#528: Turning Your Mess Into Your Message: Jon Pierre Francia

0:00Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Mark Roves podcast today. I have a Jean-Pierre. Well, so how's that? I'm friends. I have some friends. Yeah. Yeah, not bad. People think it's a made-up name. No, that's the way it was meant to be pronounced, right? Yeah. Just quick funny note. My father was from Chile, my grandfather was from Spain. So my father wanted my name to be Juan Pedro. My mom's from Canada. She wanted John Paul and they settled on John Pierre. So kind of fun. That's a good, if they were to have a baby, that would be the right name. That's perfect. So for those of you watching, listening, I wanted to have, can I call you JP? Yeah. I wanted to have JP on today because I read about his journey and it is the perfect example of turning your mess in your message. It is the perfect example of the struggles of your life, somehow lighting a path to what your Dharma is, your mission is. And when you're in it, you can't draw it up. That's why, regardless of whether you're religious or not, there is a divine path that

1:07is invited to walk. Not everyone walks it. I think addictions have a lot to do with dealing with the pain of not walking it. But there is a pain that comes from not walking it and there is a pain that comes from walking it, right? It's kind of like what we have viral to choose your heart. Like, you know, it's hard to be obese and it's hard to work out. Choose your heart. And I don't want to minimize people's life experiences, but there is a suffering that comes with no matter with choosing the hard thing, both are hard. So like, which one are you going to do? And I've put off a lot of them. I joke often that it takes a cosmic two-by-four for me to sometimes get on path. Yeah. I think I'm getting more sensitive to that and also more like what is a two-by-four is a much lighter deviation from my mission, which I'm sure you've experienced being resensitized to that. So medicine let you down. You almost died from reflex. And then the journey to finding your way through that profound.

2:13How did it start? Well, I was pretty overweight about 70 pounds heavier than I am now. I had severe acid reflux for basically a decade. I took every pill that, you know, the prescribed you. And I did the different, you know, antacids and nothing worked. I slept sitting at most nights for a better part of the decade. Slipped sitting at up. Yeah, because I would aspirate. Because the aspirate flux had kind of destroyed my esophageal valve. And so one night I wasn't sitting up. I was laying down and I aspirated a lot of fluid. I drowned. I was rolling around the floor thinking I'm dying and going, oh God, don't let me die this way. It was embarrassing. I didn't die. But four days later, I got a second there infection pneumonia from the drowning. And that really almost killed me. Wow. Yeah. And then when I survived and I barely survived, my grandma said, why don't you tell me I had acid reflux? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. Groundlight, bad food. I have to care myself. I have a stressful life. And she said, I want you to start drinking water down apples out of vinegar. I was like, grandma, I have acid reflux. Why would I drink more acid?

3:15And she said, a lot of people with acid reflux don't have enough acid. What was that? I was like, what? So I did a grandma said, and I started putting a tablespoon in some water. And within two and a half weeks, my acid reflux was way better. And I was like, okay, this is crazy, but this tastes terrible. I can't keep doing this. Yeah. And so I was on this journey to make it taste better because I knew I had to have this with every meal, every real meal anyway. And I mean, this is the first thing I created. I didn't mean to create. I totally accidentally touristed into this product, but it didn't turn into product for many, many years. And within really two and a half weeks, three weeks, my acid reflux was gone. After ten years. Ten years. Sleeping sitting up. Repist. I was actually really mad. I was mad that none of the doctors I said, that Matt with, could tell me it could be as simple as I was too little acid. And I think there's 70 million Americans, ish, that have what I have, which is hypochloridria. It's a lack of acid. There's hyperchloridria, which is too much.

4:15It's a big number of people who are taking all these antacids, and don't want to say any brand names. And these different pills that, it's the worst thing you can do. You're neutralizing a little bit of good acid you have. And those people will know when they take those things in two or three hours, it kind of comes back with a vengeance. It's your stomach kicking back in, going, oh, Matt, we're low on acid. Let's go. But it's, you know, never really get there. So acetic acid, which is the key ingredient to apple cider vinegar, helps your body get enough acid to digest your food better. Well, you have, I only know a brief part of the like pre story to that. And I don't know all the details of that. So I'm excited to get into like where life has taken you. Yeah. But you have a history of starting businesses, but kind of going ham on whatever you do. So maybe like we're all less back even to there because I think for you watching or listening, it's important to hear how you, you trust the sort of skill set that gets built over time that is preparing you.

5:16You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So fastening back around, it's kind of random. I say that loud. I think, wow, you're a little crazy. And I started out as a flight instructor and started my own flight school and got enough hours to get in the airlines and then went back to school to finish my degree. And then Matt, a gallon we got married and she didn't want me gone six days a week. And I was like, okay, well, I'll do something else. So I got into video production commercials. Actually, no, there was a two year stint in semiconductor equipment sales and actually really well. It's a random. Well, it's funny is the first project that company gave me to do was a video for one of their products and it sold so well, they started giving me more and more videos that turned into a production, be the production company. Wait, but the airline thing is crazy too. I know, right? So really, that's my great one, my great one. What ifs is if I had stayed on that path, I could have still been entrepreneur because I'm definitely entrepreneurial. Yeah. I'm going to give me a wonderful life because I spent all the time, energy and money to get to where I was. And the fact that I didn't is one of my one of my whoopsies. Yeah. Yeah. A regret.

