Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: All right, what's up? What's up, everyone? Welcome back to one percent man podcast. Got my good friend here, Jim. Jim is a co founder of Gray Matter Labs, my favorite new supplement that I've been taking. And I left them five star review. Instantly took it. My wife loves it. And I asked him, hey, you guys do podcast interviews? The co founder himself messaged me. I didn't even know I was talking to him. So I'm super excited. Jim, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
Great to hear that, that, that you're liking it, your wife's taking it, and thanks for the support.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Oh man, you're so welcome. And I'm so glad you made this because I wish. I'm gonna show you my notes after this podcast, but I actually had the same supplement that I wanted to create with Adaptogens. Not yours in particular, but with Adaptogen herbs. And when I saw the Adaptogens, I was like, oh, wow. And then you did a podcast with your chief scientist and you were talking about like cordyceps rudioli. And I was like instantly. I was like, oh, I fell in love with the brand. And this is even like doing the research for the podcast. But I fell in love even more with the brand because I'm like, hey, plant based energy is super important. But before we even get into that, I want to ask you three questions so myself and the viewers get to know you better. Is that cool?
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: What. Question number one. What series or books or book are you reading right now that you're totally in love with? Or it could be a TV show, but on Netflix or something like that.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: I'm reading a book by Rick.
I forget his last name. It's called the Creative Way. Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So he wrote this book on. On creativity. It's called the Creative Way. And I'm reading that and that's been really good. I love reading. My. My bedside is full of books and I definitely have too many and pick them up and put em down. There's a lot that I'm always consuming at one.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: No, I am totally with you. So I, like, I haven't. I don't forget. I forgot that guy's name. I think it's naval. He talks about how you. He was on Joe Rogan's podcast. He talks about how books aren't a linear thing, where you should read a book from COVID to cover. It's as your interests, like wherever your interest takes you. It could be. One day it could be like plant based. Next day it could Be like, okay, legalization of drugs, or it could be like politics, wherever it takes you, just flow with it. But this linear idea of I have to start a book and finish this book, it's now interests come and go and I follow the same pattern in terms of, with books.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: The Almanac of Naval Ravikant is on my bedside right now to read the classics multiple times instead of reading new books repeatedly that maybe aren't that great. So I think that makes yes, a hundred percent.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: So question number two. If you could speak to your 18 year old self, what advice would you give him and why?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: I would say start to meditate.
When I was younger I had a lot of anxiety and didn't really have good control over my mind. And a lot of that is why I've gotten to the point of starting Gray matter to try to help people with ways that I've made improvements with my own life. But one of the main ones is meditation and being able to be more calm and reduce anxiety and have just more awareness. And I started doing that maybe around 25, 26, so. So it was a complete awakening in a way for me where I just felt so much better, so much more myself, so much happier. Even improves your mood as well. And it was very obvious. Man, I wish I would have started this a long time ago. So that's what I would tell my 18 year old self.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny enough I was actually gonna ask you about meditation. Cause you talked about how meditation has helped you a lot in another podcast you were on. So I totally agree with you. I meditate every morning. I follow like Joe Dispenza, he has a five minute meditation. After that I do like a morning visualization. Midday I do a courageous heart meditation. And then at night I do like an abundance meditation for going to sleep. Yeah, I totally follow that flow. Meditation is something that's helped my, even my PTSD a lot. Because a lot of times PTSD is because you're outside of your body, but it helps you to come back in your body. You said about that having that anxiety and anxiousness. Yeah, I, I feel more in my body and more happier as well when I'm meditating.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's hard. It's a journey. A lot of people will start it and stop it and put it down because they feel like they're not good at it. And trust me, it's hard.
