Ep 005 Brent Laffey

Tom Regal: 0:02

Hey, Kenny.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:03

Hey, Tom!

Tom Regal: 0:03

How are you today?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:04

I'm doing great. How are you?

Tom Regal: 0:05

I'm great we have an awesome sponsor for this episode and Carbon Culture, which is an exclusive gym and nutrition studio for those who are looking to take their fitness up a level. And they operate their gyms here and Franklin, Murfreesboro, and also moving to Dallas, Texas.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:23

Go Texas!

Tom Regal: 0:24

Go Texas!

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:25

So what's really cool too is they're more than just a gym. They provide a one stop shop complete with a range of personalized services to make that every workout count.

Tom Regal: 0:32

And and they've just added to to add to that Carbon Performance. Carbon Performance, their new fitness program that's being led by Abby McReynolds.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 0:43

Yeah. And for those folks that don't know Abby McReynolds, make sure you stop by and say Hi, she's an absolute Rockstar with over a decade of experience in in this space. And she's the one that that helped coordinate, putting together Carbon Performance. And one of the things I love is her quote on the website, which is Count your blessings and eat your protein. I think that's great.

Tom Regal: 1:01

Nice. Yeah, it's great. And this Carbon Performance program provides a little something for everybody. So they've got yoga, they've got barre, they've got strength, they've got HIIT classes.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:12

Yeah. And if you haven't tried HIIT, it's high intensity interval training. It does cardio equipment and dumbbells, it's, it'll, it's a buttkicker. And their Barre classes, awesome. It focus on isometric movements paired with kind of a mind body connection to achieve that maximum activation for each muscle. If you haven't tried Barre and want to try it, it's it's a really good one. their strength class is great. It's primarily on barbell and dumbbell exercises. Really good stuff.

Tom Regal: 1:40

And don't forget they have a signature class, right? It's called C40.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 1:43

Yeah, and C40 is their their signature one, I think that Abby's really, really spent a lot of time putting together for Carbon Performance. And it's a rotation of mixture, both strength and cardio. So you get the best of both worlds, you get 40 seconds on 20 seconds off several rounds. Every class at Carbon has a has a challenge at the end. It's really cool.

Tom Regal: 2:02

So this is perfect. is perfect for us getting back to training and a group, for those or not, you know, haven't been training at all. And finally getting back and building those relationships, its a great atmosphere, great culture. And you know, we get to hold each other accountable. Which again, which is nice.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 2:18

Yeah. And that's really important. And what's really cool if you go to their website, they've got over 30 classes a week right now. So there's a class for everybody. You can find him at carbonculture-USA.com. Go check them out. Awesome.

Tom Regal: 2:30

And now let's get to the episode.

Narrator: 2:42

Welcome to the athletes in motion podcast, from race to recovery. With your hosts, Tom Regal, and Kenny Bailey.

Tom Regal: 3:01

Hey, Kenny,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 3:02

Tom, how are you?

Tom Regal: 3:03

Fantastic today, how are you? Good.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 3:05

I want to introduce you to Brent laughy.

Brent Laffey: 3:07

Nice to meet you guys. Pleasure.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 3:08

So Brent is the president of Armada nutrition. also the founder of Carbon Culture, you've got a place in Franklin, Tennessee, Murfreesboro, and plans for world domination after that, right. Is that? Is that kind of how it goes?

Brent Laffey: 3:22

in my head. Not on paper......(laughs)

Kenny Bailey<br>: 3:23

Well you have to just start someplace. Right?

Tom Regal: 3:26

Yeah. Well, welcome.

Brent Laffey: 3:27

Thank you very much.

Tom Regal: 3:28

We're really really excited.

Brent Laffey: 3:29

Yeah, this place is great. By the way.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 3:31

I appreciate it. Thank you. So what we wanted to talk about on this podcast today was kind of a little bit about some of the background how you started Armada. Want to talk a little bit more about nutrition, we have a lot of our listeners that are endurance athletes, that are power athletes, kind of what's going on in the nutrition space. I have a 20 year old son that takes more, you know, pre workout than I think he should. So I'm a little curious on what he's doing there. So just talk a little bit that and then talk about sort of professionally, how you you're the president of a pretty large nutrition company, you also own a couple of gyms and somehow you're you know, not in bad shape. So how do you maintain that balance? And the last thing we want to talk about is Carbon's got some group classes and some cool stuff coming up. So with that, how, how did how did Armada start? Was it accidental? Or was it something that you like, this is what I want to do or do you just fall into it by selling like, you know, stuff out of the trunk of a buick?

Brent Laffey: 4:24

Yeah, somewhere kind of in between. It was I was very lucky out of college, went to school for business, had a huge passion in nutrition. Family had always been in the food business. So it's kind of in my DNA. Dinner talk was always around food the food industry, but I started gravitating towards supplementation as I played college football. So ultimately, I knew I wanted, I didn't...... I love Personal Training, love lifting, but I love money. I knew that there had to be a business side to it. So I got very lucky through connections and worked for a company called Prinova, right out of college first job. So I've really in a sense, never had a, I've had one job since college. But Prinova is the world's largest distributor of amino acids, vitamins, proteins. And they were big into food, but they weren't big into nutrition. Now, this was 15, 16 years ago. So they actually gave me an opportunity to start the nutrition division. And it kind of started with nothing and ended up running the US move to Europe for a few years. Got them started in Europe. And really what I was doing is we we had ingredients we had we made flavors. And then we had the ability to make blends in kind of layman's terms blends would like be basically a vitamin blend that would go into like a orange juice or something that's like a premix Yeah. So we were working with brands so if you go into a GNC there's a brand on the shelf, they typically are sales and marketing company they don't produce their own products. So we'd go into these brands help them formulate and run their supply chain and then work with a manufacturer to actually package it. So after we catch up to kind of kept evolving I really wanted them like why aren't we actually making the finish good you're doing everything but putting in the bottle. In my the guy who owned Prinova at the time was its privately held. Loved the idea, would support me but we sold a lot of what ended up being our competition, we started started Armada. So a lot of these contract manufacturers we sold. So he was kind of on the fence do we do it? We don't do it? Long story short, I was going to do it. I was pretty headstrong, had a great relationship with him. Didn't want to ruin that but told him here's my plan, if you want in, do not want in and first he was against it. Then he last minute he's like with our vertical integration. Let's partner. So we started a separate LLC called Armada nutrition. And took all the vertical integration that we had with Prinova, which is unique in the industry. Most contract manufacturers buy from random people make their flavors in different places. So we pretty much control everything inside the four walls, and started off very small, outgrew it really fast. And we were in Chicago. And then in 2016, one of our customers at the time, was based in Spring Hill, Tennessee, built a state of the art plant. One year in the PE company decided they're over their heads wanted to sell the assets. We came in here with the let's look at it, Don't touch because we were in 5000 square feet. This is 330,000.....