6:17Yeah. Which, I mean, again, you are where you are. And, but when you were going through that, tell everybody how you put yourself through the flight school. It's crazy. Yeah. So in one year, I flew every day and I work every night. I put myself through flight school working at a red robin and Seattle. I actually turned, turned into the number one sales waiter in the, in the country's red robin. I think I sold like $275,000 with a food in 1991. That's great. As a waiter. But in one year, I got my private instrument commercial C plane, multi-engine instructor and instrument instructor license and started a flight school. I just rented some planes and some guys who kept them, you know, maintained properly and started a flight school. I actually put an ad in the Seattle Times, said free flight instruction, aircraft available. And I just make a little bit of difference money between the way I got billed and the way students get billed. It was enough. I flew eight hours a day and quickly got to place where I could start applying for the airlines. So because you built so many hours from the instructing that was time in a plane and then it allowed you to apply to work with airlines.

7:18Yeah. Usually the metric for airlines about 1500 hours. And I got to like 1480 and started. And when I, I literally from the year I got my instructors license started, I put on another thousand plus hours in a year. It was from working with students. That's crazy. Yeah. So then you end up creating a production company. Yeah. Tell us more. Did lots of commercials for companies and some pretty big companies and then I, some friends asked me if I would help them with an idea they had for a children series. At first I was like, now I don't have time guys, I'm too busy and ended up deciding to do it. It was a series called Signing Time. The Sign Language series, most people, the series that teaches infant to toddler sign language. And it took about a year to do the first episode because they didn't really have a clear clear vision. And so we shot a lot of stuff and I spent a lot of a year kind of editing it together until I finally found the formula. And it was so cute. It did really, really well from the point of the first episode done. And then I actually worked through 28 or 29 today show operators until I got Betsy Alexander

8:23who was a senior producer of today show. I actually got them to come shoot two days of footage on set with us when we did episodes two and three. Wow. And it started to take off and then I extended that company and I missed it. Actually what I miss most is I would get calls every day from moms and dads and everywhere in the world, English speaking countries saying God bless you. Thank you. We made a huge difference. We had 11 year old autistic kids who had never spoken or communicated with their caregivers now signing. Oh wow. One of my funniest favorite stories is, and I don't know how long the podcast goes without you Rambo on because I can get you. Yeah, man. 45 minutes. I'm actually, I get a call from this lady one day sitting in the production office actually editing episodes two and three. I get a call and this lady's kind of in a little bit of panic and you can hear her toddler screaming in the background like bloody murder. She's like, we just came back from Hawaii. We just our tape got destroyed. You know, our signing time tape. She wants to see it so bad and she's uncomfortable and like, where do you live? She says, we live in Salt Lake. Like, come to the production office. So they drive immediately to the production office.

9:25They walk in the girl screaming. You can hear her coming down the hall. She walks in. She looks up on the screen and she sees the characters from the show on it. She just instantly gets smiley. Wow. And so I gave her some DVDs. Anyway, but just fun. Access to the expression, right? Couldn't communicate. Yeah. Little, little kids, age, age, young, old, nine months old, being able to say cookie or more or milk or anyway. So that was that. And then I missed that and I was like, what should I do next? My wife said, what do you love more than anything? I was like airplanes. She says, go do that. So literally that day, me and my brother wrote a song for a series called Andy's Airplanes. You go on YouTube and see it. Look up, Andy's Airplanes. And so wrote that song that day and created the concept and then raised some money and did episode one. And then if you look at it, you're like, wait, that guy did that. So 2007, you go look at it. It looks like a Pixar level. And we just did a crabble job. And so a ton of major companies in Hollywood wanted to partner. And they wanted to become the production arm and I ended up signing with Lady name, Kathy Malattesta. She was a lady who did the original teenage mutant interturtles.

10:26Oh, man, throwback. So she green lit the project for Westinghouse for Fred Wolf, the creator. And she ran around the world for eight years. The Fred Wolf and they did eight billion dollars in ancillary sales and merchandising and licensing and TV. And so I ended up signing with her and she's like, JP, this is an evergreen. This will be around for 30 years. And stuff is crazy. Like, sorry, like blippy and blueie and all these different ones. Problem is the O8 crash settle in right as we finished episode one. And we'd raise four and a half million to put it on TV. All the world had several major international broadcasters lined up. And there was another, another dollar in the world to be raised after the O8 crash. And I tried for three and a half, four years. And it's finally just like, okay, like uncle. And then as random as this gets, my nephew calls me and says, JP, you make incredible food. You should go to North Dakota and feed oil workers. He's 50,000 guys out there eating pizzas out of gas stations. I was like, that sounds crazy. Anyway, I ended up doing it. I created a brand called Sweet Obrito and started this brand and rolled out the North Dakota.

11:29Instantly realized it was a terrible mistake. It's, you know, 40 below feeding oil workers out of a hundred thousand dollar trailer. I say this out loud. I still think I sound crazy. But it took off. And then in the summer, we actually went from North Dakota down to South Dakota to Sturgis just to be there for the Sturgis motorcycle rally. And it utterly exploded. Wow. So guys, we have a brand here. So then we ended up starting franchising. We grew it to 19 stores. And then I brought in honestly the wrong team to help grow it. And it's kind of like watching somebody drown your puppy for three years. Ah, that's nice. Okay, I'm out. So I sold out. So I could even move on. And then honestly, at that point, my health was so bad, the stress. And when my Sweet Obritoxie grew a lot, we made a lot of money. It did really well until it didn't. But the stress was enormous. And you saw the picture as kind of the before and after as the where I was then. And yeah, if you're watching the video, we'll have them. Yeah. So that's when the whole story of outside of vinegar started. And you know, actually kind of started even before that, but it took me a minute to like

12:30really get serious about my health. And vinegar, outside of vinegar is what changed it. Was it that pneumonia that really made you? Well, it's sort of the end. No, literally I was so even though I almost died. And I started drinking it. I it took me a minute to go, okay, I have to do this every day. This has to become a focus. I got to get better. And that's actually that moment's when I'm like, I need to start exercising again. But I was in barrisco, the gym college. I was a kind of an elite athlete. Yeah, you did football and baseball. I mean, I was what? 165 pounds, bench, 3, 10, round of 4, 4, 3. I was a fast white fast. Yeah. So I was in barrisco, the gym. And I started walking the hills where we lived. Just it took me about four months of that. Because you know, I was in barrisco. I used to being kind of elite. And here I was this guy. And then that's when I started doing the vinegar every day, every meal again.

