Carl Daikeler - Co-Founder & CEO of Beachbody | Ending The Imperfection Economy

I never had the luxury of thinking that income and business wasn't entitlement. I've always had to solve problems the first year that we were in business. We were doing okay, but we got a contract one month before we ran out of money. Today's guest, Karl Dijkler, saw the fitness industry through a different lens. Over two decades ago, he co-founded Beachbody. He wanted to solve a problem bridging the gap between fitness and nutrition, so people could see results that actually last. I want to lucky ones that I don't have quit in my vocabulary. I do say it's very difficult to be blessed with the surroundings that give you the opportunity to build those muscles a lot. Karl's vision evolved from unique fitness DVDs to iconic programs, like P90X and 21 Day Fix, transforming living rooms into family wellness centers. They've taken fitness into the digital era. So many people limit themselves based on where they think they've got enough talent to succeed when if they've got enough desire to succeed for anybody who might be thinking about quitting. It's not that construct that is quit or not, it's the mission or passion, and that's what you say committed to. But what really sets Beachbody apart, Karl calls it participation marketing. A groundbreaking approach where customers can share their journey, inspire others, and even get rewarded for it, prepared to be inspired by Karl Dijkler's journey, one that's redefining fitness for millions around the world. The best entrepreneurs, most successful ones, dismiss the concept of work, life balance. I believe that the mission of helping people achieve their goals, how's usual selling lives, more important to me than perhaps finding a miracle kill. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show, and I'm happy they are because I'm a huge believer in HubSpot. I've used it for everything from this show to all the companies I've ever run in the past. And I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs in the audience, and let me ask you a question. If you're an entrepreneur, you have to figure out marketing, either you're doing yourself or you have a team. And do you ever feel like your marketing team is just running from fire to fire? Creating endless content, launching campaigns, generating leads, scoring them, nurturing them, and just when you put out that one fire, three more pop-up. These days marketers have never been more spread than. That's where HubSpot and his new built-in AI Assistant Breeze come in. When you combine the power of marketing hub and content hub, every quarter can be your best quarter. Imagine AI that instantly remixes your content for any channel. Smart leads scoring that automatically spot lights your hottest prospects, and an AI-powered analytic suite that puts all your KPIs in one place. Plus AI co-pilots and agents that handle those time-consuming tasks that you've been juggling. Stop spreading yourself thin. Marketing is tough enough. Building a business is tough enough. Stop putting your fires. Start making major moves with HubSpot. Visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more. Carl, I'm very excited to do this today. It's going to be a lot of fun. You've mentioned many times that sort of your formative years, your early life experience really shaped who you are as an entrepreneur. I think that's a great place to start. Just to take people back, what were those inflection points or the early life experiences pushed you on the path you're on today? I would say that the most interesting stuff was when I was a kid, my family worked in theater. We owned a playhouse outside of Philadelphia called the Bucks County Playhouse. A summer stock type of theater, musicals, and things like that. I think it was like a 400-seat theater, and I got the ability to work really at a young age, running and managing the sound design, or lighting, or the concession stand, or the parking lot, and much younger than you would normally expect somebody to have that kind of responsibility. I had to step up and I had to figure it out on my own and sideways to overcome problems. I never had the luxury of thinking that income and business was an entitlement. I've always had to solve problems, and I've always had the reality, the coexistence of there going to be problems, and there's going to be problems that don't even present themselves with solutions, and that has only served me particularly when, like recently, we've been dealing with just a very difficult environment in homelessness and nutrition business, and that has challenged my stamina in every way. But if I hadn't built that up at a young age, and I hadn't been through fire, I don't know that I would have been able to make it through it, but I literally, and lucky, I'm one of the lucky ones that I don't have quit in my vocabulary, and I think that's the primary distinction of entrepreneurs who don't make it, and those that just make sure that they can survive long enough to come up with another idea and keep going. I love that, and it's so funny, because I've interviewed so many people, and sort of the one takeaway is, in entrepreneurship, when you're building your own thing, at every level, there's going to be things that happen to you almost daily, that the average person who's never tried to build something, it would absolutely destroy them, it would turn them away from entrepreneurship forever, it would make them run in the absolute opposite direction, but it's just so interesting that you leaned into that from such a young age, and it's just really benefit, because I think that's one of the personality traits it. I don't know, do you feel like that can be hot, or is that just something that is just nature versus nurture? It's just something that you always had growing up because of your parents because of your upbringing? That's, I mean, certainly your parents, and this is what's tough to these days, like we are taught to seek comfort and certainty, and parents and systems and institutions are designed to protect, and which is very healthy in many respects, but also kids are not being challenged the way that might lend them to be better entrepreneurs. So while I do think it's something that can be learned, I do think it's very difficult to be blessed with the surroundings that give you the opportunity to build those muscles of learning. So that's where I got lucky. And then, to any extent that I had the disposition to push through and have that grit, then I would equate it to Michael Jordan, right? Everybody knows the story that the guy got cut the first time he went out for the basketball team in high school, and at least I believe that's the story. And that's outrageous, like such amazing talent, but then you read the stories of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. And these guys are the first ones in the gym and the last ones to lead. And you add that to talent, and that's when it's unstoppable. And the problem is so many people limit themselves based on where they think they've got enough talent to succeed, when if they've got enough desire to succeed, you can figure out how to solve for the talent problem. But the question is, how bad do you want it? And are you willing to coexist without rageous obstacles and pain? And then you can overcome any. So obviously the first version of entrepreneurship that you had is at a very young age, but I'm sure that you've gone through sort of these other journeys and you tried to build other things throughout your career. I'm assuming a lot of them have not been successful. Obviously we