle Catholic. So, you know, I was, I've, and you know, I'm super blessed. I come from a huge family that, you know, divorce is non existent and we get together once or twice every week and We argue, but in a good way.

You know, and about all this stuff. You know, we get into theology like crazy, [00:28:00] um, we get into nutrition like crazy, you name it. And it's very no holds bar, so we're not afraid to hurt each other's feelings. Yeah. And it's awesome. You know, that's like one of, to me, one of my life's great joys is the ability to spend time with my family and with my really close friends too, and just kind of bash each other.

Um. But in a way that's super loving. So, no, I'm super grateful for that. Uh, I definitely have grown more into my faith. In the last few years for sure and a lot of that's been through trial, which is great You know, this is like King David, right? You know, I think of how I think of how he came into his kingship Yeah, you know, it's it's all by trial.

And so, you know, those trials make us in a lot of ways Yeah I'm similar to you where was a cradle Catholic as well Went to went to school in Boston kind of fell away from my faith And, um, it was actually kind of starting this show, which like, re sparked that curiosity. You know, there's definitely this convergence of like, meat, nutrition, biohacking, [00:29:00] Christianity, Bitcoin.

There's like this really interesting web. Awesome counterculture. Awesome counterculture. And I was finding that a lot of the people that I would respect the most on the podcast were definitely spiritual and a lot of them were Christian too. And I was like, well, that's really interesting because this is something that I've, you know, turned away from, yet a lot of the men and women that I respect the most are Christian, and they seem a lot happier than I am.

So there's something to that. And then I found a great, like, non denominational Christian church in town with, like, an amazing pastor that's got incredible experience, was, like, a former addict, turned his entire life around. And the community that was going to that church was so amazing. They were just, like, people that I wanted to be around.

So I leaned into that, And then, like, just going to church more and more, I realized, like, wow, the answer was always there and it was kind of smacking me right in the face. I just wasn't humble enough to accept that that's what it was. And I think there are a lot of people, even now, that go to church, like, they still are maybe trying to make up their beliefs on God, but they just love the [00:30:00] culture and the community so much, too, because it's positive.

So I think that's pretty interesting. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think it's It's the most critical part of our lives. It's what gives us purpose. It's how we set our aim. It's also the people we're closest to. You know, it's, it's critical for community, for family. And it's also critical for, for, you know, understanding death.

You know, we're all gonna die. Yeah. And, you know, This is one of the things that I've been learning about recently is, you know, how do you, how do you die with confidence? You know, do we, do we trust God enough to die gracefully? And so I think that's a big challenge. I think that's a big challenge that whether or not we want to admit it.

It's kind of a knocking on the door always. Definitely. Our own, our own, uh, destinies and eventual deaths. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, man. And that morality is such an incredible thing. And I think it's like understanding that morality Which is more likely to make you want to pursue something that's as difficult as what you're doing or what we're trying to do with Meet Mafia and Noble [00:31:00] 2.

I just remember thinking like, you know, I was in between this, this safe tech sales job and I was, you know, the podcast was starting to grow and I had all these dreams and visions and I'm like, Dude, like this is probably the best opportunity you've ever had to actually make an impact and do something entrepreneurial and like, Are you going to regret if you don't do this when you're like 75 years old or even when you're 45 years old and you have kids and you're too old to make that switch from something safe to something that's unknown?

So, I feel like that's something that has always kind of been that silent reminder to me to just like actually go for it and do something that's a little bit more unsafe. A hundred percent. I think, I think too like The as men we want to be brave. Yes. For me, like deeply, deeply. I want to be a brave person.

And so in order to achieve that, you have to like exercise, you know, the practice that, yeah, you know, you don't, you don't just, I don't, well, this is my opinion. I'm sure some people are naturally just really brave and maybe I'm, I'm, I'm a wiener, but to me, it's like, I [00:32:00] want to, I want to put myself in, in these uncomfortable situations so that I can test myself and go to that next level.

And. And, you know, I'm not going to get there unless I have the guts to do it. And in a lot of ways, of course, that's faith, right? Faith is the courage to do the things that, you know, you probably, you're, you're, you're, the other half of your brain is telling you not to do. Definitely. Yeah. It's like feeling that feeling of fear.

And like, taking a step in spite of that feeling. That feeling actually, like you said, maybe there are some outliers where they don't have that feeling, but for me, I recognize when I don't have that like, amazing nervousness or jitters or excitement, that's probably a sign that I'm not living my life the right way.

Yeah, you're not on the cusp. You're not on the cusp, yeah. Yeah, like for you to be here, right? It's like, you're in Austin, you're on our podcast, you're gonna be going on Luke Story's podcast, you're going to Nashville, like, promoting this healthy nicotine brand that's literally yours that's taken you four years, like, I mean, how good of a feeling does that feel?

Like, it's like you created something amazing that's adding value to society. [00:33:00] Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. You know, I certainly wouldn't say it's healthy. But, uh, Just again, because I can't say anything like that. I'm not going to argue with you. Yeah. But yeah, no, it feels good. It's definitely, uh, A great moment to pause and step back and be like, wow, you know, I've done something interesting enough that someone wants to talk to me about it, you know, and, and, you know, praise the Lord for that.

Right. Yes. You know, cause you know, I couldn't have gotten here without my amazing team.