You need to have some patience and really want to do it, have a reason to do it and believe that you're gonna get the benefits and but if you just stick with. It's a great tool for kind of improving your mood and becoming your best self.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: True. Go a little deeper on that. So what do you use to meditate? Is there apps or how. What's your routine with meditation?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I usually just use calm, but I've been doing it for almost 15 years now. I would say that reading about it is. If you're just starting, I'd say reading about it is important. There's lots of books out there. Understanding that it can actually change the physiology of your brain. Right. If you are prone to anxiety, it's very likely that you have an overactive amygdala that's your fear center in your mind. And so meditation creates alpha brain waves. If you do it for long enough, that actually can shrink your amygdala. Right. So it can reformat your mind in a way that just strengthens different kind of pathways and the way that your brain works with the different modules it has. So I would say learn about it because that is going to make you even more interested in doing it and give you the patience to fight through the difficulty of it. And you can do that by reading. And then there's multiple apps like you said. Joe Dispenza is a very well known meditator. I'm not sure if he has an app, but I'm. You could maybe share how you do it, but there's calm. There's a new app called the Way. There's. I'm forgetting Headspace. Yeah, there's headspace. There's a bunch. Right. And so just find what works for you. And I don't really have to, to do all that much. I just sit and try to let my thoughts go where they, they go and, and focus on my breath. And what I find is that over time you can think about it like a water bottle with dirt in it. If you shake it up, it's unclear. Right. And it's moving around and that's how our brains are on a day to day basis. If you set it down, all of that like sediment is going to go down to the bottom and then that water becomes very clear and you can see through it. What, what happens When I meditate for 20, 25 minutes, I just feel like my thoughts have given themselves kind of space and I just am able to focus on, on what I want to do a lot better. True.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: I love that and I appreciate you breaking that down as well. And I think that's lovely to hear. Question number three. If you had a microphone and you could speak to every man and whisper to them. What would you tell them and why?
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Oh, man. I would say that you don't have as much time as you think you have and to start doing whatever it is you want to do with your life now. And even if you can't get all the way there, start taking smaller steps and you probably don't have as much time as you think. And I, I actually almost had a, I almost died a couple years ago. And you don't need to have something existential like that happened to you to benefit from it. As long as you just remember I don't have a, I don't have anything here promised to me. I need to use the time that I have with as much purpose as I can and just go, go at things without fear.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I definitely did see that. I'm glad you're here with us. Thank you. One thing, because I, I saw on your, I saw on your LinkedIn that you shared that post and then there's some. Something too. Was that your professor from DePaul asked you, hey, when you had, I think, I believe when you had your first company, you, about 25, 26, you launched your first furniture company with your co partner, with your partner. And then you, then he asked you what is that you really want to do? And then you were like, hey, I actually, I just want to do physical products. I want to launch physical products. So can you talk about how like that moment. And then going back to the poll, what you just shared, how you just said, hey, you don't have enough time, you have less. Not you have less time, but you don't have as much time as you think you do. Because those two moments, I feel, are very, you know, pivotal for you, but also for the men listening and the, you know, women listening too. Why were those two moments important for you? And how does that help us, the listeners?
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought to myself that I needed to make a lot of money and have an exit before I could start doing what I really wanted to do. And I was completely wrong. And what propelled me to start taking action was it was actually Covid and I had two companies where on paper they were both worth over seven figures to me, but they were focused on people being in offices. One of them was called Futa, another one was called Ritual. And all of a sudden, in a month or so, no one's in an office anymore and into the future. So, yeah, had to rethink everything about my finances, my work, and it just prompted me to take Action. I started working on a new company that was in E commerce that was called Charm. It basically tracked every Shopify store in the world. And that gave me in like a crash course in E commerce. Cause I didn't have a lot of experience or any experience at all. But I just saw the writing on the wall. I had businesses prior to Covid that needed people in offices. All of a sudden that wasn't a thing. So I just immediately got into what was the thing, which was E commerce. And even though I didn't know anything, I just started teaching myself it. And fast forward to now, it's few years later and I've