13:31And that's how life's better started. I mean, honestly, let's back up a little. From the day I started doing it for real and make it taste better. About four months into that, I noticed that my concoction was disappearing out of the fridge. Daddy's healthy juice. Yeah. Okay, who's drinking my stuff? The whole family was. They're like, we like it. It tastes good. And I was like, guys, stop it. I don't want to make this everyday because I'd make it melt down some honey and some lemon juice and the upside of vinegar and make this concoction. So finally, I'm like, okay, I need to, you guys just stop. So I don't want to do this over and over every day. And so I thought, well, my family won't take their vitamins. So I'm going to start dumping vitamins in it because it'll probably taste terrible, but at least they'll get vitamins if they're going to continue. It's such a classic parent move. So I started dumping vitamin C capsules and zinc capsules and squeezing in D3 and B12, the good kind, methyl caballan, not the toxic cyanocaballan. And you couldn't taste it at all. You couldn't taste it at all in this mix. The vinegar and the lemon juice just kind of masked it.

14:32So that went on for a long time. And then one day, I'm like, my brother was in town and we'd ordered in some organic natural flavors to just play mad scientists because we created all the recipes for sweet or breito. Yeah. So we're flavor curious and flavor capable. So we started dropping in drops and it tasted really good. And then I looked over the corner and my son's soda stream carbonator was on the counter. I'm like, well, let's carbonate it. Carbonate it. I'm like, oh, this is a product. So my brother and I, who are my marketing partner, what do we call this thing? So I played with a bunch of names like we do. It used to do for clients and life cider came out of Mexico. So we got a life cider. I'm like, I love that. There's no way that's available. The URL was available. The trademark look gettable. Yeah. So we registered. So this is 2018, like summer 2018. And we think we're going to be beverage titans. We cracked the code on vinegar. Yeah. It took me six months to go. Nope. This is the big boys and girls table. This was a big kid's it. He was millions of dollars to do beverage.

15:34And you need all the right relationships too. So I shut it down. It was out. Oh, really? Did nothing with it for years. And then at the same time, you're still taking it religiously. So taking it. Oh, yeah. I just wasn't going to turn into a product. Yeah. And by the way, my weight had started coming down early on the journey. And I didn't know why because I still ate fried chicken and pizza and bad things. I just didn't have the, but it was coming down. I didn't know why. You obviously know why because of what upside of vinegar, acetic acid does for glucose response and insulin and so forth and fat. But we just, um, I then I got a call back to the story. So I get a call from a friend of mine, Lynn Collins, basketball, a famous issue. Just cool cat. He called us as bro. Send me some of your vinegar drink. I was like, bro, that dream's dead. It's like, no, I want to send it to my distributor, buddy. So I got some of the bottles out of the case that I had in the garage because originally was going to be a glass bottle. I made some up, slapped on some of my leftover labels and shipped it to him. His distributor called me that day. He said, I can sell the hell out of this.

16:36I was like, do you don't trick my chain? I know it's a good product, but I have no idea how to do beverage. He said, I will help you. And he gave us the courage to try. So our first cans, the original life cider cans came out January 23. Yeah. And we did, I think 5,000 cans, a little facility. And that's cool. And then I sent some to my friend and mine son who played for the Dallas Cowboys, Brock Hoffman. Because I knew he had acid reflux. Most linemen, big guys, they eat 10 to 15,000 calories a day. They got digestive issues. Think about that. It's chicken breast lurch, right? So I sent her bunch to Brock because I knew he'd had acid reflux for a long time. His dad Brian's a friend and Brock called my CEO after like 10 days and said, I just bought a mattress. My CEO has a pretty big time guy and close friend too. He's like, you're calling Wal-Break. Why are you calling me so? No, I've been sleeping in a lazy boy for like five years. I can lay down. I can lay down. Yeah.

17:36He goes, can we invest? And John's like, who's we goes pretty much the whole Dallas Cowboys line. So all of a sudden I had Brock Hoffman and Tyler Beodich and TJ Bass and Ryan Vanermark. Actually, he came late. He's with the bills. Matt, well, let's go and Tyler Smith and all these guys were all some investors. It's so crazy because you like couldn't draw it up that you're going through what you're going through and you end up your grandma gives you a recipe that then she just has a vinegar. Yeah, she gives you an ingredient. You then want to make a taste better. It's really just such a cool like that's why you can never draw up what God draws up. Yeah. Truly accidental. And then the call from your friend who's like, now I'm going to give it to this distributor friend and then it's going to and then all these pieces. Yeah. So that's that's what transcended to life. So I wrote what we call Luigi original. And this is now in 1300 Wal-Mart's and that's the best flavor to you up to me. That's my favorite.

