#017 Candace Lord

Candace and talk about how she got started in the SPF industry, health and wellness, and a class she taught at the convention in Las Vegas.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Hello, hello. Spray foamers out there. We're back. It's been uh a little while, so uh finally had to get some going. I uh promised that I was gonna start to do some uh remote podcasts because obviously we know how hard it is to get everybody where I'm at. So Candace reached out to me, Candace Lord of New Hampshire, I believe, right? And she wanted to be on, and I said, All right, well, that's perfect timing. Let's do it. So here we are, Candace. How are you?

SPEAKER_04 0:45

Doing well. People ask me how I get on podcasts, and I'm like, you just ask.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

You gotta ask. That's it. That's actually it. I actually had a lot of people asking in the beginning, and I was trying to, you know, do the do the in-person as much as possible, but I knew that that wasn't gonna last. I'm gonna have to you know reach out throughout the country a little more, and uh the only way to do that is through remote. So it is what it is. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Living the dream, my man. Living the dream.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Are you yeah? You know, I you said just a minute ago that you were on the SPFA podcast as well. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 1:19

I was, yeah, it dropped today, the first episode. Uh all about chucking a truck.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Oh, okay. I did see that. I did not listen to it yet. I also knew that you were doing Spencer's or you did Spencer's.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

I did Spencer's, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

I didn't listen to that either, and I'll tell you why. I actually thought about it. Like, I should probably left listen to this and kind of catch up on who Candace is. But at the same time, I was like, you know, if I if I know everything about her, then I'm not gonna have a lot of questions to ask when I interview her myself. So I've decided not to, which is like I said, I mean I've never met you. I did see you in Las Vegas. I some some people you just know who their face is and the name, yeah. Don't actually, you know, have a chance to sit and talk with them. So how was your Vegas experience this year?

SPEAKER_04 2:05

It was good. I uh I taught a breakout session about profit sharing in our industry and how why you should do it and how to kind of make it happen for your company. And then I was invited to speak on the very first women's only QA panel, which was awesome. Some pretty pretty awesome women up there in the industry. So that was exciting.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Yeah, yeah. Uh the the profit sharing now. I don't know a lot about that. Fill me in.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

Well, profit sharing is when you literally instead of giving your employees bonuses or you know, there's lots of ways to like incentivize your employees, but profit sharing is when you literally take a percentage of your profit and you divvy it up among your employees. And it it makes them work harder. It makes them feel like what they do matters, like they're really a part of the team, and that you know how much money they make is directly related to their performance. So it's it's definitely lights a little fire under their butt when you know you have a good quarter and everyone gets extra money. So wow.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

How many how many employees do you have?

SPEAKER_04 3:13

We are a company of 12. Yeah, and not not huge, but know that spray a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of the what do you call it, truck in a truck?

SPEAKER_04 3:26

Yeah, you got a lot of them in my area. Freaking super oversaturated.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Yeah, yeah. It's sometimes probably hard. Is it hard to compete with those, or is it kind of easy to compete with those?

SPEAKER_05 3:39

I guess it depends on what what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_04 3:43

If you're talking like large commercial stuff, you know, we don't really compete because we're more of a boutique company. So when we're talking about really high-end construction, when we're talking about passive house construction, when we're talking about, you know, design build, where the owner's involved, where energy efficiency is at the forefront, where the the designer and the builder wants to talk building science and wants someone who can act as a consultant, there is no competition.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

So yeah, yeah, for sure. And what's what's the name of your company?

SPEAKER_04 4:18

The Green Cocoon.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

The Green, oh, is that what it said? I can't actually read it, but I can see it. The Green Cocoon, where'd you come up with that name?

SPEAKER_04 4:26

I did not come up with this name. My business partner and his and his um original business partner came up with it because the idea was that you know we're making houses more eco-friendly, reducing carbon footprint. And when we first started, we were spraying the original Demelec like soy, whatever they you called it soy-based for a while, but that's a misnomer. So yeah, we it was green and it just it all worked, and the comp the name has just stuck. And now everybody and their mother has the word green in their in their company name. But we're the OG in our area.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

What's what got you involved in into spray foam?

SPEAKER_04 5:06

How long do you have? There's a running joke that I slept my way to the top. Oh which only women can do, apparently. But no, I I um I was dating the owner of the company, and uh about nine months into us dating his business partner, had a heart attack and died.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

So he was trying to run the company by himself. I was kind of in between jobs and just waitressing and figuring out like career stuff, and he said, Hey, and I said, Do you, you know, can I help you with something? And he said, Yeah, he gave me a stack of papers like this big, and he was like, These are bank registers, and I need it to match in QuickBooks. And we're talking the old QuickBooks, not the QuickBooks Online, the OG version that I had never used in my life. And he said, I'm gonna show you this once, and I just I need you to put the info in. So I did that, and then he just kept giving me tasks, and he was really busy, so I drove around with him on my days off to try to just spend some time with him. And I was like a sponge listening to what he said and taking notes for him in the car. And eventually I just kind of increased my hours kind of as office help. And then we got really, really busy, and he said, I need you to look at a job. And I was like, You want me to look at a job? I knew nothing about construction, absolutely, I couldn't even hold a hammer, like it was, you know, nothing. And uh he said, Listen, you've watched me enough times, you know how to get dimensions, get perimeter, get a wall height, take pictures, come back, we'll you know, we'll figure it out. So I went and I did it. And I only did that a few times, and then we hired a salesperson, and I was still still in the office doing the paperwork and invoicing and scheduling and stuff like that. But we had a sales guy that was really bad, like really bad. We'd go to networking events, and he would the things he would say to people about, well, spray foam is like, you know, it's like styrofoam, it's like a styrofoam cup, you know, it's kind of like that, it's like the same stuff. And I I knew he was wrong. I didn't know what to say, but I knew that he was like full of shit. So I said something to my to my boyfriend at the time, the owner, and I was like, Hey, this is he's really bad. His numbers were bad anyway. And so he said, All right, let's do this. We'll change the phone line so anything that comes in after hours will go to you, and you can use some sales and see how you do. And I was like, Okay, and I sold more in the first quarter than he sold in a year and a half. Oh, so I was just doing it to prove a point. I didn't want to do sales, I just wanted to prove a point that this guy's not good and we should find somebody else. But you know, open mouth insert foot, you know, 15 years later. I do hi, I'm Candace, and I do sales.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

So well, that's a great way to put into it.

