Ed O’keefe 20:33
yeah, I mean, so you know, so just to give everybody some background, so I got my nursing degree, say 21 years ago, I came home told my parents, I don’t want to be a nurse. No disrespect to nursing, but I didn’t want a job. I’m like, I’m gonna go be an entrepreneur. And really, for many people that are entrepreneurs, they’ll recognize this, that man I was going to be broke for the next five years. It really gets Like, you know, like, I tried so many things I thought I was gonna, like, read all the books about goal setting and visualization. And, you know, they talk about, you know, you tell God your plans, and he laughs or however you want to phrase that, but, you know, sometimes ideas incubated, you’re just, it’s not a matter of it’s just a matter of timelines right and sticking with it. And so my first successful business was a dental marketing company. Um, after about nine years of doing that, I rolled into the health product space, which was the health supplement business. And then a few years ago, a food brand. You know, I invested in a food brand that I really believe the tenants of the brand and you know, for a lot of reasons it went under and I was one of my biggest lessons as somebody on the sidelines who was not able to what it was like, I wasn’t a fan. I wasn’t the CEO, I was an investor. And um, you know, when you’re an investor dipped in most cases, you don’t have control, you know, you lose control of that. So when that company went under the I really sat back. And I was like, well, well, how am I going to handle this? Because this was something that I thought, I really feel like the food system needs to get disrupted. You see a lot of plant-based movement is strong right now on the agricultural movement is very, very strong on both sides. I mean, there’s a lot of people that really, really, really, they can disagree about a lot of stuff, but one thing they can agree upon whether you’re a paleo person who wants who really believes in sustainable regenerative farming, with grass fed animals, or your hardcore, vegan on the far right, you have like both sides there, right that probably, it’d be interesting to have both in the same room. arguing. But what I like to try to think is like, where do we agree on things, and there’s a lot of people fighting very, very hard to help farmers get their farms back to properly replant our soil and I know for people who’ve never who’ve never
even this is so brand new to me like where like from if you look at my whole Lifeline when I first learned about this and you check out farmers footprint, I think it’s co or.us but Dr. Zack Bush, go through that documentary it’s like 20 minutes long, it’ll really shift your entire thinking about why we need to restore our soil properly, give the farms back to the farmers and let them give us more nutritional products right and they need to make more money they need to make money. They can’t be owned by a man or a bear that forces them To use chemicals that kills our crops, um, I didn’t know anything about this. Now if you take it a step further, so we talked about I just talked about the food systems broken, talked about agriculture a little bit, and then you talk about the disease, right? And so those three, those things start rolling into. Um, there’s a reason why in the 70s, I might be wrong a little bit on dates. So so I’m, I’m giving some full disclaimer on this. In the 70s, less than 4% of kids had chronic illnesses. However, right now, over 46% of children have chronic illnesses. It’s pretty strange. It’s crazy, right? And the only linkage back goes like I shouldn’t say the only linkage one of the key linkages that Dr. Zack Bush talks a lot about. He’s not the only one by there’s a lot of great leaders and thought leaders on these topics. But, you know, it goes back to the chemicals that were put into Our foods and into our things. So You Think You think you’re having a great tomato, but you don’t know it’s filled with glide, glide phosphate, I gotta practice this one here, but the Roundup, it kills everything. So there’s no nutritional value in it, right? And then that that directly goes into our gut and that’s one of the keys you know, health centers of our entire body if not the main health center of our body. So that all this stuff man makes me more and more passionate about this. I mean, I’m amazed I didn’t know any of this stuff. This is the stuff that is like, you know, you’re trying to get 1% better and then once you get your eyes open, I see why people have
Jeremy Weisz 25:36
you go down this rabbit hole
Ed O’keefe 25:38
you do because it’s um it really is better for society. It’s better for people it’s better for you like so. Okay, hey, let’s say you just want more plan focus great. The average person, the average American, or North American person who’s on the standard American diet has less than it’s less than 5% of their nutrients from actual health. plants, right anything plant-based? Well what if you just flip that to 80% do that for seven days. Check out the engine diet by
enlisting look it up while we’re talking. Great guy. The engine died
you know wouldn’t amazing? I mean he does. He’s a firefighter that is transforming firefighters’ lives because you know most firefighters I work out with them all. They’re all amazing guys. They bust each other’s chops every single second they can the engine to die right. By rip Esselstyn Yeah, amazing, right. Rip Esselstyn. Um, check that out, do something like that student half of that for seven days and just see how you feel. You know, you’re gonna have more energy, you’re gonna feel lighter, you’re gonna, you know, probably sleep better. Get your thyroid, your adrenals all those things a little bit more, feel a little bit better. I am rambling on a diet. So who
Jeremy Weisz 27:01
knows he has to the mission. You know, you’re talking a lot about the mission. So you saw that you were an investor, you didn’t have control.