only know you for the successful ones, but even walk me through like that framework, totally agree. But every entrepreneur is also going to have a lot of things that didn't work out. So applying that mindset of persevering, being in it for the long haul, knock giving up, how do you balance that with, okay, this idea is not working and I want to move on to something else. Because they're two conflicting ideas that are very important to balance that will eventually to success because if you stuck on that idea that didn't work, that you started 20 years ago, well, then you wouldn't have had the success you have today. So how do you balance those two sort of conflicting ideologies? That's a really good question. And I think I don't think anybody can appropriately answer that within a formulaic way. Because it sort of depends on how much is it burning inside you to create your category and to sign your category. Look, the, I guess a good example is the first, the first fitness video I ever did was called Eight Minute Apps. That was for a different company that I ran with an entrepreneur named Lance Funston called that company was Teleamerica. And so this was just an idea I needed it for myself. I thought it would be help me stay consistent could eight minutes a day, how hard could that be? And I remember with the success of Eight Minute Apps on selling through TV, I said to Lance, look, there's something here that's really compelling, I think providing information on how to work out at home through at that time it was VHS turned into the DVD and now it's digital. But, you know, in an environment where people say they got to go to the gym or they got to spend money on a trainer or just jog their way to fitness. This is a very compelling way and cost of fish, a cost of fishing way for people to get results. So let's do more of these. I got a bunch of other ideas and he said, no, I want to pursue this other angle that the business had also a media angle. And so now that was a company that he and I started together to be a marketing and media company. But I saw this other opportunity that I was very clear on. So that's what I chose. So chose that opportunity and pursued it, but I didn't, but I had to do another job in the meantime, because I was already to pursue that. I had to start a whole other company. So before I started that company, I did, I had a little business with the Infomercial Company, Gaffee Ranker, where we created this sort of, for an online matchmaking dating service that we did through radio and then match.com came along and so that business didn't work, but we did okay for two years. But over the course of those two years, I formulated other ideas and then I was writing to raise money and pursue this other concept. But even then, I remember the first year that we were in business, we were doing okay, but we weren't well-financed. So like we were selling a product called Syntized Guaranteed and Great Buns Guaranteed and Great Ab's Guaranteed, but it wasn't enough to pay everybody's salary. I wasn't pulling a salary, but we got a contract, a consulting contract, one month before we ran out of money to help a company that was marketing Lasik services. So at the same time that we started to develop our first big Infomercial Program, I had this consulting contract to build this Lasik business, which kept us in business. And so all of it is creativity. And if I ran out of capital, it would have been done and then I would have started over and another way. So it all is iterations and it's never going to be a straight line, do I quit or do I not? Here's another good example, Scott. So when programs like P90X and Insan, the power 90 and all these things that people know, were so incredibly successful at people getting results. And then wanting to, you know, somebody would see them like, how'd you lose just the pounds? And I was like, I'm doing this thing, P90X. And I had people saying in our message boards, if I could have a nickel or a dollar for every time somebody bought P90X because they saw my results, I'd be rich. And I thought, wait, that's really interesting because that's really a true thing. Somebody loses a lot of weight. Everybody around them, it's got credibility. It's like, I hope I'm marketing, that's my buddy. And so I want to do that. So we said, how can we be a catalyst to that kind of initiative? So we went into the network marketing business or what's known as multi-level marketing. And so that was the way for people who were customers to monetize their health and fitness. That worked for us incredibly well for 17 years. Well, let's say incredibly well for 14 years. And then we started to see it decay. And the model got antiquated and unpredictable, which is not a good formula for a public company. But the premise stands that a human being getting results with a health, with a fitness and nutrition program is better marketing than any company can do on its own. So we just shifted it. So some would say, we quit on multi-level marketing. And our art, yeah, but I see it. But you still take all the learnings and you keep rolling them into the next thing, again and again and again. And it's changing slightly. And there's nuances to how this thing is a little bit different than the last thing. But I see what you're saying. You could look outside, you know, outside looking in, you say you quit. But ultimately, it's just different iterations. It's evolution more than quit. Exactly. And so for anybody who might be thinking about quitting, here's the process I go through. I go through all this weekly, certainly, sometimes daily. What is my mission? Yeah, I want to make money. But at some point I'm going to make a lot of money and the question is, am I still on this mission? Our mission is to help people achieve their goals and lead healthy, fulfilling lives. What's the most compelling way to help those people achieve their goals and lead healthy, healthy, fulfilling lives? By seeing other people that they know, get those results. So when, so against that test, I go 170 million people, overweight or obese in the US alone. That tam, the whole fitness industry has barely dipped a teaspoon into that ocean of tam. So I fully believe that we're just getting started. We just need the business model to be right. And that's what you'll quit on. It's not the construct that is quit or not. It's the mission or the goal or the passion. And that's what you stay committed to. I love that. You know, it's so crazy to me. And I'm sure people that are listening to this are going to echo this too. Because you're still telling me after all the success that you've had, and this is how I know that you're actually mission driven, after all the success that you've had, and after all the programs that you've rolled out that are quite literally household names, like people know the names of all the programs you were rolled out. And we can talk about, you know, new ones, some why they were more successful than others, but even now you're still like, I'm still learning, I'm still iterating, I'm still targeting this tam because we've only barely touched it. By any other measures of success as an entrepreneur, like you could probably never work again. But it just goes to show you, I mean, if you want to, I mean, that's the whole other story. But by most people's definition, you've already achieved massive success in what you've done. When you have household name products, that's incredible. But it is, it's being mission driven, that I would bet, without really knowing you that well, it's out of just the past 10 minutes of us chatting, like you still feel like there's so much incredible, an incredible amount more to do with the people that you serve. And that's why you're still rolling out new things, iterating, proving evolve. No longer you go, I think, the hotter your ambition burns. And I think, you know, everything's a razor's edge. You gotta balance that to not make it miserable on yourself. But like I used to have a, well, when I would pull into my parking spot with the office, instead of having my name on my parking spot, I had my metrics. So I wanted 10 million subscribers of our digital platform, two million subscribers of our nutrition platform. And I wanted one million what we would call partners. And that was people in the network, okay? You know, right now I'm in about maybe 10% or less of all those numbers. So this is eight years ago, that was my objective. And I'm not there, and I fully expect to achieve that still. 