Community Building from a DTC Brand w/Carl Maynard

Alrighty, what's going on everybody? When I say everybody, I mean nobody. No one's here yet. Uh, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody welcome. Uh, so I talked to Carl about this, but Carl, where, where'd you just come from, man? Where, where were you on the road?

I was just in Paris. Um, I was at, I was at Fashion Week. Um, It doesn't look like it, but I was walking. No, I wasn't.

I just walked all over it.

I walked all over town. Um, it was great. It was my first Fashion Week, uh, and a completely whole new experience, a whole new world, a different— a completely different way to experience Paris. Um, as someone—

But you were also there, you're also there documenting and shooting. Talk about that.

Yeah, yeah, I had, um, I had the opportunity to work with a few friends who have brands. And I think I'd spoken about this kind of on Instagram where, you know, I wasn't hired to be there. I wasn't asked to go there. I think I was in Italy shooting a wedding and understanding the way the weekends lined up, I found this sort of like perfect opportunity to go there and kind of put myself into that arena.

Yeah.

And that was something I was very adamant about is You know, I had the ability, I had the luxury, so I put myself in that arena. And then because I was there, a few opportunities sort of started to fall into place.

We should, we should, we should, we should— I'm gonna work that into the questions about just putting yourself in the arena. I love that.

Yeah, also something—

also I gotta ask, what, what are we drinking today? What are we drinking? I think, I think that's the— see, Iced coffee, bro. We, we talk. So, so one of the questions I ask on the show at the very end is tea or coffee. I had one guest say Pepsi. He just went straight for the jugular.

Oh, uh, that's my mom, actually. My mom's—

My next question is hot or iced?

Well, yeah, right, it depends. I'm a big one for here, one to go kind of guy. Uh, I love an espresso. Or a flat white as I'm like talking with the, with the baristas and with the people that I, I go to like the same 3 coffee shops. I, I love supporting the same place. I, I just love doing the same thing over and over again, and we'll talk about that, I'm sure. But yeah, um, yeah, I love like a flat white or an espresso while I'm there, and then as I like toodaloo, uh, I like to bring an iced coffee for the road.

So, so, so, so what's the iced coffee? What's— what are you— what are we drinking today?

Um, I actually don't know because I didn't look at the menu, but this comes from a local coffee shop in Washington, DC called A Bake Joint. It's a family-run space, and they've curated coffee brands from all over the East Coast and West Coast.

Nice. Okay. Okay.

Whatever they're pouring, I trust.

I love it. I love it. Well, welcome, y'all. Good morning. Carl and I can yap literally just for days. So good morning. Welcome. This is— it's been busy. It's been busy on my end. I don't— I think the only other person I know has a more aggressive travel schedule than me is Carl. Um, so, so the fact we're both here live together is actually a, uh, is, is, is a miracle, to be totally frank. Um, so for those of you who tune in, welcome. Say hey. We'd love to hear from you. Drop a comment. Um, again, you know, uh, Carl's big on this, but, you know, really just meeting people there, and there's really no way to meet people unless you comment. Um, you know, the reason why Carl and I are friends is because I just fanboyed and commented on his stuff, slid into his DMs. He shot my announcement video for Torque. And then now we're on the live and all this started with commenting. So please comment. Would love to hear from you. Would love to know where you're tuning in from. I want to go through kind of a few housekeeping things. First off, as always, want to give a shout out to Appwrite. I'm on the Heroes program with Appwrite, probably the only non-technical hero on a technical hero team. My entire pitch for Appwrite is they sound great. I love the people there. You should try their product. I haven't used it. I don't know how to code, but you should try it. It's great. Also, we're doing a lot of cool stuff in the Torque community. If you are not a part of it, check out torque.community. We got a lot going on, virtual events. We stream 5 to 7 times a week, both online and the Discord. So we'd love to have you. Also, if you want to be kept up to date of when I go live, shoot me a text. It's actually me. This is not an AI chatbot. Um, and so, uh, please text me, um, and I'll loop you in. And I send texts out whenever I go live with great guests like Carl. Um, but want to get to the comments here. Jeff, it's good to see you. Jason, my guy. Roxy, uh, Torque Ambassador. Sebastian, Torque Ambassador. Uh, Ricardo, it's good to see you. Uh, let's see here. Emmett, it's good to see you as well. Got it. Yeah, 100%. Um, Mark, it's good to see you. Um, Carl is a freaking nature like Taylor for the cold brew takes. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Terron, it's great to see you as well. Um, Chris, it's good to see you. We got the crew today, so again, please continue to comment. All right, so it's a little bit different episode this morning. When I say different is that Carl's not in tech, right? I talk a lot about, uh, I talk about how I pull a lot of my influences from a lot of people not in the tech space, and Carl's one of them. I think I had a chance to sit down and eat dinner with Carl when he was in Nashville when we shot my announcement video. Talking about community, what does it look like? I think Carl, uh, does it very well. Um, he's an incredible creative. If you do not follow him, please follow him on all socials. It's Carl Nard, um, on all socials. But enough with the introduction on my end. Carl, give a quick background about who you are, what do you do now, and then I'll pepper you with a bunch of questions.

