Brad Charron of ALOHA: Leading With Heart, Humility, and Hawaiian Values

Hi everyone, I'm Elizabeth Stein, founder and CEO of Purely Elizabeth, and this is live Purely with Elizabeth, featuring candid conversations about how to thrive on your wellness journey. Today on the Live Purely podcast, I'm sitting down with Brad Chiron, the Re-Founder and CEO of Aloha. Brad brings a refreshingly honest perspective on what it takes to build a company with clarity and purpose, especially in an industry where investors often push for short-term wins over a long-term impact. We get into the challenges of refining focus, making value-led decisions and building a brand that stands for something bigger. Brad shares withdrew him to rebuild Aloha, the lessons that shaped his leadership and why becoming a B-Corp and committing to climate accountability are central to have the company operates. It's grounded, transparent conversation about sustainable growth, ownership and staying curious enough to evolve. Let's go ahead and dive right in. Brad, welcome to the podcast. It's so much fun to have you on today and to get to chat with one another. Thank you. Always a pleasure. So before we get into Aloha, I'd love to ever wind a bit and I'm curious to hear what were some of your early experiences in your career or even, you know, outside of that, that really shaped you as the marketer and the leader that you are today. A lot of failures. A lot of, you know, second-guessing in hindsight. You know, you're always like, you're thinking about it. I've been doing this a long time and as you get older, I spend more time reflecting on, God, I should have could have Buddha. And certainly, you know, we're all a product of our experiences, both personal and professional. They're totally interlocked. Like you can't, people say, tell me about your business mindset and like they think that I'm going to give them like a book quote. And I'm like, I don't even read, I don't even read business books. I find them really boring. Yeah. So, but no, I mean, I grew up in a, we moved around a bunch. My father was a former naval officer and was a business executive and we, you know, spent most of the time in Minnesota, but we lived at all over the place. And, and, and that flexibility meant I never really had a home base that I became institutionalized in. So I, I, I learned flexibility really early and adaptability. And that became just a hallmark of kind of what I was doing while I was playing a lot of ice hockey. So I played at a pretty high level of ice hockey. And that took me to different schools and states and so forth. But then, you know, when, when my career eventually fizzled out because I wasn't good enough to be very honest. And the pyramid narrows for elite athletes. And, and I needed to find something else I was going to do. You know, my father said, Oh, like, look, when I just do business, and I'm like, I didn't, I was in business major, I was a history major. And he's like, you know, you were, what'd you learn? He goes, you learn how to think, read, write, think, and speak like that's business. Yeah. Like, okay, well, right. I'll, I'll, I'll so I'll try that. And then, you know, I lived in Europe for a number of years, launching Lucky Brand jeans. That was so much fun. I screwed up everything about that launch. But, um, a bit of so much fun to do, what is the biggest screw up that you made it with? Oh, God, I, I positioned it wrong. I had the wrong product mix that I didn't do product P and L's. I, I got enamored with the idea of launching in, in Russia. And, um, I didn't think about even the competitive landscape of how an American brand would be perceived there. And this is the early 2000s. Um, uh, I screwed up everything to be perfect. Other than, other than, I, you know, here's the one thing I did write is, so this is to get 2021, 2022 America sterling reputation in the world. We just bought that Afghanistan and Iraq and everything else. And so the one thing I did get right is I thought about, I don't want to be an American brand and I don't want to run away from being an American brand. So how do I juxtaposition that to a year being consumer base that already is very, very fragmented? I mean, trying to talk to a German consumer and a French consumer, let's just say the language barrier isn't the only thing. Um, and, um, and so a position Lucky Brand jeans as a California brand, uh, it's not offensive to anyone. I mean, California's about the waves and the beach and rock and roll and free love and like anything else that more human values as opposed to being an American kind of, um, American company, which was not a positive. So, so that was right. So positioning, I guess, I guess I didn't screw up totally. Yeah. Um, and that, that Lucky Brand jeans example is, you know, kind of how I have thought about my career at Under Armour, um, uh, watching the first cotton product at Under Armour, when on the walls behind my office, it said cotton is the enemy. Like, that's a big brand problem to solve. Um, and then at Chabani, uh, competing in the yogurt wars and, uh, working in a little bit of private equity with a nature's bounty company. And then founding or refounding this company called a Loha that had all this potential, um, you know, had all this ambition and potential, but no focus or execution. And, you know, in your company, you know, very well as if you're not great at something, it's hard to stand out. And so how do you expand for a position of strength? Pros, products, consumers, channels, categories like that's been, um, a great challenge that we struggle with and we excel in and we fall back on every kind of every day. So when you joined a Loha as this refounder, as you said, the company was struggling. And what do you think it was that really pulled you in? You know, there's a lot of people who want to go and work at a company that's on the up and up and succeeding and have all these amazing things. What was it for you? Was it a mission challenge? You saw the potential or something totally different? I think, I think it was the white space about being able to do your own thing. Um, yes, everything was broken, um, the product, um, the team, the, the values, the mission, if you could call it that. It was a failed company. That didn't scare me. Actually, if I would have thought about it more, it should have scared me. Um, but, um, but the white space about being able to set your own path. I mean, I think that's a very founder-ish entrepreneurial mission. I love you. Is that a very entrepreneur? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, this wasn't my first rodeo. I mean, this was my first founder job. This is my first time as a full CEO. I'd been a GM before. I'd been a responsible for parts of a business. But, you know, behind me dropped your body. Not, not me, you know, like, uh, Kevin Plank drove on drummer. Um, I worked with Daniel Besky-A-Kyne, Daniel Druff-Kyne. Like, so it's different being in the seat, you know, that you're in and, and I'm in, um, where people are looking for you for the guidance and vision and, and, and kind of prioritization. So that was different and unique. Um, I loved, I loved being on the right side of food on the healthy, on the better, on the premium, on the new, and I don't mean new, like, like, it's totally distinctive or totally novel or totally niche. In fact, I like to play, I don't like to play in those categories because I find them narrow. And I like to compete. I was an athlete, right? I like to compete for big markets and big opportunities. As hard as it is, in your, your, your job and my job, we work two-daying hard to fight for two little. Yeah. And so, and everyone around us has to have that same gravitas in terms of what are we really fighting for, and how can we have better impact? And so I like categories that are big. I like, um, I like being a part of businesses and, and, and, and products that are vital and lead to better lives. And you can make that really corny sounding, but your products are distinguishing better. Like, you're providing a service to your consumers. And we feel the same way for our category. We feel that there's something better. And, um, us helping to push the limits makes all of our competition, big companies, small companies. It makes everyone better. And who's the ultimate winner of that? The consumer, the, the citizens. Like, that's like, um, I wasn't smart enough or, I didn't have like the, the idea of what could change the world. And, and, and I don't think we are changing the world. But I think that every day through people finding our product and, and being a source of input and something better, I think we're doing our small part. And, and that's kind of, um, you know, that makes me happy. Yeah. And you are certainly not only helping people on their health journey to be better, but also the other impacts of the business and as a mission driven business, which we'll get into that. But you are making the world better. I mean, you were doing your part for sure. So I am curious, though, to sort of double down, you know, we talk so much about on the podcast interviewing people who have these success stories. And it's all wonderful and great. And so I do think it would be sort of helpful to hear, like, truly what wasn't working when you joined Oloha. Like, if you can talk a little bit like, what was wrong with products? What was wrong? What are some of those lessons that then you really said, we need to take this and build in a different direction or have a direction. Whatever that may be. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the, I think that's really you said it. I mean, have a direction. Have a point of view. When you're a younger company, I don't think you can be too many things to timid people. Again, it doesn't mean you need to be narrow or niche. I mean, I don't need to have like the weirdest thing out there. In fact, that's probably not a good business model. Because you're not going to scale it. And you're going to work just as hard on that narrow thing as you are with something that has mass potential. I hate to second-guess people. In the moment, they did, I want to assume that they were doing the best thing they could for their mission and for what they thought was right. As an operator, as someone who spent his career as a consumerist, as someone that loves product and loves CPG and loves like brand. I was always fascinated by whether a consumer would choose under armor or Nike. I wanted to know why. Yeah. Like what was the motivation? And that curiosity, I think, is so important in business, in entrepreneurship, but even in corporate business. The moment that people lose their curiosity, I think they need to get out of the game. Like, because then you're not open to what's new and different. And if the world we live in is any indication, like, stuff changes all the time. Like, you and I try to plan our business the next year. It's going to change 10 times. Yeah. You know, like what? Like you have to have that innate flexibility, which I get, I learned growing up, moving around and playing sport. It's part of my nature to be flexible. Okay. Although I had this great idea of being a better food company, they didn't call it food. They said, they talked about food tech. I don't know what food tech is. Yeah. Well, just, I just don't, I don't know what it is. I think it's something you say to raise money at a higher