I think this is the story that I I know you wanted to share. Let's talk about that. Be clear, he does not want to share this story. but yeah I thought your audience would love it I love you I think though.

I love you. thank you for doing that. The failed successes seem to be the hot story. Vayner Nation how are you? We are really excited about this episode of the podcast because we're going to talk about entrepreneurship.

We're going to talk about the entrepreneurial Journey that I know a lot of you are on the highs the lows but we're going to talk about one of my favorite subject matters. So before I introduce these two great guests and what they're up to I have to give a huge shout out to Jordan Syed who was my trainer for three years. uh Mike Vacanti introduced me to him Mike Vacanti's now back in my trainer. They put out a book recently by the way I should have given that a little more love.

Uh, they have some funny stories about me including one time when I ate an obnoxious amount of baked beans at Citi Field um and was not happy with my weight. but you know as I got to know these gentlemen and were were pondering some fun stuff together. I'm very passionate about what they're doing for a living because I grew up with that quote unquote bad back my whole life I Was a senior in high school 17 years old and just in the middle of the night woke up and it was the scariest thing that ever happened. My back like my back quote unquote went out I had no idea what's going on I was in the most pain that I'd have ever been in my life and I couldn't walk and I like scrawled scraped my way to my parents room had no idea was going on.

My family is very old school Eastern European Russian So it was basically like just take this Tylenol go to sleep. there was no like I mean the amount of compassion kids get now compared to what I got is like I mean like people get a splinter and get 10 times more than I got I couldn't I just want to remind everybody I could not walk it's 3 30 in the morning. My mom was like here's some here's some Tylenol go to sleep. Here's the funny part: I didn't go to school that day because that they had compassion for I wake up and I'm perfect I wake up at like 10 30 which is cool because I couldn't sleep for a couple hours I wake up I'm perfect perfect as if it didn't happen I have no idea what happened.

My mom then says she has to run an errand and I go with her. We go to the Phillips Brook Mall in New Jersey and the huge sign at the Phillipsburg Mall says baseball card show. Today my mom looks at me and thought I made it up to trick her so I could go to the basement but that day became the Journey of what became a 20-year Journey before Jordan side came into my life and taught me about my Ql, taught me about the stretches, taught me about soft tissue, did the work, and for years and years and years I've done the work and my back is in by far the best shape it's ever been in. Ironically, I've started playing basketball again.

We played a lot of basketball over a two-day period. And I actually tweaked it for the first time ever and like by the way, this morning instead of the chest workout I had Mike vacanti and I did 45 minutes of soft tissue rolling against it. So this is very intriguing timing because What? I also learned and I know I'm doing a huge intro but I really want to go there because I think a ton of you are going to want to know about and talk about what we're talking about here. When covet came, I wasn't doing as much as my regular stretching, just it was this.

I was in my house. the non-gym setting didn't have me do my warm-up as much. I was kind of doing the Bowflex thing and just like all weights, I was focused on it and I really felt the effects. After 18 24 months of when I was talking to Mike and even occasionally Jordan Um, it was funny I thought it was the lack of stretching and then the conversation that we're about to get to really started hit my radar when Mike said it's the sitting and that really really triggered me because where I got caught was I wasn't sitting a lot when I was 17 16 and so I never Associated my injury with sitting what I in hindsight do understand was starting at 22 because I was building a.com I sat an enormous amount and I reinforced my issues in all those years of sitting.

Um, I'm setting that up and now I'm going to introduce these two wonderful gentlemen and it will all make sense of why I've told these stories and what we're talking about here today. So men thank you for being on the show. Thanks, thanks for having us! Why don't you tell the Vayner Nation individually who you are and what you do? Yeah, my name is Eric Murphy I'm one of the co-founders and CMO of Anthros and I'm Steve Dufresne I'm one of the co-founders and the inventor and CEO of Anthros. Wonderful! So now to connect the whole thing, why don't both of you, whoever wants to take the mic, tell the story of what is Anthros go forward Murph Yeah, I would say just at a very high level.

