EP #50- Jack Carlson on Building the Rowing Blazers Brand

[MUSIC] My biggest lesson with regards to like going from rowing to this career in design and fashion is not how do you take the lessons from rowing and apply them. It's actually more of sort of how do you switch off all of the instincts? At least that I had developed over almost 20 years in the sport of rowing to actually change your perspective a little bit. Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins. And welcome to 2022. We've made it past 2020-2021 very hopeful for a better 2022. And with that, I am also super excited to announce that this is the 50th episode of the Everyday Endorphins podcast, which is a very friendly number. I am so happy and excited to be sharing this episode with you guys today. And I feel like there's no better guest than to bring Jack Carlson, a friend, a mentor of mine, onto the podcast to celebrate the 50th episode and profile his incredible story. So I'm really excited for this one to be out. Jack is a designer and archeologist and author and a former US team athlete. Jack was a coxon at Georgetown and very involved with the rowing community. Raced at many prestigious regottas and you may know Jack as the founder, CEO and creative director of Rowing Blazers, which is an apparel company that blends ivy style with streetwear and prep and grunge. And it's really this conglomerate of so many interesting tastes and eclectic styles. I love everything that Rowing Blazer stands for. I had the opportunity to work at the store a few summers ago and I just love the mission behind Rowing Blazers. And it's been incredible to see the trajectory of how it's evolved over the past five, six years. So really excited to have Jack as a guest today. In this episode we spoke all about Jack's Rowing career, how that evolved into building the rowing blazers. Coffee table book, which eventually transitioned into the creation of the Rowing Blazers brand. We talk about the challenges Jack has faced as an entrepreneur, the lessons or lack thereof. He is brought from rowing into his career and Jack's passion for health and wellness as he recently embarked on a spiritual Buddhist silent meditation retreat in California about a month ago. So lots of incredible things we shared in this episode. Very excited for you all to hear what Jack has to say. So before I give too much away, I am dying for us to jump right in. But before we do so, I have a brief message from my sponsor, Inker. Hi Jack, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Thanks for having me. I am so thrilled to have you as a guest. We, you know, our friendship goes way back back to like, I think 2015 was when I first met you. I was a sophomore, I think, in high school and I, that was when I first found out about rowing blazers and I feel like that was really the inception of the brand or like the very beginnings of what you were doing. And it's been so amazing to see how far you've come and how far rowing blazers has come. I think, you know, so many people know about it. Those billboards are everywhere in Soho with Pete Davidson on, you know, wearing the rowing blazers, rugby's and all the cool merch that you guys have. So it's just, it's been a long ride here we are today. Yeah, that was before there was even a brand. That was when it was the book. And I think you and your mom came to like a talk I was giving her something, is that right? Yeah, it was at the national, oh, I can't even remember the, yeah, the National Arts Club. And I think, I think you were doing like a partnership with Ralph Lauren at that time. Ralph Lauren had hosted a series of book events. This was not a Ralph Lauren one though. This was just like talking about the book. Yeah, that was so funny. Seems like a long time ago. Yeah, I know 2015. Now I'm 2022 was basically where we're, we're almost at this point. We're recording now in December coming up on the New Year. And I think we've just kind of gone through like this weird time warp where COVID just really altered our perception of time. Like I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we're moving into 2022. And like 2021 has now finished. But COVID aside, I'd love to start off by talking a little bit about, you know, for my listeners, maybe who aren't so familiar with rowing glazers, like how things had evolved from the time that I met you in 2015 at that book event to where you are now. Yeah, it's been a crazy journey starting the rowing glazers brand and, you know, watching it develop and grow. At the time that we're talking about, which was like, you know, spring or summer of 2015, I think it was like spring of 2015. I was actually a teacher and rowing coach. I was like a high school, um, classics teacher and high school rowing coach. And I thought that I was retired from rowing. I had come out with the rowing blazers book, The Prior Fall. And the book was the product of four or five years of part time work, basically, while I was doing a PhD in archaeology and also doing a lot of rowing stuff. I was a coxen, as you know, for those who aren't familiar with rowing, that's the guy or the girl who steers the boat and makes the calls and kind of directs the race strategy and, you know, sort of runs practice, sort of like an in the boat coach a little bit, somewhere between a coach quarterback and cheerleader. That's a great way to describe it. You're the brains of the operation. The the rowers are the, you know, race car engine. You're the race car driver. This is maybe sexier way of putting it. I thought that those days were behind