valuation. I, they were in too many product categories. They were in vitamins and they were in teas and they were in chocolates and trail mixes and granoles and protein bars and powders and greens and they had all the other ideas that were spending time on that, that I was done. I don't think they launched, but they never really stopped and said, is this holistically better for the consumer? I think they just wanted to build shit. Yeah. And doing, yeah, building without a purpose or without a prioritization or understanding of why this has a reasonable or not chance of adoption, I think is a really, really easy way to burn money. And I've said this before, but the job of any startup is to stay in business. I mean, I remember like you do, like when you're trying to like hit stones together to see if there's, like we're on survivor and there's just, we're trying to get to spark and so forth. Like, and then there's no spark about hitting up together and I'm like, what's going on? Yeah. Well, I just wasn't doing it right. And or sometimes you just don't have, like you just don't have the mercury. You don't have the ability to create it in it takes time. So too many products to spread out, they had never in my experience run a product PNL. They were loading ingredients in costs in these bombs and these in these products scopes and specs without any understanding of like what the market would bear and what on how the strategy, how would they make money on this? This was somewhat a product of the times, you know, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, the value equation for entrepreneurs was I'm in a big, build as big as I possibly can and scale and I'm not going to worry about running a good business profitably. And particularly in CPG. Oh, oh, yeah, it was all about I'm going to do something big and have an exit. I'm going to do it again. You heard about serial entrepreneurs, right? That was the big thing. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I mean, I I bans you around in my career a little bit, probably too much. Some of it was my own fault and some of it was opportunity. And I just think that there's there's there needs to be a base foundation in a profitable income statement. And entrepreneurship entrepreneurs are usually not taught about that. And people at big corporations usually aren't able to flex down into the trade-offs that you and I have to make on our business all the time. Nothing ever goes perfect. It doesn't exist. There's always something that comes up. And so our adaptability is what makes these brands more than more than not successful. But yeah, but financially it was never going to work. So it's always going to be a zero-sum game that if the trends changed and the business didn't pick off like pick up pick up they were going to be out of business and they were going to have to keep raising money. And I'm someone that hates asking people for money. Like I just it makes me feel icky. Yeah. It's it's also a waste of time compared to actually serving the consumer. So I never wanted to be in that predicament where I was having always go to mom and your daddy for spare change. And that's what raising money always felt to me. Some people love it. It's like a like a high. And I never was attracted to it. So and then I guess the last thing is they just they were in it for an exit as opposed to interested in building. Like I'm very different than that. We understand you and I. Like unless this is business, it's we're going to pass on to our children. I mean the everything is is is is temporal. There's there's a timeliness to everything. And so but that doesn't mean that you have to like you artificially build something to sell versus building a great brand, a great product, a great company, and a great culture of which employees are equal owners in the business, which is part of Aloha's DNA is that everyone's an employee owner. And it's a egalitarian capitalism investors and entrepreneurs and management. We're all the scoreboards the same. Like we win and lose together. This is not Joe Shorty gets 50 million bucks and so and so gets five. Like there are ecosystems where private equity does that. But for me, to kind of engender the right decision making in our organization, I wanted to set up for very very beginning. And that was my blessing that my investors shared that mindset with me is we were all in this together. And that this didn't exist in the previous Aloha. Had that had had that existed that model existed in any of your prior work experiences or what was really the driver for that for you? No, it had not existed in previous experiences. It was very top heavy for various reasons by the way. In most cases, it was the founders themselves that bootstrapped the business and owned a substantial, if not majority, or majority stakes in their business. I mean, they'd earned that to be perfectly candid. In my case, because I wasn't bootstrapping it right away because I had to refund pay off the debts of the old enterprise and then fund the, I call it the, you know, the wood chopping phase of getting proof of concept and product market fit that you and I had to go through. Like it just wasn't in the cards. So no, I hadn't done it before, but I'd always wanted it. I'd always asked about it. And I talked with various funders and expert folks of the business about how they set up the enterprises. And most of the time it was, I'm going to put it a little bit of money, and once my money gets paid back, then we're all equal partners. Or once I make a certain return to equal partners, like watching Shark Tank, like watching Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank, like watching how this all works, because