18:37My favorite is the mango citrus. Yeah. I'm but it's so diverse. Who likes what? It's really fun. So that seems like enough of a story, right? And then a friend of a friend is friends with Sean Wells, who most people this community really know, you know, top supplement guy, amazing human. And we have lunch in Park City. And he's like, bro, I love your OG. Let's make the world's best energy drink. I was like, bro, the world doesn't need another caffeinated beverage. And he's like, this isn't caffeine. So he explains to me the whole thing about parisantine. Yeah, he like it. Isolates a part of caffeine, right? Yeah, it's the good part of caffeine. So caffeine when your liver breaks it down, turns into three things. The good one is parisantine. The bad one is the offalene. The offalene is what gives you the elevator heart rate, jitter shakes, and kind of all the bad stuff comes from that 4% of what caffeine turns into. Interesting. So infinity parisantine, which is what's in life cider X, the energy version. It's just an incredible product. The clinical data on it's amazing. Actually, we just finished our own clinical trials on life cider X. And we're so excited about what we get to share.

19:37But so that's how the kind of the brief version of that, it took me a minute to buy into it. I was like, I don't have the money to go fight in the energy sector. I'm already, you know, what's such a competitive sector, you know, with all the different massive, and the money and like a red bull in a monster, all these, not to mention the cars, the trucks and the bike races and stuff. And here you guys are coming in with a non jittery, lower anxiety, it lowers anxiety too. Yeah. Our clinical trials just say reduced anxiety, but I want to add one note. Yeah. I need to go fight in the energy sector, but I did a small batch just for my NFL guys, because I knew it was better than anything they had. It was better than any product for energy. And these guys, you know, they kind of live on being amped up. Did a small batch sent it to all my guys who are in multiple teams now and said, no, I'm not going to think. They all called them literally a week, 10 days, and all the other things, same thing. Bro, FU, like this is incredible. Are you serious? Our focus is amazing. The energy is clean.

20:38We can sleep at night because one thing, a pair of anything does. Well, let me give you a quick data. You already know that 60% of the world's population are slow metabolizers of caffeine, meaning 12 hours or more, like up to 36 hours for a single dose of caffeine. So all these NFL guys, they have their afternoon games and after you know, night workouts, they're not sleeping well because they still have L data heart rate. They're not getting into REM sleep. And so they're all like, I sleep good. The energy's amazing. My focus is off the chart. And so I was like, okay, so now what? And I said, guys, I'm not asking you for more money. I'm appreciative of the money you've already invested in life cider. And they all started writing more checks. Wow. So life had her ex was born kind of again, accidentally. But now it's it's utterly blowing up. I mean, there's some things that I'll I will call you the second. The angstry on some different contracts that are out right now, but we're exploding. Like because it's a very this is a very experiential drink. And this is basically the in the shelf. This is equivalent of culture pop, all pop poppy.

21:38Yeah. But this is half the calories of a poppy. A third of the calories in all pop. USD organic, foreground to sugar from organic honey and a huge vitamin stack. And a vitamin C D3 B12. The original formula still packed. And then this is the same exact formula and also a tablespoon of vinegar. And then this is the same formula with set of vitamins. It's got parisantine alpha GPC. And the what is alpha GPC? Do it's a focus enhancer. It's it's incredible. Like and actually the clinical data. Double your focus. So on the new set of cans, which is are coming out this week, it literally says double your focus. We can actually support that clinical data and that claim. I'm so happy that there's products coming out that are actually thinking about heart rate, health, glucose. Like to think that like when I first discovered the data on apple cider vinegar for glucose, control, I was blown away. Like wait, so I could take a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, I do organic before I eat

22:41and it will stunt the glucose spike significantly. If I pair that with a quick 10 minute walk after I eat, I mean, it's amazing. You can make it so someone who has poor glucose control can actually start to have redeveloping insulin sensitivity. I mean, when I was a farmer rep, there was no conversation about the reversal of type two diabetes or even if you're pre diabetic, there wasn't like, hey, do these things now. Instead it was like metform and go instead of, hey, maybe if you ate your protein and the fat and the salad before the fibers before you ate the carbohydrate, it would actually mitigate the spike of the carbohydrate. I didn't know that. It wasn't until I studied it myself and I realized I'm like, wow, there's an apple cider vinegar. That's why when I discovered your product, I was like, this is such an awesome opportunity for just like a regular person who's concerned about their health, has reflux, thinks about

23:42their glucose. Maybe their doctor is making them think about their glucose. And there's actually shit you can do about it, you know? Yeah, sugar is everything. I think I think people are becoming more and more aware as is the medical community that sugar is everything for your health. Information that disease, everything's coming from not managing your blood sugar. Let's coming from the 80s and 90s, but mainly the 80s where they just went fat's bad. Fat's bad. Let's demonize fat. And you know, it's like big tobacco took over food industry demonize fat, raise sugar, add sugar salt, increase addiction to the foods. And like what high fructose corn syrup does to the body, to the mind, the addiction, like all of it. And then prescribe statins, you know, for everybody because we've demonized fat. So let's come out with a drug that treats fat. You know, it's not totally dissimilar to the, you have a chemical imbalance. Here's a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Oh, by the way, we have the exact product.

24:43By the way, we've never proven that claim that you were born with a chemical imbalance. It's low to crap. So it's like as a background of pharma, I just have a lot of like, I have a lot of karmic stuff to redo, you know, so part of it is like, wow, there's a, there's a, there's a lot of machines working together. And it's nice to see that there is products that there are products that we can enjoy that taste good that actually help us. I think honestly, what some people have said a lot now, I mean, right now at Walmart, we have a 68% repurchase rate on these people loving them. And that's crazy. And really, I think we did crack the code on having some is delicious. It says not taste like an apple cider vinegar soda. It just tastes good. It's like a soda. Yeah. But you have all that benefit. So having cracked the code there and then also, and you just tasted the new ones I just brought today. That's so good. Yeah. They're so smooth that we really nailed it. So we've accomplished something with these first products and there's more products coming. Some really cool products that are apple cider vinegar related.