Kenny Bailey<br>: 7:38

Yeah, that's kind of a leap there. Yeah So it's like, hey, let's go learn what they're doing. Let's see, let's, you know, kind of go into the nice fancy store. Look at it, don't touch it. And then one of those things, we got in there and fell in love. And this was April of 16. And by July 1 of 16, we were transitioning moving our business into Spring Hill, Tennessee. Wow. And that's when we kind of went from in the game to we're all in. And that was for me. It was kind of do it. I basically at that point, put every dime I had left into it. And it was completely betting on myself. And there were some days I'm not sure I made the right. Like any entrepreneur is going to have that you have to have that. Like, you know, jump first hope, hope. Hope there's a landing at some point. Yeah, right. So what was what was the thing that made it take off? Was it a Was it a particular use because of the vertical integration? Or what what made it go from 5000 to 300,000? Other than a big freakin factory? and I can just drive a golf cart through here? Yeah, I think it's two things. And it's, it's in life. I think everything's around relationships, right. And we had really good relationships with some of the brands that trusted us that if we did this, they knew we were going to be in. So they kind of gave us an inkling that if you build this we will come. So it was one of those things where we had a good idea kind of called a guesstimate we were going to get some business. And then the best thing I had is I had a loyal group of people in Chicago that were on the research and development side that wanted to stay with me and come with me. And in this industry they say flavor is King meaning if you you know something tastes good, typically is gonna do well. So we took on a bunch of actual R&D people who went to school for flavors, which is unique to the industry, they're very generally very expensive employees. And they are loyal moved down here and we just kind of blazed through first couple years on innovation and before you know, we had a good reputation as if you want to make a product that's going to sell, these guys are one of the guys you want to go to. Cool. Couple of questions on that. So I was joking around because my son is like, you know, heavy into it like I need you know, I have a pre workout I want to do and now he wants to start blending his own, he's that much more smart. And he's gonna kill me I tell him about this. But I guess my question is, is on your on your model today? Is it is it mainly white label? Is it better And is it both if I wanted to come say, you know, Adam is wants to do pre Adam, right? And he wants to create that, is there a volume number you have to do? Is it like it's adorable, but when you when you got something, how does that process work? Yeah. And that's one of the bad things of growing and becoming big was when we first started and we were in 5000 square feet. We could take, I would still want to do kind of a great interview process to understand the business plan of someone because they're betting on us. We're betting on them. But we could take on smaller minimums, right? Move into this factory and the automation's pretty pretty. It's very automated, very big scale. So unfortunately, like we can't really take on things with small sizes. So yeah, we I mean, a lot of times it sounds crazy. But we can't take anything on that smaller than 5000 units for one flavor. Now people have multiple flavors. So it's hard for us, but there are co-mands that will do much smaller. So is it generally your customer? Somebody that has a name in the industry? Or is it like, like a franchise that wants to start creating what who's generally Yeah, knocking on your door? Yeah, I mean, luckily, we've been in a position last few years as we've, we have five or six really outstanding brands, and then there's organic growth with them. And instead of changing brands, so much, there's a good partnership, and we stayed with them, still taking on some, you know, new things here and there. But typically what it would be is when we first got on the scene in Tennessee, we had a big factory, we were getting a lot of brands that were top selling and wanted to come in and switch their business over. But our best story is a company that I started within, I think 15. And they were they had some veterans that came over to start this company from previous brands. And they pitched us this model that I mean, this is only six years ago, but it shows you how fast the industry changes. Their whole model was no bodybuilders, a lifestyle brand. And they had wanted fitness YouTube influencers, which now that's like, that's how you make a brand. I literally was like, after they pitched us this, I'm like, I don't get it. Right. And then over time, their innovation was good. As we said, staying with them. They launched in July of 2016 is a brand new brand. And today they're one of our biggest brands and one of the biggest brands in the industry. And it's been cool. It's kind of like a brotherhood is we've grown together, we've had some issues. But they've grown we've grown at the same time. And I think very complimentary of each other. And it's been fun, because you've been there creating every product, not just, hey, here's the product we've ran for years to get this was a collaboration. So it's so long story short, it's a mixture of things, but that's kind of how it starts.

Tom Regal: 12:55

So what are the what are the trends in the supplement industry? Right now? Is there more protein powders? Or is it swing more to? What is it that people are requiring now?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 13:05

Yeah, it's definitely changed. And I think in a good way, even in the last, like 10 years, the industry is more open label. And what I mean by that is, if you go on the back and you look at the ingredients, they actually disclose the dosages. So that's a trend. It used to be everything was a proprietary blend. Yeah. And you don't really know what you're in, you're taking in. And a lot of times it was very small amounts, it was kind of like caffeine, flavor and fairy dust, right? And now it's like you look at a label and some of the brands who are for I mean, it's fully dosed off of clinical dosages off of you know, studies they've done. That's a great trend. The other thing is, it's a little less, the caffeine is still there, but like, I felt like five, six years ago is getting out of control. It was like the race to kill somebody. Yeah. Is it during like the Red Bull era? And everybody was just trying to.....

Tom Regal: 13:58

four times the amount of caffeine?

