Why Your Network is Your Net Worth with Jeff Fenster, CEO of Everbowl

Okay, everyone. Today we have Jeff Fenster, who is the CEO of Everbowl. And I'm gonna let him explain what that is in a second, 'cause I've always understood it to be an acai bowl place that's exceptional. But it's more than that. It's much more than that. It's a superfood brand. I don't even know what that means, but we're gonna let Jeff explain what that actually means. I've actually known Jeff for what, 8 years? We were talking about it a little earlier.

Yeah.

And always been a really good guy. We're gonna talk about relationship capital as well, because I just— he's the guy that knows everyone and knows how to keep a good relationship with everyone. So Jeff, first and foremost, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Thank you so much. It's a true honor. Big fan of the show. Obviously a big fan of you, Eric. We've been friends, as you said, for 8 years. And it's really fun when I get to not only join a show that I'm a big fan of, but with someone that I've known even before this existed. So thank you for having me.

Yeah, thanks for joining. So yeah, why don't we start with your story? Because I only gave a little snippet. So what is your story and how did it lead up to kind of where you are now with Everbowl?

Yeah, I'll give you guys the quick and dirty. But the back of my baseball card was I went to law school to be a sports lawyer. sports agent and was going to go work for Leigh Steinberg Sports Agency. And my third year of law school, realized I didn't want to pursue that. That wasn't my passion. I got engaged, I had a little baby, and came to the realization that what I thought I wanted based on being a huge fan of sports was really just me trying to kind of keep that young childhood dream going. And so I graduated law school without a plan. And like a lot of people out there, not sure what I was going to do because I didn't have that one skill, that one thing that said, hey, I can build an entire career around it. So I got a job, and I did what most people have to do, which is start paying off the student loans and figuring out how you're going to survive. And I started selling payroll services for ADP, which was a payroll company.

Yeah, still is.

Yeah, still very big, yes. And fortunately, I was really successful at it. I found a way to sell which most people don't understand, utilising relationship capital and other skill sets, and was the number 1 sales rep in the country and first to make President's Club. Was very successful, and I thought I was going to build a career there. So I went to my boss in January and said, I'd like my bonus, my $17,000 bonus I had earned. And they told me I had to wait till the end of the fiscal year.

Wow.

Yes.

And that's what they do to keep you around.

That's what they do to keep you around.

Yeah.

And then you realize that you're kind of stuck. You're, you're stuck in this rat race where you're never going to really grow except you have to trade years and time. And so I said, I can't wait 6 months. I have law school debt. I just bought a house. I'm getting in. I'm getting married. And I have a little baby. I need the money. And they told me no. So I threatened to quit because I had a big ego at the time, and they called my bluff.

Wow. Yeah.

So I went home and told my fiancée that I want to quit. I want to sell the house we just bought. I want to move in with my mom and dad, and I want to start my own company.

And what was the reaction?

She was supportive because she was my fiancée. No, she— but she was supportive, and that's what happened. So we literally moved out of the house 3 days later, moved into my parents' house, started my own payroll company, and Grew it, sold it, and that jumped my entrepreneurship career. And I learned a lot from doing that and building that and scaling that company and ultimately exiting. And I built lots of companies along the way and came to the realization that really I'm a serial entrepreneur. And what that means is I don't have one special skill set. I'm not a CPA who starts my own CPA practice. I'm not a lawyer who starts my own law firm. I'm not an electrician who starts my own electrical contractor company.

But I'm not pigeonholed.

Exactly. But the negative is I don't have that one thing to fall back on, that one lifelong skill. So I'm an opportunist. I look for opportunities in markets, and I love to jump in and start companies. And I'm a startup entrepreneur. I'm not a guy who can take a company from $10 million to $200 million, but I can take an idea into $10, $20, $30, whatever million.

And then move on to the next thing.

And then move on to the next thing and position someone else. And so I think that's kind of how my journey evolved until ultimately I met you when I was working with Neil and did the digital marketing for a handful of years and had a lot of fun doing that. When I was done with that, I was kind of sitting at home bothering my wife and kids a little too much, and they told me to go do something. So my next biggest passion is health and wellness and helping people solve the excuses we make as to why we're killing ourselves and hurting ourselves. And when you look at obesity, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and all the things that are plaguing us, 80% of it is lifestyle choices. It's actually— some of it is obviously genetics, and there's nothing we can do, but a lot of it has to do with our choices. And so my big why is a word I created. It's on the front of my shirt today, unevolve. And I trademarked it and defined it to move and eat the way you were meant to.