25:45I mean, I'm kind of mission driven now. Not only did I, do I want the 70 million Americans who have, you know, kind of acid. Yeah. Yeah. To know that there's a solution, an easy, an easy solution that could very well help. But also what 90% of the world drinks caffeine every day and 80% want off or want some sort of off ramp to caffeine. And this less or X and perazantine represent that off ramp getting rid of the jitters, getting rid of the sleepest nights, getting rid of the anxiousness. For me, a mission driven part of blood sugar and, you know, I think I told you off camera, but I grew up with a dad who was diabetic. He didn't manage his blood sugar well. In my teenage years alone, paramedics came to my house dozens of times to save his life. My dad was the guy who would have cookie crumbs in his pocket to watch him at a Costco, you know, walking by the cookie counter was hilarious. But he didn't manage it well. And I want people to know that hey, there's something that can actually be a benefit to you with your blood sugar journey. Like you said, you know, tablespoon with, or before a meal and a little bit of walk after

26:50is a simple solution way better than some chemical that your doctor might prescribe for you. Oh, yeah, 100%. And, you know, you were telling a bit of a story about before we hit record about one of those experiences with your dad or your cool with sharing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So we actually, you know, we're doing this interview. We're shooting in Spokane and I went to high school here. And we were building a house back in 1979, actually 1980. And then we were living in a trailer outside the house while we were building it. And I woke up one night and my mom was trying to get my dad to communicate. And he was in a bad diabetic reaction. And she said, go get help. So I jumped on my horse and rode up the street to get Rick, you know, to help. And because my dad was actually fighting at this point and kind of violent. And I was riding up the street and I'm just crying because my dad's dying, right? And I recognized the severity of what's going on. And I passed by a house just before the house I'm getting to. And it's a big plate last window. I realized I'm in my tidy whiteies. I got no shoes on, no shirt on.

27:51I'm just crying and underwear. And the house I'm going to actually has a girl on my age. So when she opened the door and got her dad as crying and embarrassed me. Yeah. Yeah. Back then you couldn't just text a girl yet. They'd like go through dad's and moms and yeah, I want banging on the door. Yeah. And you're underwear. Yeah. Yeah. That was a bit of sight for her. Being though to experience to then like at what point did you realize that the mission was unfolding for you? Like between being an entrepreneur who creates businesses that are cool, although it sounds like all of them have been kind of like aligned. Anyways, like there's a lot of same kronicity. I get passionate about things I do. Yeah. For sure. I mean, like, Sweet of Rito, certainly the mission was great flavor. And we throw all sorts of crazy things in tortillas and make it delicious. Certainly mission driven on the children stuff. I love that. I mean, and I guess back here and back in a mission driven thing, although again, didn't mean to get here, but now that I am, I'm so excited about the different time

28:52making. I get emails all the time now you change my life. Like I finally found a product that works. Like my asset reflux is so much better or I've been trying to find a way off caffeine and now I have. And thank you, like the thank yous are kind of exploding. And a lot of major like celebrities, some that I'll be able to share very soon have called and said, hey, I tried your somebody giving your product. I love it. Oh my gosh. How can I help? And so it's really getting kind of fascinating. It's we have there's a whole explosion of what's happening with life there. It's going to be one of those stories. It's it's really shaping up to be. Well, one of the principles of Dharma. The first one is to accept your Dharma. The second one is to give it up to God or whatever your about is. And then sort of like trust that it's taken care of. And I think where most people maybe don't fully step on, although I would argue that you don't step on it into your Dharma,

29:56you'll keep getting sort of nudged into it until you do. And those nudges get harder and bigger and they hurt more. But I'd say most people don't accept it. Like what's the mission of my life? Which I think for me, a lot of that comes from what you were saying, the excitement around something, right? Like the excitement around a passion about something we're upset about, like angry. I can't believe I had reflux for all these years. And all I needed was apple cider vinegar. And I've been going to traditional medicine this whole time and not gotten that. Not to say that there's not value to aloe-batholic medicine, but we're missing a whole bunch of opportunity to help people in different ways. Yeah. Second is the then just like giving it all up. Because I think one of the things we do when we step into mission, is we kind of like hold on to the to the plane. It's like you can't skydive and hold on to the plane. Yeah. And I know I've definitely been like, no, just kind of holding on to whatever I can. Have you found yourself ever on the holding on the plane?

30:59I'm an all-in kind of guy. You are. When I go, I just, I know. Do you just trust them that God's going to get you? I just feel like it's going to work out. I just find a solution. We've had several existential moments along the way in the last three years of life. So I were like, oh, we're dead. We're out of money or this thing's happened. That thing's happened. I'm like, no, it's going to work. I just know it. I just know the right thing. And literally the next day on my, so my lowest days, it's the next, I know the next days will be better. And something crazy, great happens. And it's just no, has never been a word I accept. And in certain things I've gone, believing it was going to work out, I'm going to go until the final thing, okay, I've given it all I have. That's, it's time to shut that down. But I just kind of, I believe when I, when I'm in something, I just go until it proves me wrong. But I feel like I just find the people to help, certainly in life, I have the alignment of people that have come into my orbit to support this mission. It's been incredible.

32:00I have some great team members. My COO Stephanie, just been one of my best friends ever and believed in me and believed in this from the beginning, worked for free for a long time. Just the reason we have a product on the shelf is because she's been so great and managed the details and all the gradients and the shipping and the ordering. And then John Walbrek, my CEO, it's been incredible. My brother Matt, who really formulated this with me. And you know, he worked for free for a lot of years too. And now some major, major other people are coming alongside us both in terms of celebrity and people who are trying the product and saying, how can I help? How can we be part of this? Because it seems very mission driven and it seems like kind of going to be a cultural experience. Like it's, it's going to become part of culture. And that's some really cool culture stuff we have coming to. Yeah, that's cool. I shared some with you. I can't really share it on camera yet, but it's like even the military, just invited us to a huge military view of all six branches next week in Honolulu. I think that will turn out extraordinarily well.

