Andy Hnilo and Shannon Drake of Jambo Super Foods and The Dirt Care

Live.

And it says we're live. I'm here with Shannon Drake. Can you hear me okay? Everything good?

It's all good.

Oh, man. What. What a fiasco that was. But, hey, I'm full energy now. Fight or flight, you know, it is what it is. But, yeah. Thank you for. For taking the time and joining me. I mean, it's. We. We both, you know, share similar stories to just the grind and the beautiful grind of starting a business. And you've done two. You brought two killer businesses to market, and I've admired your just tenacity and. Because I know. I know I do. I know what it takes to bring up, you know, a physical product to market, and I want to know what, you know, just what you. What. What your story is and what. What got you into that, Because I. I know a little bit about your background and an artistic side of things because I'm so. I love your packaging so much. And then I had no idea that you're actually. That's what you did. What was it? So, yeah, introduce yourself and tell. Tell. Tell us a little bit more about where you're from and. And what you do and what you love.

Yeah, well, okay, let's see. I'll try not to get too in the weeds, but. So I'm from Los Angeles. One of the rare unicorns was born there. And I started off my entrepreneurial pursuits right after college. I went to school for design at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. And I. I have one of these stories where, man, just, like, magic happens to me and disaster happens to me, and I kind of just climb my way through it. So I went to school for design. I thought I was gonna be a painter. I got into the art world. It's just. It's a mess. It's so horrible. It's cutthroat. It's just nasty. It's so competitive and. And it's hard to make a living. It. You know, once I got into the world and I realized how many $10,000 paintings I'd have to sell just to be, like, middle income, I was like, screw, this sucks. So I fell into a job doing marketing for a shoe company called JustFab. They're like one of these shoe of the month club kind of things. One of the original Silicon beach startups, back when that was a big scene, and it was kind of right around when social media marketing became something worth doing for large companies. And my friend was working there, she was doing social media marketing for one of the sister brands, and they had an opening for a marketing manager for the shoe company, and she was kind of like, you should apply. Like, you're really good at social media. And, like, nobody really knows how to do it nowadays, so the fields wide open.

When was it?

Oh, gosh, probably about seven years ago, eight years ago.

Okay. 2010, 2011?

Yeah. Yeah. So, like, Pinterest didn't exist yet. It was back. Back in the, like, right after MySpace had just died off. You know, there wasn't even Facebook ads at the time. I wish there was. I would have, like, killed it with Facebook ads. So, yeah, I just kind of. There was four employees. They were kind of like, make it happen. And so I figured out how to do social media marketing, and we built the Facebook following from. It was like, 22 people who are all employees of the other brands to 2.2 million Facebook followers in two years.

Wow.

Yeah, that was my first, like, getting thrown into the deep end of the pool kind of hustle practice.

So what. How did you do that from just 0 to 2.2 in two years?

Yeah.

Do you mind sharing some of. Some of what you did? I mean, I mean, that's impressive.

I can do some consulting for you, Andy. I'll give you a good night.

Hey, do it.

I just, you know, it's really nuanced, but if I was to kind of wrap it into a nutshell, I would say that one of my gifts that I was born with is I'm really good at asking why questions and understanding people's motivations, and that's all social media is about. It's like, why do people share things? Why do they engage? Why do they want to listen to you? And so that sort of way I was raised to ask why questions, combined with the training I got from art school, which is basically, how do you influence people's thoughts with images? That's what art school is. Combining those two, I just really figured out how to get people to engage on social media, how to use memes really early on, how to build a content calendar that was a good blend of marketing and fun and information. And it was kind of the wild west at the time is like, one of these little golden eras where there wasn't a lot of competition yet, and people were just excited to be on social media. And it wasn't, like, just engulfed with nastiness like it is now. It was still people's, like, pictures of their kids and dogs. So he had a lot of, like, happiness going on. And.

Yeah.

And then I used that to set us apart from our Competitors. I made sure that I chose a culture for our brand that was really supportive and happy, and I didn't allow anyone to talk trash about anybody. You can only be supportive about people's outfits. If someone shared an outfit, like, all you could do. I mean, you can give them constructive criticism if they asked for it, but it was all about sisterhood because a lot of our customers were army wives who are away from their friends. A lot of them were single moms, and they just needed support. So I built our social media around that.

So when you say outfits and ideas for outfits, is that like, new? So if you're in the summer and you're projecting the fall look or whatever. I can imagine. When I worked for Oakley, there was a lot of that. There were several designers in for training, surf and sport, golf, lifestyle, and then icon, their European cut. So I like. I got to see their designers and their ideas, and they were very supportive and very positive. I mean, you're a team, right? But is that what you mean when you're talking bringing an outfit and an idea for an upcoming look for an upcoming season?

Oh, we had a bunch of different sort of ideas that we worked with, trying to get our customers engaged. So we would do lookbook, kind of polyvore looking, where you put a pair of shoes and you put a purse and you put lipstick and you kind of make a look for people. But then also, we encouraged our fans, when they got their shoes, to take a picture of their outfit and post it to Facebook to kind of flaunt their collection.

Huge.

Yeah, it was huge. And, you know, the girls would be getting, like, three, five, six pairs of shoes a month. So we got a lot of content with them, and. And they loved it, and we loved it. They had great style, and it was really fun.