Thank you, thank you for that. Um, I still think about that restaurant that we went to, actually. It was really good, and the sandwiches we had.

Yeah.

Oh, the sandwiches too. The sandwiches we had midday were really great too. That was just a good day in Nashville overall. Yes, my name is Karl. I currently lead creative and community for a brand called Freaks of Nature, which we'll explore soon. Prior to that, I was in the Air Force. My background is actually in geospatial intelligence. And then after my time in the Air Force, I joined the private sector and bounced around kind of the DC circuit. Spent a lot of time abroad working in embassies in different countries. And through all of that, in the background of all of that happening, picked up a camera, started to be a part of communities, which we'll talk about. And at a certain point in my life, that sort of passion for creativity, community, photography became my reality and have been a part of Freaks of Nature since pre-launch last year. And I'm just someone who really enjoys connecting dots, putting pieces together, and being out in the world and meeting people, which is—

I love that.

We're here.

I love that. Yeah. And I want to give Carl a shout, and it's, it's some— it's something that I've actually started to do. You know, I, I meet a lot of people, as, as, as, as one does when they're on the road like Carl. And, and man, I want to give you your flowers, Carl. Carl, like, the way he asked— and I think this kind of dives into the question of like how to build community, want your kind of tips and tricks that you think— again, this is just you, but like one thing I think Carl does so well and it's so small is he asks how people are doing, right? That is still stuck in my mind. Everywhere we went, we were at a cash register and Carl goes, hey, how are you doing? You know, uh, you know, how are you doing, right? And I was like, I was like, yeah, like I usually just go get a coffee. I'm like, hey, what's up? And then I just move on. So, Carl, I am curious, right? I mean, obviously, you know, you've— I think you've done such a heck of a job of building community with Freaks of Nature. But before we dive into Freaks of Nature, I do want to talk about kind of some pillars that you have, just in terms about— you could say just being a good person, but really at the end of the day, it kind of dovetails into building community. So what are kind of some thoughts? You know, you talked about your dad when we were at dinner, if you want to, want to talk about that as well.