Brent Laffey: 14:00

Yeah, I

Kenny Bailey<br>: 14:00

mean, even Red Bull. Yeah, started it. But then you had brands, kind of supplement space that we're using even ingredients that are banned now. DMA mixed with caffeine and high levels, and you're getting to 400 milligrams of caffeine per scoop. Which is insane. And these kids are taking two scoops. I say these kids but and it's kind of reversed a little bit now you still have that. But people are becoming more educated. I think the internet Good, bad and indifferent. It's, you know, it's educating people that caffeine is not the answer for everything. And they're becoming vetterli better dose products. And then also collagen and vegan proteins have become great. And the reason why I like it so much is that's not a hardcore product. Pre workouts typically are that kind of that bro going into the gym, and then collagen and proteins. You're getting a wide audience. So like we talked about you guys in racing. It's a huge demographic way bigger than bodybuilding. Really don't need 300 milligrams of caffeine. But you need recovery. So these collagen these proteins, these vegan proteins are bringing in audiences that the supplement space didn't have before. And companies are interested. So like your Mondeles, your Mars, your Nestle's, they're buying sports nutrition companies now because they're actually more mainstream. So it's making our industry a lot healthier, a lot better, a lot bigger. Yeah. And I think that's, I mean, that's why we started the Recovery Lounge, right? Because we knew that recovery was, you know, five years ago, nobody was talking about it, because he was just, you know, go faster, go harder, you know, six days a week. And if you take a day off, you're kind of like, you all right? And some people just wouldn't do it. Now we're understanding that you need collagen, you need kind of post, you know, post workout kind of stuff. So when you split sort of endurance sports with with bodybuilding or people that are going not bodybuilding, not just bodybuilding. But people are in the gym? Or what what is the to kind of what is the thing that that they look for? Is it all pre workout stuff? Is it is it does is it varied between the two sports. So if you had to bifurcate sort of endurance versus sort of pure lifting short bursts, They both should use the same stuff. But it's a mentality, right? I mean, I think in a sense, like, recovery is the most important, right? If you're mentally strong, and you go into the gym, you don't really need to pre workout. Now pre workouts that everyone takes, not everyone, but a lot of let's say some of the guys that come into our gym need to be stimmed up in their mind, right? A lot of the stuff that's in the pre workout they don't even know about that's helping them as things that for blood flow, lactic acid buffers, things. Those are great. To me, it's kind of sometimes a cop out is that need for caffeine. So that for the lifting is seems to be the number one thing people buy. When in reality, I think, you know, recovery products are actually more important. Now you look at racers or endurance, they're they kind of are more educated on that, I think would spend their money more on something to recover than something to go get stimmed up before a race.

Tom Regal: 16:56

Yeah, absolutely. Maybe maybe on a long event, a long race, a marathon or, you know, ultra marathon. Yeah, maybe something in the middle of the race that they need something to get stimmed up a little bit to keep it kind of going. But yeah, I think more so getting out the door is not the problem. It's able to get out the door repeatedly, many times, for longer.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 17:14

It's also three hours into something, it's, for me, the biggest problem is around calories, and then you know, sodium replacement and all that stuff. Yeah that was on that was out there..... So your breakdown occurs when, you know, my stomach decides it doesn't want to process food anymore, but I still need, you know, 150 - 200 calories an hou. How do you get that? and major ty of the time you get that thro gh sort of through liquid rig t? You put a you know Carbo Pro or something like that. And then so on, on the ingredients, ou know, part of part of what he internet does, is it also k nd of slam dunks on some of th se ingredients I think. Was i? Was it the audience that that made? Or was it the backlash of like, you're not telling me hat's in here specifical y in the dosages? Is that was that something the industry eeded to react to? And I guess t e follow on question is, what sh uld what should the, you k ow, as a person looking at lab ls? What should they look out for? Are there? I mean, what f llers or what are those things? They you know, hey, red flag, yo know, elk horn, I don't know w at they're doing. You Yeah, there's I mean, yeah, you're these are good questions. The first one, the industry did need it. I think the direct to consumer model meaning like more of people buying off of websites, not necessarily Amazon, but I mean, more like you can go to your brand now and buy direct, it's been a great thing. Why? It increases the margin for the brand. I think brands intentions 10 years ago wasn't to make bad products, they had to find a way to make margin because they were selling a distributor who was selling a retailer. So they generally would hide the formula to not put much in, but make margin right. So I think that's what happened. But then you had a couple brands that came out and found a way to market differently. And basically one was selling direct, or selling even back in the day bodybuilding.com created some brands in there was better margin so they can make better formulas. Then their marketing was great. I remember there was a doctor that came out with a brand. And I don't even necessarily think his formula was the greatest formula ever. But what he showed and I remember in the viral was, he took his scoop. He took the scoop of like the top five brands. And he took it and obviously his scoop was much bigger. The other scoop is much smaller. And he goes here's what's in your pre workout and he like pours it out and it's just like a little bit of powder, like very little sprinkles. His is legitimately 25 grams. And he's like, do you think this can be as effective as this right? It kind of opened up the floodgates of people looking into what am I actually taking? And then it's kind of gone down a rabbit hole. But honestly, the biggest difference has been the brands have now the ability to make margin off of good formulas. Whereas before they didn't, because they were selling only through retailers. The retailers want 50%. The distributor wants 50%, the brand gets x. So that's helped. And then things on labels. I mean, it really depends on what products but like, let's even look at just proteins. Everyone thinks they know proteins. The purest form of a protein, and whey protein is an isolate, right? So there's isolate, concentrate. In a concentrate still good. Isolates the best, right? So one way of looking is you want an isolate, it has less lactose, it's not going to hurt your stomach. It's a higher yield of protein, right? Well, what the brands typically have done previously, is they put a blend in. They would say WPC WPI or WPI WPC blend. Maybe they were making it even 13 grams of each. But they were listening isolate first. And it was basically the same, right? So what now you see is if you go to the label, I would either one buy that something that has only an isolate in it. Or if it does have isolate and has concentrate, they spell out how many grams comes from isolate, how many comes from concentrate? If they don't tell you that.... There's a reason they don't tell you that, right? So I think that's like, everyone's generally buying protein that is in this industry. So that's one where you just look at the label. And particularly don't buy blends. Interesting.

Tom Regal: 21:21

So that's good to know. Yeah, I had no idea about that. And trying to figure out which protein to get. You're just going with the best tasting one or the one that you can afford. There's more to look at that to see what you're getting.