SPEAKER_04 7:45

No, I married the owner and then I divorced the owner, and we still run the company together, and it's way better now.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

Y'all should try it. Divorce is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

I'm not gonna try it. My wife better not listen to this, or she's gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

No, I'm just I'm not for everyone, but I'm saying this, y'all know who you are.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, right. Well, that's that's great that you two can can still work together and earn livings together. And yeah, you know, that's that's it's all about the business. Yeah, yeah. Uh so and then did you find yourself spraying it at any time?

SPEAKER_04 8:17

I have pulled a trigger before. Uh, I'd go out on weekends when when he was still kind of going out in the field for overflow work, and I'd spray a little bit and scrape. And I used to go out like once or twice a year with the guys just to show face and because you know, know what they go through. I think it's important that salespeople have some field experience that you understand absolutely how hard it is to do certain things because when I'm specing a job and I'm figuring out production rate for a job and how many extra hours they might need, and how you know, oh, they have to drag the hose 17 million stories every day. Like you gotta know. So I do I go, I I haven't gone out in a while. I've been getting shit from the guys though. So I'm sure they always want me to come out in the summer, though. They want it to be 95 degrees and be an addict job, and yeah, it all depends. I I teach hot yoga, bring it on.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Yeah, well, that's true. I guess I guess that doesn't affect you too much. The winters are still real cold in New Hampshire, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

Yeah, we got we got negative 15, negative 20 this year.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Yeah, yeah. So I I it it's it's hit or miss, it seems like it's either winter or uh super cold or super hot. I I always liked the the times where it was, you know, 60 degrees is like perfect if you it's it was it was 80 yesterday and it was 70 today, so oh yeah, we're getting there. Yeah, so what else? How how about um tell me something else about Vegas you you loved something else that I loved about Vegas? The weather was lovely, the weather was very nice.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Um the parties were great. I did not go to the three phone worldwide party, although I was invited, but didn't go because I go to bed early.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Oh my gosh, you're a party pooper.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

You know, I I went with one of my guys and I took him and he got his master, master and scholar certification. And he was studying, and I get up early and I go to the gym and I have my routine. I needed to be present early for moderating and for different things, and I just I don't really drink. And so for me, it's like I go to some of the parties, I socialize, but I'm at the point in my life that my mental and physical health is like super important to me. And you know, a lot of these guys were coming in at four in the morning and then skipping the breakout sessions, and it's like we work really hard to prepare prepare these breakout sessions for you guys. You can party anytime, like you know, you should be going to these, but I understand a lot of these guys work like 60, 70 hours a week every week, and they're like, say yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Yeah, for some of it, it's like they're only vacation or out of the out of the town, you know, in the of the year. So for me, I get it though.

SPEAKER_04 10:51

I'm working, it's not it's work for me.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Yeah, I agree. I I uh feel the same way, uh, but I didn't used to. Of course, I used to be one of those guys. So time in life again. Uh, do you mind me asking your age?

SPEAKER_04 11:03

Yeah, I'll be 42 next month.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Okay, so we're we're pretty close. I'm 44.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

Yeah, it's funny, like it's it's work, right? So I have my laptop out, I was making calls, I was doing my thing, I'm keeping up with everything because I'm the only salesperson right now. I'm training training someone, but it still kind of all falls on me right now. But I have two teenagers, I've got a million people in my house all the time. I'm constantly busy, I teach yoga, I'm super social. So for me to go to Vegas and just be able to like lay in bed and watch trash TV and read a book and go to sleep and wake up and nobody's talking to me. And I go get coffee and nobody's talking to me. And it was great. It was like five days of just like me and you know, try it sometime.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah, it's great. I go, I always go by myself too.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

Uh I got a tan, got some D.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Oh, yeah. Did you get out to that pool?

SPEAKER_04 11:53

I got out to that pool every day for at least an hour.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Good for you.

SPEAKER_04 11:57

Yeah, I was like, it's break time, pool time.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Yeah, I went out to that pool one day and it was way too long. So I was ready.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

You got burnt, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 12:07

I got burnt pretty bad.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

That sun was insane.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

Also, my hotel room looked out on the sphere, and it was trippy. I was like, I'm glad I'm not doing drugs right now because I I don't think I could handle that ball other than being completely sober. The stuff that that like it's crazy. That ball is crazy. I'm glad they won the award. Whoever won the awards for spraying that thing.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Oh, yeah. I was there too at that at the awards thing. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 12:36

We were we were nominated for a couple, but alas, again, we didn't win.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Well, someone's gonna keep trying. Keep trying. So you must not have gone two years ago to Vegas then.

SPEAKER_04 12:47

I did.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Oh, you did? Okay, all right. I was just saying that because you sounded like you were like you saw the sphere for the first time.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

I think I didn't notice it before. I mean, was it the morning two years ago?

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Oh, it was, yeah. Yeah, I don't know how you didn't notice it.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

My hotel room didn't see it. Were we at the same place? No, it was a different place.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Well, if you if you were at the Westgate, it was there both times this this year and two years ago.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

But oh, it was that's right. I I didn't notice it. Okay, I did notice it this year, though. It was big and bright.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Yeah, that's really cool. It is cool to watch. So, did you gamble at all or no?

SPEAKER_04 13:23

I don't gamble.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Oh, good for you.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

No, yeah, no fun.

unknown 13:27

It's fun.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

It's fun if you're with sorry, your podcast can just end now because, like, obviously, it's my bedtime.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Oh, you're well, it's only seven o'clock or six o'clock there, too. Yeah, it's not bad. No, certainly do you no?

SPEAKER_04 13:42

I'm usually in bed at 7 30 and I read and stuff, read, read and journal, you know, do that mental health stuff.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

That's good. Did you grow up in New Hampshire?

SPEAKER_04 13:52

I was born in Maine, grew up in Massachusetts most of my life, north north shore of Massachusetts. My family's in Mass, New Hampshire. Yeah, um, I went to school in Boston, I went to Northeastern University, studied languages and linguistics.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 14:08

Yeah, thank goodness I'm still paying for that shit that I don't use. And yeah, and then I did a study abroad in Mexico for my language degree. I stayed there for six years. My kids were born down there.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

And then I missed home, so I came back to the States.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

What part of Mexico?