Yeah, it's such a good way to. That's. God, that's such a good way to engage because, you know, they feel special. The company's right. The company that they just, you know, became, well, they're a customer of, recognizes them personally. And that's. That's. Yeah, it's fun on both ends. It gives you guys good content. It lets everybody engage and helps other customers go, oh, I'm not alone, or, oh, I'm special. It's like a little gallery. But we. We do that with our masks and videos. Fun families and, you know, like, getting together and doing mass or, you know, using the products and things like that. And it's. That's. That's, like, so fulfilling and warms my heart to See, so I can relate.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, if you think about, you know what? If you think. If you think about your marketing less as, like you're a company interfacing with clients and you think of it more as your humans interchanging value, I think that can really help you create a marketing strategy that is mutually beneficial. Because really, like, if you own a business, especially small businesses like us, where we're still very intimate with our clients, like half of. Half of your drive is the smile of your customer. And so to build your whole message around making people empowered and feel good and make them feel how you feel, how I feel. You know, I think part of the magic of the entrepreneurial experience is it just makes you such a warrior and like, so resilient in life. And it's hard to teach people that, but you can give them a little bit of it with the way that you're marketing in your company and your images and your design comes out.

Yeah, absolutely. That hunger, especially when I love what you said, as far as, you know, at this stage right now, when certain orders come in and you see names that you've seen from the beginning, it's just, oh, man, seriously, that's number one for me. And then having the impact of just, you know, whether it's helping somebody get over cystic acne, psoriasis, eczema. I mean, helping them feel better about what they see in the mirror, to me, that gives me chills right now, as I think about it. So.

Yeah.

So I'd love for you to tell how that kind of propelled you into where you are now with what. So what started first? Was it jambo? Was it dirt? Or was it kind of a co. Co branding? How did that work?

The dirt started first. And the way it kind of started was I was working that job and I loved working with the girls. And it was a dream job. Like, we had a bar in our office. It was in Redondo Beach. You know, I got sent to New York to go to Fashion Week once a year. It was a dream job, but it wasn't my dream job. It was, you know, I was selling plastic shoes and meanwhile, like, I didn't have any plastic in my apartment. So there was a little ethical disconnect there. Doing marketing, consulting, freelance after work. So I would work like nine hours at the office, go home, drive an hour to get home because it was la, and then work four or five hours in, know, on my laptop, in my chair, like giving myself bad posture.

Yeah.

When I got home. And then sometimes I'd still go out, which blows my mind. I was much younger, but as I was doing that, I started dating Joe, my life business, puppy daddy partner, and love him. I was making all my own products on the side because I could never find products that I really liked. Like, at the time, I felt like a lot of natural products still had some weird ingredients in them, and I wanted to tailor them how I wanted them. So I was making lip balm. I was making tooth powder. I was making lotions. Joe calls them lotions and potions. And him being, like, a true entrepreneur. Like, he was raised by an entrepreneur. It runs in his blood. He was, like, listening to me bitch about having to work so many hours and complaining about, like, my office job and. And then coming home when I'm exhausted making products. And he's like, well, why aren't you making products for a living? Because that's obviously what you really like to do.

Like them. What was your first one? Were you baking? So what was your first. So you said the teeth powder, your lotions and potions. What was the first one that you like? Your first baby? Did you have an OG like thing that your go to was.

Yeah, my first baby was our lip balm that we sell on the dirt. The dirty balm.

Yeah. I love that stuff.

Thank you. Yeah. I had a similar kind of. I mean, kind of similar thing to you where when I was younger, I went camping a lot, and I would get really sunburnt, and I got a really bad sunburn on my lips and had really bad skin damage from it. And no matter what I tried, I couldn't get the skin to heal. And it was really embarrassing because I was just out of college dating like mad, and I had lips that were so dry they would crack and bleed.

Oh, wow.

It was so embarrassing. Especially this one time I was going in for a sweet, hot kiss with this guy, and I pulled back and he had blood on his face from my lip. Oh, horrifying. Horrifying. And so I started making the lip balm to solve my problem because nothing worked. I tried all. Like, I tried this pot of, like, $300. I got a discount on it because my friend worked at the company. Lip balm. You know, magic stuff with stem cells and all that. It did nothing. Once it wore off, nothing, it was back to square one. So I had to solve the problem.

So where'd you go? Beeswax.

The secret ingredient, which isn't so secret because it's on the label. Ghee.

Ah, nice.

Awesome. For skin repair.

Yeah. To the, the audience out there, ghee is a, it's a clarified butter which it's. It's the lactose enzymes is taken out of the butter basically and it's cooked down to a point where it's like, it's like the essence of the, of the butter. Right. You would say that the best thing to cook. Cook with, I would say. And then grass fed butters just beneath that. But ghee is just. There's a whole process of taking butter to ghee. Can you explain that better than I can?

You basically take a super high quality butter and you heat it slowly and agitate it and the proteins separate from the fats. So the whey and the lactose or proteins, they separate from the fats and they skim those off the top and then just the oil is left over. So so it's shelf stable. It's just lipids. Most people who are like slightly allergic to casein or lactose can still use it. If you're like seriously allergic. Some people still have a little problem with it, but topically it is awesome. It has all kinds of vitamins in it that a lot of oils don't have. And it really penetrates. I like it. I'll just.