Brent Laffey: 21:32

Yeah,

Tom Regal: 21:33

That's awesome.

Brent Laffey: 21:34

Exactly, then to is like from a cost standpoint, to the everybody plays the serving serving game size. Just look in the package of how much actual proteins in there. So keep some people have 20 servings, with 20 grams delivered a protein, quick math, that's 400 grams of protein. Someone has 30 and 20, that's 600 grams of protein. So like some people always like what's the best just look for how much protein is in it. Don't get confused by servings delivered. Yeah. Okay. So those are little hacks of being able to purchase at a better price point

Kenny Bailey<br>: 22:06

And the vegans are are coming along pretty nicely, right? They are and I've become a bigger fan of them. I generally was pretty hard on them because the amino acid profile is not as good as whey protein. But what I have learned is, as I'm getting older, my stomach is a little different than it was at 21 years old. Totally. I can have a scoop of whey protein now. But I mean, I remember when I was 10 - 11 years ago, and very busy, I was living on protein and I could take five, six..... if I if I do that now. It's not a good thing. And but I can take was, not pleasant at all. What I've learned is because we do so much tasting in Armada, is I used to be able to go in tastings with customers, and just very having whey all day, I'd be fine. Now it's honestly we'll spend a lot of it out. But if we're doing vegan proteins, I can take it. So I don't think one's right or one's wrong. It depends on the person. If you can take whey down, it's better. It has more leucine in it. And leucine is the key to recovery. Unfortunately, pea protein, rice protein, they have less leucine. So again, I also tell people who if you're like a very high level performance athlete, you're running triathlons and running marathons, and you can't take whey and you really want the recovery, take a vegan protein, and then buy bulk leucine, which is an amino acid, and you can put it in and then it comes equivalent to what way is Yeah, are, you know, somewhat close, and you get the amino acid profile, but it's easy on your stomach,

Tom Regal: 23:41

See I think that's great, because you're, you're, it's not a one, one thing for everybody, right? Everybody's slightly different. You have to modify based on your age, your gender, everything it comes into play with where you're at, and what you're actually your activities are.....

Brent Laffey: 23:55

100% I think anyone like you guys who

Kenny Bailey<br>: 23:58

you know, really cares about your body is like getting a food allergy test is 100% worth it. Because I never did it. I just thought I knew it. And I have and then there was things that I've learned, not necessarily allergic to but more sensitive. Yeah,

Tom Regal: 24:13

exactly. That creates some inflammation. That's actually really inflammation.....

Kenny Bailey<br>: 24:16

I've never thought about I mean, that was adorable. I've never really seriously thought about doing that.

Brent Laffey: 24:20

But it's crazy. as much money as we spend on

Kenny Bailey<br>: 24:23

So would you consider yourself a protein supplements, and there's a lot of you can do a really good one online for 100 bucks. And what I found out was, every year I tried to change the protein source that I really concentrate on. For so many years. I was doing egg whites. And that's an awkward thing for me. And I was consuming a lot of egg whites and changed it up in the last year, year and a half and digestion is so much better. Sommelier now? Is there a certification you can get that many tastings, where you spit right?

Tom Regal: 24:57

You get the little glass that hangs around the rope around your neck?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 25:00

I definitely, I would say probably have my bro card. (laughing) Maybe you should start developing in Sommelier, you know for a protein that would be, if you got to Somalia for water now. I mean that's ridiculous right? Did you see that guy? Selling like $400 water. Right? And he's he calls himself a Sommelier. I'm ju t saying you can there's ow there's the president of A mada...

Tom Regal: 25:23

Here's your next business ventures create a school that.....

Kenny Bailey<br>: 25:26

yeah, exactly to do for wine. Yeah, I'll just actually take 10% off the top...... Yeah. So now the funny thing about it when you when you walked in, you know, we were talking about our first episode Copernicus here was our first episode. He's, you know, bodybuilder decide to run a marathon. I understand that you decided to run a marathon before you started really getting to lifting. Tell us tell us about that, that you started to tell us and I said the hold off.....

Tom Regal: 25:54

Yeah. Sounds like a great story. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 25:56

Yeah. So this was like I can remember is 2012. And I was living in London at the time. But I came back to the US for a long travel and I was traveling one of our sales reps. We were out in California. I remember like yesterday, and we were traveling from San Francisco to LA had a lot of time in the car. His girlfriend, now wife at the time called them and was hysterical. And she she was training for the Chicago Marathon. And this was August. The Chicago is usually I think in October. And she, I can't remember what she did, But something with her hip and wasn't gonna be able to train in the marathon. And I'm like, I don't know what I was thinking. I've never enjoyed running. And I at this point, I kid you not I've never run a 5k. And I go, I'll take her spot. I'm like, I love challenges, right. And I was just like, this is I need something at this point was in a crossroad of fitness what I was doing, but I just like you guys is more of having a date and having something is always what I need. Yeah, it's that goal. So I said, I'll do it. And he's like, okay, so like, literally, we didn't even transfer. I just took her name, right. So then I'm like, Oh, shit. What did I just do? Like, you know, that night? I'm going like, Okay, I'm like googling, like how long people train for marathon? Yeah its months. Yeah, I'm like, Okay, I got eight weeks. Alright, cool. So eight weeks from basically couch to a marathon. Yeah. Like, it's good. Yeah, that's just standard, right? So then I'm like, okay, I look at these like programs, and I can't remember you guys probably know better, but they were like, 26 week program. So I'm like, Okay, cool. Well, we'll go to week 18. Yeah. And it's like, go run 13 miles..... I'm like shit! All right, here we go.

Tom Regal: 27:36

You cut the very middle out. You start at the beginning.......

Kenny Bailey<br>: 27:38

Yeah, they get extra. I honestly think it was the perfect recipe. I saved a lot of pain off my legs. But I was in California. And I ran 13 miles that first like Saturday, and I did it. And by the way, don't try this at home. I just anybody listening.

Tom Regal: 27:55

Yeah, disclaimer on this episode....

Kenny Bailey<br>: 27:56

I was also 190 pounds, like now I'm 230. So it

Tom Regal: 27:56

That's awesome. was a lot different, but did it and then I flew back to the UK.