Ed O’keefe 27:07
So the Yeah, so the mission. So full disclosure, you know, this started off as an entrepreneurial mission like yeah, I believe in the tenets, leaving the direction to believe food needs to be disrupted. But now everything I just talked about there like food, agriculture, all disease that just started compounding. As we started developing the product. I brought on Chef Eric Wall num, who is a private chef for a lot of well-known people, but he’s always been a private chef. And the timeline may escape me a little bit, but one of the key things he did is he did an optional course on that, I think was like six months long, but it was just focused on the plant on plant foods in a row and he was an athlete, he still is an athlete and So, you know, he tried just going gluten-free for a he’s a very good experimenter, a micro tester or what do you call it like optimizer himself? Um, and then, um, you know, his daughter when his daughters had a dairy allergy or, and you know, so their whole family is allergen-free now and he’s 100% plant-based, but he really played a very, very vital role and in the formulation, why we went allergen-free, and why we chose each ingredient and he can speak to those probably stronger.
Unknown Speaker 28:35
What did you say?
Ed O’keefe 28:36
hoping on our podcast as well? Well, I think if you just start going down Now, first of all, I think you need a chef that has the capability of building products that are that way where a lot of guys just don’t right they go for food, they seek out food scientists to build things out for them. almond flour is a very common You know, isn’t very, very common eggs is very common in a lot of baking of products. And we just decided to go the other way, you know, and really serve an underserved market with something that we felt was very, very tasted amazing. How did you meet them? Jesse Itzler. So many of you guys may know like, if you don’t know who Jesse hustlers he’s definitely on the podcast. So I think we’re I have a few episodes with him in it. And I’ll probably interview him every six months because he’s doing something amazing. Um, but Jesse introduced me like when I told Jesse what I was doing, Jesse’s a really good friend of mine My wife and I go to their house with like 100 other people every summer for their hell on the hill charity event. I attend every event of his that he holds by the way like he’s got fee while our codes build your life resume. If you do not know Jessie, yes, sir. By the way, everybody’s asleep. Write down his name when this is over, I’ll even go so far as to like pause this interview right now and you know make a note that you’re gonna go like lookup Jesse so when this is over because he’s probably one of the been one of the most influential people in my life at staring me in a direction just adventure and fun and being I mean he’s one of the best people I know some of my best friends as an adult like you know you have your college best friends you have some your grade school best friends you have your like Sam and I got my entrepreneur best friends. But then like I know all my friends that are doing Spartan races like one of my buddies Rick Steele did seven marathons in seven continents. Connell Brady just broke. I mean, he’s broken like five world records. And the latest couple is you know, trucked across Antarctica first person, solo. He’s been on the podcast, the wake up minute podcast. I got to have him on again. He and a crew Like a rowboat it across the most dangerous parts of the seas. These are all amazing people, the guys who are founders of health warrior friends Mark Rand Paul over powerplant ventures who are helping so many companies disrupt the food system with plant-based focus foods. I can go on and on and on. You know, you gotta check this guy out. It’s one of the coolest guys out there, you know, and to mention he married Sara Blakely who’s another amazing entrepreneur, founder of Spanx, you know, I think of her a lot actually. Because wake up foods was to scratch your own itch like what if you ever think about a company to build just by the way total side note for everybody listening, you know, like everyone says, amen. I had this idea of x and it was to solve their own itch. Sara Blakely created Spanx out of solving your own itch. And, and in most of her, I think both of them would appreciate just me mentioning like they’re both great parents. They have four kids, four beautiful kids, and A great role model family, you know, so anyhow, so that’s how I met Chef Eric to go full circle. And chef eric married Molly Mize amazing woman with two beautiful kids, you know, so,
Jeremy Weisz 32:12
so, um, you and Chef Eric get together and
Ed O’keefe 32:18
oh, okay, so I’ll tell you guys a funny story whenever funny story. So I, I was going different route the formulation. And
Jesse introduced me to Chef Eric, I got on the phone with them. And he said a couple of things to me that I was left sitting there.
