00;00;11;11 - 00;00;32;09
Speaker 1
Let's transition to you. You're at the place now where you have done the same sort of thing. We went to college, for one thing. You went to grad school for something else, and then you spent years to you said, screw it. I don't want this anymore. You were stuck. You were done. Yeah, I know what you wanted to do, but you know, you didn't want to do that.

00;00;32;10 - 00;00;34;17
Speaker 1
But you felt like a shell of yourself every day coming home.

00;00;34;18 - 00;00;35;10
Speaker 2
Exactly.

00;00;35;10 - 00;00;36;10
Speaker 1
What was that feeling like?

00;00;37;02 - 00;00;59;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. So this is. This is my whole story. And I'll try to. I'll try to keep it as short as possible. But ever since I was little, I have always loved to create and make things. And, you know, my mom would it would be nap time and my mom would have me, you know, go take my nap when I was little and instead of taking my nap, I would stay up and make things.

00;00;59;12 - 00;01;31;29
Speaker 2
I'd make little books. I'd make her little note side, create these whole things. These, you know, creative. I draw things and I'd put it together, I'd staple it together and make stories, etc., etc.. It was just something I naturally loved to do. And then when, you know, kids came out and I got this boom box that you could like record, so you had a CD, but also I know, which is why I feel like I'm a good age for this because I'm a the Millennials is like a hybrid generation.

00;01;31;29 - 00;01;37;29
Speaker 2
Like we came in to this life. We had a good portion of our life that was analog.

00;01;37;29 - 00;01;39;21
Speaker 1
Start with our iPhones.

00;01;39;21 - 00;02;09;08
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then at like, you know, 12, 13, you start getting into the digital worlds, like Internet, all that stuff. But I think we're pretty unique generation. But anyways, so, you know, I got my boombox and I would make these radio shows and I loved music. I would stay up late, like even if I had to wake up at like 7 a.m. to go to school, I would stay up super late listening to the radio and like listing who the artist was and what the song was.

00;02;09;14 - 00;02;32;25
Speaker 2
And then on the weekends I would make my little radio shows and I would, you know, say, Oh, hey, everybody, you know. Next up, we have this song from Sugar Ray, and that's all And play Them Make Me. So anyway, that's just a little example of my life as a young kid. And also, I did everything. I sang, danced, acted, you know, played piano, guitar.

00;02;32;25 - 00;02;34;05
Speaker 2
I was a very you.

00;02;34;12 - 00;02;43;12
Speaker 1
Know, I'm in the car generation. We didn't have that. Like, yeah, like, I can't believe girls didn't have any like, they had, like, brownies and like, you know, Girl Scout stuff. So, yeah, that's right.

00;02;43;12 - 00;02;43;19
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;02;43;24 - 00;02;54;15
Speaker 1
We had like, Little League and then we had like Little League football, which, I mean, our dad was a football coach. Yeah, but then nothing but you guys at least like our kids. The same was years we drove and everything.

00;02;54;15 - 00;02;54;24
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;02;55;04 - 00;02;56;14
Speaker 1
So you rent a car the whole then.

00;02;56;21 - 00;03;20;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And, but the, the thing is, is when I think back to what I chose, what I want, what I gravitated towards was all those creative things. So and anyway, fast forward to college. I got into this mad program, which is a school of media arts and design at James Madison University. Shout out, Go do X. Yeah. And that was amazing.

00;03;20;11 - 00;03;38;17
Speaker 2
It was a my specialty was digital video and cinema and it was awesome. And I was like following. I still knew that that was like the path, like the created path. I wanted to come out to L.A., I wanted to work in the industry and all of it about halfway through. And then this is where my path kind of turns.

00;03;38;24 - 00;03;41;09
Speaker 1
Yeah. This weird how you got the nutrition? I'm like, That's insane.