60 years old, been doing this for 26 years. And they were like, wow, what a career. I'm like, I literally can tell you, Scott, I feel like I've been doing this for six months. Like I feel like I just got started. It does not feel like people, I was with a bunch of people who've been working with us for two decades. And they were reminding me of things that happened. And I'm like, wow, it seems like we've been doing this so long. And I feel like we just got started this year. So, you know, maybe that's the way I'm wired, or maybe that's just what happens when you really are this committed. You know, there's this argument about with entrepreneurs. And I don't know, the best entrepreneurs that I know, the most successful ones, dismiss the concept of work life balance because their work is so important and gives them so much joy. And that is the thing that they are determined to achieve. And so work life balance, why you want to meet your obligations to family and friends and so on. Work life balance as a goal is far less important than achieving the mission that I set out for. And I'm lucky to be wired that way. I just want to take a second and thank the HubSpot Podcast Network for supporting success story. Now, if you enjoy success story, you're going to love other podcasts in their network like Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller. If you've ever wondered why some businesses take off, while many struggle, Donald Miller takes the mystery out of growing your business with actionable strategies that you can implement today, whether you're trying to build a stronger team, craft a clearer message or boost your bottom line, Business Made Simple delivers the frameworks that you need to succeed. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcast. I think it's beautiful. I think that just means that you're aligned with your purpose. I truly believe that's what it means. Like when you, after 20 plus some years at 60 years old, and you're like, I just feel like this fresh energy, and I feel like I've just started this new thing. My God, that is like absolute alignment with what you should be doing in your life. I don't think many people have the privilege of feeling that feeling, but I wish more would. And maybe they can get some inspiration as to, this is how it should feel when you're actually doing the thing that you're meant to be, you know, you're meant to do. I, just to back up a little bit, I think it's very interesting just to understand because you spent, again, 20 plus years in health, the wellness and nutrition of fitness, out of anything that you could have taken on or anything that you could have started, what was the, what was your reason? Like what was your inflection point that pushed you into health and wellness and fitness? Because there's obviously something there that you wanted to solve for in your own life with the eight minute abs and sort of like your first product that you worked on. Yeah. I think this is where any entrepreneur will get a little edge when they're solving a problem that is, that they have. And that's the, that's the way I thought about it when we were creating power 90 originally back in 2000. I can remember others in the infomercial industry were like, wait a minute, you're gonna show people doing squats and push ups and curls and working hard and sweating. That's all we do with infomercials. You need to show how easy it is and everybody's smiling and that there's no sweat. And I thought, well, that's exactly why I'm not buying these products because I know that's not gonna work. So what I want is show me the one that's gonna work. So I thought, if that's the way I'm wired, there's gotta be a million of me in a country this large. And if there's a million of me and I'm gonna sell this thing for around a hundred bucks, well, that's a hundred million dollar business. And so let me start there. And that's really been the premise for 26 years. Like I'd not obviously, not all the products that we've created are designed for me. But there's a component of me understanding and this is really a competitive advantage that we've got. We've been doing this so long that we really understand the obstacles and problems that people have, which means we're not just selling, we're not selling a product anymore. We are solving problems. So, you know, I'm surrounded by our posts. Shakeology is a good example. I really don't like vegetables. Now I've, as I've matured, I've found a way to sort of hide them in food stuff. But I don't like them. So I said to the team, is there, like if I can do a shot at tequila, certainly you can give me something that's a shot of the healthy that is gonna be disgusting and I'll be able to drag it back. And that's when I learned about the potency of super foods and greens blends and certain fibers that are more effective and clean protein versus protein than you're not sure about. And like, hey, you put that all together and you can actually make it taste good. And I was like, well, I would, I'd be 10 bucks for that every day. Like if I'm gonna go to a fast food place and pay five, six, seven bucks, certainly I'd pay 10 bucks for something that was a serving of that much healthy stuff. Well, we did it for less than half that price, which at the time compared to protein shakes, looked really expensive. But we need to think about what it's doing. Like it's a trip to the friggin salad bar for a guy who hates the salad bar and I'm not getting the gel with marshmallows in it. I need to get the vegetables. So now I get in the chocolate shake each day. That was solving my problem. And I remember, again, as we were marketing it, this is the importance of knowing that this is gonna be good for me. If we have one customer, then it's gonna be worth it. Because everyone around me is like, no way can you sell a product like this for four or five bucks a serving. Like I'll compare it to protein shakes. And I said, I need this. I like, I am not regular. I am not feeling energetic. I'm relying on caffeine too much for my energy. So I need this. And if we can make it taste even decent, I'm gonna drink this every day. And sure enough, that thing took off 15 years ago. We sold over a billion servings of shake biology. Some people still don't get it. They're like, oh, that overpriced shake that you've got. They don't know the amount of testing that goes in this. And the amount of testing that goes in this to make sure it's got the potency that we expect, right? Because you've got, you got ingredients coming in and you got to make sure that it's not being cut, that it's not being diluted. So the supplier gets more margins. We got to test it to make sure it's as potent as it says, both on receipt and when we deliver the product and I know and I make sure that that product lives up to what I expect because I have had this shake every day for over 15 years. Like, that's how much I live it. So I won't. That's a good endorsement. I'm gonna let the tent wear it in a quarter. And I've had finance people sharpen their edges and think, oh, I'm gonna go in there and we are gonna turn this thing into a project making machine. I would love that. But not at the expense of the one thing I consume every day that I know is super good for me on the inside. So, and that's the way you create distinction in your life. And you got to find ways to be competitive and pricing and all that stuff, but ultimately, and I'm not trying to promote my stuff necessarily. No, I get it though, I get what you're saying. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. You build it for yourself. That's the thing. You build it for yourself. Whether somebody's making music, I saw a producer, Rick Rubin. He was asked on this podcast, do you think about what the audience wants when you're making me music? And he's like, not at all. I'm creating music that if I love it, I know the audience. Somebody in the audience is gonna love it. I just need to make sure that I love it. And we just wrapped on the production of a program called Bell's a Tao, which is a women's hormone health program and we were producing these workouts that are like a Pilates machine for like hundreds of the expense. And this production is so gorgeous. Like I'm watching the art form of this production come together. And I'm like, I don't know if this is gonna sell 10 million copies, a million copies, or 10,000 copies, but it is a trigon work of art. And that's how I know it's gonna be successful. But I'm sure that like kind of like Rick Rubin, who's just done this for so long that he just understands when something's going to be a hit. I'm sure that after you've done like, okay, so the program's that you've done over your career. So you've done P90X, Insanity, you've done Beachbody now, Body. But I'm sure there's other ones that I'm not aware of. These are the ones that I knew about because I did some of these too, when I was trying to lose weight. So I know these programs. It's been 34 of them. All of them. We've got 100% of our different programs from Brazil, but lift, hip hop abs, slim and six, turbo jam, 21 day six, 80 day obsession. You know, all of the Insanity's Insanity Max 30, T25. I could you know, morning meltdown 100, like wildly different themes, but all designed around an objective for helping like, we did one this summer. Here's a really interesting example. You would sing that after 26 years, we've covered all the ground. Well, we did want, if you've ever heard of primal movement training, okay, which is sort of like we went around like an animal, like an ape and you're on the ground and you're learning this stuff. And it really, it's all your joints. And we had this trainer at least shown. And I said, she's a yoga instructor. And I said, I want to combine it. I can't stay in yoga, but I need it. And I said, can you give me something that's like power yoga, but don't make me stay in still so long. So, and I'm going to be traveling a lot this summer. So I need a program that has no equipment. And I want it to be done in 20 minutes so that I know I'm going to get the job done. She created a six week program called the Body Lava, B-O-D-I Lava. 20 minutes a day, power yoga and primal moves, and it's outrageously good. It's like a fountain of youths. It took us 26 years to come up with that idea. But the reason that we came up with that idea is because we had 130, three programs that weren't that. And they were like, well, wait, there's still a little gap in the catalog. And that's the fun part of the job. That's why the job's not done. And there's still, you know, the list of things we have in development is a mildly, I mean, when you look for gaps in health and wellness, how do you know if something's going to be a hit? Because again, you've done like hundreds of programs at this point, you have, again, like Rick Rubin, I feel like you have this intuitive sense when something's missing. So maybe just comment on how people like to work out, what type of things work for them, because that's something that goes into the formula. Most obvious answer, or I think distinct answer for us is we test it. So, and that's very different that like first off, you've got a distinct timeline. So by lava is six weeks, bell to towel coming out this December, that's 12 weeks before it even goes in production. We test it on a test group of between 25 to 100 people and make sure that they're following what we would expect to be the appropriate program, including the fitness and the nutrition and if there's appropriate supplements for that program. And we have had examples where we tested a concept that was really unique on paper, but didn't get the results and we kill it. So something doesn't go into production unless we know it's going to get results. And if there's anything that I'm proud of about the body company, it's, we are the results company that I'm not a company that's just about checking the box. Like I checked the box, I did my workout. I want people to know that if they show up for 21 days, 30 days, 60 days, 98, whatever the lights of that program is, the results or the outcome and the ceiling that they expected is what will be achieved because we tested it first. And that's how we know. Again, like 26 years, amazing. How is your personal philosophy on health and wellness sort of evolved over those 26? That's a really good question because it really has changed a lot. I used to be, you know, I told the story that I don't like vegetables. And I also was not, I'm not an exercise now. I would say as recently as this year, as I turned 60, I had to check myself because that, if the even that mentality, even though it's sort of clever for the shitness company to say, I don't like working out, but I do it because our programs are great. But I also know that's not serving me. So I no longer have the option of saying, I don't work out. I have to. If I want to, like, I visited my parents at their respective facilities, right? Where they're, you know, what do you call them? Like a care or old age or yeah, it's a care. So, and you know, everybody's got the Walker with the tennis balls or a cane or they're driving around on one of these little scooters. And some of them are in their early 70s. So I'm 60 and I made the decision. I can no longer allow myself to have this intellectual acceptance that I'm not a shitness person because I don't want to be that. I don't want to ever drive a scooter for Disney World with my grandchildren. I don't want to have a cane unless, you know, the something goes on, then it's fine. But if I can avoid the cane or the Walker or the scooter, I'm going to do it, which means so the question, how have I evolved? I've realized that where it used to be aesthetics and vanity and strengths, now it's about the imperative that I maintain my mobility and agility as I age. And now I've got of you on from 60 to 90. I'm saying mobile and active and consistent for as long as possible until they pried the freaking dumbbells out of my hands. So now I'm a fitness person. I love it. And you know, it's actually interesting because this actually mirrors and I'll let you tell this story but this kind of mirrors if I'm not incorrect, you're move away from beach body into body. And I want to understand, I mean, you've created a lot of programs. It sounds like as you've changed your own perspective on what health and wellness, maybe even like not caring so