Brent Laffey: 27:59

So it almost became like therapeutic more And actually between flying back I broke two ribs. Freak acci ent, a boat in Lake Mich gan, long story. So I get bac, an my wife at that, now, fi nce at the time. I'm like, He, I'm going to run a ma athon. She's like, you just br than anything else. And yeah, did the Chicago Marathon and ke two ribs and you've never ra in your life. I got this. An it was honestly one of the be t things I ever did. I would ac ually I would run in London. An it sounds crazy. I wake up ea ly in the morning when th re's no traffic, London's ho rible for traffic. So it did tw things for me. I actually go to see parts of London I ne er saw and did it so early wh fell in love with it. I honestly at that point, thought, okay, re you could actually do it an just became addicted to that. I's like my morning started off reat. I loved it. Right. So I ot on this program. And then herever I was traveling a ton t a time in Europe. I would ust wake up early and map out hatever city I was in that istance, right? I'm a marathon runner for life. You guys know as the first one you do it's like that adrenaline you'll never have again. So I quickly signed up for the London Marathon. That was like in the spring of the next year. And in my head at that time. I'm like, run runner for life. Yeah, so did Chicago then did London.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 29:24

So how did you do? Did you hit the proverbial wall? Did you just like......

Brent Laffey: 29:29

No, I honestly, I wish I had if I did all over again, which I'm going to do I'm going to hire a coach, because just insanely stupid the way I ran. But the first one I did every mistake you can make. didn't even have running shoes. I found that out later. I don't know if you know like the Nike Frees are? I ran in those, and I did three 3:31 on my first one and then....

Kenny Bailey<br>: 29:56

I hate these people........(laughing)

Brent Laffey: 29:57

Well, no, this isn't necessarily a good thing. So like, am I okay?

Tom Regal: 30:00

Could you walk the next day?

Brent Laffey: 30:02

I went straight to Mexico and drank a lot. Yeah, like I thought great. But, but I loved it right. So then I'm like, Okay, I know I didn't prepare properly for this. Let's do it. Yeah. So first thing I do, I go in and I get actual shoes. I didn't think those were bad. But when that guy told he didn't believe me, like I ran a nice, he's like, well, that's step one. And then two, I did a full program where we talked about I incorporated some swimming, I did some HIIT, I did this, that the other. And then we did London, and I did 3:09 last time. And then I was like, okay, sub three is the game, right? And then life happened and business took off. And I kind of shifted into bodybuilding without really planning it. It just kind of happened. I started lifting more because it was I didn't have as much time

Tom Regal: 30:53

It fit the schedule better. We talked about that, that you can you can do that in 45 minutes. But you can't marathon train.....

Kenny Bailey<br>: 30:59

Well it sounds like your body responds, I mean, cuz you're in great shape. So I mean, Bustin' a, you know, almost a sub three marathon. It just you seem to.... Was that something that you had your whole life? Where if you just take something on? Because it seems like bodybuilding? It's something that you were pretty successful and you still are right? It's is that you just find that your body responds really well?

Brent Laffey: 31:18

I don't think....I wish I would say yes. Because at times I wish my body responded better. I think my strength and my weaknesses. My my mind, like I just will do whatever it takes

Tom Regal: 31:30

power through it.......

Brent Laffey: 31:30

Yeah. But also we talked I mean, honestly, I'm learning this as I get older, the name of your company........ Recovery. I just still don't do it. I can advise. And I can tell people how to do it. But when it comes to me, I don't. So I think that like I've had some good results. But I think it's completely just running through a wall. Versus, but I can tell people how to not run through the wall, but I can't do it myself.

Tom Regal: 31:53

So you get them the mental capacity. You've got the mental drive and all of that. But what we're hearing from people that we're talking to, as they get into these new sports, as they try something that's brand new, not knowing enough about it is a good thing, right? Yeah. Because you're being naive, as you don't know enough to be scared about it. Not afraid you're not you don't worry about this. You just go. I m just gonna do this. Yeah, just gonna run right. What What o you need? I've got shoes on, l t's just go right. Right? And m ke it happen. That's a beaut ful thing that helps treme dously. I mean, yes, you could probably damage yourself at so e point. But I think you need o, we all need to look at that. When we sign on to our next oal, whatever we're gonna chall nge ourselves with, that we ac ually need to just kind of turn t off and not do as much resea ch on it. Not stare at the data s much and just kind of just o do

Brent Laffey: 32:41

things right. You're 100% right. I mean, I look back at you guys have all had this and in life is when we took out Armada and Titan we bought the Tennessee facility. It's a if you asked me if I would do it all over again. I honestly, like don't know if I would. Yeah, the end results been great. Yeah. And we sold part of the company this at the end like great. But I was so naive. That like, it's the only thing that got me through 16 and 17. And if you would have told me what I had to endure, I'd probably like, I'm gonna have like find, ya know, another route. But as I get older now, I kind of wonder I'm like, Man, I'm a little bit jaded. Yeah, I don't know if I have that in me. So.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 33:21

But just in business, as you did with with a sport is you knew what your end goal wanted to be. You may not know how to get to the angle, because I mean, that's what I did. For my first Ironman. I'm like, screw it. I'm just gonna sign up. Go figure it out later, right? Yeah. And you kind of need that, right. So I need, personally I need a goal to scare the shit out of me. That gets me up in the morning if I don't have that. I mean, I started this company the same way. I'm never doing retail. I was a corporate guy. And all of a sudden, I'm like, I'm just gonna open this up to what the hell happened to my wife's like, she's the exact opposite, right? She's like, she's in Finance, in Insurance, in IT. Like the least, you know, risk job. And here I am, like, screw it. I'm just gonna figure it out. And you know, if I get I'll flame out nicely and a little bit at least it'll be a fun ride, man. But one

Brent Laffey: 34:02

thing though, that you probably think we all agree to is like, as long as it's a passion.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 34:07

Yeah, absolutely.

Brent Laffey: 34:07

Because you'll, you'll figure it out. It may have some bends and left turns, but like, if you choose which you obviously are passionate about this. And that's kind of like what I've always said even with the gyms is like, if it's a passion project, I'll make it work.

Tom Regal: 34:22

You have to believe in it.