Nice.

Live actively and eat stuff that's been around forever. And so Everboy is made from stuff that's been around forever. That's our tagline. And I wanted to recreate and solve why Americans aren't eating healthy and disrupt the fast food market, because the average American eats fast food 3.2 times a week.

That used to be me. 3 Whoppers a week. At least, I'm serious.

3 Whoppers?

Yeah. I used to get in arguments with my parents. And when I didn't talk to one, my dad would take me to Burger King, get me 2 Whoppers. And I think that would happen 2 to 3 times a week. So I think it was 6 burgers. Wow.

Well, you're the average American, 3.2 times a week.

Yeah, yeah.

And understanding that convenience is a big factor, but there's other excuses. And so I believe when you start a company, you either have to solve a problem or have something innovative. And since I wasn't coming up with something innovative, my problem I was solving is why we don't eat healthy. And I broke it down to what are the excuses we make. And I kind of bottled up all the excuses people make into 4. And it's either it costs too much to eat healthy, it doesn't taste good, it doesn't fill you up, or you can't get it. You just can't find it.

Yeah.

So Everbowl was built to solve those 4 things.

Fill you up is a big one. Like, it doesn't matter how healthy it is, if I'm not satisfied, then—

Because it's too expensive otherwise. Then you're like, I'm still hungry an hour later.

Right.

So give me the Whopper meal.

Yep.

Because you're not hungry in 2 hours.

Oh, so good. But anyway, so Ever Bowl, whenever you're posting on Facebook— because you guys are blowing up right now. How many stores do you have?

28 stores, just over 3 years old, and we're now franchising for the first time.

Awesome. Congrats on the success.

Thank you.

What do you guys offer exactly besides the acai bowls? I really want an acai bowl right now, so I'm thinking about it.

I should have brought you one.

No, that's all good. We'll get it when you guys have it in downtown. But yeah, what do you guys actually offer?

So our tagline is made from stuff that's been around forever. So what that means is anything— we will serve any food that is natural, real, food. But traditionally, and what you'll find in Everbowls today, is acai bowls, pitaya, graviola, acerola, matcha, Blue Magic, Coco Love.

Blue Magic?

Blue Magic, which is spirulina, blue-green algae, but we blend it with mango, pineapple, and coconut, so it tastes really good.

Awesome.

Chia pudding, overnight oats, salads, and fun things that are going to basically allow you to eat right. Now, at first blush, you're like, well, that doesn't sound very appetizing. To some people. But when you come and try it, we give free samples. And what you'll see is we figured out that we're going to trick you into making it taste good. So we make algae taste like creamy coconut. It's really good.

So yeah, my understanding then, when I go to other acai bowls here, they don't have as much variety as what you are describing right now. So is that the differentiator? Is there anything else that separates you guys?

Sure. So they're an acai provider. We're not. That's one of the products we sell. But my goal is not to do that. My goal is to let you create your own. So you get unlimited toppings for one price. We don't nickel and dime you. You can have extra peanut butter. You can have extra granola, whatever you want, your way. Build it.

Got it.

Cool.

That's why it's Everbowl.

That's why it's Everbowl. Cool.

What other numbers can you share around the business? Are you comfortable sharing around the business?

Sure, absolutely.

It could be people, revenues, whatever.

So we have over 450 employees. In 2019, we did just over $10 million in revenue. We're excited to hopefully do $17 to $18 million this year and scale and hopefully going to have over 100 units signed From the franchise side by the end of the year. We just also utilize— and we launched our own coffee brand called SuperFuel Coffee, which is the world's first acai-infused coffee line and other superfoods. Yeah, and our unique selling proposition is you drink coffee every day, but you don't always eat superfoods. So why not drink superfoods with your coffee and get the antioxidants, get the health benefits, and not have to create a new habit?

That's so smart.

Yeah, and it's available on Amazon, which, as we get into talking just about how you how we built the brand, it allows us to sell outside the 4 walls, which most of our restaurant competition can't. So I can geo-target locations before we open. I can leverage marketing skills that I might have learned in my past. I can leverage relationship capital to help drive awareness to the brand and sell our product without you having to actually come into a store.