Was that or was that a Hail Mary?

What was that?

Do you know that at the time or was that like a Hail Mary ingredient? Kind of just experimenting. Did you do your research on that or. Because I did a lot of things. Just experimenting. Totally.

A little bit of both. I was looking at natural beauty solutions from around the world because I really believe that like our grandmas had a lot of knowledge that we've lost.

Oh yeah.

So much and what they used on their skin and so in India they use ghee on everything. They put it on their babies, they put it in their belly buttons, they put it up their nose, they put it in their eyes like everywhere. And so I just like hell I'm gonna put it on my face. I've tried everything else and it worked and it, I mean it tastes great. So that helps.

There you go. Yeah, I man, when I was making my night cream, I had beef beef tallow. Was my mom, she's probably watching this right now. I guarantee she went and got five pounds of grass fed grass finished beef tallow from Bel Campo. You know Bel Campo, Bel Campo.

Yep.

Bless her heart. Thank you, mom. So sent that off to my manufacturer in Hawaii and they put together an unbelievable night cream. And it was great. You know, that's when I first started off, made my night cream. I was melting down beeswax, tallow, cacao butter, Manuka honey, colostrum, sea buckthorn. And it just melting them down in a cast iron pan. And it was. I still have that first one and it's still chunky, it's still great. I mean, you know, Manuka honey acts as an amazing anti microbial preservative in its own right. So it's still, I still have that. I mean that thing has to be at 7, 8 years old, but I still carry it around. I'm so glad I didn't lose that.

I still have my first lip balms too.

I love that. Yeah, that's so cool. But yeah, I actually, I had to remove the tallow because that was back when I really wanted to get into Whole Foods. So Whole foods had non negotiable. They have an ingredient list. I don't know if you, if you've looked to get in there but they have like with their health and beauty department they have ingredients so they just won't, you can't, you can't put the products on the shelves. So tallow was one of them that broke my heart. So we had to start from scratch and we took that out. I didn't want to, but I did. And the night cream was. It's probably our best product right now. But it would have been great to have that in there because I just, I love the nourishing fats in beef tallow, beef products in general. Especially when it's just the story behind it. Having my mom go across, I would have loved to tell that but so nonetheless I have a lot of beef tallow.

You can use it in your hair. It makes a great hair gel it.

Yeah, I still, I put it everywhere. That's one of those things you can feel. I mean post sun exposure burns, what, whatever it is. I mean I, I still to this day I walk around, I'm an. I mean my FedEx, my USPS, the people, they've seen everything on my. They come to the door and I'm experimenting one side of the face with you know, split it up into fours like top here. You know, different things just to see what works and what doesn't. Yeah, but it sounds like yeah, you're similar where it's just we're our own biggest science experiment and we know the truth. It's like I either feel it, it works or it doesn't period. In my case that's how it started. So I want to get back to how you were talking about. You didn't have Any plastic in your apartment. You're like, here you are selling plastic shoes. It just didn't feel right to you. And I have to say that that is what propelled me to get out of. I was working as a, you know, model actor, but I was also bartending at night to, you know, keep me disciplined and stay out from going out on the weekends, but also make, make money. So you feel like you're out at night and engaging and socializing, but you're also making money and it's fun. And I would drive home, I would say these little mantras to myself, just like, you know, projecting gratitude and perspective and just thinking, you know, I'm pretty spiritual. But I also knew I had friends take me aside and they were just like, you're poisoning people, but yet you write up diet plans during the day. Like, have you ever thought about that? I'm all, well, hey, man, I mean, this is a good job. Like, he's like, dude, take the leap. You got to take that leap. Get out of there, man. You have people paying you that to write up diet plans. How about you focus on that full time? And I was really offended. I remember that conversation. And I'm like, oh yeah, what? I can just stop and I'm just gonna like, hire people because it's scary when you have that in. Come to. To. To stop it and then, and then get in this. What do you do? Like, just start finding clients. But, man, looking back, it's. I would have, If I were to do it, like, I wouldn't change the thing first off. But if I were to like, if someone else was in that shoes, in those shoes, I would, I would save up money. So you would give yourself a month, right? Give yourself a little timeline or whatever. A lot of people say don't give yourself a plan B and only focus on A. Which I like too. I like that too. But I would give up enough money to where you're good for a month for food, rent, and then just pound, pound the pavement daily, in and out, content wise. If it's your passion, if it's something you eat, breathe and sleep, people are going to notice. Social media is great for that. You can see the love. If someone's into whatever it is, you can see it in their eyes, you know, just responding to passion. I had something recently someone was just really into, man. What was, was in. I think it was a pasta dish that they were explaining and how they. Oh yeah, how they made pasta from scratch, but just the way they lit up with their eyes lit up Talking about it. I don't eat pasta, but I was, what I. Maybe wanting pasta, you know what I mean? Just responding to that, engaging to that passion that they have. And so people respond to that. People respond to excitement that you have, whatever it is. And so I just. If I were to look back and to anybody out there listening, man, I don't care what it is. Pay attention to the things that excite you, because that's going to excite people around you. People feed off that stuff. I know I do. You know what I mean?

Totally. Totally. And, you know, I think a piece of advice I found really useful is like, what do you daydream about when you're bored?