that's real. That's all real, that's real life, how it works for a lot of entrepreneurs. Again, I was in a fortunate position that my investor backers shared my belief in the scoreboard mentality from the beginning. And, and I was able to use that to bring in really talented thoughtful people who had great careers and experiences where they were, but they saw nothing in what we were doing at my version of Aloha to say, not only do I want to be a part of it, but I understand that if we are successful, my family wins. And I think that's the American entrepreneurial journey that we need to celebrate more is when one of us wins, when the company wins, everyone wins. Now, it's not communism. It's not like everyone makes the same amount or has the same ownership. Like, not all voices are created equal in these companies, nor should they be. But everyone has a role to play. And I think, I mean, I know about your company, but like, I think it's the same. You want people to really be in it. And not just for the financial reasons. For sure. And everyone then treats it, you know, I have always felt how important that was. And it's like everyone treats it like it's their own. It's this family sort of dynamic that it's their baby. It's never going to be their baby as much as it's my baby, but it's still their baby. And that's like an incredibly important aspect of a culture. Yeah. I mean, it has your name on it. I mean, it does. It has your signature and it has all that stuff. I'm all in. I'm all in. I'm so excited to share that we have finally launched our new protein oatmeal. There's a holistic nutritionist. I believe that when you eat better, you feel better. Protein has always been an essential part of my daily routine. And like many of you, I'm always looking for easier ways to incorporate more protein into my diet. Our protein oatmeal is inspired by some of my favorite nostalgic baked goods, maple cinnamon roll, apple harvest crumble, and chocolate chip banana bread. You can find our new protein oatmeal on our website at purelylesbyth.com and coming soon to Albertsons, Publix, Whole Foods, and Target. Find a store near you using the link in our show notes. If you're looking to get more protein into your morning, this is a great place to start. I can't wait for you to try them and hope you love them as much as I do. So as you think about this relaunching, rebranding, refounding, all of the things, you've now created this incredible company that's so mission driven, you're a B-Corp, you're climate neutral, which is incredible. You could just share a little bit about what sort of that product philosophy, that brand philosophy is. And maybe some of the things that like people wouldn't realize are huge decision makers for you in the brand that, you know, makes a huge difference, but people might not necessarily see on the outside. Yeah. It was important, like you said, it was important to formalize what we just talked about through the B-Corp status. I thought that was the us showing the world, not that we're better than anyone, but that we get it. We just understand. And we hold our perfectly set. We hold ourselves accountable. I mean, the name Aloha comes from Hawaii. I didn't invent it. I grew up in Minnesota. I formed a Hawaiian Council of Native Hawaiians early on to advise on the stewardship and spirit of a place in a people in a community. I mean, I just got back, I missed tan, because I just got back from 10 days on Hawaii. It doesn't suck to be me, right? And having to go to Hawaii doesn't suck. No one's feeling bad. I know. You guys have board meetings in Hawaii? I wish. That'd be expenses. Yeah. Come on. I'm not making that much money. No, but we go back and you know, I've learned about, I mean, I was a student of history. Like I said, it's not the shining example of American commercialization and colonization. Like I just say, it was not, it's not a, if I was in Native Kanaka, Hawaiian, it doesn't engender the right kind of feelings back to the mainland. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. And I can't solve, I can't, you know, solve hundreds of years of cultural misunderstanding, I guess. But with a company named Aloha, you have to understand what it's like. And it's in the constitution of the state, it's literally lists what the spirit of Aloha is. Humility, transparency, openness, understanding, community. Like, and there's this concept in colonies and culture called Kuliana, which means reciprocity. And I think that's such a fantastic word for the food business. If we had more Kuliana, more resting prostate with each other, if we saw more eye-to-eye between partners and we weren't interested in zero-sum games, and you know, we served each other. But that's, that's a great place to start from. That's a great spirit to start from. So, I go back there and I tied this all together, back to B-Corp, to climate neutral, as you say, to employee ownership. It spreads through the entire product. Like, we just launched, we just launched a chocolate cherry bar. Just came out this week, sold out a TikTok in four days. Whoa, nice. First time we've done a launch on TikTok before, that really worked. I don't, I don't understand. Were you in the TikTok ad, Brad? Don't ask me, don't ask me logical questions about our business. Like, please, there's there's much better people to answer that than me. So, ask. But like, that spirit kind of goes through our product. And so, here are the non-negotiables, like USD organic, I believe in it. The right macro-nutrient equation between protein and sugar. It's not about following the sugar or anti-sugar fat. It's not about saying proteins and thing or not. Like, if everything is protein now, like every new