We are the company that set out to create the most comfortable, supportive office chair the world has ever seen to help people with pain and maximize performance. so at a very high level, that's the that's the outcome we're trying to produce. And why do we have the authority to make those wild claims? We worked with the disabled population and worked with people in wheelchairs for the last 20 actually 70 plus years as a collective team. So the amount of research, data science that had to go into the products that we were making for the disabled population which are the most intense sitters on the face of the planet as you can imagine, it wasn't just about Comfort or discomfort, it was about in some cases life or death right.

If you have the wrong equipment of course and you're sitting in your chair all day long every day, that's a huge deal. So for us what we have is just a different way of seeing sitting. And we may not be experts on a lot of things, but we can sit here today and say that we know sitting better than 99.9 of the population. So for you know, that was an eye-opener for me of course I'd friends who started standing desk startups so I had a lot of thesis of it.

but I think for anybody listening, no question. the last 10 years you started hearing like sitting is the new smoking. it was a you know thing I've heard in different business settings there's been a bigger conversation to health and wellness over the last 30 years across the board. Mental health, physical health like I don't even recognize popular culture? It's it's wonderful.

Like just the way people, what people are putting in their bodies, how we're thinking about and it makes sense. Like you know, like I Never thought that this would be the way I would look at 47 when I was 15 because 47 year olds just didn't take care of themselves the way we all do. and I'm not even like really I'm like solid but like there's people really looking crazy at 50 and 60 and 70 and so this is just great. This is why we're living longer.

It all makes sense. But what? What are the things that we're missing? Let's start with sitting for a second because I'm fascinated by it. What? What? What Are the misconceptions? What are the realities? What can you share with the audience about sitting? Yeah, like anecdotally for the big one setting is the new smoking Man, that one. That one really chaps us going.

It's not that bad actually. And if you look at the evidence, um, standing is the new smoking. Not sitting, Tell me standing is more detrimental for your spine and your body than sitting because that gravity dissect the human body and you dig in and you you once everything to me. Are you saying? So Are you saying Hence why you're doing this startup? Are you saying that your chair based on what you're about to tell me next is better for you than a standing desk? Why? When you can stand? Sure, Yeah, you'd think that's hot.

Standing is important, right? It is. Both are very important of course, and it's not better than the other. Put everything in life right. We would like to start with the asterisks: Alcohol better than the other Misplay: It is bad.

Yeah, alcohol not misplayed is solid. Go ahead easily is important. So with the asterisks, fair enough. When you stand: yes, you turn on every muscle in your body to stand up.

especially if you're going to stand properly. Yes, a lot of muscle chains on yes, and you can only exert that much energy for so long before you lean on the desk, two arms on the desk. Then you slide the laptop forwards even more and you lean even farther. And now you're sitting with a really in a bad back position.

And then you're crossing a leg and you're leaning this way and that way and you're really not doing what. You really know what that out to do. You know what's so funny Brother, You know what just happened in my head when you were saying that, huh? So cliche to things I Believe about human behavior. The individuals that are most excited about getting a standing desk oftentimes are looking for the hack that works for them.

Which also then means that they aren't as interested in putting in the work to build up all the muscle that they would need to actually get the advantage of a standing desk because the amount of muscle that one has to create to actually take advantage of like not being fatigued over a period of time and standing, it's like it's like this: dude I know there's some good under that shirt I can tell I can tell I see it from a mile away I Know it's good. It's like you got to be like that to actually like do something, right? Yeah, yeah, because if you're standing incorrectly and you're doing that eight hours a day all of a sudden that you're just adding strength to dysfunction, right? So then the hypothesis becomes cool since we're gonna sit anyway since like that's interesting. Okay, keep going. But I would say the second part of that is performance.

So okay. we look into the research we look at in the data and when you are standing you conscious or not, you're hijacking some of your ability to focus on what what you're what you're working on. So when you're sitting in a chair that supports your body, you can shut off your muscles, you can relax. Then 100 of your attention is going to what you're focusing on.