Yeah, it's, it's not a famous story, but it's a consistent story. And I, and I think for me, the foundation of all of this stems from my dad. You know, I joined the military because of my dad. I very much like wanted to be him. And at a certain point, you know, you, you start to, I think, see those foundations that your parents instilled in you. And where you're younger, things seem confusing. When you're older, I think they start to make sense. And I have this moment where my dad was very much involved in the community on military bases when I was growing up. And one of those things would— he would sort of help lead this base-wide barbecue. And for military bases, you have essentially all these different organizations and they would all come together, put a tent up. You know, some would make burgers, some would make hot dogs, candy, whatever the case may be, beers, sodas. And it would kind of revolve around this softball tournament and all the different organizations would field a softball team, and it'd go all day. And I remember at one point— also, when you're the kid of a military member, uh, you essentially work for free. Like, let's just not get it twisted. Um, there was no choice really. I, I was not, um, offered— asked if I want to be there. I was very much told to be there. But there was this moment where we're driving around on a golf cart and he's kind of stopping off at all these different tents and booths and, you know, hey, do you need anything? How's everybody doing? What can I help with this or that? And I remember at that point in my life, I sort of thought he was the one running it, and thus he was the one in charge, versus everyone sort of worked for him. And we got back to sort of where the golf cart parks, and I said, you know, like, why are you asking everybody if you could help? Like, aren't they here to help you? Like, you're running this, aren't they here to help you? And he just said, you know, people should never have to ask for help. They should just know that you're always there to help. And, you know, I jokingly say in that moment I was just kind of like, whatever, I'm gonna go skateboard, you know. But I realize that now as an adult that I think it's kind of the pillar of all foundation for community for me. But the most important thing as a community member, as a community leader for me, is understanding that you're the least important. And that's not like martyrdom or woe is me. Yeah, it's that if you are willing to put yourself out there and you say, I'm gonna put myself out there, you have to wholeheartedly be okay with your name being nowhere in the credits. And that's kind of the foundation of where all of this starts for me.

Yeah, that's powerful. Talk about how do you scale that though, right? Like, I mean, you're at Freaks of Nature. You're— I mean, listen, I mean, like, you're like— I know Freaks of Nature because of you, right? I mean, you have that mindset of like, hey, I don't need be in the conversation, but you're so out there with the conversation and starting the conversation. How do you balance those 2 things?

Yeah, so maybe we'll back up a little bit. Freaks of Nature is a brand co-founded by Kelly Slater. We launched a year ago with sunscreen with SPF 50 and SPF 30, a hydrator, We've launched into new categories, a stick. We launched a cleanser a couple weeks ago, and it's all clean ingredients. It's built for athletes. But beyond that, you know, if you move, you're an athlete in all facets, right? Like, you don't necessarily just— you can't only use the product if you're working out. It's there for anybody. But we are very much in that athletic space and in that community of athletes. And, you know, for me, I, before I like was in this space, I was very much a member of communities. And I think that's something that's really important to be able to even be in a space like this. I think it's important to have been a member of communities first. And as a brand, we launched— we, we were sort of lucky enough to launch with a community being Kelly Slater's community.

Sure.

in that you have a responsibility to show up responsibly for that community. And oh, hey guys.

By the way, Carl's got 2 cats. Big cat guy.

They're fine, they're fine, they're fine.

I love it, I love it.

That's fine.

We just gotta—

you guys good?

Brianna on my team has 2 cats too, and we're always on calls and the cats come up and—

A little nervous, a little nervous. Um, and so, so for us, we, you know, we had the privilege of launching sort of with a community already willing to support Kelly and behind him. But as I learned recently in January, I got to go to Hawaii for Pipe Pro. There's a real, like, there's a really in-tune community behind him.

Sure.

And it's, it's a privilege to have that responsibility to act accordingly. And I think for, for me, I think I, when I moved to DC, that was in 2012, 2013 era. I was nowhere near where I'm at now as a community person, but I found that through being a part of communities. And I think applying that to Freaks of Nature, I think it's really important to join community before you create community, right? And I think—

so good.

So I think showing up and just being a brand and saying, okay, here we are, come— no one knows that. No one knows what you have to offer. So I think there's actually a— there's a— I should give him a shout out, but there's a guy Ross in my life who works community for a brand called Cherry Bundy. And I always sort of saw him— I see him still as this example of someone who is very much just out there, but never necessarily like— not necessarily out there behind a table or behind a booth or with a flag in his hand. You just kind of always know that he's going to be there to support athletic events, marathons, races, High Rocks.

Yeah.

Whatever the case may be. And so I think for me, it's important to have been a part of communities so that I feel more comfortable showing up and being a part of them and then trying to start one.

Talk about, man, there's so— I have so many questions for you. First off, why do you think companies need to be community first, right? I mean, I've brought on a bunch of amazing community builders. I consider you top tier, S-tier, as the kids say. When it comes to building community, I think Kelly is incredibly smart to have you on the team. You know, talk about— so it's— I have multiple questions, but let's start here. Why do companies— and again, you're in the DTC space, like what we do, like we're obviously very different. We don't have a product necessarily.