I love that.

Yeah. Because for me, it's hard for me to figure out what I was passionate about, because I'm passionate about a lot of things, and I still am. And it's taken. I think some of the most difficult discipline I've had to deal with is I get bored really easy. Really easy. And I'm really, like, this is going to sound really braggy, but I'm really good at a lot of things, so it's easy for me to hop on from thing to thing to thing to thing. And I enjoy the challenge of learning. And so, one, it was hard for me to figure out what I was actually passionate about in a way that I could sustain. And two, it was just hard for me to stay focused because, like, once I learn something, I almost want to go do something else because I feel like, oh, it's good enough. You know, I can play Ode to Joy on the piano. Like, time to learn to play the guitar. And so big challenge.

Okay.

One of those people, like, you know, I just learned how to. How to do how to bird hunt this season, and now I'm like, archery time forever.

Moving. Yeah. So. So tell me a little bit more about. So you went from lip balm to. Did Joe. Did he go. I mean, from the first step. So did. Do you. Did you have, like. Did you just start going, all right, well, I'm going to. Did you move from a commercial kitchen? Did you start buying the little tins? Did you start. Your logo is sweet. I love it.

Thank you.

I mean, let's. I could go on and on and on about the jumbo packaging. I'm serious. I'm not. I just love the both of them. And so. So where. Where do you go? I mean, so how'd you go up? How'd you start with that? What was that? Was Dirt the first name? Did you have another Name. What happened? How did that go?

Joe came up with the name Dirt. So I. I came up with all the formulas and I came up with the flavors. I really like flavors. I love smells and Smell Freak. I'm so excited for your future products. But when Joe is. He's my guinea pig. And so he's brushing his teeth and he spits it out in the sink, and it's clay, so it's dirt colored. And he looks in the sink and goes, that's a problem. Like, what's the problem? It's like, it's not white. How are you gonna. We gotta turn this bug into a feature. How do we do that? And it was really early on. I didn't know. Bug into a feature. I'm like, what the hell does that mean?

Yeah.

You know, when there's a problem with something, sometimes the problem becomes a feature if you can, like, change some things around.

And I see where he's going with that. Yeah.

So his genius idea was to name the company the Dirt and then just, like, own that it's Dirt. And so then it becomes a feature. Like, it's not a mess in your sink. Now it's proving to you that it's natural.

Ah, okay.

Blew my mind. I was like, how did you even think of that? And then the logo, it was just a little homage to my past life as a painter. So it's like two brushstrokes with, like a big fat brush, which is how I used to paint.

Yeah, it has like a little. A little smear, but it's nice. Not a smear, but like a. Almost like a snap. Like it's mattering. Yeah, kind of. But it's a good color scheme too. I like the black, the yellow with a little bit of grayish charcoal. Yeah, it's good. It's good.

Yeah. I was trying to. I was trying to blend, like, a little bit of playfulness and fun because it's toothpaste with a little bit of, like, fancy because I wanted to have, like, adult kind of flavoring. So we have the rose and we have cacao. And how do I combine, like, fun sassy with fancy with natural.

Right.

To be like this magical trifecta of a product I would want.

And so for the audience out there, she's talking about her bentonite rose and chocolate toothpaste that I tried for the first time, and I had no problem swallowing it. Basically, what I'm saying is it's an amazing tasting toothpaste that you can eat. Am I right or wrong on that? Can I say that.

You can say that. We don't say it because it puts us into a food weird category. But all the ingredients are food grade.

Yeah. I mean, we're talking. Yeah, it's, it's. It's a very effective toothpaste. And people just are probably so blown away. Wait, so you're. You're telling me to put bentonite clay on my teeth and it's going to clean them out? Like, hey, believe me, it works. It's effective and it tastes great. And it's like, what, five ingredients?

Four super simple.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's. That's, that's funny. It's. What do you say that the bug into a feature. That's great. That's actually what Dave Asprey said. We'll start it right in the beginning because I had. I had a little too much kelp powder right at the beginning when I was running around LA and just testing. I was just trying to get the word out. I felt I had something and I would just. It was my beta testing, but I just, just for the, Just for feedback, I would meet with different estheticians and they would introduce me to other estheticians. And they were so sweet about it, but they're like honey just blown away with the apple cider vinegar and a little too much kalpowder. Which.

Was it stinky or was it green or both?

Well, it was both.

So you had a bunch of sea monsters running around?

Oh, absolutely. You know, I just, you know, it was very stimulating too, because of. I was. We had to tone down our ascorbic acid percentage, the vitamin C in it. And so we had. It took a little. A lot of fine tuning. But that's okay. I mean, it's part of it, but. Yeah.

Yeah. It took me a year and a half to get my toothpaste to work, like for it to squeeze, for it to run, but not like completely separate.

Yeah.

Because I didn't want to use an emulsifier. I don't want to add any weird chemicals to it. Yeah, it drove me crazy. It drove me crazy. Like, I would have breakdowns, like throwing things. Like, I'm not a very angry person. I don't, like, get. I'll get excited about things, but I don't get, like, upset. You know, I'm pretty even keel that toothpaste. I probably threw the tube of the toothpaste on the ground in frustration at least a handful of times and just walked away like, screw this. I'm not doing toothpaste. This sucks. I can't handle it. It's not going to work. And then Joe would be like, get back over there and give it one more try. And every time it's just that one more step, one more step. That's like the entrepreneurial mantra is like, one more step, just go one more time. Yeah, it always works. That last time.