Ed O’keefe 32:39
I was like, Alright, can I come to your house? Like I think it was like Sunday. It might have been Sunday. No Saturday afternoon. And I was like, Alright, what’s your next what’s Monday, Tuesday look like in your house. And he’s like, oh, let me check with Malia singing so I flew out. early Monday morning. We spent two and a half days together. Talking he was made us cooking making waffles and we just banged it out man
Jeremy Weisz 33:09
What did he shift in you? Sound like he said something that shifted the direction that you were going
Ed O’keefe 33:12
I think I was unaware of how powerful the plant movement really was. And I also was a little on unaware of the wot loss some of the underlying why’s right like like I brought up the food the agricultural the planet, then there’s so many why there are so many layers of values, the animal how animals are treated, um, and then help me like there’s so many of those things. And then so you have somebody with a unique ability like chef eric who can create like the most amazing waffle that is super, super, super clean, has six to nine ingredients. When if you go look and like you know has a good source of protein, 10 grams of protein 16 net carbs, good quality carbs, right? And then five grams of fiber and then you go look at. I’ll tell you a funny story. I called up. So I have a couple of buddies that train pro athletes. And I called them up and I said, Let me ask a question like, like, do you have your athletes like do they train on super high protein, low carbs? And they’re like, no. Okay, so what does that tell you, Jeremy, they need we need carbohydrates to have energy. And there are actually studies and there’s a little over my skis, but studies that show that the best ways to lose weight is like a slower carb diet with good quality carbs that digest over longer periods of time, don’t suck up your energy. And so I called a nutritional expert here locally who consults with families. And I said, Do you would you ever put a kid on a super high, high protein low carb diet and I think there’s like one or two Exceptions possibly which is like epilepsy and there’s maybe one other thing, but the answer was no. So I was like, I mean, it started validating all the ticks on my box, right? And then I started testing with it myself and just notice my clarity, my mind, my energy, my patience with me in my kitchen, just was all better. And I’m not judging I’m not judging. I’m not judging. like everyone’s got to do you, you know, it’s all good, I guess. But there are certain things that started shifting and I got introduced to people like you gotta you know, check out the rich roll podcast, you check out what they did with the game changers movie, absolutely incredible. And then rip Esselstyn is doing Jesse Itzler, you know, all these people they all have, you know, these are all people you should know, you know,
Jeremy Weisz 35:51
why don’t you go with readymade because, you know,
Ed O’keefe 35:55
the average American the average person spends less than four minutes
Jeremy Weisz 36:01
The average person spends less than four minutes a day on breakfast.
Ed O’keefe 36:06
Suddenly, you’ll pull out a microwave pull out 60 seconds in a toaster. I’m Some people put it in the microwave. Some people eat it cold frozen. So my kids, I love taking these actually because I do like plant-based smoothies. And I’ll create a smoothie. Cool protein mix in there, put a waffle in there and buy all my different maybe a little cinnamon, a little bit of honey, organic honey, and a few other things. Man if you throw some greens in there, you could do that and you can do whatever you want. You know and bam within you have more texture to your smoothie. You do in the wake of waffle you know
Jeremy Weisz 36:45
what’s uh you know, you mentioned Dr. Zack bush ritual. Jesse, it’s or calling any other thought leaders that you look at in this space that the people should you know that you actually do you To do research, you mentioned a couple. The movies. What else? What are the resources?
Ed O’keefe 37:07
Well, yeah, great question. So we’re gonna do we there should be a podcast up on our wait a minute coming out with like, the top 10 podcasts that I listened to, um, I love from an expert’s perspective, you could find almost every single health expert that you ever want to listen to to get advice from on between rich roll and like rip so scenes podcast, I’ve listened to way more riches, by the way, just for full disclosure on that. So I can speak to that, um, and it is an avalanche of learning. And there’s I think for people if you’re confused, first of all, I think I’m not a big proponent of fighting the diet wars. Like I just think I think most people want simplicity, Jeremy, they don’t want. They don’t want like this, but they just don’t want to be confused and they don’t want to fail. Right. And so one of the things if you will take it all back the way that foods is like, one of the things is that this is a simple, simple ingredients filled with super high nutritional value. So So I was like, Man, this fits all the tenants that we’re trying to accomplish. It’s good for everybody. Um, so I mean, I guess, I love Let’s see here. I mean, I think those are just good starting points. Let’s sit in there. I’ll create a list for you. Yeah, I know. I know. I’m forgetting people. So I apologize.