me. Finish my PhD, came out with the book all in the sort of fall winter of 2014, came back to the US, got a job teaching classics and coaching rowing at a boarding school in Massachusetts. And around the time that we're talking about like May of 2015, I got a call to come back onto the national team. I was not at all at coxing weight. You have to be at 55 kilos, which is 120 pounds or below. And I was about 75 pounds off of that maybe. No, that's not quite true. I was about 60 pounds off of that. And I think I was just starting to figure out how to get back to weight and rejoin the national team. At the same time, I had also started percolating this idea of starting my own brand that would also be called Rowling Blazers, the name of the book. I met a guy who was at a peril industry veteran named David on spring break of that spring of 2015. He and I had just started in earnest to try to figure out how to create a brand, how to start a business. I went back onto the national team. I did manage to lose 60 pounds. We got a bronze medal at the world championships. I ended up staying on the team for another year because it was the Olympic year. But all the while was sort of figuring out how to build the brand on the side. Didn't make the Olympic team in 2016. Moved to New York in sort of summer fall of 2016. Launched the brand in May of 2017. And it's just been a crazy, crazy ride since then. Oh my god, I mean, I just find it so cool how it started out as this coffee table book and turned into something so much more. And I think I don't know if you would attribute it to the right place, right time where you met David and you guys got to get together and really get creative and figure out how to turn this book into a brand or how that journey really started to evolve for you. But something that I loved about the book was how really you would done all this research and you'd gone your PhD in archaeology. So you're so knowledgeable about the origin of the blazer and how it really originated with the sport of rowing. And it was like a workout jacket. And then over time it evolved into like this symbol of preppiness. But something that I love that you really talk about with rowing blazers or at least when I had worked at the store a few years ago was that rowing blazers the brand now is like Ivy style meets vintage streetwear and it's kind of bringing prep into the brand but also kind of transforming it and making like the prep wear bringing like a different flavor to that which I find so interesting and no other fashion brand has really done that before. Yeah, you know, the brand has you know sort of developed and morphed and grown of course this time has gone on and it's funny I always wanted to do collaborations that's become a huge part of what we do. I remember back when I was at the national team training center in San Diego in Chula Vista David used to fly out sometimes and we like, you know, in between training, we'd meet up. We meet up at what we called our West Coast office, which was in an outburger in Chula Vista, California. And, you know, we'd spread out. We'd look at samples. We'd talk about everything. And I remember talking about a couple things. One was we said kind of like, you know, if we ever have the opportunity to do collaborations, do like sort of, you know, some bigger collaborations, like, who would you want to collaborate with? And we like both wrote down who we would want to collaborate with. And I don't remember everybody that we wrote down, but I think we definitely wrote down Barbara. I think we definitely wrote down Sparry, Fila, for sure, but Barbara the Elephant, like all these things that have like somehow come to fruition now years later. And it's so crazy. Like we were just two random guys sitting in an outburger, like making a list on like a napkin. The other funny thing is we also said to each other, well, I don't know if we're going to do wholesale or make this more of like a direct to consumer business or what, but if we ever were going to do wholesale, like what stores would you want to be in? And we did the same thing. We wrote it down without showing each other. And I think like the first store on my list was Beams and the first store on David's list was United Errors. And by just total weird, you know, I don't know, the way the world works, those ended up being our first two wholesale accounts. So it's just so that's crazy. It is a little bit like when people talk about like manifesting, you know, or. Well, yeah, I was going to say like, is this manifesting? Like you're putting it on paper, you're like bringing those thoughts and ideas into like your, your presence and into your like experience. And then it actually develops into something real, which is so fascinating and inspiring at the same time. Yeah, it is just so weird. And almost all of those like Phila, Sparry and Barbara were all like inbound. You know, they were all, it wasn't us reaching out to them. It was them reaching out to us. So to me, that really was kind of like this weird thing of like if you just kind of put the right energy out there into the world. And if you're really clear on your point of view, you know, not all the time, but hopefully at least some of the time it will end up resonating with the right people. And you'll, you know, you'll kind of get back what you sort of wanted, you know. So it's, it's pretty crazy. You even had the opportunity to collab with the NBA, which was so cool. I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that collaboration. And you know, what I really love about Rowan