Yeah. My, My mom brought up a cool article that she read, Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank.

Mm.

And she was interviewed and publication recently and she said what, what is. What's like the number one. I don't know if she, if she was asked like, if it's like the number one entrepreneurial trait or what stands out to her, an entrepreneur. And she said, they just don't feel sorry for themselves. They have it like inside to where they just. It's like it spot on. I thought that was correct because I just. I never wanted even. It's even hard to say out loud right now. I just, seriously, I'm not like trying to pat myself on the back, but I will never like stop or give up or whine or complain or definitely not quit, period, until I get something. Until I get it to where it is, you know. You know, we have these visions and it sounds like, you know, you can totally relate. Visions, daydreaming, that's, you know, very similar. Similar in their own right to. I just thankfully I, you know, that I'm able to like, act on them now. But I've been having, you know, practicing visualization since I was 14 years old. Have you?

Yeah. It's funny. What kind of visualization did you do? Did you like visualize on something or did you more kind of like, for lack of a better word, like zone out and have things come to you? Because there's, I think, two different ways.

Right. Are you talking. So when I was younger.

When you're younger, yeah.

So I would. And this is before the secret. This is before visualization was even a thing. I mean, I mean, I mean, to me, to me, I didn't even know anything about it, but I just. I would sit in my. Lay in my bed and I would just. I would do these little finicky things and throw like a baseball up towards my roof and. Or the ceiling of my. In my room and just try to nick it. It had to lightly touch it. And I'd become obsessed with that. I'd play like little games in my backyard, envisioning myself on the mound, pitching to hitters and then just like smelling the grass. It was just cut from like say I Cut the lawn or whatever. And I would put myself through game situations, game like situations. And that's. That really, that, that repetition of doing that all day, that obsession of doing that all day, all night, that's just that obsession that I mean, if I didn't nick 10 out of 10, I would be so frustrated that I mean my parents and brother, they probably didn't know that I was in there having an absolute mental battle with myself of just this little freaking game just throwing it up against the wall. But those little things, those little characteristics, it all makes sense now. But yeah, those are, those are things that I would do. I would, I would, I would definitely envision myself in the game like situation from in that perspective or in that situation. But yeah, that's, that's what I would do.

That's so interesting. I think there's a certain. It gets like really metaphysical, I think. And you might feel the same way in sort of entrepreneurship is. There's this, this. There's this gap between how things are and how you can imagine them to be. And visualizing like that, I think you can approximate the feeling of being in the place you want to be in a way that like your nervous system starts to understand it in a way that then once you can kind of understand it when you see those opportunities in the world, you go ahaha. That's it. That's leading me that way. And I'm not certain, but I'm pretty certain because I've like played the game out in my mind so many times that this feels like a yes. I think that's. I think that is one of the most basic attributes you have to have to be an entrepreneur. I mean, never giving up is great, but I mean, I've definitely given up on some things in my life, but I can always picture myself where I want to go. And if I can continually project myself out, I will get there. It's. Once I lose that sort of metaphysical anchor cast out into the future that I found for me personally, I lose the motivation. And so I think got something there, you know?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And it's. Yeah. I didn't want to make it seem like I've never quit, but just right now it's, it's just.

Well, it's a different. You're on a whole different level. I mean there. Because there's stages to it, right? There's a. You've probably seen these little charts they have. That's like entrepreneurialism. And it's like, it's great, it's awesome. It's great. It's awesome. It's great. It's awesome.

Yeah. I'm sorry.

It's great. It sucks. It's great. It sucks.

It great.

It sucks. And, you know, they get less as you get farther along, I think. And I think.

Right.

Both you and I, it seems like we've kind of gotten out of the, like, trenches, and now we're kind of in that, like, oh, I can see the escape velocity is, like, happening. And so that's a really powerful place to be because it's. It's like doubt has left your mind, and, you know, as long as you don't give up, it's gonna work. It's a stage. I think in entrepreneurial, there's a doubt stage, there's a, like, no doubt stage, and there's an actualization stage, and then there's the how do I even grow it from here stage is like, okay, we got to the moon. How do we get to Mars?

So. Right. Exactly. That's actually a good segue into what I was just gonna ask. Are you. Are you one of those. Are you one of those people that. Sorry, I'm shivering right now. Are you into, like, when you reach something, is it always, all right, what's next? Do you enjoy it a little bit, or is it what's next?

I had to teach myself to enjoy it. I made. I made a serious, like, spiritual happiness practice out of pause. Out of not chasing the next thing. Because I realized that while that's a really powerful character trait, it. Everything in life has two sides of the coin. Like, that's a really powerful character trait to get you to someplace you want to be. But it also depends on. It doesn't create happiness because then you're never content. You're never grateful in a certain way. So I really. I had to. And it sounds so strange. I had to, like, beat myself into enjoying my achievements, where I'd be like, okay, I did. My to do list is done. I'm gonna stop working, and I'm gonna go out to dinner with one of my girlfriends. I have to. And it is weird because, like, I would think for most people, they couldn't wait to stop working and go hang out with their girlfriends. But for me, I do have a little bit of this. This character trait where I feel like I have to earn rewards. And I think that's healthy to an extent, but it also can create that sort of chasing your tail loop. So I've really worked on that.