Brent Laffey: 34:23

You have to believe in it. But as I get older though, I'm like I hope that I keep that kind of not you know, being naive in some ways, because it's actually been a recipe of success. But how do you you know, how do you do it

Tom Regal: 34:33

you pick and choose a little more wisely and and you don't you don't go to 60 things you just you go to 30......

Kenny Bailey<br>: 34:40

I think to your point though, the knowledge you still have the kind of crazy ass goal but the knowledge on that getting to that crazy goal. You can hopefully avoid a couple of those. Rookie mistakes that you made previously, right?

Tom Regal: 34:52

I don't know. Yeah, hopefully go shoes a little smoother.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 34:55

Yeah. So yeah, as long as you don't make the same ones over.

Tom Regal: 34:58

Don't make the same mistakes right?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 35:00

As a guy that's running basically, you know, you started up Carbon Culture. Curious about the name was, what was the intentionality behind Carbon Culture? How did that name come about?

Brent Laffey: 35:09

Yeah, it's a good one. It's when we started playing around with the gym is I didn't want to do the typical gym name. It honestly, the whole thing of why I wanted to start at a gym was to kind of go in that place where I always use the analogy, which is probably bad is like Cheers, where everybody knows your name, right? But like a gym culture that way. And not to be that big box where you're just a scan card, and just, you know, so we wanted to incorporate like a culture, right. So that's that. And obviously, CrossFit has been known for that. But like, we still like the culture aspect. And then the piece of carbon is like, the typical gym names are always the same. It's like, you know, you can think of the typical names. And what I wanted is something that had nothing to do with bodybuilding, but like sculpting your body, right? So we started kind of going with that theme. And that was we started looking at it as like, atoms and like carbon being the most like robust, toughest element, right? That you want to form and become that was kind of the thought. And then we took that into everything that you can see in the gyms we have, like we use the hexagon a lot. Well, it's based off of obviously, how many atoms are in carbon, which is that number. So that's kind of the backstory on it. But you know, kind of a geeky science.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 36:20

You know, it's got a great name. Nice alliteration. Yeah. Right. It's got a so as you so you decided, you know, what the hell I you know, Armada wasn't enough. I thought I'd just open a couple of gyms and do that. Yeah, you're married? You have kids. Right? So you're in fantastic shape? How? I mean, how is it that you can is it? Is it the

Mark Wahlberg get up at 3: 36:40

30 In the morning kind of routine? Or how do you maintain that kind of consistency to try to keep yourself sane in the middle of, you know, Sommelier testing?.....

Brent Laffey: 36:50

I like that. You know, I wish I could sit here and say like, it's all smooth, and it's all roses, right? Luckily, I have a very understanding wife, who met me in the middle of my career, we met through work. So that's a blessing because she understands who I was. Right. So I don't have to like, I didn't have to, like sell myself. But at the same time, I think that, you know, balance is a hard thing for me. Like, and I'm getting better at it. And that's one of my goals. ButI think right now, if I was gonna say which way it is, it's kind of that wake up at three, plan my day. It's according and the one thing is like, if I'm busy, really busy, I'm actually a better person, because I managed time better. So my wife to some degree, I think, is good with it, because I'll plan time for the family. And it can be more than it needs to be more, but like, I'm on Sundays, I'm mapping out every hour of my whole week, which includes being home for breakfast, you know, doing bed, and then like, you know, meetings, cardio like that. I'm not saying it's it's perfect. Not saying I you know, but that's just it's kind of making the time. Yeah. So,

Tom Regal: 38:03

I've always said that we don't need more time, we need a deadline, right? For projects that come through. So we throw a deadline on it, and then we'll get it done. If you give me more time. I will take that time. I will take it all of it.

Brent Laffey: 38:15

Yeah, that's how exactly I am is like, I feel like the minute I'm not busy. I

Kenny Bailey<br>: 38:20

as he checks his phone............

Brent Laffey: 38:21

But yeah, I procrastinate. And, just push things. And like, I mean, College is a great example is I mean, everyone has this, but to some degree is like, I just waited to the last minute on everything. And it's not the way to live life. So kind of tried to correct myself from bad habits.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 38:39

Yeah, did you so I know. When I moved from California to Tennessee for me, you know, new job, new location, the family's like, crazy, you know, they're trying to figure everything out. You know, I had I had a pretty efficient program, I was pretty light I was doing, you know, Ironman's, everything was going great. Get here and all of a sudden, it's like lunch meetings, and I had to you know, butt kiss the boss. So you would go to dinners, you have customers that you'd have to prioritize. And then you turn around with your family and try to make sure that they're okay. And then all of a sudden 15 pounds heavier and what the hell happened? When have you had an experience with that when you just sort of like things sort of fell off because everything or do you always mean maintain fitness or wellness as a as an important part of that?

Brent Laffey: 39:22

Yeah. The last since we started Armada. I have I mean, like, I wish I purposely gained weight at times, but it's all planned. But and I'm not saying I'm in perfect shape, but like, I it's the business I'm in being in a nutrition. It allows you to do certain things that like people wouldn't understand. So for example, going out to dinner, it's a big thing. We have customers in all the time. They're from the supplement space. So I literally will go in my car, eat my meal, go into dinner and have a side salad. Oh, then they won't make fun of me. Yeah, right. So like, well, maybe they do behind my back. Yeah, but yeah, but they but they're coming from That space so they understand. So luckily, I'm in an industry where they understand, like, okay, takes this and then a lot of times like when they come in, they want to work out. So now like Carbon's kind of a beautiful thing in the middle is the supplement brands come in. They like to lift right? Yeah. What do we do for lunch sometimes.... go lift. So it kind of it's all like, my passions kind of my work, work is my life. So it all kind of just flows together. So it makes it a lot easier. I have friends who are in corporate role of like, banking, that I couldn't, it would be hard. Right? I mean, you're gonna have that you can't say no to that dinner, steak dinner and some wine. So I totally get it. I just unfortunately, in a spot where, I'm not forced you.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 40:41