CPG product has protein in it, it's always been a part of what we do. That macro-nutrient, that golden ratio is really important to me. And then fiber and so forth, which adds satiety and sustainability and so forth. So, that macro-nutrient is not negotiable. The aspects of taste and texture, sometimes in the functional food world, people just add things to it. And, you know, a protein doesn't taste good on its own. Like, I'm can protein or brown rice or whatever you're using. It's just nothing. So, you have to add sugars and binders and this and that. It's like a recipe. You just keep throwing stuff on. But unless you're thoughtful about it, that it's curated, it always comes out to be less than it could be. It's just the sum of the parts doesn't add up. And so, I think you really have to be thoughtful about your product design. To the point that I don't know whether a consumer is going to come in through this cherry product that just launched or the first one I launched back in 2017, the peanut butter chocolate chip. I have no control over that whatsoever. What I can control is that the first impressions are good ones. Am I proud of the product? Am I proud of the macro-nutrients? Am I proud of the taste? Is it well represented? Is there an architecture behind the story? Is it priced excessively? Is it available for Americans? We've been waiting a long time, this government shutdown hasn't helped for EBT snap approval. We've been waiting to get that approved for our website, aloha.com. So, that accessibility is important. We learned that from our friends at Thrive Market, who I think were the first ones to get it done from an e-commerce standpoint. And that was a great leadership and motivation for us to do the same thing. Everything has to guide the decision-making from the way the company set up, to our communication, but the product and the product experience, because that's what makes people repeat. It's that holistic proposition, because the benefit of the food business in the United States is that there's plenty of options. There's very few monopoly. Right, and too many, but that's the spirit of entrepreneurship. That's how we figure it out, what really gravitates to be companies of size and scale like ours. And when I started this, we didn't imagine it'd be as big as it is. Never. I've been accused of overconfidence sometimes. I never thought I'd never thought it'd be as big as it is. I'm always somewhat surprised when people come up to me, or I see in the hockey locker room, or I see, there was a woman, I was at a pineapple farm on Maui. This is Rita Manager, the store. I bought this cool pineapple Hawaiian shirt, because it was really awesome. And she's like, oh yeah, like Loha, because it's my card. Loha, she was wait. She ran in the back room. She had one in her lunch box. No way. So two things. One, I was surprised. I'm always still surprised too. She wanted to share. She wanted to share. Like, how cool is that? That's such a cool moment. That's so cool. So as you think about this journey that you've been on now, and you know, you has really started more as a D to C brand and now are everywhere, what was your philosophy or has been your philosophy on growth and, you know, growing too quickly, growing at the pace that you grew. Like how do you view that journey? I think it's especially interesting thinking about, you know, there's some brands within our space that, you know, in three years, there was this like quick overnight success. And then others like us who've been around for 16 years. So you can take totally different approaches. What was your point of view? We, we didn't hit lightning in a bottle. Like, this wasn't a new category. Like, we didn't create protein bars. Like, they've been around competitive categories at that. But I like, but, but the consumer's interested, right? Same with granola. The consumer's interested. That is the first thing. If the consumer cares enough to learn and try and, and dabble, like, I'm excited by that. Like, that's cool, because that means where there's some kind, there's always energy. There's always change. There's always opportunity. The worst thing you can be telling entrepreneurs that there's no opportunity. It just shuts off. It's just like, it's like white fruit. It's like shun. Shun. You know, and so, so no, it was, it was really important for us to kind of ensure that we were starting off on the right foot. The competitive nature of what we were doing, just, just, there was something, there's an opportunity better. And so we wanted to, to start with, could we do just the next logical step? And sustainably, we talked about this before. Like, I wasn't interested in trying to hit a home run because I thought the probabilities of doing it were very poor. And, I mean, you don't, I don't know how much you have a hockey, but like, goal tending is all about probability analysis. There's a 85% chance the shot's going to come from here and a 15% shot, chance to come from here. So I'm planning one and two. Like, that's the math of goal tending. And so that's the way I was thinking about entrepreneurship. Is that, yeah, I was, yeah, I got bad teeth. I got, you know, it just comes, comes and it just doesn't work so well. But yeah, that was the probability analysis. I knew that longevity was going to be determined on the consumer's timeline, not my own. And so if it ever felt forced, I, I usually took a patient approach. Some people hit like, okay, we said, people get lighting in a bottle and God bless them. I wasn't that lucky and I didn't think it was going to happen and I wasn't willing to bet the ranch that it would. I didn't think that was the right course of action. Yeah, but also, it's like, you're