Blazers as well is that yes, it started out with like the Blazer and the sport of rowing. But the brand has become so much more, so much like more beyond just crew and through these different partnerships, it's become so expansive, which is something that I love. Yet it all still stems from that original, that's kind of like the lifeline of the brand is the sport of rowing and crew and the Blazer. But I love how it's also branched out. And like through these different partnerships and with the NBA, like I feel like you're, it's just become so much more, which is so fascinating to see. Yeah, I mean, there's so much that I could say I'm trying to not, you know, give too long of answers. But, you know, Rowan is still very much part of the brand's DNA. Obviously, you know, Kes and I both came out of the world of rowing. The genesis of the brand is the book, which is much more literally about the tradition of the Blazer and all these different rowing clubs. It's still very much part of who we are. We're still making a lot of Blazers for a lot of rowing clubs. We're an official partner of US rowing. I think starting in 2023, we're going to be a partner of the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race. So we're continuing to actually do more and more in rowing. But the brand has definitely gone way beyond that. But you know, it's a bit like polo as a brand, you know, it's not just for polo players, you know. And we have had just some amazing opportunities. The NBA has been really cool. That's another one where they approached us and you just kind of don't believe it when something like that happens. Actually, the very first sort of collaborative opportunity that we had with Jay Crew. And they just emailed [email protected]. And I remember Kes and I looking at the email and we thought it was like maybe someone we knew playing like a prank on us. Like is that real? Did Jay Crew is just like cold call emailing like hello@RowingBlazers, but it was real. And that's how it all started. You know, you asked earlier though too about, I guess, yeah, this sort of a collective mix of influences that rowing players just become. And I think something that often people talk about in the press about the brand is, you know, that it's kind of taking this quote unquote preppy aesthetic and making it a bit more inclusive or a bit more relevant. And, you know, it's kind of funny because that's never something that like we set out to do at the beginning. But I think it's just a product of doing things in a way that is at least to me that feels genuine and is just kind of like the right way to do things. Like I have always had very eclectic tastes. You know, I loved like vintage clothing growing up. Also like I love streetwear. I loved like the official preppy handbook. And I think the brand is the result of all these different influences coming together. And so, you know, when we were starting a brand, the operates in many of the same categories as like Ralph Lauren, for instance. We don't necessarily think about the brand or the business the same way as Ralph Lauren. So like we're not doing these big, you know, a two or four big collections a year. It's like we're coming out with something new almost every week. We're doing a lot of collaborations. You know, that's very natural to me. I think our approach to marketing and how we present the brand is much more, I don't know, just sort of much more rogue. It's a little more underground. It's a little more. It's just like younger and just feels a bit more organic. We're not doing like big Bruce Weber campaigns or something. You know, I think like then the people that we're putting in our ads are like basically my friends most of the time. I mean, yeah, like some of whom are models and some of whom are just people. And I think that's kind of important too. And if you look at our Instagram, you know, it's like it's going to be a mix of just like normal people wearing our clothes, some celebrities, some just like mood board images. It's it's just a different approach to, I don't know, to building and growing a brand. Yeah. I mean, I also over time it was like Timothy Chalme was wearing the hats. Then it was Pete Davidson was wearing the clothes and Gweneth Paltrow and all these celebrities it feels like they organically started to just find out about rowing blazers. I must have felt like amazing to see that and realize like wow, like this is gaining reach. Like people beyond just like everyday individuals like celebrities are starting to like rep rowing blazers. Yeah, that's been really crazy to me as well, you know, because it just so much of it has just happened just totally organically and it starts with like, you know, an intern coming up and being like, Hey, have you seen this? I think like Mac and Wars wearing our rugby shirt in this new video and I'm like, no way. And then, okay, let me look and then it's like, Oh, he definitely is. And we're like, I'll try to figure out how that came about and then, you know, Kazaya is like looking in our Shopify and like, what's Mac and Wars real name? Oh, it's Ben Hagridi. Oh, Ben Hagridi is like one of our best customers and it's just crazy things like that and it's really just, yeah, I mean more and more people who are such, you know, I don't know, just such people that I look up to wearing the clothes is just so cool. Like, I mean, I was a huge Mac and War fan and the fact that he's then like wearing something that like I designed is so cool and so mind blowing and and then it's cool too. And it's like, gives you the opportunity to