That's awesome. It kind of reminds me of— so we had Four Sigmatic on the podcast before. It's mushroom coffee, right? It's a little— it's just you're combining coffee and something else. Whenever you merge something, it tends to work out, right? You guys are— it's like superfood coffee. It doesn't sound like anybody else is really doing superfood coffee right now, right?

Not really, no. There's a superfood creamer company. Laird Hamilton has one. It's actually really good. I'm a big fan of it. So if you do buy his product and you put it inside our coffee, you're getting double the whammy. And I actually like Four Sigmatic. I used to drink it. Now, I won't lie, I drink obviously SuperFuel. But before we had SuperFuel, I used to drink it because I think infusing coffee, since I drink so much of it, with other things, why not?

I think that's an important lesson because, same with marketing or business, when you fuse— so for me, example, book that's coming out is related to gaming, but you combine gaming with entrepreneurship, you're fusing something together, which is exactly what you're doing right now. And a lot of the stuff, like people, we talk about being pigeonholed, but you, you've leveraged your, let's say, your digital marketing experience, your relationship capital experience, maybe even working, you know, the different companies that you started, even ADP as well.

Yeah.

That makes you who you are. It's not just you are the payroll person.

Correct.

Right? I think that's an important lesson for people.

And really, when I teach and when I talk, I'm really sharing this concept that I use, which I think not enough entrepreneurs are using. And it's what I want more entrepreneurs to start thinking about, which is this concept of vertical integration. And what that really means for me is my superpower is I'm a startup guy. I'm great at starting companies. So how do I use my superpower? Well, I solve business problems with more startups. Give you an example. At Ever Bowl, when I started my first store, I self-funded it. It cost me $200,000 to build a restaurant. Well, that's not scalable. That's expensive, right? That's a lot of cash.

Yeah.

And so a lot of my, my friends in the industry or other people who start restaurants go, Jeff, how did you open so many? It's too expensive. Well, I looked at the problem, and unfortunately, I think too often we get caught up in whatever our problem is and we try to solve it. And I like to say, well, before we solve that problem, is that problem even worth solving? Meaning, if I do something else, does that problem just disappear? So rather than solving how I'm going to drive construction companies to help me build cheaper restaurants, what if I start my own construction company? So I did. And we started WeBuild. It's called WeBuildStuff. And we build our own restaurants. So my cost went from $200,000 to build a restaurant to $50,000 to build a restaurant. So now I don't worry about how much it costs because I can build 4 restaurants for the same price it used to cost me 1. And I get to use my superpower of building startups to do that. And leverage my relationship capital to attract the right talent to come build the restaurants. So now I've built this vertically integrated construction company whose sole purpose is just to build Everbowls. So I don't need to make money at it. I don't need to worry about getting new clients. We're just going to build Everbowls. And so that's allowed us to double down on our scalability. But now watch what happens. It's kind of like a wheel. So because we're building more restaurants faster, we're getting a lot of attention and press and buzz. Which attracts more customers and attracts better talent. They come to the company, and because now we have more stores, my cost of goods goes down because my buying power goes up. My marketing cost goes down because I get to amortize it across more units.

It's a flywheel.

It's a flywheel, exactly. And so it all starts with the concept of vertical integration. And that's the same thing. I went down to Brazil, I started sourcing my own superfoods, and then we started SuperFuel Coffee. So again, the same thing. Now, you might buy SuperFuel Coffee on Amazon, it comes into your house, friend comes over, you talk about EverBowl Super Fuel Coffee, you're now being my marketing arm. You're now talking about our coffee, and then we can geo-target it and use my skills before, or my experience before, or my relationships before to drive that. And so it's a big flywheel. Awesome.

Exactly. What do you think led to your guys' explosive growth? 3, 4 years now, right? $10 to $17 million. What's going on? What do you think's fueling it?

Well, I think number one is a little bit of timing. Good timing luck. The health and wellness market is exploding. And when I started, it was, is health and wellness a fad? It's not, right? Everyone wants to be healthy. Everyone understands the power of health. You can see it with all the health brands that are popping up. And there's a lot of major acquisitions even happening in this space. So I think the market and the timing is right.

Right.

I think the millennial market especially loves health and wellness. And they care what they put in their body. They're not going to just eat anything because—

Yeah.

We tell them to eat it. And then I also think culturally, we focus on our why more than our what. And I think that that's attractive to the average consumer. I mean, anyone who looks underneath the COVID of our brand, they realise, no, I go to Brazil, I work with the locals. We do care about sustainability. We sell these açaí seed bracelets that are handmade in Brazil because we get to give back to the locals there. We're only buying from them to support them.