SPEAKER_04 14:24

I lived in Cholula, which is in Puebla, which is two hours south of Mexico City. Fun fact for all of my white friends that like to celebrate Cinco de Mayo and have no idea what it is. It is not Mexican Independence Day, that's in September. I thought it was that's in September. This is literally celebrates a battle that was fought in Puebla during the French war in like the late 1800s down down in Mexico, and they like lost the war, but they won this like one battle and like this crazy history. So they really don't they don't celebrate it in Mexico, they celebrate it in this one state, particularly in the capital city and like outlying areas. But I don't know why why it is even a thing in the states. It's uh it's I don't even understand. It's it's literally like an alcoholic's day, it's just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Yeah, that's uh I that that is surprising. I I thought it was independence too. I thought the whole country cared about it.

SPEAKER_04 15:25

We celebrate all kinds of things that aren't ours just to have a reason to party, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Yeah, well, you gotta have a reason to party sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 15:34

I did eat guacamole yesterday.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

There you go. You're celebrating. I actually didn't do anything, but uh I don't usually sell my my nephew's uh birthday is Cinco de Mayo, so that's kind of oh that's cool. Yeah, I mean that's kind of a yeah, he's gonna have Mexican every year for the rest of his life for his birthday.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

I mean, I love my local Mexican joint. The the owners are from Jalisco, they're really friendly. We chit chat all the time, they invite us to their Christmas parties and stuff. So we go there all the time just because we like the people. So we were there yesterday to get some swag and t-shirts and you know, do some karaoke or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

So is where is I mean Cholula, right? That's the best hot sauce. Is that where it's from?

SPEAKER_04 16:16

I mean, that's your opinion on hot sauce. I think Cholula is definitely basically like salt vinegar, it's good, but it's not hot at all.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

I like yeah, it's a little pain.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

But um but yes, it is from Cholula.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Interesting. You have I don't know much about it, but you've got a little bit of like cancer journey, and I think maybe some pretty serious fitness journeys and all that stuff. Yeah, I'd like to learn more about that.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

Uh yeah, I was diagnosed with breast cancer uh when I was 34, so seven years ago. Seven years ago this month. Actually, probably any day now is like the seventh year anniversary that I was diagnosed. We caught it early, but I still had to do chemo and radiation and have a partial mastectomy. So I had like the full package because I was really young and it was um ER positive, which is like it means it feeds off of estrogen. So when you're that age, your estrogen is really high. So the chick, so it grows really fast and the recurrence rate's, you know, fairly high. But yeah, I kicked its ass. And at the time I was a professional power lifter and bodybuilder and running a lot of Spartan races, and I I kept the journey. I didn't stop. I did two Spartan races while on chemo. The last one was uh 15 miles up Mount Killington in Vermont and actually withheld my final chemo so I could do the race on on the date. And and then immediately finishing treatment, I did a powerlifting meet and hit some personal bests, and then immediately started dieting for bodybuilding shows the following season. So the mind is a is an amazing thing, you know. The body does what the mind wants. And I teach hot yoga, big into handstands and being upside down. And I I'm done powerlifting. I retired a couple years ago from that, and I was gonna be done bodybuilding, but my daughter, bless her soul, she turned 18 and she said, I want to do a show. And you always said you would do one with me. So I am currently seven weeks away from our first show of the season, which is why my face looks so tiny right now. I'm like severe calorie deficit. You could wash a shirt on my abs, but it honestly, it's it's a sad life. It's a sad, sad life.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

So I've been kind of getting into health a little bit in the last few months. I I lost about just about 30 pounds so far this year or so. Since I mean, yeah, it wasn't like it wasn't like a New Year's resolution or anything like that. It just kind of, you know, honestly, staying up and scrolling on my stupid phone at night. You see videos, you see people talking, and you know, I've been pretty big my whole life. Well, since I was like 12, right? But things are starting to make way more sense now that never that they I just didn't understand before. And so like, you know, I so I've been doing a lot of sugar and sugar and insulin, huge. I never really understood any of it, never tried to understand it. It was just you know one of those things. So, you know, I I sugar and insulin, I mean, the the relationship they have is just incredible.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

I'm like, how well yeah, that's what insulin's for is to regulate your blood sugar. And sugar isn't necessarily bad, you know, sugar isn't the devil, carbs aren't bad for you. I do have you know many certifications in nutrition, and you know, I I know a lot about this stuff, and it there's a lot of misinformation out there, but you gotta eat real food, is what it comes down to. You gotta eat real food, food your body can recognize. Sugar, as long as you have fiber with it, reacts much differently in the body, like eating an apple versus drinking apple juice. Like, you know, it's it's as as little processing as possible, is generally what your body appreciates. And then use the energy that you give it because if you're ingesting all this food and then you're just sitting there, yeah, it doesn't really work like that. Yeah, people are meant to move, we're meant to move and groove, baby.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

I know it's hard. It I mean, it seems like it's I mean, it's harder today than probably ever before because everything is so automated, everything you know, everything we do is just so much easier than it was even 20 years ago, but you know, especially you know, 75 years ago or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 20:44

There's ways to make it work.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Absolutely. I mean, there's gyms too. There's there wasn't necessarily that before.

SPEAKER_04 20:49

So there's gyms and there's taking your lunch break and walking around the building. There's parking farther away when you every time you go to the grocery store, park at the back. Yeah, you know, oh my gosh, it's an extra minute to the car, like you know, but every little bit counts. Yeah, and it's funny that you say, like, I'm getting into I'm like been getting into health lately. I it's so crazy that it's something that we have to get into.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:13

When we get one body for the rest of our lives, we are given one body. It's beautiful and amazing because it can regenerate, right? But you get one body.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:27

And it's crazy that we don't it takes so long for us to understand that we need to take care of it. I mean, my teenagers grew up with me being a how really into health and fitness and really taking care of myself, and they still like, you know, oh whatever, like, you know, I'm like, you do realize that this is the damage you're doing at your age, is like what's gonna impact you later. And they don't listen because I'm their mother, you know. But it's it's crazy that we have to get into it. It's you don't understand how important health is until you're not healthy. You know, it's like it's like sex and oxygen. It's not Important till you're not getting any, you know. So same thing with health. Like when I when I was diagnosed, I was like, I will never complain again. If I wake up and my I have no pain in my body when I wake up and I can go do a yoga class and I can walk to my car and I can get out of bed and I can go screw around on monkey bars real quick, or you know, I can use my body in any way that I want. That is an absolute blessing. And we have to like take care of our bodies, especially guys in the trades. They're working their asses off, and then they're eating crap for lunch and having a coke and Twinkies, and they're not stretching. I'm sorry, but you, I'm talking you people, you you need a stretch. Okay. My tip of the top.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

I'm guilty of not doing that near enough, also.