Mm-hmm.

But talk about why companies need to be community first, I think, moving forward. And then why do you think community has caught on? Because it's definitely a conversation now. than it was 5 years ago?

Yeah, I mean, I think the important part is like any brand, whether it's direct-to-consumer, whether it's a company, you have to be, you have to almost imagine that there's a comma after your brand name. And in the sense of like, what else is there to you as Freaks of Nature? If you just wanna be a product, great. But if you think about it in the aspect of like, I think this— a really great example is there's sort of like Jeep community. Jeep is a car or is a truck or is a vehicle. Everybody knows that. But to the Jeep community, there— it's so much more than that.

And yeah, they spend all their time in the shops getting it fixed.

Not gonna make a comment there, but I think, I think they're a perfect example of, of something that is, that is just bigger than just the name Jeep. When you, you, when you think about that community and what they do and, and how adventurous they are and how people bond over that, I think you can apply that to, to almost like any facet. And I think for Freaks of Nature, and this is very much, I think, a, um, a credit to the women that I work with, Isadora and Julia, is they've, I think, from the very beginning have really supported me in understanding, like, community is, is really at the core. It's about consistency in showing up, not just showing up a lot, but showing up consistently in the same space. And so for us, you know, we work with a lot of the same runners, we work with a lot of the same cycle crews. We— it's very important, I think, for us to connect dots. And as you connect the dot, you sort of think, you know, like, okay, here's Freaks of Nature, we're gonna go this way with this community.

I call it a spiderweb effect.

Right, exactly, exactly. But instead of just going out a lot of, a lot of different directions, those things sort of have to merge, right? And so for us, one of the first races that we were a part of was a relay race in France. One of the runners a part of that is also a cyclist. And so we love a sort of a multi-sport athlete in general. And so then that same race put together a cycling variant. And so instead of going out and getting a new group, we— he came to us with the idea. So we got to connect that dot of, okay, we're a part of this race.

Love that.

And then 5, 6 months later, just recently earlier this year, we got to be a part of that race again in a different location, and the runner that we worked with was a solo runner, and he ran from the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles to the Vegas sign in Las Vegas. And he was a part of that original crew, and then his support crew was made up of people who are part of that first relay. So it's like this repeat of cast, almost like you kind of think of like The Simpsons poster where it's like it just feels endless. But they all feel so familiar, right?

Yeah.

And so when they show up again, we're consistently supporting the people versus a transactional nature of community is not showing up once, paying an entry fee into a run club or a cycling crew and then leaving because, okay, we've got our content, we're out. Show up again. In April, I ran the Paris Marathon. We worked with a run club. from a relationship of someone I met while at a relay in France that we were a part of, and then traveled through Paris in December, shot a small profile on him. And then when it came time to find a group, it was like a no-brainer to then go work with his crew. And that, that's about creating like consistent community through who you work with, not just showing up a bunch of times.

Yeah. Talk, you know, you talk about the importance of like showing up being consistent, which kind of, kind of goes into my next— I don't know why I say dovetail so much on this conversation. I don't know if I read that, heard that somewhere. But, you know, my next question was like, how do you guys facilitate community? What is— so you guys go to events, right? You show up consistently. Do you guys have a Discord? Do you have a Slack? Is it a text? Like, like, talk to me kind of about like the levels of what community looks like for Freaks of Nature.

Yeah, so, so we don't, we don't have, uh, Discord or Halo or Circle. We do have a TYB.

What's that?

TYB is a community. It's an online community in and of itself where like you as a brand can sort of put out challenges or votes and you essentially have your community either like submit a photo. So it's like an example would maybe say like, you know, go out and run a 5K, upload your Strava results. and we'll send you, you know, X discount.

Oh, nice.