Awesome.

We're sending their kids to school. We're making sure that it's done and all of our açaí is from sustainable farms and how it's being done. Like, we, we care about the whole process. I'm not just sitting here trying to just exploit some, some niche industry. I'm not just a restaurateur. I don't have restaurant experience. So for me, it was really about this whole ecosystem of we want to bring health and wellness to the masses and build this unevolved lifestyle. And that's what I think is drawing people into what we do, more so than the fact that we sell a good acai bowl.

How much for one of those, like, those bracelets?

$3.

That's cheap.

Yeah, we just want to move them. It cost me about $1.70 to get it here, and then we have obviously holding costs and cost of capital, so we don't really make any money, but what we do is we drive more awareness, and these get thrown out down there. When I was down in Brazil, they literally throw out millions and millions of seeds every quarter. I mean, it's ridiculous. And so when you realize that they can now turn it into jewelry, they're taking trash and now making money on it, so it's powerful. It's inspiring for me.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Relationship capital. What is that first? And then we can talk about it.

Sure.

Yeah.

So especially in business and in life, and it's what I teach my children, it's what I care so deeply about, is relationships are so powerful for personal growth, professional growth, and all things that happen. And if you approach relationships with what can you do for me, it's never going to work. But if you think about relationships more like an ATM machine, Or your bank account, and you say, how can I keep making deposits into my bank account to where when I need something, I have a lot of money in the bank? Or I want something, I have a lot of money in the bank. When you think about relationships that way and you lead off with every relationship of, what can I do for you? How can I help? Who can I introduce? You know, Eric, who can I introduce you to? What door can I open for you? Can I come help you move? What else can I do?

Mm-hmm.

I'm putting deposits into our relationship capital account. So one day you might say, oh, Jeff, you, you don't know the guy at Four Sigmatic? Let me introduce you guys. You guys should do some synergies together. Just off-the-cuff example, right? That doesn't matter if that happens or not, but I approach every relationship with making as many deposits as I can because that's what life is, right? We, we work together in society. We don't live in a vacuum. So you have to get along with everybody. And when you make friends— and there's 2 rules to work at Inevitable, and if you ask any employee, they all know them: make friends and have fun.

That's it. Okay.

And that's my business principles, which is making friends. If you continuously make friends and you build real relationships where you care about people and what you can do for them, you've now opened your, your potential world to so many new opportunities because they care about you and they're going to expose you to things that you never would have been exposed to. I mean, take EverBowl. Here's a good example. I tried to get EverBowl into Padres Petco Park for a year. I was calling every week. Every Friday I had a reminder on my phone, call the Padres. I'd call. Can I get everyone to Petco? No, et cetera. Finally, I met someone who had a relationship. He made one phone call, and 2 weeks later, I had a meeting, and now we're in Petco Park.

Awesome. Congrats.

But that's the power of relationships, right? And that's what I don't think enough— especially entrepreneurs and business owners and people aspiring, even if you work in the workplace, they don't realize the power of, oh, so-and-so got that job because he's friends with the boss. Well, that's true, right? So-and-so got that opportunity or that— That real estate opportunity presented itself, and that deal was done before it ever hit the market because he knew so-and-so. That's true.

Yeah.

So it's all about building your relationship capital because your network is your net worth.

Right?

Right.

I like that. You also taught another— there's another lesson in there. You didn't give up on Petco Park.

Correct.

So where did that come from?

Well, so there's, you know, hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. We've all heard that quote. More importantly, perseverance is really the name of the game. Consistency and perseverance. Because I came from sales, you know, and I learned in sales that no doesn't mean no forever. It means no today, right? And too often people hear no and they think that means no and they move on. But it's not no forever. It was just no today. Tomorrow's a brand new day, right? If I'm improving my skills every day and operating with a kaizen mentality of getting 1% better, I might not be qualified today to be there. You know, when we had 2 stores, Petco didn't want us. But by calling every day, every week for a year, and then getting an intro, all of a sudden we had 16 stores when I called, when they finally said yes. Well, the difference was, yeah, there's 14 stores, but they also understood that I really care. I really want this. And look how consistent I was. Every Friday I called. So they knew that, okay, if I give Jeff the opportunity, he's going to show up.