SPEAKER_04 22:53

Retch. It's like that's that that that's how we get old.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Come on, guys.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

I mean, I saw so. I was at the gym, you know, a couple weeks ago when I was there, I was on the treadmill, and I saw this guy who's probably in his 60s, I would say, maybe early 70s. And you could just kind of tell that he was there. He was he was hardly getting around, not very well at all. And you could just tell that he was there because that that something kind of hit him. And he's like, Oh man, like if I don't try to fix this, it's gonna just really be bad. And I was just thinking, like, man, I'm really glad that I've you know kind of gotten into this this mindset of let's let's take care of the body, right? Because I don't want to get to the point where I let it go so long, where I'm like this guy who just is kind of it's it's not too late for him, but it's it's it's late.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

You can always improve, but he will never be where he would have been had he started. You know, like everybody says, use it or lose it. You know, use it or lose it. If you don't keep range of motion in your joint, you lose that range of motion. If you don't keep muscle mass, keep building muscle mass, you lose it, especially for women. Like it's super important that we get as jacked as we can while we're younger because that prevents bone loss and osteoporosis and just the mental aspect of it, like going to the gym and you just walking on the treadmill or lifting something heavy and something hard. And it's just it's it is scientifically proven to be more effective for depression and anxiety than any medication on the market.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Yeah. I th I think that just in the past few years, I I if you ask my wife, I'm sure she'd say that she can definitely, you know, see me happier and just easier to be around. So and I just noticed it myself. I'm just you know, I'm not I'm not near as lazy and sluggish and uh irritated and on all that, you know.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

And you build confidence in yourself and you can be proud of yourself, and you can say, I didn't want to get up, but I went. Like I didn't want to go to the gym. I don't even get that feeling anymore of I don't want to go. It's just so ingrained since I was 15. 15. That's ignore my dog. Since I was 15, I have gone to the gym four or five days a week at least since I was 15. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Wow, that's yeah. You one thing I've noticed too is that you know, in the first, you know, when this gym just came around in our town. It was a it was a brand new, you know, 24-hour gym. And my neighbor is one of my best friends, and he was saying, Hey, let's let's go to the gym. And I was like, Well, I don't know if I want to sign up for that one that's 10 miles away because I'm this one's supposed to be coming up here in the next month or so. Either way, whether that was a good excuse or not is is irrelevant. But it did come around, and and we've been going, and yeah, the first few times, the first I'd say few months actually, it was like uh I should probably go, all that sort of thing. And now I it's 24-hour gyms are awesome because sometimes you can just go.

SPEAKER_04 26:01

My gym has a key card too. We have 24-hour access.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

That's that's the way to go. I mean, I'm not gonna I'm gonna find more excuses. Like if it's not open, that's just an excuse not to go, or if it's only gonna be open for another hour, that's just an excuse not to go. So it's really nice. But yeah, I've I I feel the same way. I'm starting to feel the same way, like, yeah, just just go.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

It's not that I get up at uh 3 45.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

I'm at the gym between 4 30 and 4 45 so that I'm home for 6 15, 6 30. And because my gym is like, I mean, I do like 90 minutes, not not 90 minutes at least, because I warm up and I do mobility work and I do whatever I'm working that day and I do some core and then I do some handstand training, I get upside down a little bit. I I like to really use my body. So I'm there, but um, but then I'm home at 6:30, I have breakfast, I'm out of the house at 7:30. I'm home for 3:30, 4 o'clock, and I'm in bed at 7:30.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

So you are you are definitely a morning. Oh, you go back to bed at 7:30. Finish.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

Well, I'm in bed at 7:30. I read, I journal, I'm sleeping by 8:30. So I try to get between seven and eight hours.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Have you always been a morning person?

SPEAKER_04 27:14

Always.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Always.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

I never I'm an all-day person. I just wake up like this. I'm like, oh my god, hey, hi.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

I woke up.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

Hey, let's go. I have like an on and an off. There's no like in the middle.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yeah. See, I I I you're usually most people are either a morning person or a night person. And I was never a morning person. I'm always an I I can wake up at you know 7 30, 8 o'clock, and I, you know, if I don't have to be up, I'll lay in bed for another 20 or you know, half hour, whatever. I don't do it.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

My back hurts. I'm like, get me upright.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Sure, sure. Well, you know, I feel like you know, getting a little healthier. I'm starting to become a little, you know, I am getting to sleep a little earlier, so I'm also getting up a little earlier. So hopefully that'll continue, and maybe I will be a 6 a.m. ready to go person, but I don't think I'll find myself in the gym.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

I was a night person until probably my late 20s. You know, I had kids in my early 20s, so I started getting on a routine with them. And like, I mean, I was a night person when I needed to be, I was a night person in college, you know. I mean, the party started at midnight, you know, we were all like a night person to an extent until a certain time. And I think those of us who get into a routine earlier in life tend to become morning people. And and honestly, when you look at what people are made for and and what the healthiest thing is, it's it's being a morning person or following getting up with the sun and and going to bed with the sun and following kind of that kind of a pattern is better for your circadian rhythms. And then if you're gonna wake up early all week, you should wake up early on the weekends because changing your cycle for two days and then going back to early during the week, it screws with your brain.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

For sure. Oh, yeah, it's definitely not the way to go. I I wish I've my whole life I wished I was just I wished I wanted to be up earlier in the morning. I just never do, I just never have the desire. But I know because you know, on the on the some occasions that I do get up early, early, I'm like, it's 8 a.m. I'm usually still in bed and I just got this done, that done, and that done. So, you know, whatever. Uh hopefully I'll hopefully I'll get there someday.

SPEAKER_04 29:22

Yeah, it is a good, it is cool because it's a really easy talking point with customers when I go into their house because like they'll take me down to their basement or whatever to like look at they want to replace their basement insulation and they have like their gym down there. And I'm like, oh, did you bench this morning? Like, what do you bench? You know, like you can talk to customers, or you see that they like to, you know, or I want to create we want to turn our garage into a home gym, or you know, it's it's a good talking point with customers if you have some something in common with them.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

You know, you said like you were saying that you like you just have this one body, you know, for the rest of your life. You better take care of whatever, you know, and as a guy, as a guy who has never really been a health guy my entire life. There was times where I tried to you know get healthy, and someday sometimes I lost a little weight and all that sort of thing, but nothing's nothing feels quite like this one. But I'm a I'm a mechan, I'm a I'm a hands-on guy. I'm kind of you know, cars and I like to fix things with my hands and whatever. You're a tinkler, yeah, of course. A tinkerer, right? A tinkler would probably be really cool. So I'm a tinkerer too.