not setting out. You could have raised, you know, gone out and raised all this money in order to sort of chase that versus chasing something that's more perhaps sustainable, right? Yeah, I had a practical approach. I mean, same as you. I mean, I think that wild entrepreneurship is more likely to lead to unsuccessful entrepreneurship. And that was the benefit of being an operator before and, you know, being the stake founder, the refounder of a company when I just turned 40 was much different than I thought I was starting an opening in my 20s. I'd seen some sunrises and some sets and I'd seen good examples and bad examples in my past career of decisions that that worked and didn't work and sometimes it was unexpected that they worked or didn't work. I mean, this is just the experience that we take through life and the question is, what are we learning? How are we adapting? And how are we surrounding ourselves with people that are really smart and motivated? And, you know, you asked me a question about TikTok. I got no idea. I got, you know, like, there's better people than need to answer that question and formulate that strategy. And that's like, that's the cool thing about being a company our size, even though we're only 29 employees, is that they're all, like, they're all experts in their field, even the junior ones. And so we spend a lot of time on collaboration, even in a remote environment. You know, this is life. This is the low-haz headquarters. Welcome. Enjoy it. It's a, we're trying to foster the right kind of experience set, but trust people to do what's right. So as you think about team and leadership, and before a little bit of getting into your own, I'm curious to hear you had some amazing people in your past that sounds like who may have guided you to be who you are today, who were some of those mentors for you, and I'm what were sort of those biggest lessons that you've now taken into being the leader that you are. Or conversely, someone who wasn't great. And you said, like, I'm going to be something totally different than that. And this is how it never never say that. Never say that out loud. It's firstly not in your podcast. They made them. We're just talking. We're not. Of course, we're not. Of course, we're never, never-day names. No one, no one ever be able to figure out the internet, you know, in the world of AI who we're talking about, you know, the benefit of my experience as my headset falls out. I've been in big companies and small companies. I've been an international domestic. I've been in fashion. I've been in food. I've been I've been all over the place. And some days, it felt like I was running around too much. And but I've always kind of, as I get older, tried to harken back to, no matter what I was doing, where I was doing it, I was always trying to serve the needs of a consumer, which I think is the bare bones of business. I mean, I mean, you're not doing that. You're not really doing anything. Well, right. And if you're not doing anything, you're wasting your time. And the only thing we have in life that's precious, you know, I mean time, time of family, time of friends, time and a vocation that you find fulfilling, you know, time with hobbies and life experiences and stories, right? We're all guided by stories. And as someone who was a history guy and I, I mean, I just, I love the narrative. And I love the narrative of brands. So the narrative of my entrepreneurial journey, whether it was watching the wild excitement and emotion of Kevin Lank and how he would be still fascinated by the product dimensions and specs of the technical aspects that he started with, even as the company got bigger. You know, watching Hombi, Hombi Okaia Chibani, as he was pacing his carpet, like really take the entrepreneurial and American dream of what he had created, translate that to yogurt and not be satisfied with it. I could see he was not sad. He wanted to be more than just a yogurt company. And even when we were only just a yogurt company, like watching in the man slept in a factory for years, like, I mean, that's like, I wouldn't do that. So, you know, watching, you know, watching Daniel Abetski get kind, creating a company out of a legacy, a family legacy of kindness in the most atrocious human moments of our modern history in the Holocaust. And bringing, you know, innovation and know how as a trained lawyer to the food business. But then treating employees as owners. And I would watch him walk through the office and the cubicles and stop and talk to people. And he would know about them. Like, these were not just names or numbers or functions. These were people. And so even watching him do that, you never should lose touch with who you're working with and who you're working for. And I think the easy thing to say is, you know, if you, if your name's on the package, if you're invited to ex-conference or you win entrepreneur of the year, you know, like, it's easy to think about those as kind of big moments. But they're really only, they're the gravitation of what you do in a day-to-day basis. And if you're serving others, and you're, you know, you're pushing the ball forward on things that matter to your brand and the company that are points of differentiation. And you think the consumer cares. I think that's really, that's good entrepreneurial kind of one-on-one leadership that I saw. I saw going on a daily, daily basis. I love that. As you think about team and how that has sort of evolved, especially you're all remote, but it's been the biggest lesson, especially as a remote team for keeping that culture and like team spirit alive. It's hard being remote. Yeah. I wish some days that we could, I could sit there and shoot the breeze