So when, when you kind of take a break, and you come back, one of the one of the challenges I have is, is you know, there was a certain distance I was running, there was a certain speed I was running, you know, I can be able to swim, you know, without having to be too much of a problem and suddenly becomes a problem. Have you had that kind of challenge of trying to get back I mean, in my head, I should be lift, you know, I should be lifting more I should be, you know, wait a minute, bu this was easy like three mont s ago... what the hell just ha pened, right? Any advice n sort of is tha

Brent Laffey: 41:08

I have the same thing now, same problems, and I used to lift on my own. And I thought it was I was always the better way, because I like going pretty fast pace. Some people just wouldn't want to work out with me. But you get into routines, right? So the last two or three years, and I've still had some plateaus. But I've incorporated partners, and what I've genuinly incorporated as either someone who I can learn from that does things differently, or I've had partners who want to get into the routine. Yeah. So I feel the obligation when we're working out. I'm leading I'm in charge. Yep. I can't let them down. So then it's like, you know, versus like, you go in the gym. You had a long day at the office. Oh, shit. I just did my 10 sets. I'm good. I'm going home. That was definitely happening. So I've switched it up have partners and they kind of keep me honest. So that's been very helpful the last few years and I went from hating having partners to lift with, to actually truly enjoying it. And now struggle if I'm on my own.

Tom Regal: 42:04

Yeah, that's a little bit more of a social thing as well. lets you unwind.

Brent Laffey: 42:07

Yeah, I don't talk much. So that's actually like,

Tom Regal: 42:11

okay, okay.

Brent Laffey: 42:11

A really good thing is I found partners who like, you know, you can vibe with right? I don't want to like, have cooler talk while

Tom Regal: 42:20

exactly yeah, yeah. You're not just you're not just making talk. You're just you're but you're in your zone, and you're in your rhythm and you kind of move

Brent Laffey: 42:27

Exactly.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 42:28

Just curious question. How big do you have to be before you can wear the the wireless Beats? The headphones......Is there a size limit that you have to start? is it? Yeah, just you can if I walk in with a pair of wireless beats, I think, you know, I'm gonna get laffed out of this place....

Brent Laffey: 42:44

I think you'd be alright. You got it. I actually prefer though I don't do Beats, I do Bose. I know. I gotta have the

Tom Regal: 42:51

noise canceling. Yeah, it works. It works. And out of there.

Brent Laffey: 42:53

Yeah, I'd say you're fine. You know, I

Kenny Bailey<br>: 42:56

was curious about that is like, is there is there like a Is there a biceps chart that I have to go to before?

Brent Laffey: 43:01

But that's like, you're so right, though. I don't even think about that. But like, that is the typical bodybuilder like, Don't talk to me. Yeah, like pro athlete. Jerk face gotta have that. Yeah. Well, I

Kenny Bailey<br>: 43:14

think you need that once in a while. I think one of the things you talked about though, it's like you created a company named Carbon Culture because you knew culture would get people in, and to get people in, you tend to want to be there, you tend to do more. I mean, we know that that's why group rides occur. That's, like that. socialization is what keeps people. There's research after research that shows you know, you can get a Fitbit. But after a few months, you don't care if your Fitbit doesn't give a crap if you don't do the miles. Whereas if you like you said you're beholden to somebody now, somebody is waiting for you to get there. That's a much better thing. But every once in a while, yeah, you got to put the headphones on and like just zone and zone. Yeah. So Carbon Culture, you've got a couple of, couple of gyms now you've got mad plans for for later. And you're starting up some group fitness stuff. You wanna talk about that a little bit? Yeah, so big box gyms. I mean, I looked at

Brent Laffey: 44:03

Yeah, that I'm actually really excited about. You know, you kind of like, in business, you pivot, right? And we love the we started with Carbon. And then we realized, in one market, particularly in Franklin, we were missing out on something that's huge. And it's like, you know, it's group fitness. Yeah. And I don't have the desire for it as much as Murfreesboro not saying we don' do it. But so long story shor, is we we started doing some free classes, and we had some good involvement. It was call d C40. It was a free HIIT clas. Really good participation did t inside, outside. So you cou d see it was there. And then wha I realized in so many thi gs, is you need experts, rig t? Like in Armada, it's been the same thing and the gym, I'm lea ning it is like, you can't be ood at everything. And we don't now that space. So but we want i to be in that space. So what d you do you find out who are t e good ones? Who's doing wh t? What do you want, what's r ght? So we were lucky enough o make contact with Abby McR ynolds. And she's was doing a lo of instructing at Lifetime, h d her own gym before. And we hit it off. And we basically h ve decided to take one of ou suites. We had two suites in ranklin one was kind of a lift ng suite. One was originally jus CrossFit and we're rebrandi g it, remodeling it and making t basically, It's called Carbon erformance. It'll be where we a e going to host 25 out of the ate, and then getting to 30 cla ses a week. wide variety. Ab y is the group fitness director She's got great contacts, sh's bringing in a lot of o her local instructors. And it's oing to be a nice thing. And the one thing I didn't want to d with Carbon, and I'm very gla it's happened is we started w th our first suite, and then we actually ended up buying CrossFit next door. And e kept the wall up. And my whol thing was I've been into gyms efore. I don't I mean, everybod, I want to encompass all ki ds of training. One thing you on't like is when it's a big pen gym floor, and you're mix ng cultures and there's no a real vibe. So that was was obviously one of the things hat was hesitant of doing ot er things. When we got this other suite. It's like Okay, gr at. We can put simply put a door in between, but keep the nvironment for the lifters, the r space, group fitness there So we're in the middle of I d n't know how many times we've one construction this last year but we we are remodeling the thers, it's really going to e Abby's she's going to it' kind of a business instead of usiness. And we're going to be o fering you know, unlimited cl sses, and then a gym membershi on top of it. And I think it'll be very competitive, price wise where you have a 24 hour, 24 7 gym that you can lift in wit you know, I think the best equ pment and Middle Tennessee fo lifting. And then you have a cl ss or class setting with 4000 square feet of all kind of different types of classes, utdoor area as well. And th n also we're catering I thi k to what's trending is kind o more boutique, smaller gyms, e have that atmosphere. It's in ividual locker rooms. It's not ass locker rooms. So there' a lot of cool things that I hink I thought were trends com ng. And that's why we did it COVID has accelerated a lo of those tracks. the latest report, big box dropped by over 50%, over 20% of people have a big box gym actually have a membership someplace else. And boutique is is growing leaps and bounds And that's the so that's like, played to our because of that, because they want kind of a more intimate environment. Yeah. Yeah, big box is gonna it's gonna s ruggle, right? Because they're t ying to be sort of omnipotent t everything and you can be, you know, sort of good at a lot of things are really good at a f w things. Right. Yeah. advantage. The other thing that like, this was a passion project. That wasn't a lot like, I'm gonna make X amount of dollars. I literally never looked at it that way. Because I, I wanted to build what I wanted. I didn't want to lose money, obviously. Yeah. And I think that's been that's helpful. But I think what we're getting at is we're seeing those trends kind of come our way. And, you know, playing to that, and I just I feel like over time is, you have to have an identity. And you're seeing it more in millennials is not even just in this gym space. It's like how they associate themselves with brands. There's an identity, they're sending a message. Right. And I think it's crazy as it sounds is the gym is the same way it's an identity. Right. So, yeah, so I think it's, you know, COVID was rough for businesses. I mean, it wasn't great for us just opening, but I think it's accelerated. I mean, we both opened about the same time.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 48:51