00;03;41;12 - 00;04;08;01
Speaker 2
So basically my path turned because I got confused somehow in the mix. I saw it that following your passion was somehow selfish, that it wasn't. If you followed your passion, it somehow wasn't like helping out humanity that you had to like give of yourself. You had to be like a servant leader, which is an important thing to be.

00;04;08;01 - 00;04;12;03
Speaker 2
But it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be in line with what lights you up.

00;04;12;03 - 00;04;13;02
Speaker 1
Kind of like an activist.

00;04;13;09 - 00;04;20;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, exactly like an activist. Like someone who. Someone who sacrifices your life for the sake.

00;04;20;03 - 00;04;21;01
Speaker 1
Of other people.

00;04;21;01 - 00;04;26;26
Speaker 2
Exactly. Helping other people that there's so much virtue in that and that that should be kind of the only focus.

00;04;26;26 - 00;04;31;08
Speaker 1
To shouldn't have a passion outside of that. You should just that should be your passion.

00;04;31;08 - 00;04;39;00
Speaker 2
Yeah. Putting other people before yourself, these are all great things to live by but not but right. But at the time I thought that was what I needed.

00;04;39;14 - 00;04;41;08
Speaker 1
Disconnected from your passion, right?

00;04;41;12 - 00;04;57;29
Speaker 2
Right. And then also at the time I was having some stomach issues and I was interested in ways to fix it. And that's when I learned about nutrition. I learned a lot about it. I read up on it and I utilize it to help my son to help me.

00;04;58;00 - 00;05;14;20
Speaker 1
That's so funny because that's what Jessica Alba as a kid, had all these issues. That's why she started on this company, because she had all these issues. Oh, wow. And she said you couldn't buy anything. Everything, all the soaps and stuff for kids. Everything for the kids was like, bad for certain, like 10% of the kids or 20% of the kids.

00;05;14;20 - 00;05;18;15
Speaker 1
Right. And they do nothing like honest about what was in it, right?

00;05;18;19 - 00;05;31;15
Speaker 2
Ah, yeah. Yeah. So, and I honestly got confused and I really loved the fact that it helped me. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Also, I was very interested. It was very interesting.

00;05;31;16 - 00;05;32;27
Speaker 1
Position held myself.

00;05;32;28 - 00;05;51;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I was, I was very interested in it and I confused that with that's all I was looking for something where I can help people I love working with people like or nutrition like it helped me. This should be what I do. And I wanted to go to grad school too, because I thought you should go to grad school.

00;05;51;04 - 00;05;51;23
Speaker 2
You know what?

00;05;51;24 - 00;06;10;10
Speaker 1
But also what about the fact that market's mad People are marketing people? Like if you're in business school, there's a defined pathway. Clinical signs. There was a defined pathway. Yeah, accounting. There was defined pathway. I found that pathway that was defined but little less defined. But it was something I loved.

00;06;10;15 - 00;06;12;24
Speaker 2
Yeah, right. Well, absolutely.

00;06;12;24 - 00;06;18;23
Speaker 1
So like, did that play into it that you needed to make money and coming out of it and, hey, I can make money and I have a good job and help people.

00;06;18;29 - 00;06;20;07
Speaker 2
100%. So it kind.

00;06;20;07 - 00;06;22;05
Speaker 1
Of got it all backwards, like what we're trying to teach.

00;06;22;05 - 00;06;42;08
Speaker 2
Exactly. So maybe it was like junior ish year when that reality starts to set in that like, Oh my gosh, I'm about to be an adult, right? I realized, yeah, I exactly. I was like, Oh, this creative path. Not only would it be selfish, right, that I told myself that would be selfish, but also, yeah, not financially stable, not responsible.

00;06;42;14 - 00;06;59;21
Speaker 2
I should be. I should have a song on it all. And I thought in my head, Oh, I should have a solid plan B, and that's perfect. That's what I'll do with nutrition. It'll be my, my solid responsible. And then I'll do that, but also pursue my, my creative stuff eventually, Right?