33:00And for the military, you think about these guys and I have a very famous country music superstar who is also, if you knew his actual last name, no, he was the guy on the roof of Benghazi. Like he loves this product and what's going to happen country music wise and the connection to the military. He recognizes how good this product is. And when you think about somebody who's truly interested in the health and welfare of current guys in the military, guys and girls and veterans, there's a whole mental health aspect of getting off of caffeine and getting rid of the jitters and the anxiousness. So there's just a lot happening here. And I can't even believe it's all lining up the way it is. The last 60 days have been the most extraordinary of my professional life. Like it's crazy what's happening. What have you noticed as you've, like you go through that rock bottom health wise, what have you noticed just in as you come back into, I guess,

34:00alignment or integrity or coherence or whatever it is with your health, the foods you're eating, the moving of your body. It's amazing how it's starting with something. How is it to people like starting with learning how to set boundaries with other people is not actually a great way to start? Because the feedback mechanism of setting a boundary is usually negative, right? Like if you set a boundary with someone you love, usually it will cause a lot of friction in the relationship. But the paradox is that you feel more connected to yourself in the expression of the boundary. You feel more connected to yourself in the expression of the boundary and you feel disconnected from them as where we're normally used to disconnect from ourselves to maintain connection to them. So the feedback mechanism is not positive at first, because even to feel like, oh, that's self-worth. That's trying to creep its way into me. It's when you exercise like you put on your shoes and you go for a walk,

35:03immediate self-worth, you eat something nutritious. The very act of eating something nutritious actually makes you feel better, but also gives you self-worth. And so it's, when you start with something that's nutritional-based, it can completely change the trajectory of your life. Because once you start to feel what coherent, high vibration food does to your body, you then experience what movement does to your body. And there's lots of evidence to support the claim that there's no drug that will ever move the needle as much as exercise will move the needle from health perspective. Yeah. There's no drug that can do what exercise does. And then once you get the feeling of that, then of course you start to explore it in every area of your life. So I'm curious, you don't need to give details, but has your life sort of been brought into more coherence on some level? I would say as I started making better better choices with my health,

36:05I found that, and I started going directly to the gym, what, at nine, 10 years ago, in this slow journey, and I felt like I've done a better, better job of setting boundaries and choosing myself and taking relationships professionally, personally that aren't serving, that aren't beneficial, that and changing the dynamic there and setting those boundaries, I would definitely say my health journey has helped me so much personally in terms of how and what's happening in my life. Would you connect any behaviors that you have with your reflux that you had at the time outside of food, but I mean more relational, emotional. I don't know how to connect those. Yeah, I think about it like, like reflux, those types of things, like withholding truth, withholding, not withholding, maybe that's the wrong term.

37:06Swallowing truth, swallowing self-expression. Have you noticed anything in your life at that time that now you're like, oh yeah, it's all, you know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. As you get rid of those health issues, as I did anyway, I found myself just doing a better and better job at being honest. Yeah. And just, yeah, honestly, coming and becoming honest about my feelings and not taking, again, professionally, what's funny is I think, I mentioned Stephanie, my CEO, at the beginning of life center, which is really, you know, 2018 was the kind of initial beginning, but really 2022 and 23. I think I have a difficult time having difficult conversations. She was kind of the hard ass, so to speak. She was the one that was, she's great. She would have conversation with people and they know and just, you know,

38:06and I've kind of, as my health has gotten better and better over the last, honestly, even three years, I have stepped in and appreciated that, but also, just gotten better, better at having difficult conversations and just telling the truth about what I feel and being able to professionally also say, hey, here's the truth. Here's where you're failing with people in relationships. You know, people come into a business like this and they promise you the world. And they don't deliver and they expect something for the underperformance and non delivery. Yeah. And being able to say, you didn't do it. Come on. Let's, let's be honest and be able to put those people down the path. I've really gotten better and better at that over the last four or five years. Yeah. You know, I've spoken to a bunch of leaders the other day and inevitably, you know, we're talking about truth, transparency, openness and inevitably personal relationships end up coming up right because there's a crossover. And one of the guys was going through struggles with his partner.

39:10And he was asking me advice about what he should do. And I said to him, look, like if I ever work with a couple, the, the thing I always say from the beginning is, my job is not to keep you together. Like my job is to bring truth forward and then let the truth do what it does with the relationship. Again, the relationship, whole more truth is it meant to because sometimes the most loving thing you can do is leave. And I bring that word because what I notice with companies is that when there is a avoidance of heart conversations or an avoidance of truth, because this is just humans, right? Like this is how humans work. When someone tells the truth at the cost of a potential relationship, at the cost of emotional response, there is a love in that. Even if we don't like the truth that's spoken, it always makes me think of this quote that Elizabeth Gilbert said to Kalanon Doyle in her book, I think it's called Love Warrior. She says, the land is going through a divorce in this book.

40:14And Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, e-Pray love. Incredible writer wrote another book called Big Magic, who's so good. And I think she has new book out. And she said, there's no such thing as one way liberation. If you're free, so are they. They just don't know it yet. And so I think about the job of a leader is to tell the truth. Don't get me wrong. If you're in a share held company, sometimes truth has to be withheld before it's public information, right? And so I get that when I having worked for very large companies that are like billion dollar companies, they would have to withhold a reorg, right? Because the reorg, they would tell you no changes are happening. And you're like, for sure, changes are happening. Like I'm seeing the spreadsheets. This doesn't matter. But they would tell you that they would have to lie to you. And I think about like I get that in the context of companies, sometimes there has to be a withholding. I think it's very similar to oversharing versus vulnerability.