Can you. Can you tell me how you. How you did that?

I wish I had a clear plan.

Yeah, I mean, it's. Or just a couple actionable things. It's my worst quality, hands down. Hands down.

It definitely depends on your particular, like, affliction version of the chasing the things. For me, gosh, it was a lot of, A lot of people who I hang out with. Right. So I really curated my immediate group of people to be people who focus on true gratitude, not people who just talk about it. And also to stop and look back on my past experience and look, look for patterns where I already have what I want. Maybe just not in the exact way I thought I wanted it, but the essence of the thing I have already and just repeating that retrospective pattern, rewiring my brain in a way to be like, you're not chasing anything, you already have it and you're just like polishing the stone. Right. You're just adding more facets to the diamond you already have.

Yeah, my. I had a couple buddies that, well, employees, and they said that exact same thing that you just said, that last part. And I, I'm. I gotta work on that. I remind myself all the time, which is so interesting because perspective is so big for me. You know, I do, I have my daily mantra. I do very. I'm very big on routines. And I listened to the same song I listened to when I was recovering my jaw wired shot and all that. Every morning I do similar stuff, but it's always go, what's next? What's next? What's next? And you would think with that perspective that you'd be able to kind of just relax and calm down and enjoy it. But it's, it's, it's constant and. But I do enjoy the, you know, that 10, 11pm sitting with my red light on, you know, after working out or whatever. Long day, you're checking emails and you're looking at what you knocked down and it's like that's. I'm addicted to that like blue collar feel of like I grinded today.

Yep.

And it's, it's a, it's a feeling, it's, it's satisfying it. You know, it's kind of. You know what, Maybe it's like, maybe it's like with, with sports, maybe it's my athletic background that like, it reminds me of being sore from a workout and kind of like getting, getting back sore from a weekend series at University of Arizona. And you kind of like, you know, you recount what you did and you're sore, you're banged up, maybe you got hit by a pitch you got a.

Little, you got a little scars.

Yeah, you have some scars on your hip from sliding or whatever. It's a good hurt. That's. That's gotta be it. But I gotta work on that. And I'll. I'll take that into account with what you said and also start. Start a, you know, maybe surrounding myself with. Yeah, my friends are awesome with your attitude and I need to start practicing. Practicing.

You just need to listen to them more.

There you go. There you go.

You know, another thing that might help you. I really enjoy it. I'm not good at asking for it. Is asking people to reflect back on you, how they see you. I think that can be really helpful for some people. I think especially really high achieving people. We don't have a good vision of ourselves. Like, it's. It's almost like. It's hard to put into language the idea I'm trying to explain, but it's almost like there's no upper limit to how good you think you could be. And so in a way, you're never achieving a worthiness level. That's like, you have a base level that you're just like, okay, like, all right, I'm good. And so for me, I like to ask people, you know, well, how did I sound? Or how did I look? Or. Because it's almost like you're so in it, you can't reflect back on yourself. And I've been really surprised about how people talk about me to me in that, like, they notice and they respect things about me that I wasn't even on my radar, like, at all. It's eye opening in a way where, like, you, for me, like, I'll be trying so hard to achieve a certain vision of myself. Like, I'll be trying to. I'll be trying really hard to, like, be more open and connecting and emotional with people because I think I'm a really, like, stoic person. And then I'll ask one of my girlfriends, like, oh, hey, you know, I'm having a rough day and I feel like I'm not giving myself enough credit. Like, can you just reflect something back to me that you find valuable about me as a friend? And they'll be like, oh, well. I mean, you listen so well and you just always give me really heartfelt advice. I'm like, oh, really? Because I thought I was just cold all the time.

That's an awesome trait, by the way. Obviously, it goes without saying, like, when you get people that aren't waiting to talk, but actually giving active, you know, feedback and Responses to digest, you know, digesting exactly what you, what their responses to what you just said. I mean, that's listening. That's so valuable when he likes, see people like in their eyes, like actively throwing around their response because they're just trying to come up with, you know, legitimate response to what they just heard from, you know, I mean, that's such a beautiful thing. So that's, I'm glad your friends pointed that out. Very rare. No, it is rare, but.

Well, it's a skill too because, you know. Yeah, the, the initial like drive is to answer someone right away because you're you, you're having conversation. And what really struck me is when I first started dating Joe, I would, I would ask him a question and he would, he would literally, I would end my question and he'd go.

You.

Could for like four minutes. And I'd be like, wait, did you not hear my question? And then he would just have a really good answer and like, oh my God, you're thinking about what I said, like really hard and you're not like rushed to give me an answer. And I just, I was so blown away by that. But it was really freaking awkward at first, but I was like so blown away by it afterwards that he was just so able to sit in that awkwardness and, and just kind of, I don't know, be like a statue in the wind until he like reached out in his like ether of information and found a really good little nugget to bring back to me. And I was like, okay, this is what I think about it. And I'm like, I have to learn how to do that. And it was just practice, practice, practice, practice catching myself not paying attention, catching myself looking over people's shoulders instead of looking at them when I'm talking to them. And.

Yep.