And you can earn tokens or badges. And so it's less about like just chiming in and like adding a comment and then being like, okay, hope people reply. Discord and Circles, those are very like, you have to be, as you know, you have to be very, very engaged with those. And I think all community you have to be very engaged with. I don't mean to say that TYB isn't engaging. But I think for us, I think because we're still so new, you know, we just passed 1 year. For us, I think what's really helped foster community is like being out in public versus just—

Isn't that crazy? Just showing up. Yeah.

And so, you know, for instance, like when I've traveled with, with other facets of my life and other freelance opportunities, or getting to go to Copenhagen earlier this year to shoot the marathon. I put myself in Copenhagen a couple days earlier to work on a profile of this woman who teaches yoga. It just literally just went live today, so it's kind of perfect timing, but she teaches yoga events in studios all over Copenhagen, but those studios are art spaces, galleries, um, not a traditional like, this is a yoga studio, here's the mirror, here's all the mats, here's where you place your setup. And then she also takes that and does that outside. That came through a relationship that I've had with a friend for a long time. So instead of just saying, oh, I'm gonna be in Copenhagen for work, let's go a couple days early. Let's work on a project. Let's go meet them. But it didn't end at, okay, thanks for the photos, we're out. After we were done shooting, we went to lunch. We went and got coffee, had breakfast.

Yeah.

And I think this past trip to Paris, I spent a lot of time shooting different events, going to other events, hearing people speak, but then worked to, hey, I see you're in town. I'd love to meet with you. I'd love to hand off some Freaks product to you, but can we sit and have a coffee? And the sort of like fastest thing and the least important thing is that moment of talking about the product and about the brand and more so getting to know those people.

Yeah.

And then I think there becomes an association with, you know, I just, I really like interacting with the people when I get to meet them. Something that I think we've done a really great job of is the Isadora and Julia who I've met. They're both just amazing to talk to and you could talk to them for a long time. without having to talk about Freaks of Nature. And I think they have just a natural inclination to want to meet people and to want to get to know people's background and story that at a certain point it almost becomes this like, wait, I didn't— we didn't actually really talk about the brand, but I kind of have an affinity. Yeah, I have an affinity for the brand because I have an affinity for them.

Yeah, yeah, this is a great question from LinkedIn user. Sorry, I can't give you props. It's great. Community marketing sounds good. But do you ever feel like you're limiting yourself? How do you expand your marketing reach or target audience? And my next question was, as a creative, how do you think content creates community? Which I think is potentially an answer to this. So gimme your thoughts on this. Oof.

I'm gonna be very candid and I don't know if anybody that I work with is watching this, so I hope I don't get fired. But to me, there is no actual data point that you can like derive from community.

And I am actively in conversation stuff right now. Actively.

You can't go into a community event and hope that there's an X ROI on that event. And the moment you start to think that way, I think you're— it is— it will quickly be discovered that you're in community for the wrong reasons. And showing up, there's this analogy that I like to think of, of like true authentic community is whether you're a community leader or you're a brand trying to build community, you have to sort of think of yourself as, okay, we're gonna do community, we're gonna build community. I'm gonna open this door to a grocery store, right? There's All these opportunities, all these things inside our products, our brands, our offerings, our events. You have to sort of be willing to stand there as long as it takes without putting yourself in the room with everyone else and understand that you're gonna look at— we've all been there. We've all been somewhere where you look out and you sort of play this game of like, do I need to hold the door open for that person? They're kind of a little bit far away, but They see me, I see them.

That's the worst, for the record.

Are they gonna come? Exactly. Like, are they gonna— are they still going? The best point, the best part about that is sometimes you'll just meet people and they'll say, like, I've been wanting to come to this for a while. I've been wanting to join one of your events. I've been following it for a long time. I finally made it out. Finally making it out is because they understood that you were willing to hold the door as long as possible without putting yourself into the room first. Like, if you're— again, it goes back to the credit thing. Like, I think we do a really good job of not chasing credit when we do, you know, athlete features and our Freak Ambassador spotlights like the one we just posted. My name's not attached to any of it. Granted, I work for the brand, but when we work with an ambassador who they get to work with their friend and their friend photographs them, we're completely fine giving them credit. We don't— I'm a part of the team. I don't need the credit, the added credit.

