Ross Franklin: Pure Green | The Business Blast Podcast #528

Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Ross Franklin with us. He is an entrepreneur, wellness expert, and the founder and CEO of Pure Green, which is the fastest growing national cold press juice company. So welcome to the show, man.

Thank you, great to be here.

Of course, grateful to have you on. Um, we'll jump right into the first one, Ross. The first question that I have for you is What is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

Well, when people first hear the story, they sometimes look past the underlying meaning in it. But to me, the valuable message in it is to take action in spite of fear and have the confidence in yourself to know that you will always prevail. So early in my career, when I was working at a high-end health club as the general manager, one day, one of the personal trainers came to my office complaining. He's doing it again. I was like, what? Who's doing what? She said, the barbarian, that's who. So she was referring to one of our members. This guy was like 6'7", bigger and more ripped than The Rock. And this guy could easily squash me like a bug. He was in the free weights area hoisting 400 pounds above his head and just letting it drop to the floor. And this was disrupting all the personal trainers who trained their clients. And apparently this had been going on for a while before I got there. So without knowing exactly what I would do or what I would say, I just told the personal trainer, no problem, don't worry, I'll take care of it. She's like, what? So I just went out, went up to see the barbarian to go and talk to him. Meanwhile, she rallied up all the personal trainers to watch this spectacle go down. I went up to the giant and I mean, this guy's like, his veins were bulging out of his eyeballs and I didn't really know what to do. So I just went up, introduced myself And he literally just looked at me and grunted. And I was stumped for words, didn't know what to do. So I just started rambling. And I asked him, oh, you look familiar. Where are you from? Long story short, it turns out that my father, who was a former rabbi, had actually counseled him when he went through some rough times. And this will sound crazy, but it was such an amazing experience for him to realize that it was my father who counseled him. It brought tears to his eyes. And so when I looked back and I saw all the other personal trainers watching, I had to take advantage of the situation. So when I was about to turn away, I turned back and I told him, "By the way, don't drop the weights." And when I got back to the trainers, it was all high fives all around. And I was known as the GM who made the giant cry. So there was definitely a bit of grace involved here. But if I hadn't taken any action and I ignored the personal trainer's complaint, there would have never been any resolution.

Wow. So wait, I just want to get this clear though. So you're saying bigger than The Rock?

Yes. This guy was— everyone thought this guy was like the professional wrestler Goldberg. It turns out he wasn't. He was even bigger.

Oh my God. Jesus, that's huge, man. Well, that took some courage, that's for sure.

Yeah.

That's scary just thinking about bigger than The Rock. Okay. So, the next one I have for you, man, is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

I would say that the most valuable piece of information to give people is that what you consume, meaning what you eat and drink, matters. Much of the food and beverage that we consume is actually causing disease, processed foods, copious amounts of refined sugar, GMOs, artificial ingredients. What we put in our bodies and our children's bodies matters. The research through the study of epigenetics is now starting to show that certain genes can be switched on and switched off through nutrition, especially in early development. What we eat and drink matters now more than ever.

And so, the next one, the next question I have for you is like what's your best piece of overall business advice, but I'd like to kind of gear towards more like what you do. So like, how did you like start Pure Green? And I know before we started recording, like, I think you said you had 7 locations in New York. So like, how did that start, man? Because that's like, that's pretty big, you know, like 7 locations just there. So how did you get started with Pure Green?

So my vision has always been to make the world healthier. How do I take help to the world? How do I transition the population into a healthy lifestyle? So everything started with my vision. And I started a consulting company and I started to get hired by all different types of wellness companies. I was opening up spas, I was opening up gyms. When the— I used to get the call when the gym was about to go out of business because of these low-cost competitors when they emerged on the scene. I had to go in and either turn the gym around or I had to tell them, listen, you're a goner and help them file for bankruptcy. And so I started to get hired by juice bars. I saw massive potential in juice bars, and especially in cold-pressed juice. You and I were talking before the podcast that you're a fan of cold-pressed juice as well. One of the things about cold-pressed juice for me that I realized is that when you look at optimal wellness, 80% of the equation there is nutrition, and only 20% is fitness. For me, it was just a decision. Where I decided that I want to focus on the 80% of the equation that's going to produce optimal results. And that's what gave me the inspiration to start Pure Green.