You know, just focus, focus, focus. How do I bring the focus that I have other aspects of my life to people? Yeah, that's, it's just a skill, you know, everything, you can learn anything, really.

Yeah. My brother, my brother in law is like that just, it's beautiful. Just super intense listener, you know, I mean, incredible feedback, but just in depth, you know. It's so beautiful. I'm just not used to that. I mean, I love it. Yeah. So I wanted to touch on the. We talked about something and then the struggles and then, you know, where you really, the struggle is what is really when you find out what you're made of, you know, and without that, if you've had things just, you know, I mean, I remember I would get my rent paid off by the early. By early. As early as I can in the month. And then I'd be able to, you know, kind of, you know, just map everything out, numbers wise to survive. I mean, I mean. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not like. I mean, I just. It was just my personal deal and I wanted to earn everything. And I was. It was right after college, and I was scared to not be able to pay rent. So I got as many jobs as I could. I think I had five at one point.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. Working as a bartender. I was a caterer. I was modeling a little bit. I was working as a door greeter for Abercrombie and Fitch, and I was also waiting tables. And so. But I was just scared to not pay rent. The last thing I wanted to do is ever ask for money. And so having that, like, you know, I don't know if it's struggle or just toughness or it develops resilience in you that, you know, survival and just. Just developing little tactics to giving yourself a budget to eat throughout the day, you know, seven to $10 a day, you can make that work. Seriously. I mean, you know, dozen eggs can. If I was eating black beans at the time. Trader Joe's is great for that, by the way.

Oh, my God. Trader Joe's got me through college.

And it's just like, things like that. Survival builds toughness, builds resilience. The struggle, you find out where you're made of. And really, you should. You build, Build that. That confidence that you can pull yourself out of anything. And I guess the point is, what I'm trying to make here is if anybody out there is going through something like that, you know, you know, the obstacle is the way, you know, embrace that, that struggle and be comfortable being uncomfortable and go, you know, I got this. You know, it's easier said than done. Sure. But you prove yourself right, that sticks with you for your rest of your life, I believe. And you can build off that, you know, yourself, you know, you know, you can get through anything if you just grind it out. I think it's. That's. Do you have anything, any. Any specific situation in your life where you can, you know, kind of point out an example of that?

Yeah, well, I would say, you know, I'm really grateful for all of the struggles I've had to deal with, because getting through struggle gives you incredible freedom because, you know, you'll survive it. And it sounds kind of funny to say, like, you think you might not survive something because you're definitely going to live through it unless something incredibly tragic happens. But there is this sort of mental space where you're. When you're going through something and you're in the slogging through the deepest, darkest depths of hell part of whatever problem you're working on, that it feels like you're not going to survive it. But you, you will. Because I think, I think our emotional instinct is. It's programmed to deal with wolves and like life and death situations that we don't have now, but we do have extreme stress. And so it triggers this I might die or like I'm in grave danger or I'm in physical danger. Feeling that's false, but nonetheless gives you the effect of that. And so I think the emotional strain of it can, can take over your reasoning in a way that if you can just trust that you will make it and if you keep going, you'll be fine. You'll be such a badass after that because you learn that that emotion is not true. It's not the truth.

Right?

You have to step back and look rationally and what you're going through. Because like, like my dad got cancer when I was 15. He got lung cancer and he just, he died slowly over like six years. It was horrible, miserable. Just hell, literal hell. Like, my dad was a. He was a carpenter and ex marine and he was like this huge badass, like, buff guy. And to see him go from, you know, he would. He would chain smoke and hike up a mountain and everyone else would be like, dying, trying to keep up with him kind of person. To see him go from being this like unstoppable locomotive to a skeleton was traumatic. Like, at the time, I didn't give myself enough credit for how difficult it was to go through that. Being like a teenage girl at like the time in my life where I needed the most reassurance and stability. Like going from being a girl to being a woman. And for him just not to be able to give me that because he was falling apart, like literally being eaten alive by this disease. And then to have him die. And for me to start college right after that, I was lost at sea, just completely floating around. I had no idea what to do. My mom was, you know, my mom, I love her, she did her very best. But my mom, she married my dad when she was 20 and was with him since she was 15. She had never been by herself before. So all of a sudden I had to like, be the rock. I had to kind of be the man and like hold Myself together. This was the role I thought I needed to do in order to show up for her. And so, you know, I'm like this like 20 year old girl, just like, what the hell am I supposed to do right now? I've like, Dad's always been there. He's always like, made things safe for me. And it was a mess. And then my mom started dating a new guy and he would do drugs in our garage. And it was not the life I was used to. I was used to like nuclear family, really safe, you know, middle class, not this. And it was intensely traumatic. There's. There's periods of that time in my life I don't. I don't remember them. Like, I have erased the memories from my mind to deal with the stress of it and to deal with, you know, this giant stranger man who's now in my house, like, raging around on drugs.

It's a polar opposite of your stud father.