Every no brings you closer to a yes.

That's right.

Yeah.

And I mean, even— I mean, if you don't mind, you know, I'll even share a bit. Yeah, sometimes I make mistakes with relationships and I care to make them better. Right. I know I've probably stepped on your toes once or twice in our, in our friendship.

Have you?

I don't know. I'm sure I'm just saying in general. So just generally, just people.

You probably wouldn't be sitting here if you did. I don't feel like you did.

Okay. But I just in general, I'm sure I do, you know, and vice versa. But same thing. It's like we all make mistakes. And if you own your mistakes and you accept them and you accept accountability and perseverance, you know, even a rock in water Eventually turns smooth, right, over time, like a river rock. Or a diamond is made under pressure. Like, people just need to stop giving up and chase and hunt and pursue every day and operate with that best self mentality. Get 1% better. And it's just about improvement and turning failures into— understanding failures are lessons and turning them into the journey of success of lesson after lesson after lesson. Get better, get better, get better. Apply, apply, apply. And then you get it.

I mean, there's another— there's a third lesson there. The other thing is, it doesn't matter how much relationship capital that you've built, you're still humble enough to go back and dial every Friday. You're not letting your ego get in the way. And I think a lot of people think just because they've made it, right, that they don't have to do that stuff anymore.

Yeah, and unfortunately, it's a sombre time, you know, with the passing of Kobe Bryant, who's one of my idols. But Kobe Bryant is the epitome of what you just said. You know, after he won a championship, 2 weeks later, he's in the gym shooting 3s. Shaq said it best. He's like, you know, the guy is a Hall of Fame, 5-time world champion, but every day he practices like he was the last guy on the bench.

Yeah.

And worked his tail off because there's always someone vying for what you have, right? Somebody else wants to grow. And if someone's growing and you're not, you're shrinking.

Yep.

There's no staying status quo, you know? And it's, it's when you understand that and you start applying it and you start to see the results, you're right. Too often people's ego get in the way. And I was guilty of that early in my career. It really was. And that was one of the things I had to learn. I had to have that humble moment when I realized, like, wait, why are all these air quote bad things starting to happen to me? And I started to blame others at first until I had that vulnerability moment when I realized what's the common denominator?

Yeah.

Oh, wait, it's the person in the mirror, right? I'm the common denominator with all these circumstances that are not going my way. And it's my ego. And so after I sold my first company, I had this ego like I didn't need to. And my second company failed because I wasn't willing to put in that hard work, right? And then I realized, well, what made my company successful? It was hard work and dedication and perseverance and consistency. So then I reapplied those skills, had that— luckily had that moment of, of self-reflection and realized, hey, it's me. It's not— it wasn't the landscape. It was me. It was on me. And fortunately, I was able to, to understand that early enough and fix.

Love that. I mean, if you don't come out from that, then you stay at that level and you're stuck there.

That's right.

Yep.

That's right.

You— Neil and I used to talk about this, like, you know everyone, right? You knew, like, I think there's, like, presidents or vice presidents at, you know, large movie studios, for example. People are probably wondering, if they're listening to this, okay, great, they're talking about relationship capital, but how do I actually do that? How do I get to know, you know, producers or vice presidents at these big companies? I want to be where Jeff is. I want to cheat and have— maybe they think it's cheating, right?

Sure.

I want to have relationship capital. How do I get there?

Right.

Yep.

So I think it starts with the premise of treat your friends like your boss and your boss like your friends. And the very first time I ever spoke at a conference, I dressed very casually. This was a much more upscale— people were wearing jackets and ties, and I was dressed with a backwards hat and athletic clothes. In the mingling session beforehand, no one would talk to me. They would, but you could tell they were quickly giving me the curt, like, the nice, hi, how are you? And you could see they wanted to move on to speak to someone who they thought was more important. Well, then I went onstage, and those eyes got really big for those people. They were like, oh my gosh.

Yeah.

And the lesson there was you never know who you're talking to. And I make friends with everybody, because the way you meet the president of a big movie studio is not by meeting the president of the big movie studio. You meet his brother, his sister, his cousin, his aunt, his uncle, his daughter, her— his son, and you make friends with them naturally without any want. And all of a sudden, your relationships expand. Just like on LinkedIn, when you realize who you're connected to is connected to, like, 150 people you didn't know. Well, one of those 150 people might be someone who can move the needle for you because I genuinely like people, which is the first prerequisite. If you don't like people, it doesn't work.