SPEAKER_05 30:33

Yeah, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Yeah, I do. So, but like, yeah, I've always been real good with my cars, and so that's kind of the weird thing is you know, I can I can say, okay, it's time to change the oil, or or those brakes are in need of attention, or you know, those I need to change the transmission fluid, or I need to change the shock or or whatever happens to be. I've always been really, really good at figuring out what's wrong with this car and doing what I have to to make it run really great, but I'm not doing that with my own body, right? I never was. I I can and and I think part of it is because it's an easy fix. Like literally, you you see what's wrong, figure it out, you run to the parts store, you grab it, and you change it out, and now it's fixed. But I can't really just easily do that with my body. I was that would that was a lot more drawn out, take a lot more time to fix, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

It's just as easy, it just takes more time, right? Right. There's a few basic concepts.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Yeah, it's kind of a kind of a funny analogy, you know. Like I'm so good, I'm so good at making sure this car is roadworthy, but I'm not doing the same thing with my own body, which is way.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

Yeah, would you pour sugar water into your car or would you pour like a premium fuel? And our bodies are also like vehicles. We can we run on crappy fuel? Sure, we can run, but is the engine gonna last as long? Are the parts gonna last as long? Like they they won't. And I think a big part of why it's so hard for so many people is because we have we've lost touch with our bodies, we're just completely disconnected, we don't listen to them anymore. We're too busy scrolling on our phones and busy at work and having 50 million decisions a day and high strung and high anxiety, and we don't ever take a second to listen. Because your body's telling you. Your body's telling you. When you eat food and you get indigestion, your body's telling you. When you eat something and you feel sluggish and you feel like you need a nap, your body's telling you. When you have aches and pains and you wake up stiff, your body's telling you, you know, when you don't go to the bathroom for two days, when you can't sleep at night, when you have weird dreams, when you are generally irritable, your body is telling you and you are not listening.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Well, that's it. And also, it's it's just for me, it was just not really knowing. Like I couldn't, like going back to the car, you know, analogy, right? Like, I can hear the brake squealing, or I can hear the engine knocking, or something like that. It's it's like I just um I have that. If I had, you know, in the past, especially if I had a little indigestion, it's just like I I have no idea, it's just happening. Like, I I wasn't and and women are more in tune with um typically more in tune with you know that's why you guys should listen to us when we tell you to eat more vegetables. Well, yeah, for sure. For sure, you know, they're yeah. Women I think listen to their body more, they just I guess they got a better ear for it, if that makes any sense. Some of them, some of us do, some of them, not definitely not all of them. And and there's you know, it's it's certainly not you know a hundred percent, but it's it just seems like it. I've I've noticed it in in the women in my life, let's just say they just you know something's kind of weird. Let's go to the doctor, where us guys are like something's kind of weird, oh well, keep you know, move on to the next thing, you're not not really think about it too much. So it's so simple.

SPEAKER_04 33:56

It's like get enough sleep, you know, get a few minutes of silence every day for your brain to relax, eat single ingredient foods, lots of fruits and vegetables and things that grow from the ground. Yeah, and then like don't drink, don't drink and don't smoke.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Like yeah, well, I drink that's a huge part of it.

SPEAKER_04 34:15

Alcohol is a huge part of people's health issues.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

For sure. Smoking, of course, too. Yeah, so yeah, fasting. I've been doing some of that too, and like 72-hour fast, which is honestly incredible for it's it's hard to do, but it's it works.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

Well, it works because you're starving yourself. It works for weight loss because you're starving. It's also really it's also really bad for women.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

What?

SPEAKER_04 34:45

I haven't heard that fasting is really bad for women's hormones. So so fun fact when they do all these studies on like intermittent fasting is great for this, and cold plunges are great for this, and they give you all these these facts, right? If you actually look at the studies, it's like 90% men because women's because of our hormone cycles and fluctuations, we're not as consistent as men. So when they're doing blood work and they're doing analysis, they take you know the outliers top and bottom and get rid of the ones that aren't consistent and they keep the general pool of data, and that's men. So like fasting, great, 72 hours, maybe that much. 24, cool, you know, but more than a 12-hour fast for women is bad, bad for your hormones. Doing cold plunges, great for guys. Anything lower than 50 degrees actually increases the stress hormones in women's body. So women are way different than men. So I mean, I eat in a 12-hour window. I start eating about 4 a.m. My last meal is 4, 4:30. Because I go to bed so early, I want to sleep on an empty stomach, which is also really important for repair, rest and repair. If you're eating food and going to sleep, you're not resting.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yeah, digesting. Yeah, you definitely got to a few hours at least.

SPEAKER_04 36:15

So wait, how did you get into the spray foam business? That's the question I want to ask you because you have a foam podcast, but like yeah, I know it.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

So I I I you know, I and I might have talked about this before, so if anybody's listening, they might hear the story again. So, what I did was I I got laid off. I was working at you know, a major I was working at ATT and I got laid off, and uh which was fine with me because I really was ready to do something different anyway. It just kind of happened to be at the right time, so but I at first I was gonna get into ICF. This I'm I'm making the story long, so you know, just that's fine. I'm bearing with me, bear with me. So ICF, you know what that is?

SPEAKER_04 36:54

Yep, insulated concrete forms.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Yep. So I really wanted to get into that and build houses that way, and so I found somebody who did it, and I was like, hey, I want to work for you. And he's like, Oh, okay, sounds good. So I did that for a little while, and I just kind of realized, like, yeah, my my body's not this is not gonna work out for me. So I gotta figure out something else. And I was kind of just I was actually on my phone one day and I was looking at like um like franchises or something that I can get into. Like, I don't know, I want to work for myself, I don't know what I want to do. I was just kind of doing some brainstorming on my phone, and I did know a fair amount about spray foam. I shouldn't say a fair amount, I knew a little about it. And I had also gone to school for construction, and I had also gone to school for alternative energy, which was you know, alternative energy a lot in there is also energy conservation, so building science, yeah. That's sort of so you learn about the different materials and everything. And so I just thought, you know, maybe I'll maybe I'll get into spray foam. So I kind of looked into it and I I found I found Ted Pro Foam Pro Foam's website and rigs and everything, and I went, I just kind of went down that rabbit hole and I talked to my wife. We were driving in a car going up to her folks' house one that weekend, and I told her, I think, I think maybe I'd like to get into spray foam. And she's not usually the one that just kind of lets me do you know off the wall stuff, but she's like, Yeah, yeah, I think you should. I think you should do it right soon. And I was like, All right, well, there's a training down there in like two weeks, so I'll go then. And she's like, Yeah, so that was pretty awesome to have her support there, and so it just we just went head on, and so I mean, yeah, I was kind of one of those guys that just sort of started with very little knowledge. Obviously, they had a training down there that I went to and and got the got that training, but other than that, I mean I was pretty I was pretty self-taught, pretty self-taught, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:57

And I had do you still have a foam company?