So I think it's from both a pain and you know injury perspective but also just a performance. It's an interesting question I'm curious what you're going to say from a standpoint of like it's leg day, it's AB day, it's like, right? Like that whole thing. Is there a regimen for certain people that would be nice for them to do a mix like is it good to sit in this chair five days a week? but two days a week? do the standing desk like I think it's more. it's It's a shorter time frame than it's like why don't you sit an hour and stand an hour.

Sit in our standing hour. sit an hour stand 20 minutes. or maybe not an hour of standing. Maybe maybe even shorter window of standing because you have to take faster.

So sit in our stand 10 minutes, move around, then sit down again when you sit well. yeah, don't slouch if your body allows. you have to stand eight hours a day in the perfect position and you can do that without creating any kind of dysfunctional in your body. then great.

You know what's so funny I just thought of something I actually pitched Mike on a startup that plays in this slouching thing. So I had something happen a different time and Mike got me this thing right that I put over myself like what is that thing like a posture Remind me yeah, thank you and like you know it really tight like whatever and I don't remember. it might have been my back thing but I just remembered telling him like yo we need to create a product where like I was like my bigger problem is when I'm sleeping when I'm sleeping I go fully Primal into baby mode I'm like like I'm so up I'm like I'm like baby Yoda like I'm I don't know what I'm doing but I'm doing something I'm with you there I'm so bad dislocated show and I was like bro I have to like and actually the shoulder thing now I'm I used to sleep through the night all the time lately. this is very recent last six months.

I'm waking up once or twice a night because my shoulders and I don't know like like I'm actually doing all the right things more I don't know what I did that made this thing happen but I was like Mike we need I need this thing I want to sleep with it and it's funny. You should mention sleep with sitting right now because those two are best friends and most people just don't realize it. Notice what? I did no YouTube a great segue. thank you brother! So wait.

So after you guys are done with this startup, can you create like a sleeping chamber that makes me like be like a vampire and just like be pot like? Honestly, the thing that's cool about the Sleep one is like I just would love to be straight as an arrow for seven hours because I'm sleeping anyway. It feels like I'm not doing the work which is fun. That's the problem. the problem with the world Health Fitness posture You know all of it Mental Health People really struggle doing the work that doesn't come natural to them I have unlimited Fitness buddies who all look like you two who like just don't want to actually work eight hours a day on their business and I laugh because I'm like they're like asking me every shortcut the same way I'm asking them like hey, can I get like the apple cider vinegar or can I get like AB implants or can I like what's this new thing that every person is now taking so they don't eat the diet like the like people just always looking for the the shortcut which is why this intrigued me and why I want to do this show which is like there's not a lot of things that are easy actually to make your life better.

It's why medicine's so like, loved and revered like you take it and things can get better. This kind of felt very practical to me I'm like wow especially when Mike put the propaganda of like and not the propaganda like start I use that as a slang term So I want to be clear here when Mike educated me of like the sitting thing is a thing and it makes sense because my this like whatever what's this like what's that yeah but like this yes the psoas that the amount of work I have like that? is so tight yeah and that's all from this horse like like Anyway Nonetheless you can do yoga and pilates and put in the work which everyone should. but what really me up was I did put in the work for three years and fixed so much and then one 18-month window of a global pandemic where I changed my behavior. really it really was I'll be very Frank with you disheartening because it's cliche I lost 20 pounds over a year and a half and I put in all the work and nine months later it's all back because you changed your behavior back to the bad behavior.

That's probably the thing that I most want to talk to you about which is like because I think it's a by the way for everyone who's listening. there's a very selfish episode for me because I hope this brings an idea for you. that's your version of this startup for them. meaning I think there's still a lot of inventions to be made that will like put training wheels to people on things that are hard.