Right.

And I think that goes back to anonymity. So for us, for me, pre-Freaks of Nature, with Freaks of Nature, post-Freaks of Nature, community is not a data point. It is like a feeling and a space where people truly wanna— yeah, they truly wanna know that they're not— it's okay if they buy, it's okay if they purchase, but a majority of our events, there's no point of sale place. It's just right getting to know people.

Absolutely. There's another great question here from, uh, Rowan. How do you balance product-focused messaging with community-focused storytelling?

Yeah, this is actually really fun. I learned this a really, really long time ago through watching an amazing photographer. Her name's Emily May. If you've ever seen Tracksmith's work, you've probably seen Emily's work. Tracksmith has forever done this really, really amazing job of invoking a feeling, invoking an energy to their storytelling. Without insinuating that the reason that runner is able to do that run that they're photo shooting because of the material. It's almost this like implied, like, go kind of find out on your own energy.

Yeah, yeah.

And for us, you know, products— for me, I, you know, I'm not the best when it comes to science and understanding ingredients and all of these things.

Same.

I use the product, I understand the product, but they're also deeply personal. We've all had this sort of like moment where it's like, oh, this is the best restaurant. And then you go to that restaurant and it's like, that wasn't my favorite restaurant. So it's not on me to tell somebody what their experience with the product will be. We can educate them, we can help them understand when or how to use, how to apply. But ultimately their experience is gonna be theirs. And so instead of only focusing on, okay, well make sure you pump it this way. And the only thing that people have an interaction with me, if I'm at these meetings or I'm getting to meet people at run clubs, at cycling events, is the only time they see me is I'm like demoing the product. Then it's like, okay, well that guy's just like, he's just here to sell me.

Yeah.

Versus like, hey, how are you? What have you been up to? Where are you from? What, you know, how long have you been running? How long have you been cycling? People can figure out how to put a product on. They can understand application. We've pumped soap in our hands for a long time. We've pumped SPF in our— for a long time. You can, you can just— I think you can assume that people know what they're doing.

Yeah.

And I think— go ahead, go ahead. Sorry. No, no, you're good.

No, I was just saying, I think like, because, because again, we have a product, right? So our product at Torc is the jobs platform. Right. I talk about all the time, and I pull a lot from you and what you do about how I think in the community is built around shared suffering, right? CrossFit, High Rocks, run clubs, they're all built around this shared suffering. Could be similar interests like coffee, don't get me wrong, but even our friend Mario is doing a run club for, for coffee, right? So it's kind of the shared suffering. And so For me, like, I think it's like people know what SPF is. People know what a job board is. People don't wanna hear more about SPF. People don't wanna hear more about a job board. They know what they— now, if we're introducing some product that no one's ever heard before, yes, go all in, educate me. I need to know it. But in this situation, this conversation, I'm with a job board. You're with a sunscreen brand.

Mm-hmm.

People know what that is. What people wanna know is they want to essentially be entertained and inspired to then go obviously to the product itself. Thoughts on that?

Yeah. In an example of our last feature with Helen from Copenhagen, the product is seen throughout some of the visuals, but it's never in the messaging of like the reason she's able to teach a yoga class outside is because she has our Peak Performance Sun Stick. It's not going to like dictate, you know, like her ability as a yoga instructor was well-founded before we came in and said hello, right?

Yeah.

Being able to cycle for a large amount of time for many miles is going to happen regardless of if somebody has our product on. We may be able to enhance the experience. We may help them feel better when they get there, But in storytelling, and this is, I think, what Tracksmith does really well, is they put you in that environment. They're a clothing brand, so I think it's a little bit easier, but you can derive from that still in just tell the story of other people.

Yes.

Yes, incorporate your brand visually. But the perfect summation of that is sort of the last photo in that carousel is she's— I don't— I'm not even gonna try to guess the pose she's doing. But our bottle is teeny weeny tiny just at the bottom of her mat, right? It's there, but it's not fully focused. It's not the subject of that moment, but she's in the environment. She's along the water in Copenhagen and we're there. We're a part of what you're doing. We're not focused on— visually, it's not the focus of why we're telling her story.