SPEAKER_02 39:01

I do not know when I started this podcast, I did, but I started selling foam, so I've been doing that for you know for a distributor. I've been doing that now for like a year and a half. Well, it's pretty close to two years now. And so I mean, yeah, I did it for about I think around six or seven years. And and then I where are you based out of Michigan, yeah. We're right now we are a little bit west of Detroit.

SPEAKER_04 39:31

So what was your what was your biggest challenge in business? Now I'm interviewing you.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Yeah, that's absolutely great. I mean, we got an hour to fill, so I I don't mind talking about myself sometimes too. So my biggest challenge, I guess, was well, one, I was starting to start to get my shoulder was starting to hurt and starting to get a little bit sensitized to it. I was pretty good. I I'd use fresh air if I was in kind of a concentrated space, like an attic or a crawl space or something where it was kind of closed up, and I would use respirators if it was very well ventilated. So I was always trying to take care of that. But I'd tell you what, as soon as as soon as I was done spraying and I was moving on to scraping studs, it was like I'm not gonna try to do that with a respirator on my face. Like I just was too uncomfortable. So, you know, sometimes I'd let it air out a little bit, but yeah, so I think that just a little bit of it, I kind of just feel my throat sort of swelling up a little bit. So yeah, so between those two things, I mean I could still do it, and I was planning on it. I mean, the job that I took was offered to me, I wasn't seeking. So it just kind of worked out, and and honestly, I think that this podcast, because I started, I was doing this podcast for oh five months or so to when they they reached out, and I was I I don't think if I wouldn't have been starting this podcast, I don't they probably wouldn't even know who I am. So that was pretty awesome. I mean, it really yeah, it really kind of kind of made that work out pretty good.

SPEAKER_05 41:06

Great.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

It's just weird how things work, but other other than that, challenges, I would say, you know, you know, I was I was always making plenty enough money for for me and the family, but I'm not really like I'm not a really savvy business person. Like I said, I'm I'm good with my hands, so I could do the work quite well. And you know, I mean I got pretty good at it, and I had a I had a background, a little bit of a background in construction and building. So I kinda I knew, you know, how to what to spray and what not to spray and how to how to clean up right and how to you know do the job correctly. But you know, the business uh side of it, I wasn't really all that good at. And I I was I was kind of lazy too in a way. I mean I didn't really want to do I didn't want to do open cell, which I know would have helped get more business and maybe helped me grow. I didn't really want to do I kind of I didn't really have a huge problem with doing like cellulose or blown in attics and stuff, but you know, I really didn't want to just have another rig to maintain, and I didn't want to, I just wasn't all that interesting. All I wanted to do was just spray closed cell foam.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Yeah, well, you gotta diversify, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Yeah, exactly. And so it was hard for me to compete on like new homes and stuff because all I did was close cell foam, and nobody's gonna pay that for an entire house, or at least very few people, some people will, but yeah, a lot of people are like, Well, your close cell bid for the whole house is like twice as much as the next person because they're doing maybe uh open cell on the walls, or they're doing clothes cell, but the whole entire roof, which is sometimes ends up being the roof or ceiling, whatever it happens to be, that ends up being sometimes half of the job, just that it is, yeah, right. Yep, and so you know, if they're doing half of the job for a whole lot less, you know, they're just gonna kill me, on quote. So that's pretty much what it did. It did. And so I mean, I I learned to kind of market towards like pole barns and all that sort of thing. Obviously, I mean, I like spraying pole barns anyway, like they're the best thing to spray.

SPEAKER_04 43:03

Never done like a huge open barn warehouse like that, like you guys are doing metal buildings, like uh then they don't have they don't do those around here very much, or they do, but we don't I don't see them.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

Wow, that's surprising.

SPEAKER_04 43:16

We do mostly stick built like high-end high-end new construction.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Like like 16 or 69 center bar b buildings, or just you're talking about more like homes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:27

Like homes. I mean, we do some light commercial. We have a couple couple of commercial guys that we do work for, but most commercial is sag and bag fiberglass or you know, dense glass on the outside and fiberglass bats on the inside. And while I would do fiberglass, it fills the schedule, you know, I would I would do I would do the work. The big guys around here, you know, they're owned by like Masco. They're owned by like the huge conglomerates, and they have stock and own corning, and they get fiberglass with pennies on the dollar. Oh they have warehouses of it, so you know. I actually pay my guys a living wage and you know full benefits package. So we're not cheap. My my my hourly labor rate's pretty high.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:12

Yeah, my guys aren't working for 20 bucks an hour, you know.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

Yeah. Well, that's great. That's I mean, that's that's part of the problem with sometimes people are like, I can't, I can't can't keep people, can't keep people. And that's a lot very true. But sometimes I'm kind of like, you gotta make sure and pay them too. Like you gotta make it worth it, you know. And you're still gonna there's still gonna be people out there where you're paying them very, very good and giving them all the benefits and they're hard job and sick and all that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_04 44:39

Oh well, we we have a very we we're really organized as a company. It's one of the things I really enjoy like about teaching at SPFA, and and one of the things I like to talk to other business owners about and kind of be like a resource for them is that we are we are at this point in our in our company's trajectory, we are very organized. We know our numbers, we we we keep tons and tons of data. We have really helpful staff, everybody knows their role, and we manage our employees. You know, if you get if you're late, you get a verbal, if you're late, you get written one if and you you have to sign it. And if you're late, you get written two. And then, you know, we have specific if you're late this many times within this much period, you lose your job.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Yeah, and that's it. You have to, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:25

There's plenty of people out there that are looking for work, right?

SPEAKER_02 45:29

Plenty, especially you know, good paying jobs, pain to train them, right?

SPEAKER_04 45:33

That's the pain, is that you want to keep the guy because well, he knows how to spray now, and like if we get rid of him, how are we gonna make it work? But you know, a one bad apple spoils the bunch. And if you get a guy in there that's a pre-modonna or has a bad attitude or shows up late every day and he gets away with it, it it demoralizes the rest of your crew, and you have to stick to your guns and say this is the standard that we have at this company. And if you can't live up to that standard, you are not fit for this company.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

Yeah, I mean, you have to. Unfortunately, uh, some people just don't take advantage of a good situation.