Jeremy Weisz 38:36
So I want to just first say, you know, it’s always fascinating to get inside your mind because of, you know, if people don’t know you, they should follow you and what you’re doing. And you know, you wrote a book time collapsing one of my favorite books of all time, and you have a lot of amazing resources. And I think, you know, the interviews I’m looking forward to listening to a lot of them because you bring out aspects and people in different, you know, different questions and different viewpoints and people. So check out obviously, you know, the Wakeup Minute but Wakeup foods calm. And any final words going
Ed O’keefe 39:15
yeah, well actually let me just go back to like when you’re asking me like who do I go to? I think it’s fascinating to listen to people who are doing really cool things. Like whether it’s physical fitness, whether it’s entrepreneurship, what they’re doing, they’re actually doing like when you’re asking me Like, who do I listen to? I listen to like, 30 different podcasts. And I’m seeking like, okay, what’s that person doing? that’s inspiring and cool. And then have you back then I like backtracking from there, because every good interview has probably resources mentioned, right? That’s a little more like so. Ben Greenfield, another one. You know, Ben, Ben goes a little more scientific than I can sustain at the summit. podcasts, but he’s a plethora of, you know, he’s an avid, he’s got so much information that’s there. Right. So, I mean, I think that’s, that’s where I just want to clarify that. Um, and I also want to challenge everybody like, instead of listening to podcasts, go do these events like go to 9029 go to 2929 there are more amazing people that you don’t know yet that is never going to be on a podcast that are out there just like me and you trying to do our best. And I think that’s super, super important. You know?
Jeremy Weisz 40:34
So everyone check out wake up who’s calm and
Ed O’keefe 40:38
you try all the flavors are you looking for? Are you trying to wrap this? I think Jeremy trying to wrap me up everybody.
Jeremy Weisz 40:44
Yeah, he’s like, hey, do you got a time? No, we don’t have a time thing. Here’s what I would say. Okay, you might wrap this up. I’ll wrap
Ed O’keefe 40:50
this up this way. Um, when I left college, my goal was to be a motivational speaker. Like I really thought I was gonna be the next Tony Robbins. Like I was like, I’m gonna go And then I studied under jack Canfield, who’s the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And then I wrote a couple of books and you know, never found I mean couple my businesses did really well but like, never found those the book thing, motivational speaker thing. I noticed my values shifted to where, you know, seven kids I want to be home, I don’t want to be traveling, speaking, I didn’t make that a priority, right? And so I’m the food business or the Wakeup foods, my goal, personal goals, if we can inspire people to be their best selves, and whatever that might be, that’s a pretty big win, right? There are other wins on top of it, probably a different podcast, but I would just say everybody is like, hey, look at you know, um, if not, now, when are you going to do it? And it could be anything it doesn’t, you don’t have to go buy our product you can go like but everyone’s got a thing that scares them. That if they did It, it would make them a would open up a part of you that, um would just open up doorways that you just aren’t experiencing now because yeah, either you aren’t doing it yet, or you’re ready for another level of it. So I would push people to say, whatever you think whatever scares you a bit, go do it. Whatever you feel uncertain about keep pressing forward because the distinctions are not in knowing the distinction is in the discovery of finding out and knowing, meaning you’ve got to push through a lot of uncertainty. And this could be like, to em side of a mountain. I met Connell Brady, at I think it was 130 in the morning, at the top of a mountain in Connecticut at Jesse’s event. And I was in my head sitting there going like, I don’t know, I think I’m ready to turn in Go. Go back to my tent and Small discussion me and Collin had a concept and he’s like, Well, I think you’re gonna feel a lot better if you get one more in for tomorrow. And he was right so, but we’re kind of bound now by that one event and he was there when I kind of needed somebody, but I would have never been there like, you know, you just can’t get that relationship virtually. Um, and I don’t know I guess step into that uncertainty. Life is found in like in this place where we just go in and do things and not living like tic Tock like not living the traditional life. And my wife and I talked about all the time like you know, with seven kids structure makes things life easier, right. And we’re pretty unstructured kind of easy. We’re we are a little bit more lacks than probably most people but we’re still structured kids go to the normal school. We have I mean sports, you know, Um, but we do wake up a lot more like hey, how do we make life more of an adventure for ourselves? And I think it’s one of our top priorities right now. Like, how do we get out of this Tick Tock nine to five even though our life isn’t any five, but like, you know, we’re just doing what every other traditional family does. And I’d like to challenge people that you can look on Facebook and Instagram and look at other people doing cool things or you start planning to go do amazing things. I hope I hope inside your bag or inside your, your luggage or inside your cooler is a thing of wake up waffles or any of our other products. And, and we help be a little bit of a guide during that face, you know? So, that’s all wrap it up. You know,
Jeremy Weisz 44:44
that’s a good wrap up. Thanks. Always a pleasure. I really appreciate it, brother. You’re the best