got a successful E commerce company that I didn't know the exact path when I started trying to learn E commerce, but I just started and I think that's what's important. And in terms of what you were saying about talking to my depaud professor, I don't know, I just felt that's what I wanted to do is have some sort of physical product and sell it on the Internet. Partly because it's just very like efficient. You don't need a huge company. I'm not a huge company person. I don't like the politics of companies and all that, all that stuff that comes with it. You can work with a small team and the Internet is your friend here. You can have mass distribution in terms of your messaging and your product. And it's the easiest time in the world ever to be an entrepreneur. And everything is there for you to get started. You just gotta. You just gotta do it and start teaching yourself and have the confidence to overcome obstacles.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I appreciate that. I think that was very lovely the way you said, I have nothing to say to that whatsoever. So. Yeah, And I appreciate you. I answer those two questions because like, that gives the viewers a lot of insight into who you are and how you think. And also it. I like to forefront all the harder questions. Right. I hate when I get on a podcast and it's always, oh, how you doing? I'm doing good, how about you? And it's this big intro. It's okay. Now let's get to the meat and potatoes. Let's get right into it. What was your experience with. With, I'll say Western medicine or Adderall. Right. Because gray matter really tackles. This is the. I won't say the opponent, but it's the champion to Adderall or all these coffees or even like focus pills that we see nowadays. Right. Lacing with a whole bunch of stimulant. This Is plant based, right? What was the epiphany that you had that said hey I need to start this, you know what I mean? Or what was the awakening or the moment that made you say this is what I need to do, this is what's helpful.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: It was an example of solving my own problems. So I was a VC backed founder at 26, super young, had no idea what I was doing and like many people I tried to compensate by taking lots of Adderall and drinking lots of coffee. And it had the opposite effect for me. I just got more anxiety and was not effective as a leader and having long periods of productivity. So I felt that there had to be a better way to do it. And I started studying kind of what that might be and did two things. The the first thing is meditation which we talked about and then the second is experimenting with nootropics and adaptogens and plant based supplementation in a really functional manner. And it was very effective for me. It helped tremendously. And when I would talk about it to friends or family, no one knew what enough Tropic was. It was obvious, it was just obvious there was an opportunity to help increase the awareness of plant based cognitive supplementation. Now I didn't do anything with it at the time, just continued on my own journey and fast forward to my careers. When I got into Charm, which I had mentioned that kind of E commerce software, then I started getting knowledgeable about E commerce and studying different brands and talking to different people in the E commerce space and it made me want to start my own brand. And so I went back to this idea that I've had for so long which is that more and more people could benefit from plant based supplementation. And I worked on formulating Bright Mind. I did it with a PhD in molecular biologist and it took a while to get it right. But the opportunity that we spotted is that you wanted to make something that was strong enough that you could feel and feel quickly. A lot of what's out there today is very subtle. You don't know if it's working. You gotta kind of believe that it is and take it more and more. At least that's what they tell you with Bright Mind. You can feel it within 15 minutes and it lasts for hours. So that's what we wanted to accomplish and the way that we did that was is by putting a 3x the amount of ingredients than other competitors have in the formula. So when you take it, you feel it quite quickly and it gives you the effect you're looking for from A focus standpoint.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: No, I totally agree with you. And even I'll tell you this, my feedback. So I'm a huge mushroom. Coffee, natural medicine. Like, when like myself or any of my family gets sick, I am like garlic essential oils, I rub that on me. Right. I don't use regular deodorant. I use lemon. Right. So I'm very like earthy, but still modern in a sense. Right. Like, I do drink regular as I drink regular water, but I have even the Kangen machine. Cause I want to make sure I have alkalized water. Super important for health. And when I took the first time I took gray matter. Now I don't do. I don't do hard drugs like cocaine. But I made a video on TikTok. I told people this is like cocaine. Because the rush that you feel almost like, I guess you would say like the wolf of Wall Street. Quaaludes, how they took that something to me. I felt like I took it and I was just like.
I was working and I was like, hold on. I took a step back and I'm like, I'm really deep working. Almost like you're outside of yourself. You're just like.
I was like, is it this stuff that I took? And then after I. After that, it was. The next thing I love about it is that I fell asleep.
I was able to sleep. I took it. I took it on the. On the back half of my day, like from 5 to about 11 is when I'm like really chugging. You know what I'm saying?