SPEAKER_04 46:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Right? It happens.

SPEAKER_04 46:10

I mean, we so we we pay well, and we have a tiered system with clear requirements to move up to the next tier, you know, like we have like crew member one, crew member two, crew lead one, crew lead two. We have like all of these different levels, and each level has a specific skill set requirement and responsibilities. And then when you get to that next level and everybody in the crew and operations team agrees that you've met those qualifications, you move up and you're given more responsibility and you're given a higher, higher wages. We also don't pay piecework, we pay hourly. So the guys aren't rushing and killing themselves to finish the job. Sure, if if it's like another two hours, they're not gonna go home and go back the next day. They're gonna stay, right? But you know, they we pay them to drive, they get paid from the second they step into the shop till the second they clock out and they're paid hourly to get full benefits package, company-sponsored IRA, investment, insurance, paid vacations. It's a company, and we're not like a 50-person company. There's 12 of us, but you can put those things into place to make your workplace better to work and keep employees longer and profit share and make them feel like a part of a team, and that's really important. I think that and and like you were talking about the biggest problem is like the business side. People, most people don't just go, I'm gonna get into foam, right? Like you did. Most people worked for a company before or had a buddy who did or whatever, and think I can do that. Spray things easier, or or they get a disgruntled employee, I could do that shit better. My boss isn't no shit, you know. But you're not a business person. Yeah, to run a business, you need to be a business person, or you need to learn about business and have that be your focus. You can't have your focus on business and also be doing the sales and the invoicing and spraying the foam and training the new people. And in the beginning, you have to do that. You wear all the hacks. Like I used to do 50 million jobs. Now my job is like sales and networking. That's what I do. Sales and networking. But I did it all. But it's my my so my business partner does the business. He went and got his MBA and he runs the business. He does the numbers, he meets with the advisor, he has a meeting with each one of the staff each week. Where where are you with this? This is, you know, these are my goals for you for this week. These are the tasks I want you to complete. And he follows up and he holds you accountable. And that's his job. He started spraying, you know, that's what they that's what he did when he started, but he's moved out very quickly and moved into working on the business, right? Not in the business, like everybody says. And and that's really important. So if you want to start a spray foam company, you either need to find a partner that knows business, that just wants to do business, or you need to train people quickly and get out of the sprayer role and into the business manager role. And if you don't love business, if you don't love numbers, if you don't love spreadsheets, you're not you're not, it's not for you. Yeah, you gotta love Excel. You gotta love a good spreadsheet, you gotta love a good CRM, you gotta love numbers over time. I have all of my sales stats going back to 2012. I think every every job I looked at, every sale, all of my monthly, yearly averages, quarterly averages, profitability since 2012. I have it all in one master sheet. So if you ask me what's your quarter one average over the last five years, I can tell you, and that's how we set folds, that's how we look at trends in the market. What what were we doing for sales? So it's important that people stay organized.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

It is. Yeah, there's there's a lot to that. And and yeah, you're typically a lot of people are either good at the business side or you know, they're good at the office work, the computer work, the whatever, or they're good at the outdoor physical work. And sometimes, I mean, if you get someone who who really understands and is good at both, and like that's that's really awesome.

SPEAKER_04 50:08

But yeah, then you pay them a lot and you keep them.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

Yeah, for sure. You make you do everything you can to make sure that that person doesn't leave. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:16

People say I can't afford it, and I'm like, but can you afford not to? Can you afford physically and mentally to keep doing what you're doing? Like it's it's it's it ages people, and you are stressed out and you don't show up as your best self at work for your family, for your children, for your friends. You're like pouring from an empty cup. And this is one of the things I really want to talk about at SPFA that I keep I keep throwing in for the for the breakout sessions is mental health and the trades and how to how to deal with stress, stress management, and and how to chill the fuck out. Because I think people people struggle. I've have struggled in the past, it's still a work in progress, but I've I've come a long way of just letting things go. The task list is always gonna be there. I can call them tomorrow. It's it's not always a fire to be put out. I am important too, and like at four o'clock or at four o'clock, my phone. I don't, it's do not disturb, don't call me.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

Four o'clock. I don't think I could do that.

SPEAKER_04 51:20

That's yeah, but you could call me at 5 a.m. and I'll answer. Well, that's true, but I won't be so I still am available for like 11 hours, okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

So I want to get a little more uh switch gears again, and and you know, I I I don't want you to I don't want to hound you about the the cancer journey, but it's very you know, it's it's something that a lot of people go through, and you know, cancer is something that man, it's like we didn't have to deal with it as much, you know, or you know, years and years ago, and going back to like the processed foods and everything, like it was someone else's problem back then, yeah. And and it seems like there's just it's just so prevalent today. It seems like you know, it was pretty much everybody knows someone who's died who has has died of cancer every five years at least, right? Like every everybody's gone through it.

SPEAKER_04 52:11

It's it's the chemicals in our food, it's the chemicals in the soil, it's the chemicals in the water, it's what we put on our body. So when I was diagnosed, I did a deep dive into why did I get sick? What could I have done better? You know, I stopped drinking for a long time. I I drink here and there, but I really have have cut cut way back because the drinking increases your cancer rate like 50 million times for men and women. Like one drink a week increases your breast cancer risk by like 15%. One drink a week. So there is no safe amount of alcohol. It's it's poison for your body. It's a hundred percent poison. So I think first and foremost, I think people need to really start taking a look at their relationship with with alcohol and substances. It's it's it's an escape for people because they can't sit with themselves. Because they can't they can't sit with themselves and nobody wants to do that that inner work, which is super, super important, which is being present with who you are and your thoughts and and and being brutally honest with what's in going on in your head. But I I did a huge deep dive into that stuff, and your so your skin, your skin is the largest organ in your body. Nobody thinks of the skin as an organ, but it's an organ, it's one huge organ, and it absorbs everything that touches it, which is why you can have nicotine patches and medication patches and brain control patches because it goes directly into your bloodstream.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 53:36

So for women, hair dye and makeup and lipstick and all of your the skincare that you use and the lotion you put on your body, and perfume is just fucking chock full of endocrine disruptors. Perfume, standard perfume, is absolute poison for your body. Same for men. Women are a little more sensitive to stuff like this. We get like breast cancer, you guys get other stuff, right? But you have to be really careful what you put on your skin. Yeah, what you wash your clothes with, what you wash your dishes with. Like, I'm not like one of those people that's like think we're crazy obsessed with like you know, I also live in the real world, but I do the very best that I can. Like, our we use like a hundred percent natural detergent, and we use dryer balls, the little wool dryer balls, weave a little couple essential oil drops, throw that in the dry. Is this the time for that?