much about aesthetic and more caring about longevity, talk to me about sort of that mental shift, how it impacted your programs, maybe just some like at least we can start, like high level problems that we see in the health and wellness community that ultimately maybe don't serve people the way that they should, these programs, these ideas, these fitness gurus, these diets, these all these things that, I mean, I also come from a sports background and health and wellness. I think there's a lot of toxicity in health and wellness. So yeah, that's a big question. I'll try not to go on too big of a speak. I had to big one, I'm sorry, but it's interesting. I know you have opinions. So I loved the name beach body. It was super fun, gratifying, but it was also very limiting because there were partnerships and applications that were, that we were not just, we were not welcome to participate in. So since renaming the business to just B-O-D-I, which originally stood for beach body on demand interactive, but now to be this clever spelling of body, B-O-D-I, and to drop the sort of gratuitous beach body name, now we did a partnership with the American Diabetes Association because we're not surely associated with how do I seek look or feel in a swimsuit, but how is my body? How is that working? And frankly, right now with the advent of weight loss pharmaceuticals, you got all these people doing GLP ones, and if they don't take control of their lifestyle choices, including getting enough protein, listing and exercising, and they just do the GLP one to lose weight, they're gonna be in real trouble, like real muscular skeletal muscular, I don't know how they go, they're gonna have structural problems, and their metabolism will crater, and it's gonna bow rang on it, and they're gonna have health to pay. So I wanted body to better represent really what we're about, and that is the outrageous health and lifestyle and feeling benefits from doing one single workout. So while we have these programs that are 21 days to 100 workouts, we created this category called health esteem, which is really about acknowledging the fact that when you show up for a workout, just one, you've got something to show for it, and this was a big learning, this is a really a huge impression for me, was that I didn't have to go into the gym and be on the edge of puking in order to feel like I had a good workout, because my entire life and your an athlete, that ceiling of I gave it all in the gym, and I just absolutely destroyed myself, which can get you great results, but it can also make it really intimidating to get back to the gym if you don't have that alpha energy. So we stepped back and said, wait a minute, 170 million people, overweight or obese, maybe they're not looking to blow their brains out in the gym, maybe they're looking to just feel good by showing up. So we created the category of health esteem, which is a play on self esteem, that your self esteem is improving when you're paying attention to your health, and just showing up for yourself is as much a win as the before and after photo. It doesn't need to just be about the before and after photo. The scale, the before and after photo are great metrics, and certainly something to be proud of, but as a guy who got, I got outrageous results when I did PIDX, whatever, 15 years ago. But there's no way I was gonna keep those, there's no way I was gonna keep those kind of results for into my 60s. So now I'm proud of myself that I show up, and I'm consistent about it. That is my before and after, and that's what this shift to body really represents is mature, I love it. And what I was sort of alluding to it, and it's something that I've heard you speak about was like the imperfection economy. And that's really what I, and I just wanna hear your take on that because that's what I was actually alluding to. I didn't realize that beach body was getting sort of blocked from all these great wellness initiatives. Like you mentioned, like the American Diabetes Association and whatnot, but that's sort of like a very specific example of a very specific example of the imperfection economy. I don't even think, I'm gonna say that I don't think beach body at all is as even remotely as bad as some of the stuff that I see online in the imperfection economy or quote unquote health and wellness economy. I think that, I mean social media and fitness influencers and everybody is almost like a zealot about their specific workout regime or diet to the point where they almost shame or look down on other people that are also trying to improve in a slightly different way. I think there's a lot of issue with, like you coined the phrase imperfection economy. I just called it toxic fitness, the guru is online. But talk to me about this whole economy, this sort of bubble that you're fighting against with body, but it's obviously something that a lot of people are getting exposed to when they try and lose weight. Yeah, we were participants with infomercials. And at first I'm very proud of the results that people were getting. But then when it turned into, and I started to wash this within our own customer community, where people would be so hard on themselves if they had a cookie or they didn't finish a program like what I never wanted was the nature of the business to contribute to someone's self-loathing or their own self-esteem. And I think that so coined the phrase imperfection economy, which we were guilty of participating in, and that is, you know, hey, you're not good enough yet. And I don't know that we ever said that literally, but the implication that you need to do this program and then keep going and go to the next level, and the next level. And look, our mission statement is where I don't jail too guilty because it's always been help people achieve their goal to lead a healthy, fulfilling life, not help people lead our standard for a healthy, fulfilling life, which is also why we had to abandon the name Beachbody because what was just a clever little fun name turned into a connotation of some sort of perfect image or ideal body. And we didn't want to participate in that anymore. And it's interesting. And so we've got incredible customers who've had outrageous results that are such inspiration. But I've had some of them say, you know, I've seen them on social media saying, you know, yeah, I'm still calling it Beachbody because that's what it is to me. And it's fine, but they're not really accepting the fact that the company, like this is not Twitter going to X. This is a company evolving its message so that it can be more helpful in helping people achieve their goals and lead healthy people's own lives. And quite frankly, if I think about my kids, who would look over my shoulder at the info commercials that I'm editing, I would get self-conscious if all of a sudden they're seeing me perpetuate an ideal that now I'm teaching them that they have to live up to. And I was no longer comfortable with that prospect. So that's why we started to make these changes and they were not that radical. I mean, we still want people to have a healthy lean body mass, we want them to have muscle. But, you know, I don't want them to starve themselves. I don't want them to, you know, I've watched people with intermittent fasting which can be great, but I have watched friends intermittent fast themselves into an eating disorder because they go, wow, when I skip breakfast, I really started losing weight. I'm going to skip lunch now and I'm going to eat even less for dinner at all the sudden they're eating crumbs and they're miserable. And so anyway, that's the nature of that transition