Let me give you like another comp that nobody talks about. The reason I thought musically was going to be big which ended up becoming Tick-Tock and I get all that credit is because I understood that it was helping people make content easier. That if you look at what happened with social media over the last decade, the tools now between green screen this and filter that and music this and split screens that it's become a production infrastructure. It's an Adobe suite that helps people that couldn't do what I did which was like you just had to go and talk and that had to carry the day.

So I love this concept of training wheels things that make things easier. This chair really helps everyone but someone like me who's really emotional about his back pain over the last 20 years. It's like really an interesting product and I'm sure a lot of other people out there a are going through this but then B to be honest because I know my audience here. I'm hoping this episode inspires them to do their startup that helps people do something they don't want to do.

Speaking of inspiring, tell us about the adversity story. Oh I'd love to but I'd like to touch quick on something because he said the posture trainer please and and sleeping and tied into the mattress and posture training Yes and that's exactly what a chair that you can do. this can help you sit up better. Actually, let's talk about the show.

We're kind of like yapping like I have this whole my own agenda right now which is I'm hoping somebody invents something so profound and they say my podcast didn't I get all the credit. Then there's also I really want you to talk a little bit because I know a little bit about backstory because I think a lot of people go through adversity before they get to their place. but actually one more time, the.com of the chair and more importantly, like, what does it actually do Throws? Yep.com Yep. and it's just a play on the Greek root word of human Anthro.

And that was our principle for Designing the chair. It wasn't to design the chair for an office worker or a gamer or a or a blogger. it was to design a chair for a human being and we all have the same needs. We don't have green blood and purple blood, we all need the same kind of input, the same kind of love, and a chair can hurt you.

or it can help you. A chair can. A chair can feel comfortable, you can fall asleep in it, or it can be like a park bench and be painful where you can't wait to get off of the dang thing. And that's what we tried to invent as a chair that can help change your posture over time and you're feeling that when you make those little adjustments to the two backs, you were changing your posture and use it as a tool instead of the strap that your trainer had to put on.

You're using your chair to get your which is so much more scalable. Yeah, nobody wants to wear a weird strap at night. Yeah, but people just sit in chairs. Yeah, so change your posture over time.

And actually we we worked pretty hard to get the chair registered with the FDA As a sitting orthotic it is. It is qualified to change your posture over time. And one of the big claims that we make going try the chair. Feel the truth.

This is the softest cushion you're ever going to sit on. Is this it the human this is back to like muscle gain and all the stuff. I Learned like the the way your body mind thing works. You're saying micro deposits on a daily basis that over time actually changed the way you're like walking and sitting and standing.

Yeah, that's yeah. Definition of an orthotic is changing posture over time which is what this this chair allows you to do. On top of that, we guarantee because we have testing. University Testing We we took all of the leading office chairs that we could find, threw them into a seating engineering lab and said can you guys test these and see which ones perform at the highest level in terms of measures of comfort and you can guess who who won that who won that test? A bunch of the bunch of wheelchairs sitting nerds of course tell us something you know I Think this is a story that I I know you wanted to share.

Let's talk about that. Sure be clear. he does not want to share this story. but yeah.

I thought your audience would love it I think they'll uh thank you for doing that. The failed successes seem to be the hot story. Tell us. Uh I'm 47 I just turned 47.

yeah and uh, this is literally the anniversary 20 years ago. I was 27 years old and I started a business uh, bringing a power wheelchair to Market with a really unique feature on it that kind of uh, raised the seat up 22 inches. Sounds kind of weird like a an accordion thing, but if you're sitting all day long you can't reach in your upper cabinets. you can't see somebody eye to eye and on and on and on and on right.