SPEAKER_05 54:32

Really? Just he wants to be fit. Say hi. This is Ted.

SPEAKER_03 54:37

Hey Ted. What kind of mug is Eleanor?

SPEAKER_05 54:40

You want to come say hi? Come come say hi, Eleanor. Come in, this is Eleanor. I thought you were yellow.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

I thought you were yelling at your kids here for a second. This is Eleanor. They kind of oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 54:49

This is their witching hour where they decide that wrestling is appropriate behind mom's chair. It's right about now.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

They're trying to get your attention.

SPEAKER_04 54:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

What kind of dogs are they?

SPEAKER_04 55:00

They're standard poodles.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

Oh, yeah. Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 55:04

So yeah, I we just we do stuff like that. Clean detergent, we don't use dryer sheets, we don't use blade plug-ins, and those things that scent your house that are just you're breathing in the chemicals. It's like Palo Santo and Sage, and again, like essential oils, and I don't use lotion, I use coconut oil all over my whole body. I use a bar shampoo, which has like five ingredients. It's like coconut oil and whatever, and my hair looks great, it's fine, guys. Like you can, you gotta, we gotta be careful. Some of it you can't prevent, some of it's genetic, some of it is environmental. If you have city water, you know, if you you're you don't know what's on your food, if you're not growing all of your own food, which we don't have time to do, right? I grow a lot of my food in the spring, summer, fall. I I grow a lot of food in the winter in jars. I do make my own kombucha, I grow my own sprouts, I make my own sauerkraut. A lot of fermented stuff for gut health, which is takes no time at all. It's it works by itself. If you love kombucha, I can tell you how to make it. Take five minutes.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

I don't I think I might have had a little bit once. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 56:14

It's fermented tea, but I put ginger and lemon and apple juice in mine, and it's bubbly and refreshing, and drink it out first thing on your empty stomach, and it's like the the gut is the first brain of the body. They say that your this brain's actually the second brain, that your gut is the first brain, which is why you get like a gut feeling before your brain recognizes it, right? It's a gut feeling. Also, serotonin, which makes us feel happy, 90% of it's produced in your intestines. So if you have poor gut health, you literally are not happy. You are not capable of being at your happiest if you eat like shit.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:55

Not rocket science, guys. The body, this is the little machine.

SPEAKER_02 56:59

So knowing, I don't know how much you you know, how much of this information like you're talking about right now that you had when you first when you got cancer, but obviously you've got a whole lot of it now. If you were if someone was to get cancer today, let's say the same exact cancer that you had, and and then you were to give them advice, I mean, obviously, well, you know, what you did was the mainstream medical stuff, it sounds like mostly maybe some other stuff too.

SPEAKER_04 57:24

But I did other stuff too.

SPEAKER_02 57:25

Yeah, you that whatever you did worked.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

I wasn't trying to play around with like you know, energy work to heal my like I wanted to get I wanted to I want to live. So if you told me that I need chemo, it saved millions of lives. And even though it does damage too, you know, chemo is really, really toxic. I didn't want to take any chances. I was 34.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

Yeah, yeah, very young.

SPEAKER_04 57:54

But I would tell people to do don't just do what your doctor suggests, right? Do your own research, get multiple opinions, and then start cleaning out your life. Clean out your brain, clean out your mind, clean out your heart, clean out your soul. I know this sounds like super woo-woo, but you you get to a point where you need to figure out what's important to you. You need to figure out how to live a peaceful life. Not happy, not joyful all the time, but but peaceful, but okay with what is, okay with where you are, satisfied with what you have, grateful for what you have. If you get more or you achieve more, awesome. But what if you don't? What if you don't? You're just gonna be miserable for the rest of your life because someone else has more than you? Like our mindset is super important for our physical health and for how we show up in the world. And I think that that's what got me through treatment so well. I had very minimal symptoms. I didn't miss a day of work. I did all my workouts, I did my races. I just, you know, every third Monday I sat in a chair in the hospital and worked on my laptop while they pumped my body full of shit. I I did not stop. I just I I couldn't. I couldn't stop. Well, I had this fear that if I stopped, I would die.

SPEAKER_02 59:09

Well, whatever you all the all that stuff you did obviously worked, so good for you. Unfortunately, we're we're out of time. I got do you know do you know Robbie Marshall?

SPEAKER_04 59:20

Sounds familiar.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

That's uh Danny Walker's worker. He's always Danny Walker. He's gonna be on the side. Danny Walker's nice. Yeah, he's a good dude. I think Robbie's right here. There he is. All right, we got I'm gonna be I'm gonna be having a podcast with him afterwards.

SPEAKER_03 59:36

So hi Robbie.

SPEAKER_02 59:37

Time is of the absence. Hi, get in there, get in there and wave to her. This mic, this there we go.

SPEAKER_05 59:43

I saw him in vegan. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Yeah, we're gonna be doing one. I'm trying to do like two of these at a time, it just makes it a little easier.

SPEAKER_04 59:51

So bang them right now. Well, next time I'm in Michigan, I'll come and do one in person.

SPEAKER_02 59:55

Absolutely. If you're in Michigan, you better because we we could, I think, pick up where we left off and and talk about more. I'd I'd love to.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

Can we do like the hot wings like during the interview, like where we taste consecutively hotter hot sauces on wings?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:09

We can of course we can. We can do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:11

I feel like it needs to happen. We could really make something of this.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:14

We could have a lot of fun. I mean, yeah, there's there's all kinds of wild things. I I made this this podcast on purpose, not to be like specifically about just spray foam stuff. Like let's have fun with the people, you know, that we know that we get to see at these events and stuff like that. So thanks so much for being on, Candace. Thanks for for hitting me up and and getting me to to get back to the studio.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:35

So yeah, thanks for having me. Super grateful and hope something that we talked about resonates with with some of your listeners. You know, it's it's never too late to start.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, lots of lots of good information. I hope a lot of a lot of people will listen to that and kind of get some motivation. So all right. Well, have a good night and I'll catch you next time.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:55

All right, we'll see you later. Have a good night.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:57

See you, Candace. Thanks.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:58

Bye.