00;07;00;13 - 00;07;06;12
Speaker 1
Like, right. That's the hobby. Instead of the nutrition being more of the hobby or more of the helpful stuff to people.

00;07;06;16 - 00;07;21;17
Speaker 2
I flipped it and little did I know that was completely wrong. And it's it's very hard to do that when you choose a path like that. It's all consuming, especially if it's not in alignment with what you love. It consumes you, it drains you.

00;07;21;25 - 00;07;23;16
Speaker 1
So a master's in nutrition.

00;07;24;02 - 00;07;36;21
Speaker 2
So yeah. So from there I straight from college went to grad school for nutrition. It was totally different. Master's in science degree in nutrition, and I became a registered dietitian. So it was like two separate things, right?

00;07;36;22 - 00;07;50;02
Speaker 1
So both of our mind was sort of undefined, like political sides sort of go to law, but still undefined. And then I went to Master's in accounting, which is like accounting developer, right brain. And you get your CPA, you get a certificate, which is you get a license, you get a.

00;07;50;02 - 00;07;52;23
Speaker 2
License because I got my dietician credential I got.

00;07;52;25 - 00;07;57;23
Speaker 1
So yeah. And I couldn't I hated taking that because I hate that. That's like bullshit.

00;07;57;23 - 00;08;12;09
Speaker 2
Oh, I know. I had a I had a national test, too. It was so stressful. It was. But yeah, so look at we both did like one thing that was the right brain and we were like, that's not that's not responsible. And then we went a left brain pivot. Yeah. And anyway.

00;08;12;10 - 00;08;17;16
Speaker 1
I guess left brain, which was a responsible, the right brain was the thing I think left brain to creative.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;23;25
Speaker 2
Is left brain creative. I think it is. Oh, we'll have to look that up. See if we had another producer behind the camera, we could be like.

00;08;24;20 - 00;08;26;23
Speaker 1
Like a real producer. He's not a star, I think.

00;08;27;04 - 00;08;29;00
Speaker 2
Yeah, well.

00;08;29;00 - 00;08;29;29
Speaker 1
We'll get not producer.

00;08;29;29 - 00;08;33;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, not the producer that wears all the hat.

00;08;33;15 - 00;08;36;02
Speaker 1
Like a boring producer that just figures up audio.

00;08;36;03 - 00;08;37;09
Speaker 2
Of. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

00;08;37;18 - 00;08;41;08
Speaker 1
Figures out my cheat figure. Yeah. Supposed to be.

00;08;41;08 - 00;08;50;17
Speaker 2
It's a camera and we I told him before we got our first episode that we were like, oh Mark needs to cheat a little bit.

00;08;50;18 - 00;08;55;10
Speaker 1
So I complained because I only catch inside of my fat head like, you didn't see all of my fat.

00;08;55;10 - 00;08;56;05
Speaker 2
Oh, it's just.

00;08;56;24 - 00;08;57;21
Speaker 1
All of this.

00;08;58;04 - 00;08;59;04
Speaker 2
I got you. Yeah.

00;08;59;28 - 00;09;02;15
Speaker 1
And you nutrition's helped me a lot too, so it's really great.

00;09;02;20 - 00;09;17;29
Speaker 2
But that's the thing. Yeah. So to make it sharp, because I know this is a long it's a, it feels like. I mean, it was a long part of my life. So after I did that, that was like four years of post baccalaureate and then two years of grad school and lot of my internship of dietician, my.

00;09;17;29 - 00;09;18;09
Speaker 1
Cheap.

00;09;18;09 - 00;09;36;24
Speaker 2
Oh, not cheap. All of that was done about four years after Damian. So now I had nothing to do, so I was not nothing to do. But it was I finish and I was like, Oh my God, I finished. Like two of my brothers were living out here in L.A. and I was like, I'm going to visit them and not have any plans for after.

00;09;36;24 - 00;09;39;24
Speaker 2
I just need a break. I just want to enjoy myself. Right?