So raising them up to function in a walking world is a no-brainer So brought this thing to Market was doing really good. raised. uh what? 27 28 raised? uh I don't know. almost 2 million dollars.

had seven partners and launched it was traveling all over the U.S showing the chair off to all the VA hospitals. Things were going great and I came across an investor uh uh, kind of on a fluke. a new angel investor and I was reading Inc Magazine 2017 entrepreneur of the Year and it was a local Wisconsin guy that had done really good for himself and then there he talked about man when I was uh if I could go back in time I I'd work with the banks differently I changed my whole relationship and I was like I wonder what he means by that because I'm in the startup mode What? What should I know so the old-fashioned way I Wrote a letter with a pen and licked an envelope and put a sticker on it and uh, lo and behold, he reached out and invited me down to meet him. Shocked that he responded right, that guy's a billionaire I think he'd give me the time of day, but he's the kindest guy I've met in the business world so rode down there, met the guy, shook his hand, told him my story and in one hour uh that was it I wanted him to be a part of this business and he wanted to be in and buy everybody out and what can I do for you? what do you need right now to to keep winning I said I need like 25 Grand You know my monthly burn rate's hot right now and he's like okay, stop by the front desk for for a check for twenty five thousand dollars and we'll talk in a couple weeks.

It's like what did you just say? you don't even have my home address I don't even know if you have the spelling my last name, last name. You want to give me a check for 25 000 on a handshake Man? of course you're like the fairy Godfather right? So uh, this relationship went on and a number of months of doing exactly what he said. and uh, um, The Story Goes that literally. uh, you learn the no deals done until it's done right.

That simple little adage. yep, uh, literally. a handful of days before the contract was signed by both of us, he was buying all my partners out and going to move down by him. and you know, right off into the sunset.

Yeah, with this power wheelchair, we're going to change lives within a billionaire background. I mean how much more can you ask for in your early 20s? Yeah, yeah, early 20s. In 2017? it was 2000? Yeah, I was 27. Yeah, I was listening carefully.

Yeah, that threw me up for a half a second. but I thought that's what it was I Just want to clarify it for the audience. So here you are. You're I mean you're someone who gave you 25k, kind of blindly like it.

It's everything's checking the boxes. You're literally within the week of him buying out the rest of investors at the same valuation or an inflated value. Ah, it was going to be inflated. Yes, they're exactly right, right? And and I got a phone call saying that he had a tragic death out of the blue, right? you know? Oh so you know this was setting up as like it was funny the way you were selling the story like that I thought you were building up the drama of like this was the nicest guy but it wasn't the nicest guy.

Oh no, he's the nicest guy. Oh in business, that's what I ever met like you want to talk about the definition of philanthropy that is this guy I almost jumped in and said right, You know if it's too good to be true, it is. That's why you didn't say that Holy, You're a week away from this thing and this gentleman passes away tragically. Yeah.

and we we mentioned it was 07 right? So I'm going into 08 January of 08 right? The whole world changed, the whole world did change and just like maybe it's happening now and that burn rate was still there right? And he owned like 30 other companies and you know, wow, it's just Faith You know you can't change fate. it was. It was meant to be. Exactly so hard to swallow.

hard to swallow Yes, especially when you felt like you were the top of the world, right? You know, a day before and now I'm very into my thesis of like gratitude for like you just don't know. like seemingly like every you know yeah, you don't know, you know this is very thank you by the way for making him share this real talk real talk because the answer might not be even now. Like how long did it take you to comprehend that to get to a place where you could say it was just meant to be versus like how did this happen to me? What are the odds? all that stuff? oh that's can you sorry to interrupt? Can you slip in the quick little story of the the moment where you kind of had the this is this is the worst about can you tell the worst moment of the story Steve it's it's kind of the bottom moment where you look at how old was the General when this gentleman when he passed Maybe 60. Terrible.

Okay, go ahead. Okay so um this moment happens right and uh, it only takes a handful of months to go by before. uh they they six seven eight months go by and they're like sorry we're liquidating all of his companies unless it dealt with the main company and yours doesn't qualify as one of those. So now I've been I don't want to say strung out but the burn rate was going, the deals was done, but it's not done now and now I'm in like June July of 08 looking for money.

okay and my existing Partners were Mortgage Bankers uh Builders all in the wrong trades basically to keep funding this company. So I was done I was just my goose is cooked. so I was the managing director of the LLC and as you know, all bankruptcies slide through that individual. so I took the loss as did my wife at the time of the business failing and um that was a lot of strain on us and that was the end of the relationship.

So the divorce kicked off at the exact same time as this and uh now I was asked to turn in all my assets right? So this is the moment that Uh is is the tough one. It's a drive your vehicles down to the auction please. Okay so I drove the first one down and was very embarrassed back then I was I was kind of down and out. so I hitchhiked my way back home, took about an hour or so, got back home and thought that was stupid I got a better idea I'm gonna put this moped in the back of the other vehicle and I drove the other one down to the auction and pushed the moped out and uh, you know thought okay it's normally an hour drive on the expressway and I've got to take all these country roads in January yeah in Wisconsin with you know, my best coat and pants on that I can in a snowmobile helmet, no goggles and you know, looking like a nut job who's riding a moped in January Wisconsin to begin with, let alone crying the whole way.

I also would love it. yeah, just literally crying the whole way home I mean the crocodile tears, you know, freezing your face and chipping them off and especially when your brain up, you know, three weeks earlier I Don't know the timing here. Yeah, but like how many days earlier you think it's completely on the other side of the equation? Yeah, it happened so fast. Yeah.

and then you get you get back to the the the building. It's like well I don't have a place to live and all that I have left in this building is a pallet with like six bags of clothes on it, two speakers, my gas grill, and my yellow lab. Happy to see me. Yeah and uh.

the Dig back question is is easy. uh and and you say it all the time You: you don't have much time to feel bad for yourself when you start getting hungry. No job, no checking, no savings? No. Bank No cars, no house, no place to stay.

You're homeless. It's just you and your dog and you're hungry. So what did you do? You hustle? You take any job. What did you stay? I Couch surf at some friends houses you know.

Started far and and narrowed it in. You know you can only do that for so long too. And and there's no job that I wouldn't do. I mean clean, gutter, clean up poop? Yeah.

Pressure wash. Yep. put a floor in. what do you want done? So for two years I just hustled and then what happened and then what's really interesting is this yeah, what was supposed to happen.

The interesting thing is you could say that I was a little bitter than like this wheelchair thing ruined my life. Okay, there is some of that. Of course you're a young man at this point. Yeah, like ruined my life someone in their late 20.

This is why I talk about all my content. Like when you're 29, you're not gonna walk around Earth with a 47 year old, you know perception. you're not gonna walk around Earth with a 74 year old perception, you're definitely in like that place. 29 30.

you know where you know. There was totally comment today on my social I don't know why it triggered me so much. Literally Literally it's what I get all the time oh I know what it was I I did my There was a very very viral video for me years ago of me outside saying this could be the last Monday of your life. you could have been a bus.

it went very viral at the time for a lot of people today. it's still to this day. It was the first time they ever saw me because it was when Facebook fan pages were going and we hit and we reposted on Instagram for the first time in forever and literally there was a I was just looking at it this morning like 24 hours later just kind of reading some of the comments and someone's like you know like yeah but like like not really because like I am lost I'm 25 and all my friends are doing X Y and Z And the thing that I always find interesting is especially at 28 29, 30 up everyone under 30 in such a wild way. Every single person 17 to 29 has this crazy bad relationship with 30.

as if it's like I'm 47 and I'm like 30 is a child right and and the world's younger now And a lot of people do like live more child life at 30 than they did back when everybody was getting married at 20 and would have 10 year olds and 30. Just you know, two generations earlier. but you know at that to be back to your story because we're of that same age. Like not only were you struggling those two years, some of your high school friends and some of your acquaintances and cousins and Friends really quote unquote had their life figured out already.

Oh they did. And that really with people, that's where people get real right. People get really down on themselves. especially when and this is this is why this story is so important.

Thank you for making me share this because this is good for my audience, especially when a month or two or three earlier youth thought you were going to be ahead of all your friends. This is com This is what. I Why I'm obsessed with comparison. Comparing your life to anybody else's life is the great mistake of everyone's life because it will put you in such a bad place.

Regardless, either you'll think you're too good which is maybe where? Yeah I don't know you like maybe where you were a month earlier because you're like wait, do I have this big wait everybody hears which is always bad. that's a vulnerability or the one that's much more prominent. which is you think you suck because you called out the most successful person you know of your I love how people do it Gary You don't get it. My neighbors sister's best friend just built a million dollar company I'm like, what about your 80 other loser friends? Why don't you compare it to yourself like people will pick out the one Mark Zuckerberg like Mark Zuckerberg What the are you talking about? All 20 of your roommates suck.

Why don't you compare yourself to them? Like why people just love to bash themselves like for no reason in your late 20s. When you get to that zero of a place that fast from a place that was on the verge of putting a lot of paper value around, you must have been challenging it was. But I really go back to I was like how'd you do it? How'd you do it? It's like man I was just hungry and I wanted I'm a doer I want to take care of me I didn't want to, of course fall upon the system. so guess what? I'm gonna sling concrete I'm gonna put your roof on for you I'm gonna I'm gonna remodel your kitchen for you.

but I'm taking care of me and in this case it was just me and my dog. Yeah, of course, how did you? So what what happened next? How did you get to this point? Well, that's a quick transition. believe it or not, after two years, it just side jobs, hustle, and just staying alive. I mean literally.

um, the company when I was making this power wheelchair I designed everything but the seating I bought the seating system from another Local Company Okay called The Comfort Company okay and this company reached out to me. You know, two years later going hey man, what are you up to you You're not doing the wheelchair thing anymore I am like no, no, I'm not. Why don't you come work for us Interesting, No wheelchairs ruin my life. No thank you.

oh no at first oh yeah, it was a salad. no you were still there I was yeah yeah so you want to know how long I can tell you two years later apparently I was still a little bitter because I I said no to him and literally the the the. The weird part is I got in the car politely told him no hey man, thanks for the offer but I'm gonna find something else to do. Wheelchairs? Yeah man, that might dig I get maybe two blocks down the road and I had the most thermal, nuclear emotional blow up out of nowhere.

I had to pull the car over and I had no clue why and it was more like how dare he make me think about wheelchair people. you are again I Can't believe that he's trying to make me come back into this thing. No, it ruined my life and then you know two weeks later after titling your friends and family, they're like you're an idiot. This is who you are.

You love this. It's who you were meant to be. Just go take the job and get your ass back in there. And I did.

and they saved me. And then I got back into the wheelchair Community again serving them this time not with power chair. Now it's with seating. How did you go all the way back? How did you first get into the wheelchair? Community Before: Even before? How did you invent that? Like what was your first experience with it? That's a quick one.

Uncle Bob My Uncle Bob Um, as a disability I've grown up around it. He's been in a manual chair power chair his entire life and he's A. He is an entrepreneur, He owns a landscaping company and climbs on and off tractors and skidsters equipment. and if you saw him, you'd go.

I Cannot believe this guy does this. So you want to talk about the definition of tenacity? It's a blob. Yeah! I Saw this chair that goes up and down I was like man, if if Uncle he had one of those or anybody like him scratching your own inch from you, it's just like profound. All right, we're gonna.

we're gonna run out of time. What have we not? we didn't get we're like that was by the way. you should not do this chair business and you should be a professional Storyteller because that was extremely good now now CMO I know why you can do that I was like why? like that wasn't pretty audience that was putting him in the platform of what he should really be like. why does everybody want this story I just want to sell chairs I did this story you're a very very good Storyteller that was really cool.