Yeah.

And I want to make friends with everybody regardless if you are the CEO of a major organization or the gardener or the person who's cleaning dishes. It doesn't matter. I want to make friends with you. I care about you. I want to help. I want to understand your life and I want to have a relationship. And you do that enough times and randomly one of them is going to eventually know the person that you want.

Right.

And all of a sudden, then it's like, oh my gosh, Eric, you know the CEO of this company? I've been trying to get in front of them for 2 years. If you don't mind, would you mind making an introduction? Of course, Jeff, I'd be more than happy to while we're hanging out, you know? And then all of a sudden, I now know that person.

Right.

And I got that warm introduction. And then, yes, it looks like, hey, Jeff knew the CEO of that company. That's how he got in there.

Yeah.

Well, it was through a lot of earlier steps that anyone can take right now. When you go to the grocery store, make friends with the clerk. Get into the skill. It's a skill. It's not— it's not like I wasn't born with this natural ability to do it. It's just a skill I hone every day by making friends with everybody. And if you take that approach to life, all of a sudden it's just naturally what you do and your relationship capital grows and eventually you just have enough, right?

It's got to be innate. It's got to become natural.

But it's a skill like everything else, just like digital marketing or just like hitting a baseball or golf ball. No one just— Tiger Woods doesn't walk up and just hit a golf ball. No, it's dedicated practice.

Got it. So EverBowl, you mentioned employees, there's 2 things that you look for. What do you think is the overarching mission? You got UnEvolve, right? You're going down the superfood route. What do you think is the overall mission for you and why?

So the overall mission is to help everyone UnEvolve. And what that simply means, again, is to move and eat the way you were meant to. I want everyone to be their best self. Take the stairs instead of the escalator, 3 flights or less. It's a very simple thing. Park further away from the grocery store and take the extra 40 steps. Stand at your desk. If you watch too much TV, stand during the commercials. Pick micro goals that you can start to implement and get healthy. Because when you feel— when you are healthy and you feel good, you perform good and you look good and you're more upbeat.

Yeah.

And as I tell my team, when you're having a bad day, you don't eat healthy.

Yep.

Healthy food doesn't taste good. So get healthy, be healthy, and you'll be your best self. And you're going to start attracting all the things you want in life. And then the win is you get to be your best self.

Yeah.

That's my overarching goal.

Well, I want to know, like, for you, because you are the superfood master, right? What do you do exactly to be healthy? People want to know the tactics, right?

Sure.

What do you do?

Well, every morning, I drink water and vitamin C. It's the first thing I drink, because we are one of the only mammals that don't naturally create our own vitamin C. And 90 milligrams is just not enough.

How much is 90 milligrams?

It's like half of an orange.

OK, got it.

Yeah, no, it's just not enough. You need to get more vitamin C. And that keeps you from getting sick and feeling run down. So that way, I usually feel good. I drink a lot of SuperFuel coffee, pun intended. And then I also— I always make a smoothie in the morning with spinach, blueberries, banana, strawberry, or whatever else I have, but I always start with spinach. So I start my day and I get my greens, because when you do that first thing in the morning as a tactic, you already feel good that you've been eating healthy. Too often, we're like, oh, I'm gonna eat healthy today, and then you have some bad meal, and then you're like, OK, I'm gonna start tomorrow. I already blew today up. Start your day right, 'cause then when that opportunity comes and there's a doughnut at the break room, you're like, ah, you know what? I already had a smoothie with greens today. I'm feeling— I don't need it.

Yeah. Habits.

Habits, exactly. Take the little microsteps to make sure that your day— and then if you do break and do eat the doughnut, well, you already had your salad today, so you've countered it, right? And so I do that. And then I do— I have a standing desk. I purposely park as far away from the grocery store, wherever I'm going, if there's— because number one, there's no cars parked there, so I don't get door dinged. And number two, I get to walk the extra steps.

Build in the steps, yeah.

Yeah. I never, ever take an elevator or an escalator 3 flights or less, because You don't get winded, but that's such a great way to burn a few extra calories. And I read in a Men's Health like 5 years ago on an airplane that if you take the stairs 3 flights or less for an entire year, the average American will lose 4.5 pounds. Whoa.

Yeah. I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Helpful tidbits.

Yeah.

Cool.

So I do that.