and I think we're still navigating it because results are such good marketing because that's what people aspire to. So you still need the results to market but the message within the product needs to be about like, okay, we have a promotion going right now called work out to win $10,000. That's not about a transformation contest. It's just every time you work out in October, November and December is another entry into that month's $10,000 giveaway. So it's just, it's really a participation. So you show up, you do the work out and maybe I won 10 grand a day, I don't know. So that's what we're trying to reinforce. Show up, do the best you can. And by the way, when you show up that way in the morning, maybe have your shake, the decisions through the rest of the day tend to support that effort that you just put into it versus when you blow the work out off and you're not feeling good, you're still in the season. So I might as well have the extra piece of pizza and I might as well blow off trying to get a vegetable and lunch and so on. Yeah. I want to take a second and thank Range Rover Sports for supporting today's episode. Now, let's talk about tools that match your ambition, that match the ambition of everybody who's listening today, who has taken risks, who has upleveled their personal professional development, who's tried to build their own thing. Everybody listening gets it. There is a moment when the thing you're trying to build, the challenge that you're taking on if finally starts to take off. There is like this rush of excitement and possibility and that feeling, that feeling that you get when you get behind of the wheel of a Range Rover Sport because we've all had that perfect drive when the road, the car and you, you're all in perfect harmony. But that's not just by chance. The Range Rover Sport is designed to make every drive feel that way. And the Range Rover Sport is not just from pressing others, it's how you feel behind the wheel. It's how you feel when things are going the way they're supposed to go. Whether or not you're navigating city streets, you're exploring back roads, the Range Rover Sport combines refinement with a sense of adventure. It matches your own versatile lifestyle with features like adaptive off-road cruise control, you can tackle challenging terrain with confidence, the dynamic air suspension, always make sure you get a smooth ride, it responds to road conditions for optimal performance. So from daily commutes to weekend getaways, the Range Rover Sport is ready for whatever you have planned. It's more than just a vehicle. It is a companion for all of your journey. So if you're ready to elevate your driving experience, visit Land RoverUSA.com and configure your Range Rover Sport today. I think that what you're doing and the way that you're shifting to body is super healthy. But just tell me, because I haven't really, I go out to the gym and I sort of work and do my own thing. But I'm not really a participant. And it's not like I'm getting into this for the first time and I'm curious what you see with other companies in the fitness industry. What is the imperfection economy? What are the standards of marketing? Is it still the before, after in 2024? Is it still the unrealistic expectations? Like somebody who has never really been to the gym and wants to work out and they want to start a program currently outside of body, what did they see when they started to research? You certainly have some of that. I think that fitness is still decentralized. I think since the infomercial, the end of the infomercial has disabled much of that idealism. But I do think that quite honestly, the way GLP1 drugs have been marketed are bringing us back there that it's, I got to get sin at all costs. Like anybody who would prescribe this to somebody who's got to lose 10 pounds, and again, it depends on where somebody is that might be prediabetic, whatever. So I don't want to speak outside my lane. But people going into these drugs as an alternative to lifestyle change, I think is irresponsible. That is the imperfection economy. Just take this injection and everything's going to be okay and it's going to be better, what it's not. And that is the imperfection economy. The imperfection economy is the plastic surgeon who lets somebody come in their office over and over again, get one nose job, ask another, get one chin implant, cheek implants, all these injections and people are constantly now staring at their imperfections and they will never be good enough. And that's the sickness, Scott. That's when it's about trying to feed my ego so that I finally feel good enough. That's the sickness that needs to be healed before you try to lose the 20 pounds and get the nose job. What you want to do is find a way to love yourself enough to take care of yourself, then you're going to have a healthy relationship with whatever you're doing. And that's what we're trying to perpetuate, I guess, for himself. I love that. It's amazing. And I mean, just sort of like shifting over to you as the CEO, as the person sort of leading this charge, how do you make such, not a huge shift, but a significant enough shift between different products and sort of bring that company into the fold and keep that company on board with the mission because keep in mind, you have this idea about the imperfection economy and you have this idea about how this particular product is going to be marketed to customers and all of a sudden, you've done a relatively dramatic shift. Something that's sort of like pushing in a new direction. How do you make sure the company stays on board? How do you keep things rolling in the right direction? What's the strategy to get everybody to buy into this? I'll let you know in a year, you know, it's literally, do it as you go. That right there, this goes back to the beginning. This is the character of the company and the mission that we want to pursue. So, you know, years ago when a Fedra was a Craves and this company, Metabolites, like became like this $2 billion company really fast. And I remember talking to my partner, co-founder, John Cognitt, well, hey, should we take a look at this, a Fedra, and we talked about it a little bit. We both decided that if we go this direction where like we sold supplements, but we call it supplement assisted exercise. It's not a supplement to get the results. It's the exercise to get the results, but the supplements get to enhance. But if we were to go like, hey, take this pill and you'll get these results, you can never turn back. And we're not, that's not achieving the mission and the message that we set out to achieve. So, that's the test. And I've got great people around me who are as passionate, sometimes more passionate about the mission than even I am. So if I come up with an idea and they're like, well, that's not aligned with our mission, then they'll pull me back. And that's why, frankly, that's why it's a powerful company despite the ups and downs. And it's been a rocky road as a public company, but because we refuse to give up on that vision, I think it's a very powerful company and has the opportunity to be the leading brand in health and fitness lifestyle change and doing it the right way. So just stay with it. And we've got trainers that like we added this trainer, Lacey Green, she did a program with us called Four Beginners Only. Like the first program that is literally not about the six-packed, not about the booty and all that, it's just about an on-ramp for a beginner to feel like they're welcome, was a trainer who specializes in making every body CO welcome. And she's fantastic and one of our most