with folks. I really do. That being said, I like that people are able to take their kids to soccer practice. I like that people, some, you know, my head of marketing, she's not a morning person. Like I like that people are able to exist in where they're most successful. It's that that that prioritized choice of entrepreneurship. We started getting together more and more. And then I travel, obviously, to see people to spend time one-on-one. Because, you know, you've got to walk stores. You've got to meet people where they are. You've got to do things together personally. I think technologically, even pre-COVID, a COVID hit and it was a major appeasement for a lot of companies. In our case, we already knew how to work together. We were smaller, but we'd already figured out this thing called Zoom. We already knew how to work together. The biggest thing that I focused on though is that people don't assume things. They don't assume that someone else has the ball. They don't assume that someone, when I say the color blue, I want you to know what shade of blue I'm talking about. They don't assume, they assume positive intent, but I like when people argue based on facts. I think that makes us all better. And so I think assumptions in remote-based companies are potentially deadly and culture killers. Because you can easily go from a bad assumption to losing the most important thing we have as colleagues who don't work together. Actually, colleagues in general is you have to assume positive intent. If you don't have positive intent, you're so well. You really are. Because humans are both fascinatingly rational and irrational in moments of time. And I think the positive intent about really being wanting to work together for a better common cause is something that our world is seriously lacking, like a politics. And if business is a force for good, a B-Corp, any business that they are a force for good, we should be modeling societal and cultural behaviors like positive intent that ensure that we are not enemies. We may disagree on things, but we are intrinsically on the same side. I think that's sorely lacking in our culture and our society these days. And so speaking as a leader of a 29-person company, like I'm not changing 350 million Americans on this thing. It's starting 29. We'll start with the 29. That's what we'll do. And if we can show this works, it's a model for other companies that can do it, other industries that can do it. And we're doing our part. And that's all I can ask. For you personally, how do you stay, I don't like that we're balanced, but how do you stay grounded through all the ups and downs of being a leader of a law? A lot of us entrepreneurs get excited. And that's great. We also, it's impossible to not personalize what we're doing. I think I know you feel that more than anyone. It's business is personal, it is. And it's hard not to take the bad days or the setback as personal failures. I really try to compartmentalize it. I do my best. I've been more successful as we've gotten bigger because we've had a little bit more of the scale to have the way with all to insulate ourselves against things that didn't go our way. And at the same time, I remind my company religiously that momentum is a powerful and fickle force. And the moment you think that you've got it and you own it and it's yours and it's no analysis is the moment someone comes up from behind you and snaps it from you. It's a sports game, right? And so that mindset of momentum is critical for us. Yeah, I don't agree with you. I don't know what balance is. I don't really know what it means. It balance means that you're not doing, if you're not wholeheartedly into what you're doing in the moment, then I find that I'm anti-balance. I just don't I don't agree with it. That being said, I do think that we need to be able to shut off different parts of our brain or different parts of our ego or different parts of our willingness to to control the things we can control. I learned that a long time ago to not worry about things I couldn't control. And the moment that I allowed that to kind of really sink in, I found I was a lot more versatile. And my company was a lot more versatile to be able to adapt to both good and bad things. I play hockey. I make sure I play hockey. I focus on my daughters, my wife, my family, the dog that's sitting over there right now. This is not like my legacy and our legacies are not going to be defined by the brand of companies we lead. And I think that that sense of relatively, relatively, relatively speaking English is helpful. I think that relativity is important because being a young entrepreneur or being an entrepreneur in the early days, just it's tough. It's so hard. And I'll say gone through it personally. It's very difficult to imagine. They can academically imagine it. But when you literally put your family's future, when you put your own brand career, your opportunity cost on the line for something that may or may not work, it feels really scary. And you have to be really vulnerable about it because otherwise you're just fake. And I think that people are honestly, most people are too smart. You'll be able to figure that out. And the word authentic is way overused. I'm an authentic this, I'm a visionary that I'm a rock star. I hate that word rock star. There are only a couple of rock stars in their rock stars. But like this is a journey. And then I think treating it like any good narrative is there's ups and downs of the character. And we hope at the end of the book that the character is someone that we feel has not only embodied like the spirit of the journey. And they come out on top hopefully. But there's something tangible there. Because if it's