41:14Like sometimes the information has to cook a little longer before it can be disclosed. And I think the job of a really good leader and the job of a good parent and a good partner is like, can I hold this till it ripens? But also can I not try to get it out of me because I don't know how to hold it? Do you know what I'm saying? That makes it absolutely. And that's one thing I have done. I think a very good job of is shouldering some really potentially negative things. And I just let them cook and let them find solution before even with as major CEO as I have and my team. There's something I had to shoulder myself until I found the solution. Yeah. Because I knew that telling them that was not going to be helpful. Just but I knew I'd find a solution. And there's been several things along the way over the last really two and a half years where those have happened. I'm like, okay, I'm going to let that cook. You said it exactly how you I'm going to let that simmer over here until I find the solution until the solution presents itself.

42:14Well, people pleasing is ultimately the death of all relationships. It's the death of companies too. Because if I'm going to protect your feelings from the truth, then I'm actually not believing in the highest potential. V either of us. Yeah. And I think that's really hard because as someone who wrote a book with my wife on co dependency, that was the resolution of it between us, which is an ever working thing and that's always being worked out. But I started to see when I was resolving it into personally, I started to see it within my own company that I was protecting people from truth. And I remember I was about to let someone go. I needed to let this person go toxic to the team, not working out. And I have been withholding that conversation for a little bit, my own stuff, like fear of conflict, et cetera. And I have a friend who said to me, how do you not? How do you know that the best thing for this person is into let them go?

43:17Like you somehow think you're God. I remember that podcast years. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. It was like you think you're God. You think you know the best thing for her, but God is trying to tell you what the best thing is for you, which is the best thing for her. Yeah. And I was like, oh, man, that cooked me. Because then I was like, wow, that's, I'm my fear of high conflict or conflict conversations. It's actually preventing me from my potential and preventing them. You know what I mean? I do. Absolutely. So yeah, that dedication to like your mission to what I mean, it's having what I noticed is that for my own Dharma, I have to heal everything. I was going to say something about a mission. And this is related to where life side is going. It's scaling very quickly. I could it's about to explode everywhere. I scaled wrong and blew everything up. So you're doing it right. Well, hopefully, but scaling and it won't be very long before major conversations with major beverage companies are going to happen about acquisition.

44:18I've been in some of those parties, honestly started even as well right now, even without them knowing all the stuff that's about to happen. Because they want to catch this up. Yeah. Part of me as much as I would love to grow it and hold it for a long time and just have this, you know, be that the guy of this company. At some points, going to be very rewarding. Not only to have my investors have a nice return, but more importantly to me, and I mean this genuinely a co-corp, perhaps the year Dr. Beperker, here, I got one of those with all the massive distribution, the number of doors they can put it in overnight from the time they, you know, acquire it, the benefit, okay, to have it everywhere. I mean, right right now, Walmart, already $1.97 on shelf for these. We made it accessible, something truly healthy for the masses. But I look at what that acquisition turns into in terms of the benefit for digestion, for blood sugar management where they can put it. That's going to be the huge reward for me. Yeah, and that's a good karma for Pepsi and Coke. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you look at Coke and Pepsi, I think they lost 1.8 billion in market share in terms of the regular

45:23part of the portfolio. Wow, to what? To like ZVS. What are the other things to the possibly all the parts and the helper things like? Yeah. They're the Coke and Coke literally calls this and I know from some emails that they calling this the lost generation that they're losing. They're losing this generation of, you know, think about like you and your kids, how do you go to a store and when you're a restaurant? I drink a Coke with every pizza and burger and chicken I got. And yeah, back in the day, that's that's that's dynamic is changing so quickly. So all these major companies, they need the kinds of innovation that me and others are bringing to kind of fill the gap of what's happening with the world in terms of health. Yeah, it seems like all the younger generations are becoming more conscientious, you know, smoking's down, drinking's down. Yeah. I mean, sex is down. I mean, it's like all of these things are down. I think part of that is due to obviously awareness. The other part is due to video games and addiction and pornography.

46:24Like there's the negative things. Yeah. There's the positive things. Also, you know, the impact of technology and and convenience on our ability to even get out and socialize. You know, that's, I don't know, your kids are in 13's and 20's. Young is a 16 oldest is 29. Yeah. So you've probably seen such an array because like your eldest probably just had technology when he or she was young. But oldest had like 17 or 18. Yeah. Yeah. Like to think I'm, you know, I'm 47 and I got a pager when I was 17. That thing was bad as. And then I got a cell phone when I was like 19 or 20. Yeah. You know, so a very different life. But yeah, you're right. I mean, people, there's more self awareness and like also young generations are pissed. Kind of like you were pissed about getting apple cider vinegar and being like, what the hell? Why? Why? Really? When are we going to tell me? Right. And and you know what's interesting when I worked in gastroenterology as a rap.

47:26The conversation. So I was working with like some of the top specialists in the world on the IBD, IBS, air bubble, bowel disease and air bubble bowel syndrome. There was not a conversation about the microbiome. Like that was not. Yeah. That wasn't until I would say that got brought forward by schools like the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and Functional Medicine. But that, that only got adopted. I think because the consumer got so educated that they were going to the GPs and the gastroenterologists being like, how's my microbiome? And they're like, you know, and obviously I'm not saying arrow gastro, but most, you know, what a crazy number is? What? I think it's 80 to 90% of your serotonin is created in your gut. Yeah. So when you get your gut right, you're happier. Pure and simple, get your gut right. Right. So what are the things you can do to get your gut right and to manage your sugar? And I hate apple. I'm just very self-serving sounding like apple cider vinegar. Right. Right. Whether you're drinking in a life cider or just going in the cupboard and grabbing some apple cider vinegar.