Yep. So we are close to at time. I knew this was gonna happen 'cause I have a call. I just messaged my next call. Sam will be a few minutes late. I want to, I, I want to talk about— I want to bring back home the, the impact of just showing up, right? Showing up. You guys are showing up. You know, we're trying to show up. Talk about just the importance of just being in the room with people.

Yeah, this is actually perfect timing because, um, while I was in Paris, I got to, uh, be in the audience for Breaking 4. For those not familiar, Nike supported this woman named Faith who currently holds the record for the fastest mile. And it was this essentially this event set up for her to break the 4-minute mile barrier, which no woman in history has ever done. There's been about 2,000 men who have broke the 4-minute barrier, but no woman has ever done that. So they worked on 3D printing her outfit, redefining her spike, the track that they picked, the weather, where the sun was, the time of day. All of these things went into setting this moment up. She had pacers from all over the world, current Olympians, past Olympians, elite, elite runners, both male and female, working in choreograph to block the wind, to pace in, when to hop in, rotate out. Nike did all they could to set up this stage in this arena to help her break the 4-minute barrier. She didn't. And ever since then, I've maintained that it's— it would have been beautiful if she broke the record, but I think it's more impactful long-term that she didn't because it spotlighted just how hard the 4-minute mile is. And I think a lot of young women are watching that now, and there's more than one out there that is like that's gonna be me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be the first one, right?

Yeah. That's beautiful.

But the, the biggest takeaway that I had from it was all of the athletes, production, coaches, um, people practicing how to, how to do the ticker tape when she comes across the finish line. All of these people were a part of something that, because of the way in which it was set up, the world record would not have counted. There's like certain barriers that alleviate. For instance, she had male pacers. You can't have male pacers to help you guide. But then there's a scenario where she is the fastest woman, so no other woman could theoretically pace her. But all of these people make the trip to Paris, join this event, work on production, camera crews, for, for something that theoretically would not have counted. And I think that is like that is the power of showing up, is that it inspired a generation of runners. But record or no record, nothing would have counted. In fact, she ended up beating her own record, but still, that is not, that is not recognized by the world governing body. And I think that ability and that understanding that, like, showing up— we, we talked about it this morning in our, in our training crew— is like, maybe something doesn't count but it matters. And understanding that things, that things that matter are oftentimes way more important than things that count.

Well, we'll end there. That was awesome. That was awesome. I love that. I love that. Um, so for those of you— so, uh, what is Freaks of Nature YouTube, by the way?

Freaks of Nature, uh, we're just at Freaks of Nature, but our main channel to find us, um, is Freaks of Nature underscore 3 times, uh, underscore underscore underscore on Instagram. Uh, we are building out a YouTube through some storytelling. Um, we're new there, but if anybody wants to check us out, um, they can find us on Instagram and I'll drop a link to our YouTube there.

Um, and if somebody is, is a runner— I'm not, I'm out, my body will combust— uh, if somebody wants to be just involved and check out Freaks of Nature, where should they go to? Outside of Instagram, do you want to go to that TTY something or other? What was it called again?

Yep, freaksofnature.com. Uh, our mission is up there, what we're about, all of our products, um, everything that we offer, uh, freaksofnature.com. Um, but we are accessible via email, accessible via our DMs on Instagram. Um, we are a mighty team of 3, and, uh, we're very engaged and We are chronically online. I hate to say it, but we are engaged community because, uh, again, you got to be, you got to be standing at that door willing to welcome your community in. So we're there.

Well, again, yeah, yeah, uh, we have a few runners. Jason's on my team. Um, so, uh, uh, I— yeah, man, there's so much more to talk about. Anyways, I love you. You're the best.

Love you too, bro.

Uh, for those of you, go connect with Carl. He's amazing. Carl, stay on so they can say bye to you backstage. Y'all have a good one. We'll see y'all next week for more episodes. Y'all have a good one.

Peace. Appreciate you.