if it's inauthentic, if it's not tangible, we're just wasting our time. Yeah. And isn't that the saddest thing of all? Definitely. All right, we're going to wrap it up with some rapid fire Q&A. Three things you are currently loving. It could be a product. It could be a TV show anything. Oh, I'm loving. Oh, New York Ranger season loving loving. They can't win at home and they win on the road. It's amazing. Things I'm loving. Oh, God, the mana up found the mana up cohort in Hawaii. This is a group called mana up and all they do is support Hawaiian entrepreneurs in beauty, fashion and consumer goods, run by a woman named Mellie James. It's incredible. I'm so fortunate to be a volunteer with them and support them. But they're doing so many good things for Hawaii and the entrepreneurs of Hawaii. So I love that. What else do I love? I don't know what I love. I love these kind of conversations because they're real. Like people sometimes just put on errors of what it's really like. And I think that it's just there's there's duality in everything. And so like honest conversations about businesses as being forced is for good. I think only benefits all of us. Favorite place in Hawaii. Big Island. Big Island by far. I love going from the diversity of the coast like in Kona all the way down to the south side around to Paola where our magnets are from up to the volcanoes to Hila, which is like the coolest effentown ever. All kinds of like cool beer places and food. It's like a hippie town from the 1950s. Like awesome. And then go to the northern coast as well. I mean, big island. Big big island. Your current favorite Aloha product. Ooh, I mean, I could say that guy. The cherry I love. Ooh, I love the banana bread chocolate chip. It's modern off a recipe that I found in Maui on the road to Hana. And it's out of stock right now because it's seasonal. We only bring it back when it's available when the products when the ingredients are available. So that's going to come in. I don't even know when it comes in next, but it's out right now. I guess I should be marketing something that's available, but it's my favorite. So it's really good. It's really really good. Sense delicious. One ingredient. You can only pick one. I know this question is going to be hard, but one ingredient that you'll never compromise on. Digger Ocalls. I don't like them. I don't like my thoughts that I'll tell you Ritz Ritz. I don't even like Galulas. I don't like anything that sounds like it's a science degree. I don't like. You can't fake sugar. Sugar is sugar. It should be natural as part of the ingredient. You can't fake it. One ingredient or sorry, one leadership trait that you wish more founders add. Humility. No question. No answer. No fall off needed humility. You need it. You need it. You need it. And I don't do it. I don't do a good enough job with it, but I'm always struggling with it. And I think that's where going back to Hawaii and being in service of others is really important. It regrounds us in terms of that aspect of Juliana, which I think is a human trait when you need more. A favorite book or podcast for Gross. I don't read business books. I find it. I mean, it could be a gross. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I love his story. I like historical fiction. Okay, then just tell us your historical fiction book. I like the kind of golden series on Rome. I like the Hector Miller series. There's a series on Egypt. I forget the author. I mean, every man of my age pretty much talks about Rome and Egypt. It's the weirdest thing ever. They do. It's weird. It's weird. But no, I love that. I like to get back in this in like have the context of history, but tell them in a way that's new and novel. And lastly, what is your number one non-negotiable to thrive on your wellness journey? I think, I don't know, perspective. I think, I think, again, we don't believe in balances. I don't believe in balance as much. But I think whatever you're going to do, just do it with it. Do it with with your whole heart. Yeah. And then we'll switch it up and so forth. But I think the, you know, the world is a complicated place. Businesses are a complicated place. I think being focused on what's really important in the moment really matters. And it's just tough. It's just tough to spread yourself out to the end. Like you got to focus. Partization of it. Well, Brad, thank you so much for being here, in closing, where can everybody find a low-hot and anything else that you want to share with our audience that we haven't touched on? Oh, please learn more about us at aloha.com, available in all the places you would expect us to be online as well as a great retail partners, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Harris, Peter Wegmans, Walmart, Target. You name it. One of the things we've been actively working on is our accessibility in retail. But please go try a flavor you haven't tried. Come and write us at [email protected], what you think about it. I'm in there all the time. I'm in there every day answering consumers emails. That's that, that pulse and that connectivity that I never want to lose. So write us at [email protected] and tell us what you think. But we're just, we feel really humbled and privileged to get trial from folks and hopefully that leads to a relationship with the brand. Amazing. Thank you so much, Brad, for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for joining me and live purely with Elizabeth. I hope you feel inspired to thrive on your wellness journey. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to rate, subscribe and review. You can follow us on Instagram @purely_lisabeth to catch up on all the latest. See you next Wednesday on the podcast.