get to know some of these people a little bit, you know, and actually end up be like talking to them on the phone. It's really a bit surreal. And I think something that I love is how eclectic the sort of like, you know, celebrity clientele of rowing blazers is. It's not like it's just one niche, I don't know, sort of like group of people, but it ranges from like Mac and War to Mindy Caining to Emily Radikowski to Dwayne Wade and so many other NBA players to Ezra Cainig to Asap Rocky to Timmy. Timmy, we love Timmy. I know it's just so, it's such a cool group of people. And I can only imagine the feeling of gratification and just like being blown away by achieving that milestone and having it feel so surreal. Once you've built a brand like that, how do you start to balance the business side but then also the creative stuff that you guys are doing? As it's kept growing and growing, how have you maintained a level head or gone through some of those challenges of trying to find the right balance of being involved in the creative stuff but also having to lead more of the business side of the brand? - Yeah, to be honest, it's been really challenging. And I haven't always kept a level head and I haven't always kept things in perfect balance by any stretch. That is one of the most challenging things and there's no playbook for this. It's not like you can just pick up and read like, oh, here's how you do it. There's really no rules. And even, I've been fortunate to have both people like David and also just people outside of the company who I've gotten to know a little bit who've been around the block many times in this industry and creating other brands who always have a lot of advice but the situation is always, I don't know, it's just different for each brand and for each company and you really have to just figure it out on your own. It has been one of the most challenging things because I'm both the creative director and the CEO of the company. And that's a lot. And in the past, in the beginning, it was just three of us. It was just me and Kes and David. And you're wearing many, many more hats than CEO and creative director at that time. You're also like the messenger and your customer service and you're like all of the above. I'm still wearing many hats but I am very grateful for the team that we've been able to build. Scott, who is the president joined us this year. We saved Scott from the world of finance. We helped save his soul and you wears the finance hat. - Does he wear the finance hat? - But he wears many hats, he literally wears the finance hat but he wears many hats in the company and he's taken a lot off my plate. And just as the team has grown and I think, as a startup, it's not like we have recruiters out there like we're going around to, like the coal company is only like 20 people or so. You kind of learn as you go a little bit and we've made hires that don't work out. As the company grows, you just learn and you figure out and I think we're getting to a place where kind of like the right pieces are all falling into place and we have a really, really good team that is enabling me to have a little more balanced in my life and also to focus more on the creative which is the part that I really enjoy and the part that I'm the best at. So I think it's still an ongoing, it's just perpetual kind of challenge but it's gotten a lot better and it's gotten to a place where I can focus on the stuff that I really enjoy a bit more. - Yeah, I think that it's so important to have help and to have support where you can kind of delegate other tasks to other people or like outsource some of the resources that you need so that you can then like have the time to focus on the things that you're really passionate about and give that like you're 100% of your energy into that. And I can imagine it being difficult during times of you know stress or feeling discouraged about something like how do you get yourself out of that slump when things aren't going a certain way that you'd like for them to go or you're just feeling really overwhelmed 'cause it's you know rowing glazers is like your baby and it started out with just three people. So how do you kind of navigate those challenges and keep pushing forward when things start to feel really overwhelming or really stressful? - Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it is kind of my baby. It's my name on the tin as they say in England and it's a front facing brand. It's not like we're doing something behind the scenes or we're doing something kind of boring. It's like the whole idea is it's a community. So if things kind of are going wrong in the front facing side of things, it you know it has a big impact. I think part of it is on some level just realizing that tries you might things aren't gonna be perfect and learning to live with that a little bit. And also learning that the things that I notice and the I pick up on not everybody else is gonna pick up on or like maybe nobody else is gonna pick up on. Like you know you're your own worst critic as they say and that's definitely the case. So I do think there is a component of just learning to let go a little bit and not to try to control everything and make it totally perfect which has been a challenging learning process for me. Yeah and I think the other thing is just having people that you really trust and that really share the vision in place and I think that's you know that's kind of the point that we're getting to. There's definitely been and thankfully they're getting to be fewer and fewer but there's definitely