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: And when I was deep working at five, because usually I'm like, oh, let me scroll a little bit. I didn't want to scroll. I really wanted to get my work done right. And I've took Adderall before and I have that, like, persistency with Adderall. It's almost like a very aggressive persistency where I'm like. And I'm like, don't disturb me. But I could veer off, come back, still focus on my work. And that was something to me that I was just like, okay, maybe this is a placebo, right? Cause you. Cause you. When you take supplements for the first time. So I said, you know what? Let me not take anything else. Let me just take this. Took it. And then it didn't hit me, like. Like you said, hit me hard like coffee or something like that. But it was a slow uprise. And I was like, deep work again. And I was like, I love this stuff. You know what I mean? I love this. And I had to Go find your Facebook ad again and everything and leave a review. Because I was like, no more. People need to know. This is really good. How do I become affiliate? How do I share this with people? That was one of the first products I could say that I ever was. Like, my wife will even tell you this is the first product that I ever was like, yeah, I want to be an affiliate for you guys. This is really good. Something that I was, I, I, I'll say anyone can take this, but Gray matter, why the name? How did you come up with Gray matter?
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So if people don't know. Gray matter is this substance in your brain that is very mysterious. Scientists don't know what it does, but they do know that if you have more of it, you tend to have stronger cognition, tend to have better memory and whatnot. So I just thought it felt right and it's a cool name. And we're helping people strengthen their cognition and just helping people with their cognitive health. So we're Gray Matter.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I love the name. It was like, it was, it was like mysterious in a way because it's like gray matter. It makes you stop and think gray matter. So it stopped me on my scrolling journey. So shout out to your Facebook ad. It works well and I love the points that it made all across. But how do you, I guess, what's your biggest thing in terms of competition? Because there's so many different competitors out there. How do you guys, what do you feel like is your competitive edge compared to everybody else?
[00:16:24] Speaker B: I think it's a product and you can objectively compare a product to the others that are out there, and we simply have more ingredients. And, you know, because of that, it gives you that feeling that, that you've been describing. And so if you just take ours and you take others, most of the time ours wins in terms of the, the effect or the strength of the effect. So I think it's the product. I think we can get better at a lot of things still. We can get better at conveying messaging to people where this type of product is new to them, can create more content, can do more podcasts. Right. So there's a lot that we can continue to get better at. But I think when you have a business that the product, especially a consumer business, the product, product is really important. And if you do well, create, crafting a, a product that fills a need for someone, it makes every other part of the business a lot easier. If you have a hard, if you have a product that, that isn't all that great, Everything is harder. Sales, retention, messaging. And that doesn't, that's in every business. Not just consumer packaged goods software, anything else. So focus on the product and then build from there.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So you guys are a product first company then really just driving that product in that I guess you say more like results driven in your company. Is that how we, how do you say it?
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. We exist to help people. Of course we're going to build monetary value in doing so. But if we don't help people, then there's nothing here. If you didn't take it and feel the way that you did and get that positive impact, nobody's, nobody cares about gray matter. So we need to make sure we keep that at the forefront. Always try to get the product in the formula to be as, you know, good as it possibly can be by constantly iterating and taking feedback and being product first. Then everything else will take care of itself.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Can you share a sneak peek of like different products that are going to come out or what the future kind of holds for gray matter in terms of product line.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: So we have a tangerine flavor coming out. It tastes absolutely amazing. I'm biased, but I think it tastes a lot better than the current one. So look out for that. That's actually imminent. This should be in like a week or so that, that it'll be out. We have ideas on other products, just things that are adjacent to a natural Adderall type of product.
We could be known as making natural alternatives to over prescribed pharmaceutical drugs. So one being Adderall. Second one could be making a natural, calm, calming drink or supplement. There's lots of people with anxiety today and there aren't many alternatives to Xanax. And Xanax really just shuts down your brain and want to be able to give people alternatives to that. So it's in that same vein as natural alternatives. And I think we can make one for sleep. So there's a lot of different ways that we could take this, but we don't have any immediate plans to do that. I think with this current skew of bright mind, it's got a lot more room to grow. And um, we're gonna try to make it as well known and big as possible.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Someone with your level of success, you exit, you exited a couple companies already. On paper you would. Someone would be like, hey, I would love what Jim has. How do you keep pushing for the next thing? Cause you've obtained it all right. Like the worldly things. Right. I will assume the exiting a company is a Big deal, right? Most people will be like, wow, I wish I could build a company. Seven figures. You've taken a company from 0 to 40 million on the US Midwest, increase their revenue. Now that you've done all these things, how do you say, okay, you know what? How do you get excited every single day to wake up and say, let me tackle the next thing. Let me tackle the next thing?