00;09;40;03 - 00;09;41;26
Speaker 1
And just now that you're employable.

00;09;42;01 - 00;09;43;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, Now I have the guy that.

00;09;44;08 - 00;09;46;19
Speaker 1
Will hire you because a lot of people that need a nutritionist.

00;09;46;19 - 00;09;52;01
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was a feeling of safety. And I think that was part of the reason why, a big reason why I went to it.

00;09;52;01 - 00;09;56;27
Speaker 1
But so and I help people. So it wasn't like it wasn't like a crazy thing.

00;09;56;27 - 00;10;16;21
Speaker 2
It was altruistic. Yeah. And also because I liked nutrition, I thought that, that was what I needed to do. So I want to get into this more, maybe in the next episode or the one after that. But there's a confusion sometimes with what you should be doing, and that's totally normal. And honestly, if I didn't do that, I probably wouldn't be here right now.

00;10;16;22 - 00;10;17;04
Speaker 2
Right?

00;10;17;19 - 00;10;34;03
Speaker 1
There's no bad No. The ten years you did that actually were good. Like I started my company and there was good things about it and bad things about it, and it went out of business. And then I started something else too. Something else. And it all leads somewhere. But as long as you have that North Star, they call it like, as long as that moonshot is still there.

00;10;34;15 - 00;10;38;25
Speaker 1
And at some point you realized that nutrition was not your moonshot.

00;10;39;04 - 00;10;40;27
Speaker 2
Exactly. And it could help.

00;10;40;27 - 00;11;00;06
Speaker 1
I did more with what we're doing now. When you met me too, that led that up like Yes. And both things lit up and I was like, I needed you because I didn't have that. But I did a couple of killing Puppies episodes and I'm like, okay, I'm entertaining myself. I don't think anybody I don't even know how to put it on YouTube somewhere on YouTube, but no one can see it.

00;11;00;08 - 00;11;01;16
Speaker 1
No, no, it can even get to it.

00;11;01;25 - 00;11;04;00
Speaker 2
It's probably an unlisted video or something.

00;11;04;07 - 00;11;07;23
Speaker 1
I don't know if that means I was thinking.

00;11;08;02 - 00;11;10;22
Speaker 2
Oh, well, I'm so glad we found each other that.

00;11;11;01 - 00;11;27;29
Speaker 1
Oh, no, I. I can help. Like a company in the Cleveland Clinic, you know, get funded for cardiovascular care, you know, augmented reality and cardiovascular care, which he's doing really well. But I can't figure out all this something on YouTube. And it's so funny. It's like my dad. It was like my dad with it, with the with the remotes.

00;11;28;02 - 00;11;28;18
Speaker 2
Right there.

00;11;28;18 - 00;11;30;27
Speaker 1
Teach the remote was going to blow up a house. Yeah.

00;11;30;27 - 00;11;33;06
Speaker 2
Seriously? Oh, I didn't even know that's how it used to be.

00;11;33;07 - 00;11;40;19
Speaker 1
Oh, no, no. He still like when he before he passed, it was like you because he had three different emotes and one did one thing, one to the other. And I get that you can all be all you can all be on one.

00;11;40;25 - 00;11;48;02
Speaker 2
You know, And and I remember that like sometimes if you touched one, it would like, mess up the whole set up. Yeah, I do remember that. He said.

00;11;48;02 - 00;11;50;01
Speaker 1
Oh, Jay Leno has a good comedy genius.

00;11;50;02 - 00;11;59;02
Speaker 2
There's like an audio system that the VCR the cable one. Yeah and it goes. But anyhow so anyhow okay, where was I put you?

00;11;59;03 - 00;11;59;17
Speaker 1
Out here.

00;11;59;24 - 00;12;00;22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Moved out.

00;12;00;22 - 00;12;01;26
Speaker 1
To L.A. and then decided.

00;12;01;26 - 00;12;12;04
Speaker 2
Oh, okay. So yeah, a couple of weeks. Then I was like, Wait, this place is amazing. It's literally paradise. And I can this can be.