popular trainers for to go to regional events that we hold because she just makes everybody feel so good. And when everybody feels good, now they're pursuing health esteem, not just the outcome. And that's nuanced that we add to a company that's known for abs and buns. Would you consider yourself like a visionary as a CEO, in fact, would you consider yourself a visionary or I don't think so? No, my vision is not that long. Because you mentioned before, this is where I was going with that because you mentioned before the your leadership style is more missionary over mercenary. And I was trying to understand how someone else could really understand what missionary leadership is. And the best thing I could think about was visionary. Like you're sort of setting the vision, you're galvanizing everybody around, you're the evangelist for the company. But it's funny that you say that you aren't that. So maybe explain to me why you think you aren't that because I think you are, to be honest. But I mean, you know yourself better, obviously. I think I'm a disciplined opportunist. That's what it is. So you got all these opportunities in front of you. And the question is weighing them based on how they might intrude or help people solve a problem. So I'm just, this is why I don't know that it's it's visionary. I'm just dealing with all the pieces that I see in front of me and the problems that we're experiencing. And then what I am with all this experience, experience and a discipline of focus lets you put pieces together that other people whose priority might be how do I make all the money right or how do I knock somebody off who's already doing something. They're not focused on the problem. They're focused on how do I make money? How do I create market? And we're focused on, wait a minute, this is still a problem here. Let's try to put these pieces together. Wait, look at that little piece. That's really part of the problem. We're so focused on that. That's where breakthroughs happen that create billions of dollars of opportunity. And that's what P9X was. Even Tony Horton didn't want to do P9X. But I said, look, there are some people who if they don't see crazy extreme aspiration they will think it's not gonna work for me because they only get these kind of results in the gym. And I said, I want something extreme as I go into my forties. I've never had a six pack and I've never really felt like I was as strong as I could. So that's what I want. And so we were just taking signals that we were getting and putting them together. So if that's vision, okay, then that's vision. But I didn't see the idea of connected shittiness that Peloton executed incredibly well. I didn't see that coming or the need for that. But it was a great alternative to going to a gym to do a spin class, right? And so it was great vision. I think it appeals to a probably a more narrow layer of people than perhaps the market expected. But great vision off of that point then. So then what do you mean by missionary over mercenary style leadership? What does that mean then? I believe that the mission of helping people achieve their goals and help us all selling lives is more important to me. It is a both a bigger opportunity and more important to me than perhaps finding a miracle till that might give people the results and make us a lot of money, but will not solve the problem that we've set out to solve. And that is the importance of movement, the importance of nutrition. That doesn't mean I would reject these things. But like we've had many offers to incorporate a semi-glutite or a GLP one into our ecosystem. And I'm not saying I would never do it. I'm saying it might be a component of something that we would look at, but it would never replace the priority of helping people keep moving and eat better and reduce sugar. So like that's always the priority. If we can help some people who are really struggling with a GLP one and we have no plans to currently. So I'll be spreading rumors, but I'm just saying as an example, mercenary would be like, whoa, GLP one is gonna be a $200 billion business. Where can I get it? How can we do it? How can we participate? That's just not the problem I'm trying to solve. I'm trying to solve the lifestyle problem and that's where we need to stay focused. That's missionary, and I also think that frankly, since everybody needs it, it is also opportunistic, but not to the point where I'm, oh, okay. I think where missionary and mercenary are at odds is where the desire, the mercenary, the desire for profit and revenue undermines the mission or rounds a corner on the mission. That's the difference, I think. One thing that you've spoken about before that I think is interesting, and I want to understand where this sort of thought came from. If it, if it, when you say be aware and to be cautious of falling into the social media trap, are you speaking about, are you speaking about when you're building a business? Are you speaking about more about the actual end user of programs looking at their progress? Why is like just, you know, in your world, why is social media sort of, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why social media is a red flag for people, but why is social media sort of a red flag or something to be cautious of for you? Nothing will make you more miserable than comparing yourselves to somebody else's fiction on their social media scene. And the more you pay attention to certain sictional portrayals of people and their real lives or their lack of problems, the more the algorithm will serve that to you more, those kind of stories, the more you will start to feel bad about yourselves if you're not behaving in a way that would direct you that way or if you're encountering problems or difficulties in judging yourself against somebody else's discipline or ability to show up or their body fat percentage, that's just a recipe for misery. You have a huge community. I'm assuming that mental health and wellness and not comparing your wellness to somebody else is on social media. That has to be a message that you're just trying to repeatedly put out to the people that are taking your programs because I'll tell you, you know, it's so interesting. I've seen, you mentioned before and after pictures, I've seen before and after pictures of fitness influencers that really just change the lighting or change the angle of camera in the before picture and the after picture and they look like totally different people. It could be six months apart between the before and after but ultimately it was like two minutes difference. So that's the social media, especially people that are on this health and wellness journey, weight loss journey, physical health journey, it can be so disheartening and so demoralizing to look at what somebody else looks like or what they've achieved. And I think that can mindset's half the battle, right? So if you keep comparing yourself, it's just gonna be super unhealthy. Totally agree. And I don't think anybody's immune, like, you know, you got to be pretty special and have some sort of zen-like confidence or comfort with yourself to not beat yourselves up. And that is, frankly, part of the wellness battle. That is part health esteem is understanding where you are in life, what challenges do you have? And forgiving yourself when life knocks you down and applauding yourself when you got the resilience to get back up. After 26 years in this industry, you've mentioned a few things that have sort of kept your company alive and well and relevant but looking back just for entrepreneurs that are listening, what would be some wisdom that you could