Anything else around sleep? Anything?

I wish I had a better goal for sleep, but I do have a micro tactic that I'll leave everyone, which is so powerful. And it's for the answer of, I don't have time. The I don't have time excuse, and I used to make that excuse. I have 2 kids and a wife and a business.

You're busy.

Yeah, you're busy.

Yeah.

I'm gonna say to you that number one, the average snooze button is 8 minutes on a phone. And 4 minutes a day, if you do something for 4 minutes a day for an entire year, it's 24 hours. It's an entire day of your life per year. So if you hit snooze every day, you're wasting 2 days a year snoozing. Those 8 minutes, if you invest them into learning something, I don't care if it's a yo-yo or a language or a new skill or Photoshop or digital marketing, Or making friends, 8 minutes over the course of a year is 48 hours. If you do anything for 48 hours, you're going to get pretty good at it. So don't snooze. Understand that you're literally wasting 2 days a year by that 8 minutes, which you won't actually enjoy, because then the alarm goes off and you still feel tired and you still get up. Yeah, get up. Understand that 8 minutes can change your life. 4 minutes can change your life, but 8 minutes can truly change your life.

You got to write a book on that. 8 Minutes. Yeah, 8 Minutes for— I love that. That's actually catchy. I'm serious. You have all these catchy names over here. Super Fuel, EverBowl. But I want to know, going back to Everbowl, for me, it's like, there's so many logistics, so many employees, so many like— I'm used to software, right? I'm used to like the internet.

Mm-hmm.

You've made it all work though. Like, to me, it's complex. I could never make it work, to me, in my head, right? I'm like, how does Jeff make it work? He's had to have gone through some struggles growing the business. So what are kind of the key things that you went through that made it— may have even kind of bankrupt you, or might have bankrupted you?

Sure. Well, I think the key thing that made us successful is I lost my ego years ago. And I now have a new saying, the personal goal of being the dumbest guy in the room. I say that not because I want to be dumb, but because I want to surround myself with rock stars, and I want them to get the credit. I want to give them the freedom to be amazing. And I don't need to have my ego stand in the way. So I hire phenomenal people, and I let them be phenomenal and take all the credit. The fact that we have 450 employees— I also previously came from the digital marketing side, so I'm not used to having that many employees.

Yeah.

So Brian Augustine, our Chief Development Officer, he came from Trader Joe's. He's phenomenal at building talent, recruiting talent. He built out EverBull University. He took my concept and said, this is how we're going to actually tangibly do it.

Yeah.

And he's the brains behind that.

So you're the visionary, he's like the integrator. Correct.

Absolutely. And I wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today without him. We probably would be bankrupt because I don't know what I'm doing with 400 employees.

Yeah.

I'm not qualified. I'm really not that good at that. Um, you know, and then in other departments, our COO, Eric Hansen, you know, he is so technical. He is so— he's, he's like one of the smartest people I know. He's so technologically advanced. His, his systems and processes that he's put in and the technology advances he's done for our organization— I mean, literally, I'm— I go home and I say to my wife, I'm so fortunate to be surrounded by such incredible people because they make me look good.

Yeah.

When truly it's not me at all, it's all of them. And I'm so glad, like, if it— the old me wouldn't have allowed that. My ego would have said, I have to be number one. It has to be my idea. And we wouldn't be here today. I would have had this— I would have had 2 stores. One of them would have failed. And I wouldn't be talking to you today.

Dude, I was doing a podcast earlier this morning. And early days as a marketer, you think about all the new tactics. But you realize later that the real tactics is the culture, the people. And that's the real game right there. It's all about the people. So you're saying, I mean, you basically were screwed.

Mm-hmm.

You would have been screwed if you didn't get all these people.

Oh, 100%.

Got it.

And the understanding— I even said this. I'll give you a real— it's actually a quote, but I didn't say it like a quote, but it's a quote. And I used to say to Brian, he's like, we're going to have Everbowl University. We're going to train our people really good. I'm like, but Brian, a lot of them are high school kids. They're going to leave us in 8 months. He's like, well, what if they don't?

Yep. I'm proud you said that.

Yeah, I do too. But that's basically the synopsis of our conversation. It didn't go like that. But then I was like, my head literally exploded like the emoji. I was like, he's so right. What if they do stay? They are a brand ambassador. When you walk into an Ever Bowl and you've never been here before, the first person you see is that kid or that young adult. And they're going to either make it to where you never come back or you come back. And if we don't invest in them, we don't create a culture where they enjoy and make friends and have fun and love their job, We're shooting ourselves in the foot for what? We're being pennywise and pound foolish. So he changed my perspective on the culture side, and he built our culture.