been those days in the past where you're just so overwhelmed and things are really building up and the other thing about this industry is that so much of it is time sensitive. You know if you don't launch this collection you know before the holidays you're missing out on the time period when it's relevant for instance. You know a lot of the collaborations we do it's like well we can't let down the other brand that we're collaborating with if we've made a commitment to do something in a certain timeframe. And the other thing that makes it time sensitive is you have bills to pay all the time. So this is not a startup where we've raised like 30 million dollars and we're just sitting on huge cash reserves and it's like oh we'll just sort of build this and like no we need to we need to keep doing cool stuff to keep people engaged and to keep literally keep paying the bills and keep the payroll going and there are those days or those nights where you're like it's just all built up so much I just I have to stay up all night to just punch through the wall and just get through this. And thankfully those days are becoming you know fewer and farther between and a lot of that is due to just you know starting to have the right team in place. - Definitely and I think having the right people around you is so important 'cause I think that also kind of empowers you to keep pushing forward and feeling less like alone in that energy that you're putting towards this project and this company and really you know having to meet those deadlines and everything that's relevant to like the retail industry. I'm really curious to hear more about the lessons that you learned from rowing really being involved in that sport for so long and professionally. You know for me personally, even though I only rode throughout high school I think the sport taught me so many important life lessons and like really instilled values of discipline and resilience and grit and those are the things that I've carried with you know throughout high school and college and post grad now in my personal and my professional like all aspects of my life and I'm so curious to hear like what lessons you've taken away from the sport and how you've applied that to being an entrepreneur and building a really successful brand. - Yeah I mean there are so many rowing metaphors that you could apply. One of the biggest things I've learned over time though is actually how different this is from rowing and actually how maybe my perspective from being in the sport and being in the sport at a high level you know being on the national team like 2011 through 2016. Actually gave me not totally the right perspective for what was needed you know. I mean for one thing this is no knock on anybody but I came from an environment where I was used to being around people who are like literally you know elite athletes and very much kind of self starters, very coachable. You don't get to you know being at the highest level of the sport and being on the national team or being in crews that are winning Henley or winning you know like Kes one two national championships without being coachable, without being very driven, without being without having all these qualities that once you're in the world of like a fashion startup just frankly not everybody that you're around is coming out of that same background. In fact almost no one is coming out of that background. And so it's been a big learning process for me frankly that how you interact with people, how you deal with challenges or stressful situations situations or mistakes, you know, it's different when you're dealing with a different type of team from like, you know, world championships rowing team, you know. So that's been a big difference for me and I think the other thing that has been a big adjustment is I have basically my whole life have been very focused on winning. That's been my big motivation for most of my, you know, for most of my life. I started in the sport of rowing in middle school, you know, I was I think I was 11 years old. Oh, you were young. You started early. Yeah. I played baseball before that. We were a state champions undefeated, the Sudbury storm, Little League baseball, and then got into rowing. Yeah, in middle school and stayed with the sport from the age of 11 until, yeah, I don't know, I guess 29. That's a pretty long time. I had a very, I don't know, I guess somewhat unusual rowing career to or coxing career. I went to Georgetown for my undergrad, which was sort of competing in the, I'd say like the most competitive league or one of the two along with, you know, the Pac-12s, but the Eastern Sprints, which is all the Ivy Leagues, Georgetown, Syracuse, Northeastern, BU, Navy, I forget who else, but it was not one of the high performing or top performing teams in that league, but I went there with the idea of like really building it. They're not doing so hot at this exact moment, but you know, I think we made some big strides while I was there, but it also left me wanting more, and that's why I went to Oxford to race in the boat race. And while I was there, I raced in the reserve boat and then I raced in the lightweight boat race and then made the transition to another team called Oxford Brooks, which is like a high performance training center, which was the best years of my rowing career for sure. And one of the reasons why it was the best is because you basically like never lose. They're probably the top rowing club in in Europe, some might argue. While I was there, one henley, one the head of the Charles got under the