00;12;12;06 - 00;12;14;11
Speaker 1
Everyone can move to Texas, and Florida is still cool.

00;12;14;11 - 00;12;36;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, I just decided that I wanted I was going to stay, so I lived out of my suitcases for several months and I started looking for jobs. I started making friends and I started myself into into that into that dietitian path. You know, I started taking different jobs at hospitals. And that's a whole nother story in and of itself.

00;12;36;12 - 00;12;55;08
Speaker 2
But, you know, throughout the time, I kept feeling like, well, I wasn't enjoying myself, but I kept it's that mindset kind of what we talked about in the last episode that, like, you have this like suffering like work equals suffering. And like if you're not suffering, if it doesn't like suck, then it's not work. So that's what got me through.

00;12;55;08 - 00;13;00;07
Speaker 2
Like, well, nobody likes their job, right? Like, nobody likes what people are.

00;13;00;13 - 00;13;13;04
Speaker 1
Like. The, the people who are actually aren't working that hard, that are, you know, part of the binary financial system or the state or the government or whoever better in charge of kind of everything. They want you to think it's supposed to be hard. Mm hmm. Right.

00;13;13;16 - 00;13;31;16
Speaker 2
So it didn't set off red flags yet because I was like, I knew I didn't like it and I wasn't. And it was all such a drag, but I was like, Well, this is what it's supposed to feel like being an adult. Like, it sucks. Like, it just sucks. But as the years went on, that didn't that didn't work as well anymore.

00;13;31;16 - 00;13;54;13
Speaker 2
What those lies I was telling myself stopped working and I really started not feeling like myself. Like I really slowly realized that I had become a shell of myself. The stuff I used to love doing, all the stuff I was telling you guys about, about what I love to do, is growing up as a kid and high school and college like I was myself.

00;13;54;13 - 00;14;21;29
Speaker 2
I felt whole and eventually over the years doing just nutrition stuff and just only focusing on that. I wasn't doing any of the things that I always naturally gravitated towards and loved. And I was working against the grain and I was a shell of myself. I was exhausted at the end of every day. I was completely there was no, you know how I told myself back in college, back in grad school, Oh, I'll do the creative stuff on the side.

00;14;22;09 - 00;14;44;08
Speaker 2
I had nothing left in the tank for any of that. I, I there was no inspiration. There was no motivation. I just was so bummed that I had to wake up the next day and do that stuff again, do the nutrition stuff again, and although I loved it, I loved the idea of it. It wasn't and it wasn't true to me.

00;14;44;20 - 00;14;59;13
Speaker 2
And even and I was also good at it. And I think that's another thing that that made me continue on is because I would get positive feedback and people would tell me, Oh, you're so good at it. And you're like, Well, I'm good at it. I that's what I got to do. But that's another thing it.

00;14;59;14 - 00;15;05;20
Speaker 1
In the system. But you also knew that the system told you what to do and you thought there was other like you couldn't be creative within that system.

00;15;05;23 - 00;15;07;13
Speaker 2
Yeah right. Yeah.

00;15;07;13 - 00;15;16;18
Speaker 1
And because it's big company companies and big systems and trying to make money and sometimes it's hard. Yeah. As personal and creative, what's your total image you'd like to be?

00;15;16;20 - 00;15;28;11
Speaker 2
Exactly right. So yeah, I think all those things play into it, like getting confused. You know, if you have people telling you, Oh, you're so good at, you're so skilled at this that that's what you should be getting good reviews.

00;15;28;13 - 00;15;30;13
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's like getting an A on a paper.

00;15;30;13 - 00;15;38;16
Speaker 2
And it's also a little like, Yeah, and that's a little serotonin boost, right? When someone tells you, good job, it keeps you there longer.

00;15;39;24 - 00;15;45;09
Speaker 1
You're going to get another 10% bump or 2% bumper, 3%. That was like, okay, seriously?