The opposite. The complete opposite. And. And, you know, I was young. I didn't have any sort of experience or mental reasoning to. To figure out the universe anymore. My universe was plunged into chaos. And like, how do I make order out of it? And I thought about suicide. And it was intense to like, the only reason I didn't kill myself is because I didn't want my mom to be sad. That was the only reason. And to go from that when I was 20 to now I'm 33 and I own two businesses and I have a great relationship and I'm surrounded by amazing people. I would have had, could not even picture the life I have now when I was there. So for anybody who's going through struggle, like, no matter what depths of hell you feel like you're in, what? You know, you feel like you're at the bottom of a well and everyone else is at the top in another universe. The emotion is not the truth. And you can pull yourself out of it. It just takes time. You just have to be patient with yourself. There's a certain level of being okay with feeling miserable for a little while.

That's. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, it's hit the nail on the head. I mean, it's just. I. Fortunately, I haven't experienced anything like that, but, you know, it's. You're the epitome of strength, Shannon. I mean, I mean, I'm serious. I've admired that. I've seen it. It's just a feel. No, what? No, I'm serious.

See, this is where humble Shannon gets all blushy.

Because, I mean, that and that it all makes sense now.

Thank you.

And it's just, yeah, it's, it's, it's a very good lesson to anybody listening. We're all going through things. It's, it's a very relatable trait to just be able to experience and, and hear and listen other people's stories. I just, I've had, you know, that's the beauty of social media. You see certain things that people are going through and you realize you don't have it so bad. And so yeah, thank you for sharing that.

You're welcome. And you know, it's. Life is so interesting because like yeah, you don't have it so bad, but it's also tough, you know, and it's this balance of having perspective that you know, you're not starving to death in sub Saharan Africa, but also like life isn't easy. So how do you both, you know, not be sorry for yourself but also give yourself credit?

Right.

And everything in life is like that. It's nuanced, it's gray, shades of gray. And we just lack so much of that nuance nowadays. It's like fast media that I think makes people really anxious.

Right. So I want to ask just so I got like 5% here left on my laptop. I want to ask three things. So first off to people out there, sorry I'm late. I was running around with my laptop to Air1. I went to an urgent care center and asked for their password. Bless their heart. The people in their. Give me the password. Couldn't log in. There was fuzzy, fuzzy Internet there. And I went to another place here where I'm at Starbucks. So that's why I'm late. But hey, found it. Found a way, right?

Way to happen.

Yeah. So sorry I'm late. But then I want to ask you just for your three most like the traits you look for as a business owner to people out there that, that for hiring the most attractive qualities that you see in other entrepreneurs that in people that you're looking for hungry employees. Just, just the three top traits kick ass qualities it that you just think are badass and other people that you find is a winner.

Okay. I would say good attitude number one. Number two, good ideas number three, follow through, execute. Can't tell you how many people come to me, good ideas, good attitude, they can't show up. It's actually hard to find people who show up. And it blows my mind because before I started a business I thought all these people are out of work, somebody's doing something wrong. And now That I own a business. I'm like, oh, well, a little bit of that is people aren't disciplined, and they don't show up for work. And, like, I want to pay you money, and you still don't show up for work. Like, come on. So definitely, like, follow through is really important, but if you don't. If you follow through and you're, you know, stinky pants every day, like, you're gonna lose your job. So you kind of have to have this trifecta of. It's just having a good nature, you know, like, if. If somebody has a really good attitude and they mess up on something, like, I know they didn't do it on purpose. I know they were trying, and for some reason, some puzzle piece didn't fit in. And so, you know, because we spend, like, how many hours a day at work? Like, you want to be around people who are great. They have value adds, and you want them to succeed. And if you can't make someone succeed, but if they come to you with a good attitude, good ideas, and follow through, all you have to do is, like, clear the bushes out of the way for them on the path, and they'll, like, throw the seeds down. And you're like, hell, yeah. This is, like, so easy because as a business owner, you're basically hacking through the jungle, and then you need the people behind you to pick up the papayas, you know, like, yeah, let's do it.

Love that metaphor. It's great. That's awesome. Those are. Yeah, those are definitely mine as well. I would say when I find little nuggets of, like, character that. That were not meant to be seen or shown by the. By the certain employee or someone else. You got me for life. You know what I mean? When. When I see some type of just like, Jaws true character and just awesome heart when nobody was supposed to be looking. You got me. You're gonna be with me for. For as long as you want to be. Just. Just having that. That discipline, that. That relentless pursuit of executing, you know, not. Not just good enough, but I would say just have that be that weird guy. It's got to be. You know, I love. I love. I don't want to say, like, seek perfection, but kind of like I like that person that. That just won't stop until they get it. Until they get it right, you know?

Problem solver.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Shannon, you are one badass person. Thank you so much for joining me on this. I. I apologize. I made you and your following wait, but I. Man, this couldn't have gone any better.

This is great. It was so nice talking to you, Andy. You're a badass.

No, hey, you know, it's. It's. Next time I'm up in. On my way up to Humboldt where my sisters live, I'm gonna. We should all go out to the pharmacy and get lunch at that place. Yeah.

Yeah, that'd be great. I love that. And are you gonna be at Expo?

Yes. Wait, when is that?

March something.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Are you gonna be. Are you gonna be exhibiting, or are you gonna just go as, like, an attendee?

Okay, I got my booth Vikings working my booth, and then I'm gonna be going around talking to people and looking for packaging and all that hustle.

That's awesome. Well, maybe I'll see you there, if not sooner up in Humboldt. But, hey, thank you so much for joining me, Shannon.

Thank you.

You're awesome.

Thanks.