give them so that their companies could have a 26-year life spanning? That's phenomenal. You know, I've had maybe five or six rushes with Dash or, you know, existential periods running this company for 26 years. And there's a reason for that. One is the market changes around us. So we have to adapt and really try to sink out ahead or we got complacent and didn't keep up. Or things happen in the marketplace and the return on investment of certain things didn't keep up. So survival, which is the whole game, means keeping track and this is very business sort of 101. Know how much cash you need to be able to weather a difficult storm. You know, we saw so many companies fail during the pandemic and just brutal, but who would have thought that you needed to have 18 months of capital stored up while the whole world was upside down? Like you would never necessarily know that, but these are the environments to make sure that the way you manage debt, the way you manage cash flow and distributions of that cash and the way you even risk your own personal situation against the companies all contribute to making sure that you're gonna be able to survive a difficult period of time. Likewise, never let the good times intoxicate you because I guarantee they're not going to last and you better figure out what the reinvention is going to be when it comes because at best you've got six years. More likely you're on a two to three year cycle but when things are really killing it, at best you are gonna find yourself in an existential situation in six years. That's been my experience and if you don't have an innovation and an approach that is a real reinvention by six years, you're probably gonna be in trouble. We've been lucky to stay ahead of that curve just enough. You know, we've gone through a lot of great topics. What would be one thing that I should have asked you, one question or one piece of wisdom that you think would like to leave the audience with before we wrap up? Wait, you should've said, how can I get some of that shake? Yeah, no, no, I already know the answer to that. Listen, I got that, you're gonna get, we'll get all those links. I'm gonna get some because I also hate eating vegetables and I also try and find other ways to get around eating like a full salad at every meal and I get me fun of but whatever it's my thing, now I have a kindred spirit. I'm one of the million who's like you. So I'm gonna get some of that but we'll put all those links in the show notes and I'll dig advantage. I'll do a little bit of self-promotion or one concept that I really love about this company, okay? So the one thing, if you're saying, it's also one thing that is a, what they call a USP or a unique selling proposition that you think is outrageous about body, here it is. The fact that we continue to combine the desire to lead a healthier lifestyle, start working out more consistently, start eating more healthy and we combine that with the opportunity for anybody to monetize that with an affiliate program. Used to be the network and we transitioned that now to an affiliate program that is super simple, that literally anybody can say, hey, you know what? I'm gonna do this program, let's call it, they're gonna do the Belle de Tau program that comes out in December, 12th week program for women and they say, let's let's use the Belle de Tau for women and dig deeper, Shaunti's lifting program, the 12th programs for men. So you're gonna do one of these two programs, but it might be a little bit more motivating for you to do it if you know that doing it and sharing about it could actually make you real one. And the fact that we've combined that so anybody can make, you know, so let's say you're gonna do dig deeper and you tell your audience that you're gonna do dig deeper and you give them your link that you get from our affiliate program, you make up the 50% of the revenue that's generated, like that's real money. And you deserve that because you're the one initiating that inspiration for people to get involved. And I think that is really unique in the space, you know, like, look, you don't need another fancy piece of equipment. There is no fitness, nutrition, breakthrough that's gonna change everything. It's really just about the little decisions and stacking them up consistently. And how do you do that? You layer on motivators and you have a good program that's fun to stick with. That's dig deeper, that's Belle de Tau. And now the addition of a monetary reward for sharing it with other people. And I think that's really unique in that. And you don't need to be a health and fitness expert to wanna inspire people or create a group, people who are gonna do it with you. But if you get five people to do with you, you deserve the 500 bucks that that should come from that. I'll tell you something, like that's such a great marketing strategy. And I see like how all the different ways that you've marketed over the life of the company, they've led you to this. It's so smart, a lot of businesses should adopt it. I don't think many do because if you find something that impacts your life in the way that any of your programs impact your life, you're gonna talk about it with your friends and family anyways. Because this is huge, just imagine, imagine, you couldn't find a program, you hate going to the gym, you don't play an organized sport anymore, you're not part of a league, you find something you could do from your own house, and it changes your life, your healthier, you feel better, more energy, you talk about that. So it's very smart to sort of incentivize. It worked great in the network model, but then we found that people would go, oh, is that one of those MLMs? And then they'd like no thanks. They would reject the premise just because the business model, so we had to move the business model out, simplify it. And now it's just like you see influencers in the shaleats. And apparently there's research that says that 54% of the people with full-time jobs age 18 to 60. People age 18 to 60 who have full-time jobs, 54% of them would love to make money as an influencer if that was an option to them. That's a lot of people. The goodness is, 170 million of them are overweight or obese, and could combine that desire with the need to take care of themselves better. And I think that's a really unique thing about body, and that's what I'm super proud of. I love it. Okay, so where can people go? So what are the links places you want to send people? Because you got a lot of stuff going on, so where do they go? Keep it simple, just go to body.com. V-O-D-I dot com. And it's all going to be right there. You scroll around, you can find the affiliate program, you can buy individual programs, you don't have to subscribe to the platform, like you can just buy, if you want to dig deeper, you can buy that. If you want to delve a towel in December, you can buy that. Shakeologies in there. So that's the best way to just roam around and see what I'll look for you. Are you on social? Do you want to drop your own handles or no? You just send people the body and hook up. I don't care if you will follow me. Okay, cool. Last question I always ask everybody, you've had a great career, you could go back and tell your 20 year old self one piece of advice, what would that thing be? I would say, hey, look, you're gonna, you're gonna get frustrated and think, you don't know where this is going, and it's gonna be hard, but if you stay focused and don't let yourself get distracted, you will see the answer as long as you refuse to give up. That's what I would say to this. I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say.