00;15;45;09 - 00;15;46;24
Speaker 2
Right. It keeps it going.

00;15;46;24 - 00;15;52;28
Speaker 1
The thing that I loved about your story is when you were on it, like you asked me this question when you were on the beach. You on a beach?

00;15;52;29 - 00;15;53;24
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah, yeah.

00;15;53;24 - 00;16;12;24
Speaker 1
And you got to the point where you decided you weren't going to take it anymore. Did you feel like at the end, this is a question we talked about Look, sort of off camera and you said one of your friends had this issue. There is a point where it's not like a point of no return, but like you feel like if you continue this way, you're never going to be able to get back to what you thought.

00;16;12;24 - 00;16;28;10
Speaker 1
Yes, that's a fallacy, but it's also a good driver, a good motivation. If you're feeling like, Oh my God, I'm at the point of no return, if I continue down this pathway, I am not going to get to my dream, right? A That's a lie. You can always get back to your dream, but be That should be a motivator.

00;16;28;10 - 00;16;33;02
Speaker 1
That should be a sign that you need to like, burn the house.

00;16;33;02 - 00;16;55;23
Speaker 2
Down. Yeah, exactly. And that it was it was so a momentous moment for me. So COVID, I think it was like amid COVID, I had started working from home. Part of my thinking was like, Oh, maybe it's I kept trying to like make many pivots still in the nutrition world and any of those many pivots didn't weren't the answer.

00;16;55;23 - 00;17;20;03
Speaker 2
So I was working from home now, and I got a new job that was doing like virtual nutrition stuff. And I was like, It's probably just that I just, yeah, I need to do virtual and then it should not be in the hospital, right? I once that was clear that that wasn't working and I still at the end of the day, even after just working like a few hours, like I still was so like catatonic and like a shadow of myself, right?

00;17;21;01 - 00;17;42;00
Speaker 2
I there was a moment my parents had come to visit. Well, they actually were quarantining. They, they actually had flown. This is crazy. They had flown in to visit us a couple of days before quarantine. Right. And they pretty much ended up being stuck with us in in Los Angeles For majority of the first crazy COVID months. Yeah.

00;17;42;21 - 00;17;58;21
Speaker 2
So that was a you know, that was really nice. But anyway, my brother and I went to take my parents to the airport, and on the way back we were driving up the 405 and we were like, you know, what should we let's go to the beach instead of the beach. Let's it's a beautiful there was a theater thing.

00;17;58;21 - 00;18;00;02
Speaker 1
About how you can always go to the beach.

00;18;00;02 - 00;18;26;14
Speaker 2
You can always go to that. These, right? Yeah. If we're half this podcast, we'll be convincing people how amazing. The West Coast L.A.. Yeah. So anyway, so we were like, Let's go to the beach. So I remember sitting there and we were just kind of talking about life and we were watching the waves go and the sun was starting to come down and I just felt this intense bout of clarity and this, this immense feeling of like, you need to take a leap.

00;18;26;22 - 00;18;46;02
Speaker 2
You need to take a scary leap of faith. Because even just talking with my brother and just it just became very clear to me that this wasn't the path for me. And I really tried to make it work and I really tried to try different things and I was ignoring what my gut had been telling me for many years at that point that this wasn't my path.

00;18;46;11 - 00;19;11;18
Speaker 2
And in order to break free from that path, you got to face the fear of taking the leap. And it was at that moment that I gave myself the confidence and I and I said, I need to figure out a way to do this right. So it was really powerful for me, and that was that moment. But it took also for me to hit that a low point, to hit kind of a rock bottom with it, of feeling like who?

00;19;11;26 - 00;19;13;13
Speaker 2
I didn't even recognize myself.

00;19;13;13 - 00;19;21;29
Speaker 1
The next podcast. Well, when I talk about the things we did and maybe how we could do it better, or how other people can get unstuck and move into that next phase.

00;19;21;29 - 00;19;23;06
Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely.