there is no shortcut for the work period there's no magic pill there's no magic Elixir it's about habits you have to do things even when you don't want to do them the secret in the tea business if you go label hunting at the grocery store everything has either natural flavor artificial flavor it's not that it'll kill you but a natural flavor just
means it was derived from a plant or animal Source but it ends up in a laboratory where about 90% of what goes into these flavors are preservatives and additives go unlisted on the label they create kind of a monotone flavor it's like watermelon chewing gum right you get that burst of flavor but then it dissipates it's very similar with flavored teas when they're using
flavorings whereas you know instead of using vanilla flavoring at Firebelly we use real Madagascar vanilla and it makes a difference what failures have you had that you cherished the most up until this point it's funny you know I don't I actually went through one of the biggest depressions in my life after I sold my my steak and David's Tea you know I don't I don't talk about this
often but I was I was in a really bad spot and it was a weird thing like I felt guilty about it cuz like wow what right do I have to be depressed I just I just you know I I lived I just had the dream that everybody plays for which is an exit in a major company what would you say to somebody who's depressed right now well um I want to start with what's the
biggest lesson you've learned over the past year and why really that entrepreneurship is in many ways a personal Journey disguised as a business Pursuit and what I mean by that is so much of it is managing your own psychology you know everybody talks about playing the long game right um but it's easier said than done there are so many swings to the game when you're
building businesses there's the lows are so low the highs are so high as well and it's learning how to be able to tolerate those lows so I started this podcast with with uh Harley finlin president of Shopify really good friend of both of ours and we interview these we're both Jewish we interview these old Jewish guys who don't have a social media presence
they're all of them are over 70 and they've had these incredible careers and had enormous impact and what's interesting about each one of them is they give you they talk about you know they've had a 50 60y year career and they talk about the swings the UPS the downs their career but it's in montages right like it's it's like watching a Hollywood movie you know something that
is actually two minutes is actually 5 to 10 years and it it feels like a lot longer when you're in it living it and so I really over the past year have really put a lot of emphasis in trying to manage my own psychology and get better at when I have a crappy day or a crappy week or a crappy month not having an action bias or making big decisions or or for just being able to kind of
broaden my scope and my perspective and look at it over the course of time um and really try and only make major evaluations when I'm in a good place mentally and only on a a more a longer uh period of time maybe once a year to to sort of take stock of where I am versus where I would like to be um yeah and and be able to take a broader lens and not feel the lows as much as I I
sometimes do or the highs or the highs I mean it's hard not to feel the highs right because they feel so good so uh it's nice to celebrate but you celebrate with the high five and then you go back to work how do you learn how to do that though like managing your psychology that's such an important Journey for every entrepreneur for every person yeah
but nobody really teaches us how to go about doing that no we don't talk about that at all uh certainly not in school right um but when you think about it you can be Your Own Worst Enemy sometimes you you can you can and I've seen this so many times in my career where people will will get into a rut and a tail spin and live in their own narrative uh and
just go round and round in it uh and and the days go by and the weeks go by and the years go by um look I mean it's really hard to do I'd love to sit here and tell you that I've mastered it and I I'd like to think I've gotten better at it uh I think taking care of yourself matters uh one of the reasons I love tea so much is I think it plays into that lifestyle it's you know in a world where
there's where there's so many highlight reels and different products that will make you think you're going to walk through walls and promise you the moon tea is this product that has been around as as old as the hills I mean it's been part of humanity for so long it's Drank In regions of the world where people live the longest uh it's been studied for decades uh not years but decades by some
of the top institutions in the world uh and and I like the connection T gives me to history uh not only the feeling that it gives me you know a great green tea or or great herbal tea in the evening but I think that's part of of being able to manage your psychology is is routines and rituals uh I think another piece of it for me is is mindfulness and and
meditation played a big role in my life I've been doing it now for well over five years uh I do it consistently and it really it it makes a huge difference it it calms my nervous system down it allows me to get a bit bit of distance I mean it's remarkable what 10 minutes of breathing can do yeah and I exercise a lot and and I try and take care of
myself uh and I try and have a good time you know life short and and I think it's important to celebrate um Friday nights i' like to remind myself uh just how much I have and how lucky I am and really really take in um really appreciate my life uh and and take in all the good in my life I think that's really important you know when when Monday comes around it's like it's like
War right you're in the trenches you're you're you know you're you're driving hard you're driving with a sense of urgency I'm trying to build I'm trying to build companies uh and and that that sort of my wife will always say like isn't there something good going on and and and it's like well there is just the good comes on Friday night and when I'm in the moment and I'm trying to build uh
I need to focus on how to improve and so I become hypercritical of myself and what I'm trying to build and where we're at and how and and I I I sort of let that sense of urgency take over uh and and let the feeling of we're not doing enough set in um and then within reason try to temper that so that you know you don't come off too strong with your team
around you and and and um you don't end up trying to to move something forward that frankly just needs time uh in order to to to progress sometimes that's the case right Sometimes the best action is no action right so but then Friday nights it's really important I think to sit back enjoy uh smile uh you know give your kids a kiss uh uh you know think
about how how fortunate we are uh and really appreciate your life he back and step away I have a saying that you um sort of reminded me of when you were talking which is the lack of patience changes the outcome it definitely does and sometimes when you try to get something faster than it naturally should happen you actually end up in a worse place absolutely absolutely I mean
I I like to measure certainly in businesses that I'm building I like to truly measure progress on an annual basis I think that's the time to do it did you get better this year versus versus last year did the business grow this year versus last year you may not be at the place you want to be but did you progress and I've been in situations where I had to say no you you didn't
progress and and I was in a business early in my career where I had to uh um you know wave the white flag and say I failed talk to me about the annual Thing versus daily how do you use that you do action daily how do you set that and sort of measure progress and consistency while keeping your eye on the annual sort of time frame when you're building
a business the amount of decisions you have to make is coming out you a mile a minute it's it can be like trying to drink through a fire hose and I think you develop an intuitive sense of it I don't know that I that I consciously sit there and think of every decision and ask myself is this a monthly decision a a daily decision a weekly decision I think I I usually ask
myself uh without consciously doing this two things one is this something that I can recover from easily meaning if I'm wrong about this what's the impact of it and two what's the risk of doing nothing and waiting for more information uh a lot of the times the answer more often than not the answer is wait and get more information certainly on big decisions like to go in a
different direction with the product um to go on a major to deviate in a in a big way from your marketing efforts um usually there it's it's try and get more information try and get more information try and get more information things like you know you're out of stock and you got to pressure A supplier to ship it faster that's where the sense of urgency comes
in and you're really and you really you know you start to pound the table and and and get people moving and there's a lot of those right there's a lot of little decisions in a day where if we can do a little bit more to you know ship that extra order handle that that last customer service request um those add up so those small things where a sense of urgency allows you to
offer better service better product um become better at what you do those are the small things right and and those things I think you do want to have a an incredible sense of urgency around the bigger things like you know should we be selling this product or that product or presenting the brand this way or that way I think those things you want to you want to analyze more on on you know a
monthly basis or quarterly basis or in some cases an annual basis so it's like daily you want to focus on the micro things that move the needle but totally as you step back you focus on the more micro stuff 100% right I mean any any successful entrepreneur will tell you this like you got to be in the details you have to I mean over time as the business grows you you develop a
team that you trust to be in the details but even then it's it's trust but verify you know I always say here's a great example like what is Air Canada or Delta Airlines or or American Airlines it's not the CEO no nobody thinks about the CEO when they think of these Airlines and people say oh that airline's the worst right I mean nobody really likes
Airlines well what are they really saying you they're not saying most of them couldn't even tell you who the CEO is or the management team are they're saying that that individual person that I dealt with at the customer service counter is was was not nice to me or didn't leave me with a great feeling or or or didn't didn't help me with what I needed help in that moment you know the
business happens at the transactional level any business that's where it happens where the money is exchanged for the goods and I think often the bigger the company gets we kind of forget that but really that's what it is I mean it's it's it's a series of small transactions that add up but you need to continually get good at those small transactions those small
transactions often require urgency you know I used to sell running shoes in high school uh I loved it I worked at a company called athletes worldle which is the equivalent of Foot Locker okay and I just loved it I loved the product knowledge I loved learning about the shoes I loved you know they'd want you to sell the t-shirts with the shoes and I love trying to to gain the customer
trust and and really make them feel good about their purchases you know my sense of urgency in making sure every customer was helped before they walk out of the store now I got paid on commission so and I was 16 years old and I think I made 12 bucks an hour at the time and minimum wage was like five so I thought I was rolling in the dough right um but
but I I operated with urgency I there was no customer that left the store without me talking to them there was I was all over it and it made a difference I I was I was in I outsold everyone uh and and it wasn't that I was I mean I was more I was more into it I I cared about it more I spoke to more customers in a day than they would but that's what a business is it's it's how do you get
the people on the front lines operating with urgency to add value to the customer and do that over and over again and I think that's where the urgency really plays in is is sort of creating that culture where people care about their work and care about the customers that they're dealing with enough to to service them uh uh quickly and efficiently can you make somebody care
or do you hire people that naturally care had a mentor that used to talk about this you call it will versus skill right um sometimes they have skill but they don't have a will and sometimes it's vice versa you get people who really care and work really really hard but can't really move the needle because they just don't have the skill you can teach skill more than you can will I do
I do believe that you caring about your work is something that no one can teach you what to do but I think sometimes you develop the the bug for it right if you many of the most successful people I know didn't H could have stopped working long ago uh including myself I mean I I I sold David in 2016 I mean I could have called it quits and go play shuffle
board but uh I work harder today than I've ever worked and I think I've develop that love you develop a love for what you do over time um so sometimes I think it is about patience you know can I don't know that anybody can can um can teach you how to have a spark and and a sense of urgency but I do think you can cultivate someone's spark and their sense of urgency but ultimately it's on
the person themselves to to to um to really tap into what makes them get up in the morning and want to achieve you mentioned details one of the commonalities I find between exceptional people who've done exceptional things is they're always in the weeds MH and yet there's this sort of cultural backlash against being in the details and everybody sort of wants to manage with
abstraction right talk to me about learning about the details and being in the weeds and why that's important to you well I mean it goes back to what we were just talking about which is which is you you know you don't you never want to have Ivory Tower syndrome where where you run a business uh and you're not connected to your customers where you're
sitting in an ivory Tower somewhere issuing decrees on your your the people in your organization having said that it is a balance I think that one of the things I learned building David's te was the difference between running a militia versus running an army you know when you have a small company and you're running it's like a militia right like you know
you got five stores and uh you want to run a sale or you want to you want to do some kind of marketing campaign or or whatever it is that you're trying whatever initiative that you're taking on and you have a meeting and you say okay let's do it and and it's supery EAS because you know you say turn left and the everyone hears you the militias there's five of you right or 10 of you
or whatever and everybody turns left but when the company grows you become like an army and when you say turn left you get broken telephone if you don't have the right processes and procedures so I think you know what you stand for as a company should should never change but how you do things as a company should never stop changing and I do think as a
company scales it's really important to understand how to put in place the right processes and procedures not to stifle creativity or to stifle the people you want to empower the people on the front lines and make sure that they can still make independent decisions I mean we've all experienced as a customer there's nothing worse than hearing I'm sorry that's our policy you know when you when
you don't allow the people on the front to think for themselves and and they become robotic about how they deal with people that's oftentimes the beginning of the end but you do want to have processes procedures to be able to facilitate the flow of information to and from the front line effectively uh so that so that you are able to connect to the weeds without
without sort of jumping in and not allowing people to spread their wings and fly and I think it's a delicate balance right you as a leader you want to be have your finger on the pulse and and understand what's going on at the the lowest level of your company where customers are interacting with your team or your products but you also don't want
it to micromanage to the point where the people who are who you've empowered to to do the job aren't able to do it and be celebrated for their own successes uh or learn from their own failures where did your drive come from like what were you like as a kid it seems very abnormal that a 16-year-old at Foot Locker would be so driven and motivated I loved it I
I loved working from a very very young age um but I was a bit uh I was a bit my wife says this about my son and I I think I was the same way I was a man of with no plan uh you know I remember I remember I really wanted a skating rink in our backyard we had like this tiny little backyard and my parents are like no I mean we're not building a skating rink you know we don't we don't it just
wasn't our family thing you know and and so I was really stubborn I'd go and I'd start taking little you know like the the sour cream container uh uh I'd wash it out and put water in it and start dumping it on the lawn and dumping it on the lawn and my parents are watching me do this and they're thinking what is he doing but I kept doing it I kept doing
it and for hours on end I'm dumping one little sour cream container withth of water on the back lawn and my finally my father's like this is crazy the kids never going to build a rink this way uh and and and you know but then they started helping me and then my brother started helping and then here we are as this family uh with our hoses out there spraying the the the back lung sure
enough we had a skating rink you know and and I was a bit like that as a kid I mean I I wanted to work before I was allowed to work uh I had a paper root at a very young age it was it was the the Penny Saver I don't every town has this it was sort of that Sunday circular where you open it up and you put the flyers in and then you hand it out to the houses and uh but
it all comes in different parts so the the truck comes around and they drop off the paper and then 10 different Flyers right Home Depot and Saveway and whatever right all the different companies and whatever they're advertising and so you got to open up each one there's probably 1502 200 and you got to put in you know each of the 10 Flyers let's say and then you got to
put it in your your little wheel cart and you go around you deliver it and so I did that and I hired my brother my older brother was my first employee and and we did it together and and um I went on and I worked at Wendy's I was the fry guy uh and I I I hated it I you know I'd be over the grease thing and getting yelled at by some 20-year-old manager
and then I think I think the breaking point for me was I had to take out the garbage and I was a small little 14-year-old so you had to throw it over the fence right to get it into the bin they had the the the guard for the animals to sort of fence around the garbage bins and I I couldn't quite get it over the fence and so it it sort of teetered on the top of the wall and then
kind of came down to my face and I was like that's it that's I'm out of here and I I think I was probably the youngest person they hired at uh Athletes World which is like the Foot Locker um and um but I was I was I got after it you know I I I I was persistent I kept I followed up I I I wrote my resumés I I banged on a lot of doors and um that was just who I was what were you
like in school I didn't take school all that seriously until later on I mean I knew I had to do well enough to get into a good University but for me University I was excited to go to go socialize and have a great time um it wasn't until I met my wife where I really got it together um you know I think I met her I was in my early in my third year and up until that point I got I I mean I got
into a great program I went to Mill University um but she she she studied hard I mean she became neuros psychologist was Harvard educated and uh uh you know I I I certainly married up but but um you know she brought out the best in me I on by my fourth year I I became an honor student and and I started to work a lot harder is that because you wanted to impress her I
think if I wanted to hang out with her I had to go to the library so you know I mean she was in the library so yeah I mean I wanted to see her I wanted to be with her so I kind of just just followed her and she she didn't you know she didn't I used to go out a lot and and and probably party too much but she wasn't into that so um you know she mattered more to me than
party so I ended up hanging out with her more often and and she she brought out some better habits to me and so your wife is a psychologist your dad was a psychologist yeah I I have a team of therapists around me yeah yeah and that's come in handy over the years certainly my lowest moments yeah what was your what did your kitchen smell like on like Friday nights growing up
what did my kitchen smell like well my parents were big on family dinners I mean I had a very regular upper middle class middle class upbringing um my mom had a a few different jobs was a teacher she taught deaf kids for a while then she became an artist my dad was a psychologist and and uh started working at at the hospitals and then had his own private practice he worked very very
hard uh I I certainly learned my work ethic from my dad he was up at at 5:45 every day first patient was at 7 last patient was at 6 uh never took a lunch break uh you know he'd even clock a few Saturday mornings I mean he had three kids and and he was the provider and I um we always had Friday nights weren't dramatically different than than Wednesday nights we we because my dad
didn't really travel for business we always had family dinners uh and they're really nice growing up I mean I was very lucky I had my grandparents in my life uh and they would they would I guess come over on Friday nights and and and we'd often barbecue a lot of a lot of steak and this is before red meat we knew red meat was wasn't so great for
you and so big steak family we do a lot of steak and I had a nice upbringing I mean I had a nice family around me but entrepreneurship and business wasn't really that um you know it was interesting I had this extended family in Montreal who had been very successful in business uh and I had this Rich history um that I really wasn't in touch with at the time um I I
I often felt I don't want to say the black sheep but a little bit uh uh certainly you know my older brother's a doctor uh it wasn't education was certainly strongly encouraged but um you know I didn't have access to CEOs and to to to uh typ a business people in my life early in my life I I started to meet them later in my life once I went to Montreal uh I went to Mill and
started to meet some of my extended family once you learn more about your extended family and its history of Entrepreneurship and making fortunes losing fortunes remaking them yeah did you feel more like you fit in more cuz you said you you felt like the black sheep for I was certainly inspired more uh um you know my the way the stories as I got older the way the stories were
told to me was like an episode of succession you know my my my family built a business called Peerless clothing uh and and you know it was filled with this one being mad at that one not talking to this one and feeling slighted and it was basically um Three Brothers the oldest one started it with the dad uh the middle one came in with the Elder one and was kind of the inside
guy the Elder one then then once he had made it um decided to go to Japan and in those days when you went to Japan it was like BN Voyage right like there was no we're talking we're in the 40s and 50s right now and so my my grandfather got brought in uh he was a tall uh salesman type guy and and um the business was not doing well at that time and and they
brought it back uh together and Peerless clothing for for people listening was they they manufactured they're still around today it's a it's quite a large business and they manufacture clothing for you know Pier cardan Hugo boss and Calvin Klein and um and and anyway my grandfather ended up uh the Middle Brother uh died and there was a fight over shares and long story short um a uh
uh the son of of of my my grandfather's eldest brother who was adopted uh came in and ran the business and actually did an incredible job with it and took it to a whole new level um but but and ended up giving back and and starting the there's the seagull Center for Performing Arts in Montreal and the seagull can Center as well at at Jewish General Hospital uh and was quite a a
successful businessman and philanthropist uh and then from that um another a cousin of mine my dad's first cousin went off and started a a company called L Chateau which for years he basically brought the carnaby street look to Canada uh in the early 60s and and was an incredible story in and of itself and so I became very close with him uh once I had went to Migel didn't
really know him that well before that and um later in life he ended up backing me in David's Tea and we built it together um but yeah I I sort of learned about these stories and and uh I would say in my late teen sort of as I was getting ready to go to Mcgill and then I would hear stories about my my great-grandparents who came over with nothing and were Peddlers uh in the
countryside of Quebec and and uh one of my my actually I'm named after uh his name was David Bloomer he he was my my grandmother's father um built up a big woen business in in uh and then lost it all in the Great Depression buying on margin like everybody else and then made it back uh my grandmother used to tell stories about going to school in a
carriage and then having to quit school the next day and and walk to the factory you know kind of thing um so I did grow up with these stories later in life but my my entrepreneur Drive came in before that I think those stories just validated it for me and and and had me even more excited for my my uh my entrepreneurial career ahead talk to me about David St where did so so I'm
guessing like after University you followed Emily to Boston no so Emily didn't get into Boston till much later uh um we had a lot of ups and downs together um after we both graduated Migel we we were living together in a tiny basement apartment in Montreal and I started a concept called fitting room Central While most of my friends went off to uh
Goldman Sachs or Proctor gamble um I I developed so because I had worked I worked in the buying Department in L chatau for a few Summers and I I sold as I was telling you running shoes and clothing a little bit as well so I understood that business uh certainly at a a base level um and I developed a concept called fitting room Central because When Buyers would buy clothing
remember when you when you're in clothing or anything with inventory your biggest risk is your inventory buy right you you you're deciding what to buy in a season you're hoping it sells but you're deciding in events you know what you think people are going to like so often what large clothing companies will do is they'll test so they'll if you have a 100 store company let's say you'll buy
for five or 10 stores and see how it goes there before you take the inventory risk of of buying for the the the rest of the stores and we'd have these buying meetings where they're evaluating these tests and they'd evaluate whether something sold or it didn't sell but they had no idea why it was selling or why it wasn't uh everybody would speculate on that so I developed a
system uh for the fitting rooms and the idea being when you try on when you buy clothing you actually do it in two steps first you evaluate the look of something on your on your body uh sorry the look of something on the rack then evaluate the fit of that item on your body right so the what we thought is hey if we can capture the conversion rate at the
fitting room we'll be able to tell you if something's being tried on a lot but it's not converting into the fitting room you might want to check the fit and vice versa if something's not being tried on a lot but when it does try get tried on it sells well you know the fits great but the look may be off uh not it was a little bit ahead of its time I
we're talking 2005 right but when you think about e-commerce businesses today this is exactly what we do right we monitor traffic and conversion you know and and um it and then we had ways of capturing the fitting room being this point of interaction with the customer you can capture feedback um it was a a interesting idea right everybody you tell that to and I'm sure many your
listeners are like oh it sounds interesting well like interesting is a great word in a classroom but it's a terrible word in business uh you know you want to hear things like when you can you deliver and and and um I love it you know where do I sign and we would I was really good at getting these meetings with with um you know the buyers at Macy's or Victoria Secret or
the Gap I'd write these handwritten letters to Les Wexner of of Limited Brands and and I'd get a response and and we'd have all kinds of meetings and uh but you know it didn't really go anywhere we ended up with a pilot on on Macy's on 34th and 7th but it didn't progress enough you know it was a nice to have not a must have right um interestingly enough today they're doing
it with RFID chips uh and it's sort of this idea is coming back but at the time you know people were just putting in point of sale systems right they were just starting to digitize the business and this was was a little bit too ahead of its time and um it didn't really get enough Buy in you know it was a complex sale you you know if Su from marketing
likes it now you got to get Bob from it on board and and and Jim and finance and you know this would go month after month after month and it just wasn't going anywhere and you know I'm sitting in this basement apartment While most of my friends are starting to to uh accelerate their careers and and my wife was my girlfriend at the time was like okay enough like you know you don't make any
income you need a job um so I I at this point my resume is not very good right I've just had a failed entrepreneurial venture I I you know I have a degree from Migel but I haven't really done anything I don't I haven't followed the conventional path uh even though I frankly learned a ton from that failure right um but it was hard you know failure is rough it's it's always say
with David's T it was like an eight-year overnight success you know going at that time of my life going to parties in your 20s when everybody's starting to uh uh get serious in their relationships and talk about what they're doing in the world uh you know it sounds a lot better to say well I'm an accountant at at PW or deoe right than it does to say well
I'm building the system for the fitting rooms and I have I have you know One customer who's just piloting it and and it's been three years and hasn't gone anywhere so I I uh I decided to call it quits which is with a heavy heart and I approached uh my Dad's cousin who had started Le chatau this clothing business that had become very big in Canada and
he was looking to take a step back from that business he was in the 70s at the time and um he said look I I'll I'll I'll start a little private Equity shop and you'll come help me and I said great and I think he paid me like $440,000 I mean a nominal salary and uh I figured uh you sort of fake it to you make it I bought a book I bought what Warren Buffett looks for in Investments you
know if I'm going to be an investor I should learn and the tea thing kind of clicked for me you know I always like tea certainly growing up uh I was never a coffee guy I remember even in the Miguel cafeteria I drink you know chamomile and peppermint like everyone else uh and I remember being in a tea shop in Montreal uh off of uh St Den which is this really cool Street and uh
Emily who's my wife and I were going to a movie at The Intern International Movie Theater she had gotten some tickets from somebody at her work and we were early and across the street was this really cool uh sort of Asian inspired tea house and we went in and I started to think to myself I'm like wow you know there's no size no color like there is in fashion it doesn't go bad
like a turkey sandwich it's leaves in a cup so the margins are good you can operate out of small spaces and no one's doing this in a fun way on the main streets of the country I'm like and and we call anything you put in hot and cold water this not coffee tea in North America so it's like cooking right the the combinations of what you can create are endless and I and I got very excited
about it and I'm like and I'm like you know I like tea I I I I do and I walked in work the next day I'm like tea we should do tea this is a war and Buffett business we should do tea and we sort of looked around for one to invest in and I got more and more into it I started to develop a love for the product um which over time became even deeper I I was
fortunate enough to be able building David St to be able to travel some of the tea Estates and meet some of the best tea blenders in the world and really get get very uh get better and better at at blending te's and creating teas uh to the point where now I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it um and and I fell in love with the product and
I fell in love with the business and finally I think either I turn to my cousin or he turn to me and I said look let's just do it ourselves like we'll we'll I'll build it and you'll back me uh and it was a great combination of Youth and experience right like the way I like to describe it is without him I probably would have you know 10 15 stores to and without me he'd have zero
so it really worked out well and away we went we opened a store on Queen Street um it it didn't work at first I mean it sort of worked um but it really took a bit of time I remember the summer I got married which is about a year we had four stores it was about eight months after we started a year after we started and it wasn't going that great I mean we
weren't doing well enough that summer for the business to to uh survive uh and I was really worried about it but then you know we just kept getting better and better at it and and it just it it it finally caught and people started to get into it and I think what we did that was very different is we took a commodity and we uncom modied it we brought an experience to it I mean when you think
about tea you know it's this incredible drink that's it's the second biggest drink in the world next to water it's just ironically North America we're not that into it um but it's this it's this Timeless ritual that everyone has a tea story from when they were younger uh somewhere in their family someone drank tea right whether you were British or whether you were regardless of what part
of the world you came from there's a tea story likely in your family somewhere and with with David St we created this sensory experience in the store where you come in and you're smelling tea and you're tasting tea and you're talking about tea and it became a very unique experience um and I think that's one of the reasons it worked and and um yeah it
really grew from there how many stores did you guys end up with when I uh sold my stake in David te in 2016 we had 200 stores about 200 million in sales about 30 million in iida uh it was a pretty nice business how does it feel now to watch that flounder not great um this company you started right yeah I started my name's on the door I mean uh not
great and I've I've actually tried to buy it back at one point with Bane Capital I've moved on I mean I I I I I wish David see well and I'm very excited about what we're doing with Firebelly tea which is my new Tea Company you know while I was developing David's Tea I always had a private stash right what sold at David's Tea were these heavily flavored teas and that's just what the
market wanted but my palette developed because I I would drink it every day all the time right and and and I would travel these incredible tea regions and I would I would meet with our tea blenders and and I'd learn kind of how to create an amazing tea and the right combinations of different ingredients and and it's a lot like cooking um and I
got really into it and so I'd have these private tea stashes uh and then when I left David's Tea and and you know David's Tea was a lot bigger than me right it was it was uh I had Partners in it lots of Partners we had a private Equity Group we had my original partner who who who controlled the business had the majority share in it uh his kids were in the business at one point there
were a lot of cooks in the kitchen and and um my vision uh for what I wanted to do with the with the business uh uh got diluted over time which is not abnor normal I mean I I certainly uh am grateful for everything I learned there and and for what we built there I'm extremely proud of it but at some point I sort of as when I left I started to realize wow you know I love tea I love
creating teas and I love creating the products that go around with it and I would curate these tea collections for my friends I mean Harley um who's the president of Shopify and a close friend uh I got him really into tea because when I first met him he's like you know I'm drinking way too much coffee I'm not sleeping well I get the jitters I get headaches I'm like well why aren't you
drinking green tea in the afternoon like he's like I never thought of that I'm like oh my God green tea is amazing he's like wow it's kind of bitter right I'm like well yeah because most people drink the equivalent of of folders for coffee right coffee went through these phases where we went from first wave to second wave to third wave and people got
fancier and fancier in the types of coffee they drank it was the same for tequila you know when when we were younger if you wanted tequila you had to lick salt and and suck on Lemon after just to be able to to to to stand it right uh and you look at all kinds of different beer and all kinds of different beverages they went through this this um you know connoisseur ISM
where it it it we developed a pallette for better and better quality product and T in many ways hasn't you know David's team made some headways and and certainly had had slightly better product but I think the really good stuff is still is still new to most people and that's what Firebelly has become about you know it's in curating these collections for Harley and other
ones my friends uh I brought some to you and and and uh got you into it a little bit you know as as we develop uh getting people into these amazing teas and and you know all of a sudden Harley's drinking green tea in the afternoon no more headaches no more Jitters uh because the caffeine and tea is very different right there's Alan tea as well so whereas with coffee you get that big
spike and crash you don't really get that in the same way with tea you get more of a sustained energy uh eleanine modulates the impact of the caffeine on your uh in your bloodstream on your body um and it really creates a a a nice calm energy and a nice focus and then you have herbal tees in the evening that are fantastic uh and whether it's you want
help sleeping or with digestion whether it's Ginger or and so the teas that we create with Firebelly we don't use any of these flavorings which is kind of the the secret in the tea business if you go label hunting at the grocery store everything has either natural flavor artificial flavor it's not that it'll kill you but a natural flavor just means it was derived from a plant or animal
Source but it ends up in a laboratory where about 90% of what goes into these flavors are preservatives and additives go unlisted on the label again it's not we have these all the time they're not they're not necessarily bad for you but they create kind of a monotone flavor it's like watermelon chewing gum right right you get that burst of flavor but
then it dissipates uh it's very similar with flavored teas when they're using flavorings um whereas you know instead of using vanilla flavoring at Firebelly we use real Madagascar vanilla uh we use really high quality Ginger really high quality tum Ric and and makes a difference uh in in the quality of the tea and and so I think Firebelly became sort of this brand where I got to create
the te's I love and sort of share my private stash with the world and then and then of course you know how you do anything is how you do everything so it's it's you know you can't put a ferari engine in a Winnebago so we had to create the accessories to go with it and so we we created you know like a stop infusion travel mug me you think about accessories it's all designed for
coffee drinkers but like I wanted to put tea drinkers first so we created this this travel mug where you can stop and start the infusion with really high quality loose leaf tea you can make hotter iced tea it's 100% leak proof it's powder coated metal I mean I I get obsessive about all these small details um this teapot here that we're we're drinking from uh you know we we
partnered with an incredible New York City artist jeremyville uh who came with this cool day and night pattern on it uh and it's it you know the the the mesh uh finess on the stainless steel infuser I mean I I get into those things and so I'm having a lot of fun with it and building up my my sort of chapter 2 act two and tea with Firebelly it makes a
difference I mean I love this teapot and the strainer works perfectly right because you don't get the little particles in the tea totally I never really drank tea until I met you and then I started to a little bit and then now it's become like this nightly ritual uh with my kids which is kind of weird when you think about it right like one of my kids' favorite tea is uh after
dinner mint that you guys make and he just loves this like he'll have four or five cups at night you know will he's doing homework and he's sort of like he'll make a teapot he's 13 yeah that's a nice one chocolate mint my kids too they get into it right because there's so many different caffeine free tees and and so many different flavor profiles whether
it's it's a sweet Ginger or a chocolate tea um or a really nice peppermint eucalyptus tea Apple chamomile right there's so many different combinations so kids can get into it too um well that's what's in that's what sort of drove me to create Firebelly it everyone I would show really high quality loose leaf tea to and and demonstrate how nice a tea ritual is would would continue on
with it I mean they'd get into it and I'm like wow you know I want to share this with everyone uh and I mean I think I spent about 18 months developing our te assortment and our accessories just to get it right um because this one I'm I'm I'm you know I'm I'm our biggest customer and so I I uh I really want it to be something special I mean this isn't something you can find at the
grocery store right uh it's it's it's much higher quality tea than people are used to and I think you know why not te should have its time I mean it's it's such a it's so big in Europe and other places in the world it's just North America that for some reason it's a bit late to the party and and um I I just think once they realize how amazing high
quality tea is it it has its place in our in our daily ritual the world is completely different now than it was when you started David very much so yes so what are the differences you see in the tea space what lessons can you take from David's Tea and where's it like harder now and different well it's it's it's very different I mean when to contrast it when I started David's te uh
there was no Instagram I mean just think about that for a sec I mean there was no Shopify you had server rooms and if you want to build a website you know you called a website guy like right that's how we used to build websites you found a friend of a friend who is usually kid who knew how to build a website in HTML and um it was a very different world the
store a physical retail store was much more about distribution than it was Discovery I mean it was about both but nowadays you don't need a store to distribute right um e-commerce was a tiny tiny percentage of the business back then it's exploded on the scenes now so it was it was very different um I think the the space is much more competitive now there's a lot of a lot
of uh uh products out there that claim lots and lots of benefits um but I think some of the fundamentals of building a business haven't changed so you know everybody loves to to talk about what's changing and and disrupting but I think it's also important to look at what doesn't change and having a great quality product doesn't change and I like to put my energy into that and one
of the things I love about tea is that it's so Timeless tea has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years and uh and drank in in cultures all over the world uh for different reasons it's has proven benefits uh um versus some of these other products that come on the market that that make claims that have not been studied uh and and I I I think that it's obviously harder to compete
with The Fad dour but I I want to build a 100-year company uh I want to I want to build something that people can trust uh um and that isn't going to waver in some of the principles that that it stands for and so with Firebelly we're about that high quality loose leaf tea ritual uh and there are people that and you know maybe one day we'll do tea bags
but right now we don't um you know more and more there's there's research around microplastics it also has a lot of waste it's and it's also not really a mindful ritual um but what we love about loose leaf tea is it's it's higher quality product you get the whole Leaf you get to watch it expand you get the full health benefits uh it becomes this pause
in your day um and I think that's just that's what we're about we're about we're we're we tend to attract people who are type A I mean they're not necessarily entrepreneurs but they're entrepreneurial and what they do uh hence the name Firebelly I think I think it's for people who are on the go who need a moment to themselves or or a social moment with friends I mean it's
Tuesday night you don't always want to have alcohol right like sometimes you just want to have ay can I make you a tea like we have a great tea and a great conversation uh and I think tea can have that role in in our lives um so I don't think those principles changed in terms of David's Tea I mean David's Tea was a fashion brand it was about smell like
people were discovering wow you can have tea with vanilla and you can have tea with almond and and it turns pink in your cup and there's one that's strawberry and and this was very new right and um and it was all about about you know smelling it and and and it was just such a new phenomenon we went from Earl Gray and mint and chamomile into all these plethora flavors and I think
with Firebelly it's a little bit different we're saying look we don't do things that you can only do for with flavoring like we don't do peach tea because you can't make a peach tea without flavoring um but we do really high quality freeze-dried berries and so we focus in our in our I think what has changed about business is there's more of an opportunity to take a niche and
really get a thousand true fans with it I think it's easier with modern day media to talk to Niche audiences and so we want to be really good at servicing a customer base who really cares about having an incredible te- ritual really high quality product and and really just focus on what we do best and I think I think that's a little bit different than than how it used to be I think it's
easier to find your audience uh at scale than it was then you weren't able to do that in 2007 right in the same way uh and I think that really changes how you think about the business and you're in physical location Macy's and aan we're in aan which is a really hot grocery store right now in La it's the it's you know we don't want to be in in some of
the more mainstream uh Grocers um but Air1 really is a special place uh we're yet we're in Bloomingdales um we're we're we do some of our gift assortment in Crate and Barrel uh yeah and it's mostly direct consumer so why those places well I think they're higher-end places I think I think we're servicing uh um tea makes the perfect gift right so we tend to perform well in we took
our best sellers and put it in aan I think aan has a more Discerning customer and appreciates uh uh really high quality loose leaf tea so I think everyone works for us and and we've been you know we've we've been one of the top performers in our category so far um and I think Bloomingdales and crate you know they they're they're gift you go there for Christmas to buy uh Christmas gifts
and team makes a great Christmas gift and so we'll do these great gift boxes with our our accessories and our te's together uh and and it sort of works really well there in November and December um when you think about it you can give tea to anyone you can give it to your mother you can give it romantically you can give it to a cooworker uh it really does
make a great gift I mean the message you're sending the person is here's something that's good for your health and well-being here's something that can be a break from your day or it can be social with your family your friends your colleagues uh it really is a positive in life um tea is is tea brings people together and and it's a it's a
connector in in the thread of humanity in our history so I think it holds a special place even though a lot of people it's a funny thing everyone has tea in their cupboard but but it just sort of sits at the back and gathers dust uh and that was one of the things with Firebelly you know we wanted to make sure that it was well designed so that it could you know we we originally
put it in these boxes that they're like books on a bookshelf and we did that you know and and as you can see from this teapot these beautiful teapots and we wanted to make it so that they're almost pieces of art on your counter uh kind of like how you'd have a beautiful C machine you know it doesn't tea doesn't have to be the thing that you just throw
in the back of your cupboard and gathers dust when when when you know your your your great ant comes over uh we want it to be on your counter front and center uh and it should look good too uh and so we we've we've approached it from from that angle um but we haven't approached as a as a fashion product I mean this idea that you can't drink you know with David's Tea that was a big thing right
like it's spring summer winter fall it's like our new fall collection our new spring collection it's pumpkin this it's well no like we don't really think about tea that way like real tea drinkers drink tea every day like it's fantastic like I drink matcha and incredible CA tea every day I drink after their mint we were talking about a chocolate mint
valan rou tea every night like you know you it's it's we're we're Firebelly is a brand for for for tea drinkers for people that really love it and and that's what we're servicing what failures have you had that you cherish the most up until this point it's funny you know I don't often think about my failures they just become part of who I am uh as I go forward but you know if
you're afraid to fail forget it filming uh um Big Shot uh podcast I was telling about with Harley where we interview these these older uh entrepreneurs um it's just remarkable how incredibly successful they are and how many times they failed over and over again and failure takes on many forms right there's failure in that it just like I failed it didn't work I
was a failure and that happened to me when I started that fitting room company right out of of college and it straight up did not work I had to uh hang my head down and lick my wounds and move on and and you know as as often in the case in life you have to go down in order to go up a lot of the time and and I had to do that in that case and I had to to it it it humbles you I think and and I wore
that one uh uh in a big way um you know especially at a time in life where everybody's trying to flex in their advancement in their career right as young professionals uh here I was with this major failure right out of the gate um so that one that stung big time and then there's and failure can also be in the form of it's taking too long I think we often don't think of that as failure
but like mad radish which is a healthy fast food concept I have in in Canada you know we were we had figured it out for for the lunch market and we were accelerating in 5 day week office stores and then the pandemic came and we almost went out of business and we were failing in a in a big way uh and I had invested way more money than than I thought I
would have to and and it had taken far longer than I thought it would um but it wasn't working and and I almost stopped and we almost said you know what let's sell it for 10 cents on the dollar and move on but we didn't and we stuck with it and now it's in a much better place and and we got better at at the dinner menu we developed a two-day part menu uh
we perfected our we realized what people really care about when they're having uh uh fast food on the go uh they want high quality proteins like we cook our chicken from scratch that was a really big deal most companies Su it which is they they pre-cook and then put it in a plastic bag and stick it in hot water uh um but it doesn't have the same taste so we got we got really good at the nuances
of that business right and uh we did that through failures I mean we just we kept failing we we failed on menu development we failed on real estate we took bad stores we we figured out what not to do to the point where here we are today and I'm I'm very fortunate I have a a a couple of Partners in that business one of whom is the CEO of the company is's doing an incredible job uh
I was a CEO of the business and then when I started Firebelly and and I realized tea is really where I wanted to to go back to um he took over he was our our head of operations and um he's done an incredible job and and now the business is starting to grow again and we've become uh I think the number one player in Canada for healthy fast food
and and I'm really excited excited about the growth there but we I mean we failed I mean there was you know we we failed and we failed and we failed and we failed until finally uh uh we started to succeed I mean it's a great expression um a story told by one of our guests on big shot his name is Peter may an activist investor he was Nelson peltz's
partner and he tells a story about going around and trying to Market his first company uh and and getting a valuation was Far Below what they wanted and they're yelling at the investment bankers you know we just did this whole Road show what do you mean it's not wor se you know we and the guy goes kid you can't make chicken salad out of chicken and and I think sometimes that's
actually what you have to do you have to make chicken salad or chicken and and that takes time and you have to to you have to fail you have to you know you have to sort of you know be honest about the fact that you have chicken right now and and and really work on on somehow turning it into chicken salad and so I've had to do that a lot I
mean uh mad radish was an example um Firebelly you know we have this in Firebelly tea we have this incredible product that's been well received by the customers but it's a niche customer we have to find the customers we have to inspire people to try really high quality tea and and that's not easy right I mean they're used to going to the grocery store still and and buying
uh uh whatever tea brands on the Shelf uh uh that's that's got flavoring and that's just what they buy and they don't really think twice about it and so we we have to kind of you know our challenge there is to to uh um capture people's imaginations and get them into this really incredible product and buying these amazing tea accessories that help you drink better quality tea and and and
that's been challenging of course right like how do you reach that audience in you know the the the the airwaves are so much more crowded today than they were 15 years ago when I started David's te and even David's te you know it was a success but a big success uh um but then it it faltered uh several times along the way and then and then when I left uh
I mean if fell apart you know I mean uh I sold my my stake in it in 2016 and and you know today it's it's worth uh a fraction of what it was and and um you know and and I think the market moved on and the company missed it and and you know I don't want to point fingers it's not easy it's not easy business is really hard uh and that's why you know you have to be ready to keep showing up
and you really have to love the Journey of it um more than the end result because if if you want is that moment where where you you you make the big score or you spike you know that that moment you think you're going to have where you spike the ball and you have that big score well I actually went through one of the biggest depressions in my life after I sold my my steak and
David's Tea I thought that's what I was playing for I thought I was playing for this big success where uh uh you know the other side of the rainbow and and it was great I mean I had Financial Independence for the first time in my life but I lost I lost my sense of purpose and I had no plan I didn't I didn't think about the day after David tea I was so busy trying to build it and
we actually don't talk about this a lot uh in entrepreneurship which is okay well you know the struggle is so difficult to get to a place where you're successful but what happens once you're successful and what if you do sell your company and now what right and what how do you derive meaning in your life and and I mean you're not just going to go
play shuffle board when you're you're I was you know 35 years old uh and that was very difficult for me and I I sort of I went to a dark place in my life and and and uh I didn't know what to do with myself and and uh it took me a while to reinvent myself and and sort of tap back into the kid I was that was was driven through um you know that loved entrepreneurship and building businesses
and I had to I had to tap back into that and that was a journey on its own and and in many ways not preparing for Life After David's Tea was a failure did you recognize that you were depressed how oh yeah I mean I was I was really depressed like like I went through you know I don't I don't talk about this often um but I was I was in a really bad spot um
and and and it was a weird thing like I felt guilty about it because like wow what right do I have to be depressed I just I just you know I I lived I just had the dream that everybody plays for which is a an exit in in a major company uh and financial Independence but I I was I was very upset I I had some health issues and it's hard to know whether the
health issues were from the from the depression or or the stress of building it or or just you know what came first the health issues of the depression but um I had health issues which I've since overcome and um no I had to I had to uh develop better habits in my lifestyle I had to develop a better perspective on life um I was so focused on building David's Tea and so singularly I mean I I
I developed I was on I was first I was on the road six out of seven days a week building it um there was a lot of stress there was a fair amount of internal uh uh fighting in the company between my original Partners the private Equity Group um it wasn't a a uh it wasn't an environment where everyone was just focused on the customer and adding value
for the customer and me there's there was a bit too much uh uh in internal conflict which is one of the reasons I I felt it was time for me to move on um and and um and I think I never had a chance to process all that and and deal with that and uh um and I had to really understand what what I loved about you know when it no longer becomes about the money you really have to think about
what you're doing and why you're doing it you take away that factor that that um that that sometimes is is almost like it it it allows you to drown out all the other things in life that are that are really important like meaning and and being able to to really appreciate the journey and and I think I I didn't I didn't really understand those pieces in my life uh early on it just became a
singular Focus where how can I build this and and uh and make and make money what would you say to somebody who's depressed right now there is no shortcut for the work period uh there's no magic pill there's no magic Elixir it's about habits and you have to do things even when you don't want to do them I don't know where I I heard this story but I think it was
a guy who had survived the the internment camps during the war and where they were being tortured and and he said that it was the people who uh lost hope that that didn't make it it was the people that had hope but not expectations that did right so they knew they'd get out of there but they didn't have an expectation on when and I think depression is is like that as well you
you have to get up and go for that run even though you don't want to do that 20 minute sit uh Med you know breathing exercise even though you don't want to work on your eating habits or your your you know your your your rituals whatever they may be I mean tea became even more important for me at that time in my life because it was something that connected
me to both my past that I felt would would would carry me to my future as well um so so that ritual was still important to me even then but it's not just tea I mean it's and it's all kinds of different rituals in your life it's important to develop I'm using the word ritual Loosely here routines habits whatever you want to call them but I think they're when you're in a dark
place they're even more important I mean it's really easy when you've had 10 hours of sleep and and if the sun is shining and it's and it's warm outside it's really easy to go for that run or or or or put on that smile or whatever it is like you know that's that's where it's easy where it's hard is it's when it you know you had six hours of sleep
and you're not feeling great and you're feeling sluggish and and that's actually when you need to do it um because it's it's the is what matters and it's like life life just is like that and um I I learned that from my father you know I mean he he got up early and and stayed late and put in the work and there is no substitute for the work doesn't matter how smart you are um you have to put in
the work and and and you know that's just what it is and I think depression is no different if if you don't work on your habits uh whether that's you know your own psychology uh going to therapists or just doing more in introspection reflecting on on yourself and and your triggers uh I I think you have to you have to tap into into yourself and what matters to you and
what you want out of your life and I think these things become very very important uh uh they're more important in your Your Darkest Hours uh than they are when when everything's great it's so interesting because the parallels between sort of depression and being successful at your job your career life they map each other right which is like you have to do it when you don't feel
like it and that's when it matters the most and you sort of have to have that will because everybody loses the battle with willpower it's the routines the rituals they carry you through when you don't feel like doing it it's like I don't feel like going on the pelaton today but I do it every day so I have to get on and go right and make every day
day one you know we have a habit of beating ourselves up right like the idea of being compassionate with yourself is really important you know you you you miss a day so what like in medit in meditation it's it's you know come back to the breath come back to the breath and and we call it rabbit holes you go down a rabbit hole where you have these
almost like blackout moments where your your mind just carries you in the thought and when you first start meditating you know if you sit down for 10 minutes most people when they first start meditating they do the same thing they sit down for 20 minutes but don't do that sit down for like three minutes or four minutes or five minutes like build up right you're building a muscle
you're building that that Focus muscle and um but when we have these sort of blackout moments in meditation where our mind wanders and we don't even know where it goes and then all of a sudden we come back and we're like oh yeah I wasn't focused on my breathing or whatever visual exercise I had um you you know we have a tendency to beat ourselves up you're like oh I can't
believe I could you know you do it mentally and and and watch that in yourself I mean it it it truly is you know we're human you're going to make mistakes like very few of us are David Goggins right like like you can't just you know we're not all Ultra marathoners and we can't you don't have to always get it right you're allowed to slip up but just keep restarting you know even
even make even that process of restarting you get a little further every time and and and I don't think habits are formed right away on day one and I think even people who have habits they slip up and it's just important like keep coming back to it keep coming back to it it's it's it's not there is no moment in life where everything's just perfect like life is dynamic it's
not static right it's it's you're always renegotiating with yourself and and it it is an everchanging thing and I think it's just how do you work on on bringing the right attitudes uh uh into it each and every day I want to go back to 2016 you get this fairly big payday yeah what are the lessons that you wish you knew then about money that you know now first
of all money doesn't buy meaning number one you have to money can help facilitate a lot of things but you you have to know who you are and what you want that's really really important and that has nothing to do with money um buying nice things is is going to be fleeting I think we all know this intuitively and yet so many people do this and I'm not saying don't buy nice
things it's always nice to buy nice things but but it's important to understand that in and of itself is not going to give you meaning a really nice car nice watch or nice house or whatever it's going to be cool for for a minute but uh eventually it's going to go away I think I once heard this from a friend you know the secret to life is uh something to do someone to love and
something to look forward to and and I think I think money can help facilitate certainly uh uh parts of that especially the something to look forward to but but you have to tap into deeper meaning on on what it is what gives you uh uh what gets you excited on an ongoing basis for me it's building businesses uh I love building businesses and but I wish coming out of that
experience of of making money and becoming financially independent I wish I had thought a little bit I wish I had taken a little bit more time to think about how I wanted to do that and where I wanted to do that I think I was a bit too I felt I needed to get back in the game very quickly uh I was I was too young to be on the sidelines and um
which is true I was but I also I was I I think I I I set an artificial timeline like I think sometimes we set these artif timelines with ourselves and it's our at least in my case it was my ego right like I felt I felt I had to be back in or or I was going to be a one hit wonder you know and and I mean all that's BS I mean there is no one way there is no one story you
know I I'm now in my my early 40s and I I we we love telling ourselves the stories of people that validate our narratives right like so I'm like oh Sam Walton didn't start till he was in his 40s or like you know Warren made most of his money after 55 I mean all of these things are are just ways of telling ourselves that we have more life ahead of us and the truth is we do and there
is no one way you can always find a story that validates your narrative and and I think in some ways that's kind of healthy now I think about it now you know I think you know you want to continue to reinvent yourself and and not think of yourself as too old or you know now I have these two businesses that are growing and I'm like oh I need to grow them fast because you know I I
only have this many good years I'm entering my Prime and it's like well are you I mean what you know who's to say I mean there are endless stories of people that do it in their 50s 60s 70s I mean some in their 80s right so I I think all of that everybody's unique and I think it's really important to forget about you know if you're playing for validation from others or you're playing
for uh uh external success um you you're never going to have have the full fulfillment that you get from your achievements in life and I don't know that I've entirely uh um overcome that external validation I don't think I have but but um I certainly work towards it and really focus a lot more on internal validation and I think coming out of David's T I wish I had understood coming
out of of having a big Financial score but having not done a lot of the work to understand myself and what I really wanted out of life I wish I wish I had been more prepared for that I think I would have first thing I would have done I would have gotten a nice office you know I I didn't have that I I I stopped and I I didn't have any I had knowwhere
to go in the mornings right I went from having this big office with a hundred plus people who who you know with my name on the door and I'd walk in I was important right like 10 people would run up to me with with their concern David I want to show you this and I want you know I mattered to the company right like I and then I and then the next day
I'm out and and you know I'm waking up and and and now what and no one's running up to me anymore and and I'm not in this nice office and so I think the first thing I would have done I would have gotten a really nice office I would have I would have um um I would I think I would have consulted with a lot more people that had been through that experience of having sold their company
I wasn't very thoughtful about that and and I I in retrospect um I mean I became it took me a little longer and I became more thoughtful about it over time but by the time I became more thoughtful about it i' had already jumped into other things and uh and those of course take up your entire Focus because once you're you're in the game of building a business again
you know you're trying to manage the swings of the game and you're trying to go on a a run where you grow and and so you go right back into it into the doing versus the reflecting you mentioned Warren Buffett I know you're a fan what are some of the lessons you've taken away from him over the years well I think I think two of the most impressive things about Warren Buffett uh uh the
first one is is I I wish I had this this uh superpower I think you know here's a guy who can make very few decisions uh but make them with so much conviction and then live in Omaha Nebraska and like go sit in a fishing boat while the world goes on around him I mean you know talk about being able to overcome the action bias I mean he yeah I just think that's incredible I mean a
lot of things we're talking about here today where how do you get to a place where you have internal validation and you kind of don't care what others think I mean very few of us can say that that we don't care about what others think uh I think he's one of them you know I think he really is one of them um I mean how many times I mean I've seen it since
I I first read about Warren Buffett uh at the start of David's Tea I was telling you the story um about about uncovering tea as sort of a Warren Buffet like business by reading his book I think it was buffettology actually I think his his his daughter-in-law wrote it um so that was I mean we're going back now 20 years right and since that time I've I've seen him go through waves
where the world thought he was a dinosaur right like when he bought craft and and and when the tech was really booming everybody's like or Bitcoin was was super hot right everyone's like oh this guy's a dinosaur he's out he doesn't know anything Well turns out he's not then he turns around he buys the Japanese trading houses at at 10 cents on the dollar and he makes another
brilliant move and and you're just like wow he's done it again I mean I think before 2008 uh uh he it was another period in you know 2006 2007 leading up to it where he looked like a dinosaur and then bang he's saving the financial world in America and making these investments in golden sacks and you know so I think I think what I admire about
the guy is is you know we have all these sayings in life like play the long game or or patience is is key and and you know learn how to how to sit with something and it's really hard to do those things right like it's all easier said than done and I think he's managed to be able to do them and and um I also the other thing I admire about Warren Buffett is and this is something I I
continually strive for in my life is being able to express complex things and simple terms yeah it's like the Mark Twain saying you know I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter I didn't have the time to write you a short one I think many people in their careers would benefit from from that mentality right how do I one of the things I I I when I was going to Mill I I I went into
management and I realized very early on that I didn't know how to write I was a terrible writer uh it's just a skill set that I think was was it's a sort of a lost art form um and I wanted to learn how to write so I went into English Lit at Miguel and I I ended up minoring in English Lit it was serend Deus because I met my wife in English lit and but I
also learned how to write I I I wrote for the Miguel Daily Newspaper uh and and I really wanted to turn what was a weakness for me into a strength and I became you know an above average writer I'm I'm you know I'm I'm no Mark Twain and but I'd like to think I can I can write a decently persuasive uh email or letter and I think that's a really important skill set and um and
where that comes in particularly helpful is how do you express a complex idea in simple terms and no one uh does this uh uh better than Warren Buffet I mean you read his annual shareholder letters and he does such a good job taking I mean something as complicated as the energy industry or the railroad business and Distilling it into a few Timeless principles uh and he does this with
investing as a whole right he teaches us how to have a perspective on investment on investing that um that will sustain you through a lifetime um you know and and and I admire those qualities I mean I wish I had his patience I never will it's just not who I am I definitely default towards action uh it's just my genetics I like to move um you know I'm
I'm I'm an energy guy I like to bring it uh but I I can't sit in a fishing boat and watch the world go around around me while I I collect dividend paychecks from Coca-Cola but but and I'm probably grossly underestimating his day I know he reads like crazy I'm sure he evaluates companies constantly but I think one of the differentiating factors for him is how how rarely he actually
moves on something and makes decisions he sits on things longer than most uh and I think I think that's a rare quality because he thinks about them yeah how do you fit everything in I mean you have an incredible wife you have three kids two businesses that you're running yeah and a podcast a podcast that's growing you're healthy you work out healthy I work out um I how do you
do it all well one of the things that I I'd like to think I'm reasonably decent at is I'm good at shifting sets um a lot of people struggle with this they don't shift sets easily um I I do I can go from uh this podcast into a conversation about um inventory analysis in Firebelly to a conversation about new store Bild outs in Mad radish to uh researching our next guest for Big Shot
um you know now my wife and kids might have a different opinion of that and they might call on that and say yeah right you know uh you're you're often distracted and I probably am from time to time I think I think a couple of things you know um I I think getting up early is really important uh I mean these things seem seem obvious but they
may not be you know I don't really know many extremely successful people who don't get up early I just don't um I like to work out in the mornings I like to turn my phone off at a certain point in the evening and I know this is going to sound really weird but I actually I bought this thing that I can put my phone in that locks it it's like a little cubby for my phone uh and I put
it in now around 9 9:30 and I just and I I I it's like powering down you know that noise your computer makes like ding ding ding you know I I almost like to even in my mind make the noise to sort of tell myself that my day is powering down and and it's locked and of course at first I was like wow what if my my you know my parents a bit older what if something happened or or I need and I
said well you know my wife has a phone I have my computer it's not like there's other ways I can check if I need to but this allows me from sort of I used to go on on social and just sort of numb out and a half hour go by and I'm like what am I doing I just wasted a half hour of my life numbing out on social uh and so I don't do that anymore I I I power it
down so that even you know it's quality is more important than quantity I think with my kids can I be present reading my son Harry Potter who's seven years old and and just starting to get into that you know can I I take one of my daughters out to to for for a tea uh um and and be able to just listen to them talk about their science fair or or their gymnastics or whatever it is
they're into um it doesn't take much uh you know and I like I like you know you know I'm not religious at all but I think there's some there's enormous wisdom in the concept of the Sabbath uh I think it's just an incredible concept right like what is that so the Sabbath is is Jewish uh is is you know it's called Shabbat it's it's a it's in Judaism it's this idea of
from Friday night Sundown to Saturday night Sundown um you you you don't work now what does that mean today uh i' I've sort of evolved it to my own personal like I say I'm not religious um but I I think there are principles in there that are very that have helped me a lot so I I still will work on a Saturday morning sometimes but I won't I won't I I like
to come it with a different mindset I for some reason i' I found a way to to take the edge off on the Friday night to Saturday night and I think of that as my relax time yeah and if I'm working it'll be more reading or taking notes or reflective emails on my laptop uh I usually don't I don't I don't really I don't you know there's working in the business and working on the business I
like to take my weekends if I'm going to work to work on the business and not in the business I really make I really make sure I take time for my kids and my wife uh on the weekends I mean I make it a point to go out with my wife uh for a date night at least once a week usually on the weekends we go for dinner together um we take a fair amount of trips I think that's also really
important I like to get away um but yeah I sort of have have started to bring a different mindset from my Friday night to Saturday night uh and then Sunday you start to ramp up again right like you you sort of gear up for the battle uh and and I but Monday to to to Friday it's intense like I'm I'm I'm an intense guy I just am there's no way to to for
better for worse to who I am and I go at it hard and I I wear my heart on my sleeve and I I work very very hard um I you know I'm I I be I'm present with my my family during the week but for very short periods of time and I'm certainly more present on the weekends and on holidays uh but yeah no I I think you know like I was saying there's no
substitute for the work you you you have to operate with a certain level of intensity uh and and rigor uh in order to get things done and I I work late into the the night I you know I work up until about 8 or 9:00 I'll usually either read a bit or watch a bit of TV with with my wife read to one of my kids uh before bed and and go to bed and try and get as much sleep so I can get up
and do it all over again do you think that's sort of the biggest missed opportunity that that people have is like when they stay up late because you go to bed early you wake up early but it's that like you know I don't know 9:30 to 11:30 you don't really get anything done you end up scrolling watching TV but if you get up if you go to bed at 930 and you get up at 5 you're
like ready to go you're in% I think I think that's the biggest uh uh least productive most uh um dangerous time for our for our mental state of the day it's absolutely where I waste the most time I mean to it's priming your body and your brain for bed is so important right like I do not put my cell phone in my room when I sleep uh uh I just think that and I try really
hard and I I to the point where I bought it device to lock my phone where I can't even open it because I know myself I will check it uh um for that last hour or so before I go to bed and it's just it's the difference between reading 10 you know 10 15 pages uh a night and being able to sleep with a clear mind in a much more relaxed State get better quality sleep uh uh prime your brain for
the next day um do something that's good for you rather than something that's destructive for you it's not no knock on social media I mean social media is part of my job I'm on it uh uh during the day but there's a time and there's a place like you don't need to numb out on it which is what we often do it's like we're too tired to gear up for bed so
instead we just kind of flip through stuff and it just sort of it it's you know it just and before you know it a half hour's gone by 45 minutes are gone by and you're like what am I doing like like you know I haven't really accomplished anything or done anything and and it's just it's just it's the least productive time of day um and usually I find it's it's it's also the
time of day where i'm the most um worried about my future yeah about the business I'm usually the most down on you know I'm in I'm in a depressive state I'm sort of like ah it's not working things aren't going my well I wish this I wish that you know and I'm sort of down on myself and it's important to be like you more and more I try and distance myself and be able to
be the Observer rather than the participant in that and be like okay well like you're just tired like you're just tired you know with like with kids when you're like okay you're tired yeah different with adults right like you're just tired like go to bed call it it's over day's over you know tomorrow's another day go to bed yeah there's a few
things a good night sleep won't fix or make better things there are few things it won't fix 100% I'm I have been a victim like like many people of that last hour before bed far too many times I find that having two teenagers now it totally just destroys me because when they used to go to bed at like 8 or 9 I would go to bed right after them effectively get up early work you know
before they even get out of bed that's great now they go to bed at like 10:00 and I'm like okay guys like go to bed I'm falling asleep like I want to go to bed too it's totally just changed my routine I actually uh uh get into more scuffles with my uh my eldest daughter's 13 and and and my next I three 1310 and seven uh little boy seven and the two
daughters 13 and 10 and um the girls like to stay up late like you were saying with teenagers and I I try and protect their sleep as much as I can I'm always pushing them I'm like go to bed go to bed but you're right at some point I'm like brain is just wired to go to bed differently too right they want to sleep in they want to sleep in right but school starts early right so so and and
but you're right I mean at some point I'm at the point now where I'll just I go to bed like my wife and I go to bed they're still up especially the 13-year-old yeah I feel that what's missing most in life right now that's a tough question I cheated before this interview and looked at your notes and and uh I saw that question and I wasn't sure how to answer it uh and I I'm I'm
still not I think it's a really difficult question to answer I think the answer is nothing and and I think that there are lots of things that I want but there are few things that I truly need that I don't have right now um and I think what's missing is just more more life more embracing the journey more being able to take it all in without feeling less than like a you
know like a failure more being able to just appreciate all the good that's in life versus constantly uh um perseverating on on on what's difficult or missing or or bad life is short and and it it should be celebrated it should be it should be elevated and I think I think that that you know there are lots of things I want to do and accomplish I mean I definitely
sit down once a year and I write out goals and I write out one year goals and threee goals and 10e goals and um but then I kind of like to say to myself and and and let's say I achieve none of them right because you always have that sort of fear like what if it doesn't work what if I can't what if I'm not that good at this and what if I can't right
and and then and then you know I I like that you know sort of so what and so what and so what I got three healthy kids uh I got a a great marriage I've I've made enough money I've I've you know and so and and I know that that sitting here it's easy for me to say that a lot you know but it's all relative right you have to remember that it's all relative like there's always
somebody who has more and there's always somebody who has less and that's true no matter where you are you know but the truth is like I was just as happy in that basom apartment in Montreal as I am now uh you know so much has changed in my life but at the same time the real changes the real things that brought true happiness were the personal developments were my ability to connect
with my wife on a deeper level where my ability to uh truly enjoy and and appreciate my kids I think we're all kind of playing for that that you know no regret old age rocking chair moment yeah at least I I sort of use that as a as a a yard stick be like well is this going to matter in my rocking chair and of course life has many twists and turns and and who's to say you'll ever be in a
rocking chair I mean it's it's it's I think it's just more the the sentiment than the reality but I think I think that that you know thinking about the question what's missing in your life I mean it it's it's you know the answer is always perspective you know how do you keep sharpening your perspective uh uh you know you have to decide what narrative
you want to live right like you don't get to choose a lot of things in life are completely out of your control but but how you think about things and the narrative that you go through life with is in your control and you be I mean you've interviewed so many people at this point and there's no one who you come across who's who's successful or not I mean everybody has a
story everybody's had hardships you know everybody could say well your Pain's not as big as my pain or your hardships aren't as big as my my hardships but it's all relative I mean pain is pain and hardship is hardship and yes some are worse than others but by and large we all have things that we need to overcome and and I just think that that really it's it's doing the hard work to
try and how can you continue to sharpen your perspective and your narrative so that you can celebrate life and get the most out of it I like that because you're choosing where to focus right you choose your focus you really do and and that's something it needs to be practiced it's not something you can't just tomorrow I think it's hard to walk
up wake up tomorrow be like I'm G have a positive mindset about everything well you're not like you're you know if you've gone through your life having a negative mindset about everything you're not going to be able to do that in one day uh and probably not in one year and probably not in five years frankly but but how do you take one step forward in that journey toward
uh having a better perspective and and being able to enjoy life more and celebrate uh all the good that's in your life and not just focus on all the things that are not what what you want to be I like that a lot we we always end with the same question I guess what think of it as the rocking chair question question which is what is success for you what do you want to be
sitting there looking back on and you'd be like that's that's success when I was a little boy my father used to say to me he'd say David you're like an 8-cylinder engine operating my two cylinders and and uh I never knew what he meant I sort of I only knew my little middle upper middle class middle class upbringing uh in in a small little suburb of a small town you know I grew
up in Ottawa it's a tiny little city and um I didn't really know what he meant by that I didn't know the world I didn't I didn't know was out there I didn't know all the possibilities but but the more I go through life the more I realize that that for me is is very important I don't want to ever look back and feel like I didn't use all eight cylinders and I think that applies to everybody you
know I I don't want to feel that I didn't tap into my full potential I don't know what that is right now I can't tell you we all have a certain level that we're going to reach you know not everyone's Michael Jordan and not everyone's going to be the the the Warren Buffett or the CEO or the president or whatever right and and I don't think that matters I actually
think what's far more important is did I self-actualize all eight cylinders uh that I was able to to uh self-actualize did I did I tap into my full engine and and um looking forward uh I want to really make sure that I'm I'm able to do that I don't I don't want to set artificial limits on my mentality on what I can or can accomplish at the same time it doesn't
mean that I need to do like I don't need to build another David's te again that's a $200 million business you know I love Firebelly I love our product you know it can be a smaller company and and and can be meaningful and be just as successful maybe not uh monetarily but in terms of having people that love the brand and and uh and and have a company that's around for a long time um the same holds
true for for Big Shot which I think is having an impact on on hate speech and anti-Semitism and helping to humanize some of the most successful Jewish entrepreneurs and and and Show the incredible impact these people have had on their broader communities and whether that's building hospitals or schools or for reserving national monuments you know and and with Matt radish we we're
we're bringing healthy food to to Canadians and hoping to grow that and so I don't all of these things have meaning for me in their own way and and I think what's really important is how do I continually show up to bring the best version myself and tap into all eight cylinders and you know hopefully one day on my rocking chair as the rocking chair
question I'm able to say I did that I didn't I didn't Short Change Myself I didn't I didn't not show up for myself I like that a lot it's leaving it all on the table my my old high school football coach used to say that he's like right before we go into like the the finals or anything like that he would just be like if you don't give it your all if you don't give it every ounce you're always
going to think about if you lose you're going to think about what you could have done differently but if you give it everything you have you're going to lose and you're going to be like oh lost take that's right you take the L well that's the thing sometimes we think about these things like give it everything you got well you might not win yeah like in fact
you probably won't like you know more people lose than win that's just the truth we have this selection bias right you listen to this podcast you're getting the ones that it actually worked for but there's a long trail of people where it actually didn't work out but other things worked out for them other things worked out for them you know in
the Journey of failing they actually had other wins probably that you're not learning about and so yeah no I think I think that's really important you do have to leave it all out there cuz regret lasts a lifetime and it lingers and it it does keeps you in place yes 100% yeah well thank you so much this has been awesome thanks J this is great appreciate it thanks for having me