Yeah, that was fun!

Brent Laffey: 48:52

Start, stop, start, stop, cuz you guys open when?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 48:56

February. Yeah, we we got to see the place for four weeks before. Yeah. COVID. shut us down. So people ask us about when did you open? I said, it's sort of like marrying your ex wife, which anniversary date do you pick? Right? Do you pick the first anniversary date or the second one? We sort of opened in May.

Brent Laffey: 49:10

Yeah, that's it. Same as last we opened. The reverse. Yep. Closed March 20. Whatever. back open May 1. Yeah,

Kenny Bailey<br>: 49:17

it was insane. So not we don't recommend that's how you start a business, by the way. That's it's sort of like running in a pair of a

Brent Laffey: 49:24

Nike Frees!. Right. But I think that I mean, I don't know about you. And I actually couldn't turn around ask you a question. Yeah, it was actually a good thing for us in some ways. I mean, if you look at it, I'd rather have it that way than nine months in when you have a bunch of momentum. One thing we did is I think we took that time and got a little bit of feedback and could pivot before we reopened. Yeah, I don't know if you guys saw the same thing or....?

Kenny Bailey<br>: 49:48

Yeah, I think for us, it was how it's, it's who's going to do it, right. I mean, what's interesting about it, it turned out being a lot of people doing more group fitness classes. Those those people that are above the age of 40, those people tend to stick around. So I think we had a lot of people coming in that were like younger, and they would just try it out. And, you know, recovery is for everybody. We have a lot of high school athletes to come in. But sometimes, you know, you're 21 you're invincible, you don't really get that kind of thing. What we're finding is is with, with less customers, we were able to get more quality customers, I guess, would be the best way to say it. Because they're right. Yeah, they're serious in the year 00. I mean, yeah, I mean, you're 40 years old, you know, this Tom right? You're trying to do six days a week on a training program. And and, you know, yeah, it doesn't it just doesn't your body doesn't react like it does when you're 20. So, yeah, you know, iron sharpens iron, right. So it really makes you focus on what the important thing you're spending the money on what the important thing you're focusing your time on, right in order to get those folks in there. But absolutely,

Tom Regal: 50:47

it's almost like you could do a soft launch, and then see where everything was going to change and how it was going to change. And then you can kind of then if pivot if you needed to, or build up in certain areas. Just Yeah, exactly. roll with it. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 50:59

And what we found, actually, to your point, it's, we started out with rest day, best days are big sort of its rest day, it's your best day, which is great. And what we found was it was the community just like you're doing, we're creating that community between the gym and the home. That's that's what we're doing. So we're finding it's it's not just the physical recovery, it's the fact that you can come here, chill out and talk to your friends you haven't spoke to in a week be able to get that mental recovery. That to us was I think it became more prevalent as we really started like, yeah, this is a place where people I mean, we build a bar on purpose, right? Yeah. So that's what we found. So if somebody wants to find out about the group classes, where do they go? What do they do?

Brent Laffey: 51:40

Yeah, our website obviously is revamped, it's on there It has you can buy packages on it, which is, gosh, carboncultureusa.com. And then also....

Kenny Bailey<br>: 51:52

Already been a long day..... (laughing)

Brent Laffey: 51:53

Yeah, the Instagram is carbon_culture_USA, which looks complicated, but we're very active on social too. So you'll see a lot of videos, you'll see a lot of content. So it's a definitely a page to follow. We try to post twice a day and then the story continues. So yeah, okay, great place.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 52:13

Sure. Anything else we need to know that's coming up? Um, we have Yeah, actually, we do a plug on May 8, in Murfreesboro. We're doing a charity boxing event at our gym, Carbon Culture and Murfreesboro. It's actually, all profits are going to St. Jude's. And what it is, is basically obviously a charity boxing event. We had it sanctioned. We have I think 13 amateur fighters, or fights, I should say 26 fighters. And then we have a couple like fitness influencer, YouTubers that are fighting. We have a huge amount of fitness influencers, from bodybuilders, coaches, nutritionists that you know, are pretty well known. They'll be there for meet and greet. And then we're having a powerlifting event there as well. Street food, all the local vendors for you know, like apparel, supplements, all that so definitely check it out. It's May 8th. The actual website and that one is rumbleintheboro.com rumbleintheboro.com

Tom Regal: 53:14

Yeah. So you guys should definitely come and actually speaking that you guys should, if you want. Come as a vendor. Yeah. I mean, it'd be a good setup. It should have a pretty good crowd. I think we're anticipating over 1000 people. Cool. Wow.

Kenny Bailey<br>: 53:28

All right. Well, Brett, we appreciate your time today.

Tom Regal: 53:30

Yeah. So much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Everybody listening. You like it? you like what you hear, please. Five stars. Thumbs up. Comments are great. give us feedback. Yes, good, bad. Constructive criticism is always welcome. So yeah, appreciate everybody. And thanks for all your time.

Brent Laffey: 53:48

Thanks, guys.