Yeah, that's actually—

it's huge.

I actually hired a health coach about a year ago. And before I hired him, my theory of what would work was I would actually do 2-hour walks/runs every day and then I would lift every other day, but I would eat whatever I wanted. What started to happen is at first, it was working because 2 hours, especially down in Miami, I was burning a lot of calories, but I started to stay pretty stagnant. Then, my health coach was like, "All right, dude. Well, what we want to do is switch this around so you could actually just work out 30 minutes a day, but you got to change your nutrition." Once I did that, I started to lose weight, get more cut, and less time was involved, right? An hour and a half saved every day. It's pretty crazy how nutrition really is the answer. Before, I was trying the other way. It does not work that way.

Exactly. Yeah, man, 100%. You mentioned you were a fan of Dave Asprey.

Yes.

Dave helped pioneer the field of biohacking. With biohacking, nutrition is the key to that equation.

Definitely, man. And, well, this is kind of— I'm just curious. So are you into, like, the, like, nootropics at all?

For sure. I've definitely done a lot of experimenting with the smart drugs.

Okay.

Modafinil.

Oh, gotcha. Very good. Have you seen— have you heard of Qualia?

Sure. Yeah, I've taken it. The tricky thing with the Qualia is that they have two separate formulas. One is for the fat soluble And so you have to have that with some fat. I do intermittent fasting every day. So for me, it's trickier to have to schlep those pills with me and take that with my first meal, but it's definitely, it's a great formula.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I got into Qualia like 6 months ago, or I think it was about 6 months ago. And yeah, noticed definitely a difference, I'll say that.

Apparently there's an underground rumor with Qualia that they have an unreleased formula that they call the God Pill that's an upgraded formula. So, I'm trying to get my hands on that. So, if you hear anything, keep me posted.

Dude, I will do. I can't even imagine an upgraded one, so that scares me a little bit, but I'm definitely trying. Scares me in a good way.

Yeah.

But so, next one I have for you, if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

I would tell my younger self to read more books because I think had I read more books earlier on, it would have expanded my way of thinking and I would have started my quest for self-development at a much earlier age.

Yeah, and what are your thoughts? So, do you think that's like a never-ending process? Because I actually, I found myself like maybe it was a couple of years ago, I'd gone through maybe like 100 business and personal development books and I was like, ah, I got this figured out, like I'm good. And then I started two companies, They went well and I'm still running them now. But then I started to read again, like audiobooks, and it's crazy. I think it's just, it's a never-ending thing. The more that you consume, whether it's audio or reading, I think just the better off naturally you become.

I agree totally. Once you go down that rabbit hole, there's no going back.

Yeah. So the next one I have for you, kind of going down a little bit of a different path, but in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?

I think the key to happiness is not to focus on being happy all the time, but rather just to focus on living a more fulfilled life. There's something that's really not authentic when people are quote unquote always happy. And I think if people can shift their focus to just living a more fulfilled life, that happiness equation will take care of itself.

I love it. And speaking of books again, what is the best book— I know that's going to be difficult— that you've read, and what was the number one thing you learned from it?

I'll get a little old school on you. I would say the one I always recommend to people is Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. If people can just read and master chapter 1, be proactive, it's a total game changer. And my company, Pure Green, I have everyone just read and master the first chapter, chapter 1, because if people learn to be more proactive, and they learn to take responsibility for their actions. And people just too often are playing the blame game. Something goes wrong, they drop the ball, and they're just blaming others instead of taking responsibility themselves. Once people start to step up and accept responsibility for their actions, that's the key to really transforming themselves and also transforming their company.

And what is your favorite quote and why?

Favorite quote that resonates with me is— I don't even know who said it. I picked it up somewhere along the way in the world of self-development, but it's, "Will you be stopped or will nothing stop you?" I love it, man.

Dude, thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where is the best place for people to find and/or connect with you online?

You can find me and ask me questions at RossFranklin.com. And if you want to experience Pure Green, you can check out puregreen.com.

Perfect, man. Thanks again for hopping on.

Awesome. Thanks so much.

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