He came up with the idea for university.

Yeah, absolutely. I told him my 2 rules are make friends and have fun, and then he extrapolated that into everything we have.

Yeah.

And it's been incredible.

Wow. Yes. That's awesome. And that's the other thing too. I think I was reading this morning, it's like there's 5 different tiers of having a meeting, right? Most people are going to come to you with a problem. You want a guy that's going to come out, or a gal, that's going to come up with solutions and act on the solutions too. It sounds like that's what you have.

That's correct.

Yes. What is your favorite tool, your favorite business tool right now?

Like, what kind of tool?

It could be like— I mean, it can be like Slack, right? Or it can be like something physical that you're using.

Well, I will say Zoom is my favorite tool. And I know it seems funny because GoToMeeting and Zoom has been around for a long time. But the reason I like it is because all of a sudden, we're starting to use Zoom even when we're just doing management meetings. And it's great, because when you can see someone face to face, it just makes it much more personal, where before, I wasn't really using it that way. I would do GoToMeetings only for business meetings and not for internal culture meetings. And then secondly, the second other tool is actually one of our internal ones from our POS system called Homebase. But it's great. It's just like a group chat.

Mm-hmm.

But it kind of adds another element, because you don't get to see everyone who sees it, but there's fun little things that you can do inside. And so with a team of 450 people, how do you feel like you stay connected with everyone? And we're using these 2 for those. So I'm enjoying both of those.

Got it. Awesome. And so there's the favorite tools, and then favorite business book.

Well, business specifically?

Or any book in general, first one that comes to mind.

This week, it's going to be Tim Grover's Relentless. Be unstoppable, from Good to Great to Relentless. And he's Kobe Bryant's old— one of Kobe Bryant's old coaches and Michael Jordan's old coaches, and just the tenacity of being relentless. And in spirit of Kobe's, you know, I reread the book, and I mean, it's, it's incredible book. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend Tim Grover's.

Grover? Yeah. How have I not heard of him? You will love it.

You will love it. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, those were his clients.

Wow. Okay. Oh, he was— was he an agent?

No, he was kind of like a Fitness coach in a way, but he was more of like a mind coach for them.

God, I'm adding to cart after this.

Yes, and you won't put it down. You really won't put it— it's, uh, you crush through it.

Should I physical book it?

I didn't.

Okay, so I'll audiobook it.

I Audiballed it.

Got it. Yeah. All right, who is one CEO or what company are you following right now?

Um, well, I'm following— I love Steve Ells, uh, from Chipotle, um, even though He's not really that involved and engaged right now. I like to follow Elon Musk just because I think he's just such a disruptive-minded individual. I don't necessarily always agree with everything he does. Yeah, but I love how he doesn't think inside the box and, and he's got this perspective on the world that is, I will create and therefore it'll happen.

Yeah.

And I just love how audacious his goals are.

I mean, he's great. He's literally, I'm going to save the world. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do.

And it's audacious. Like, his goals are not small.

Yeah.

It's literally things like, I'm going to build a tube underground that's going to do this. And you're like, what? You're going to do what?

Reusable rockets? Who does that?

But it's changing our thinking. And it's creative. And the world was flat till it wasn't. And my favorite Henry Ford quote is, if they'd asked me what— if I'd asked them what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. And that kind of thinking is not how we evolve and grow in society and business and disruptive. And Elon Musk is a living, breathing example of that.

We need to get more people like— We need to make people into Elon Musk. That's what we need to do. But Jeff, this has been great. What's the best way for people to find you online?

@finsterjeff on Instagram or @everbullcraftsuperfood. I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook. I love talking business and entrepreneurship. So any questions, if anyone wants to ever chat or give me ideas and challenge my thinking, I love it. So please reach out.

All right. Thanks so much for doing this.

Thank you so much for having me.

Let us know if you want us to do more interviews like this, because this is actually in person at my place in downtown. Takes a lot of time to set up. We wanna know if it's worth the effort. We wanna know if you loved it. So put a heart below if you loved it. Heart me on Twitter if you loved it. Heart me on Instagram, alright? So that's it for today, and, uh, we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.