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah, Covid really killed all of that success. So I did. I have exited companies, but I'm not rich by any means. But even if I was, I. What keeps me going is interest in, in life, being curious life, wanting to interact with other people, learn from other people and try to help people with my profession, do a lot of mentoring with younger people. Obviously have this product that can help people on a mass scale. And I think there's so much more to get out of life and just being grateful to be here in the first place and kind of have this opportunity to be alive. I want to do as much as I possibly can. So I did. Motivation really isn't a problem for me. I'm interested in everything. I'm ready to go. I want to do it all. I wake up every day excited.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: No, I totally love that. I would say me as. Me as well. Me too. Excuse me. Try to work on getting better in English. I am super curious though. For, for you, what's the ultimate goal for you? When will you feel like, hey, I've made it, or what's that thing that you, that you're trying to accomplish that would say, you know what? I'm proud of. I'm. I'm proud.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm proud today. But I want to make Gray Matter a eight, nine figure company and help millions of people. And if we can do that, I'd be really proud. And I, I have lots of the E commerce or sorry, startup experience and I have exited companies, but I've always done that with a lot of other people and people that were maybe more experienced than me.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah, this.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: In this company, Gray Matter, I'm the most experienced person and so it just feels a lot more like it's mine. Right. Like my baby. And, and so if I take this one to, to a much higher level, I would feel really proud about that.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I have probably two questions before we go. One, Co founder, right? How do you. How did you choose your co founder, your molecular biologist? How did you say, okay, this is the right person for the job that I want on my team? How did you know that it was him?
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah, he actually has skills that are a little bit different than mine. He actually is a, an investor. He's a software investor and he really financial modeling. So that's my co founder and then the PhD biologist is somebody that we met along the way. But in terms of my co founder, I'm not much of a Excel person. I like it, I use it, I know what to do. I'm not in a deep in a model and so he's really good at that. And also he's a bit younger than me. So a different perspective I think is helpful. Choosing someone that has a different skill set that can bring things to the table that maybe you don't often excel in is really important. And then for the PhD it was just obvious, right? We needed some sort of credibility to, to lend to making the product. And her expertise and her knowledge and advice was really helpful. We actually met her at Soho House. It was completely random. Told her about what we were working on before we had gotten to market. She thought it was interesting and then we just met and hit it off.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Okay, sweet. This is my last question. How do you take Grave matter if you take it in the morning, afternoon, what's your favorite way? And also pitches like why should we take gray matter?
[00:23:06] Speaker B: I take it in the morning, like a little bit in the morning, like a half a dose, just as a daily cognitive supplement. You can think of Gray matter as like an AG1 but for your brain where like these, there are these greens drinks that people are taking. But your body, your mind controls your entire life in the power, in the, the strength and the health of your mind really equates to the success that you're going to have in life and the quality of your life. So in my opinion, people don't spend enough time thinking about and trying to improve their mind. We're always in the gym lifting or doing things for our bodies. But you can really optimize your mind and that's going to show up everywhere in your life and you'll see your success just to start to skyrocket. So Gray Matter and Bright Mind fits into that mold and it's a daily cognitive supplement. And so I take a little bit in the morning and in the afternoon instead of a second coffee, I'll take a full dose. And similar to you, it'll keep me going throughout the evening and but it won't affect my sleep. That's how I take it.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Oh, sweet. Now why should people go order gray matter?
[00:24:14] Speaker B: I think you're looking for something that is an alternative to prescription stimulants or you want something a bit more than coffee and you, you want to be confident that it's healthy for you and plant based you can bright mind and you should feel it right away. And as you continue to take it, the. The benefits will compound. Yeah. Happy to talk with anybody who has any questions about it. Just message us and we're here to help.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Yeah, totally agree, Jim. Thank you for coming on. My brothers and sisters. Y'all heard it here first. Your legacy starts today.