Um so actually because I'm going to get rushed out of here like what? what didn't we touch on that you thought of like obviously wanted to talk about like first I'm like pretty sure before I die I will have a soft tissue business because you know not to the level of the emotion I think comes with an Uncle Bob Who's in a wheelchair but like my back was foundational in my life for 20 years like I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't sit on a certain side of airplanes for 15 years because I knew if I fell asleep that there was a chance it could lock. Yeah Yeah right. So it was a real part of my life. Like you know, really, you know it's amazing what you'll just accept I was just like that's my life I have a bad back and it was just like so solvable through just tissue work and stretching and like strength and it's just like I'm like wow and this is why I'm so passionate about this single podcast.

The thought of like you know, you know at some level you guys care quite a bit of people. Get this chair. I'm just trying to get people educated in my audience about like the chair thing and like yes of course it'd be awesome if they get excited about this. but like I just want people to know Yeah, it's kind of like it's kind of like in the 70s I'm sure someone was like this cigarette thing is not as good as people think.

like we should talk about it more or like or like the things we're going through now like this. This this the way we're sitting is a real thing and like really matters What? What do we? What do we not touch on in the last two minutes here that we should touch on anything set out we could probably tie that into go right from the comfort company thing. Now that's yeah we could just jump into how did you do something We did seating for 10 years right? and you guys met where he was. Yeah we're mad at that seating company 15 years ago.

So oh, you were there. Yeah, he was always product. Yeah, product side of things. that was marketing.

and so we brought products to market for the last 15 years together. That's awesome. Yeah, at what point did you know you guys wanted to work together? like in a different capacity? Yeah I mean I think uh man, that was probably 10. maybe eight years ago we started transparently.

he was, uh, upset at our then president? Yeah, and he said he seems like that kind of guy. I think he's still got some feelings and they're like I'm watching him carefully I'm not sure I can turn it anymore. That's it. I'm out of here I Got an idea.

We're out of here. It's like we should do office chairs. Do you think that's entrepreneurial passion? Do you feel like that's engineering? DNA Like hey, this isn't as good as it can be. like what triggers that I'm kind of the curious guy that likes looking for problems, then finding Simple Solutions big Solutions My my wife would tell you that my favorite phrase is I got an idea? Yep, yeah.

well. I mean I know we're short on time here, but I think and throw us what we want. We just want to be part of Peop for their people who know what it's like to wake up at 4am and work till midnight. The people who are chasing their dreams, sacrificing everything, getting zero recognition for the people like you who've experienced chronic pain yeah and will never take for granted not being a pain again.

We think that we can be part of, you know, part of that journey and and we're cheering those type of people on. I Love that brother. A couple things. there's so many little thick stories I want to tell I used to when I first started working out, it was wild Jordan pointed this out to me the weight.

like when I'd have to pick it up to do like some sort of thing on the right side I would just pick it up and on the left side I would pivot my entire body to be able to do it because I couldn't do it straight. Yeah and like I'm bringing this up at the like random thoughts here because I'm just I'm telling people like I don't think people realize that they don't need to accept being in pain because they don't think they have time to fit or money to fix it. Not that this chair is inexpensive, but like it's like to me it's just so worth it. like like grabbing my luggage from the top out of the air like it's just like it's an everyday thing when you don't realize you know.

hey I honestly I Also think I'm doing a PSA for just gaining strength. like like like it's really scary how big of a deal that is. especially legs like we're talking about this off line like it really matters and nobody wants to do leg days like I literally when Mike says Bulgarian but squads I literally like cry still every month later not walking down steps but it's so worth it. So like you know both, gaining strength just just make this very broad.

We talk so much about perspective and mentality on this show. this is going to the other side of it which is like you just don't have to be in this situation like there are a lot of ways to do and I do think sitting like is a category of conversation that needs to have a lot more talk and like obviously the chair but there's obviously other variables that you could be doing. and I think I I Hope this inspired some people to actually go down this rabbit hole because I'm looking forward to the DMS and emails in a year because it is a big deal for me and for a lot of other people. and uh and I'm cheering for you guys and I wish you well Yeah, thank you very much.

Thanks I Appreciate it.