48:29First of all, let's talk ratio. Yeah. You don't drink apple cider vinegar straight. It's too acidic. And water down at least 10 to 1. So for every tablespoon, you know, so really a tablespoon with four or five six ounces of water. Throw a little stevia, little lemon juice, make it palatable. Do that with every meal. If you have acid reflux. Yeah. And honestly, just for blood sugar management, same thing. If you can find a concoction that works for you to manage your blood sugar better, that's it. Do that. Again, you walked down a Walmart or when he's made the retailers, it's bringing us in now and grab a life cider and have that with your meals. But forget on the life cider guy, just for a second, do that. Yeah. Get some vinegar in your life. It will change your life. Who would have ever known? So what is next for you now? Well, we have several more products coming along. And honestly, with this, I have my stick packs. We're actually running stick packs tomorrow, our first few thousand samples. But there we did something kind of magical. You know, most stick packs are on maltodextrin.

49:29We started to have this conversation earlier. But I worked for years and we have just, I think, honestly cracked the code again. So our stick pack is an energy and hydration stick pack. So all the same ingredients that's in life's high rates. But with also 250 milligrams of hydration. But we built it on organic acacia fiber, not a maltodextrin. And we worked very hard to get a soluble process so that it's soluble and it turns into a nice drink and it's incredible. We cracked it. So not only in our stick pack, we get six grams organic acacia fiber, but also if you look at every outside of ingr powder in the world, right, there's virtually no acetic acid retained. Acetic acid is very volatile under heat. We worked for three years to figure out how to do it. We now keep every bit of acetic acid in our in our process. So there's the equivalent of a full tablespoon of outside of ingr in our stick pack. And on our organic acacia fiber. Wow. So with an energy hydration.

50:29So our broker to major retailers, major broker, when they got their sample, this is a JP, this is a unicorn product. It really is. So I think our stick packs are going to be huge. They'll probably out commercially in 60 to 90 days. And then we have some other products coming to. It's really fascinating what upside of vinegar can do and some other people who are in the industry love what we're doing and they're kind of coming alongside and we're doing some joint ventures with some other companies. So life is cool and kind of exploding. And it's fun to accidentally be friends all of a sudden with some just people really deep in the health world and who appreciate the mission driven company I created. And are helping that mission. Well, I'm really happy to hear that the lowest one of the lowest moments of your life has led to now. And as I said at the very beginning, you can never see it when you're in it. Like you can't see the purpose. And that's not to minimize people's experience with like what you're going through in your life.

51:31What has always helped me get through those moments is knowing that in some way, it's a curriculum, which isn't like minimizing the pain of like a breakup or an experience like when my wife and I when we were dating, we broke up. I was one of the, I mean, I was the first time I ever went through a breakup sober. So I had to feel everything I had not felt in a lot of the grief that I had was actually old grief that hadn't been processed. And I remember because I had this self awareness at that time, that something greater was being born from that little did I know that like that breakup, I thought, was forever little did I know that it would put us both on a journey to then come back together through the process, go to a different level, relationally, and then write a book about that like you just don't know. Yeah. And not that that's potentially everyone's story from a breakup. Don't fall in love with that idea because the dedication isn't to staying together. The dedication is being honest. And then that's true of every area of life is like, can we tell the truth?

52:36Which doesn't mean that you need to be radically honest with everybody because authenticity isn't just about radical transparency. I think that's bullshit. It's selective transparency. It's deciding who you share what with. And that comes from a place of wisdom, not from a place of wounding, you know, and, but it's really inspiring when I discovered your brand and then looked up your story because I'm like, why is someone making a drink with Apple cider vinegar? It must be like a glucose based like brand strategy. And then when I found out your story, I was like, oh, this is actually born from pain. This is born from something. So I want to say something. Thanks for giving that. I mentioned it to earlier, but I really feel it. Because I haven't been deep in the podcast world. And as I knew we were coming on and you love the progress, are listening to your podcasts. And really your audience knows this already. I'm just stating the obvious what you've done in your podcasts and the emotional intelligence you brought to them. And you, as I listen to things, I really felt a piece.

53:38I appreciate the work you're doing. So sorry, get emotional sometimes when I think about this, but you're really bringing like a piece and just kind of help me. And when I listen to you, just kind of get, because I'm a high vibrant, I'm a hyper guy. Right. It's a lot going on and I need to find that spot. So that's been my experience of you so far. And I want to add one quick note because I forgot this is about the upside of vinegar powder. Just a quick data because I want this to be able to do things that maybe we cut up and use. But do you know how many upside of vinegar gummies it takes to equate to one cannibalizer? No, 30 gummies. You have to have the bottle to have that sugar you gotta get. And 20 apple cider vinegar capsules. Wow. So just kind of a key piece of data. I want people to recognize of what the impact of getting a table, spent a real tablespoon of apple cider banger in life can do. Do that. Don't do the other things. But anyway, I'm sorry, I just wanted that a quick aside, but just really appreciated getting to know you and you know, a conversation earlier and getting to hear your podcast.

54:39Many, many of them over the last three weeks as we started this conversation. So thank you for the work you're doing. I think it's really, you're a pretty amazing guy. Thanks, man. Really appreciate you coming in. Yeah. Thanks for flying in. Yeah, absolutely. Much love to all the people from Spokane and sending love as they navigate the fires as we're recording this. Yeah. Hopefully out of the out of the woods, no pun intended. But yeah, thanks a lot. I appreciate you, JP. Yeah. Thank you.