national team for the first time, but it was always, I mean, I guess the point is, you know, it was a career where I was always sort of pushing higher and higher and pushing for more and more and pushing to win. And I came from a career where in the earlier stages of my career, I wasn't just in the top high school program or in the top college program right away. We had some great wins, and we had some big losses that stung a lot and that were always a motivation for me to want to win more and more and more. But now when you're in the world of fashion and design and the apparel industry and so on, it's not exactly the same as like a race or a season of being on a team. You're not exactly trying to win in the same way. You're trying to do cool stuff, create cool stuff that resonates. Of course, you want it to be successful. But it's just a different type of, I don't know, it's just a different mindset from that real competitor kind of mindset. And that's been a massive adjustment for me. So this is a long-winded answer, but you know, answering your question, I think my biggest lesson with regards to like going from rowing to this career and design and fashion is not how do you take the lessons from rowing and apply them. It's actually more of sort of, how do you switch off all of the instincts? That is a really unique answer and it makes a lot of sense because now you're in like a different time in your life and you're operating in a different context. And the sport of rowing is so unique and it's like if you're in it, you are like very much in like that bubble and it's very much like a cult kind of like everyone who's in the sport of rowing like they know everyone like they understand like the challenges like you know you bond over that experience. And it makes sense now that like being in the apparel industry you've had to really develop a new perspective and kind of redefine what it means to win and what it means to be successful because you're not looking at the same metrics as you were previously when you're trying to win a race and you know compete at a really high level. So I think that's a really profound answer. I think also like in life we're always kind of experiencing many perspective shifts through different phases in our life whether or not you're going from being an elite athlete to developing your own fashion brand like it could be really anything. And I think like personally for me the transition from college and now post-grad I'm operating in like a different context and a different schedule. I'm around different people and I'm doing different things and I think I'm also trying to build different perspectives and world views because the nature of my day to day is just so different. So I think yeah it's like totally important to acknowledge that you can take some lessons that you've learned from past experiences and bring them along for like the next ride but you also have to be adaptable and really broaden your horizons and open your mind to like being fully immersed in a different experience because that may bring surprises. And I know you were just at a wellness Buddhist retreat out in San Francisco. I'm sure you had a lot of time to contemplate and fine tune these perspectives and mindset shifts. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about where you were, what you were doing, how that experience was. I'm super jealous. I would love to just disconnect and get out to the west coast and be near the ocean and have an experience like that. Yeah this was unlike anything I've ever done. So I was on a five day silent retreat at a Buddhist meditation center in northern California. No phones, no computers, no talking at all, no checking email, no reading. You can't read a book, you can't write a journal, you can't read or write. That's it would be considered like breaking silence. You know so for five days you're basically you're meditating a lot. You know you're basically sitting with your eyes closed. You're supposed to think about nothing basically. You're supposed to not talk, not read, not whatever and not basically not even think. Just be. And a lot of walking where you sort of meditate too, which you could either walk like just sort of walking slow motion back and forth or you could hike. I did a lot of hiking just by myself, which was really nice, really amazing. But the rest of the time that you're not hiking, yeah you're just basically sitting and meditating. There's a few teachings every day where you're listening to that, but that's pretty much the only thing that's not silent and you're not talking, you're listening to the teachers speak. But it was really amazing, it was really amazing. It was really amazing five days. It was really like the first time since the invention of the smartphone that I was like switched off and unplugged. Other than I went to Cuba for like three days, a few years ago and American cell phones don't work in Cuba at all. So I was unplugged from phone and text messages and emails and social media for that time. But that was a little bit different from just meditating. But yeah, it was a really, really amazing experience. And I think it obviously impacts your perspective on what you're doing and tries you might to not think about anything, at least for me, I inevitably end up thinking about a lot of things, including the brand, including the company and you know ways that we can improve and do things differently. And it was just a really, really cool experience. So they tell all these sorts of stories. One of the stories actually they told related to rowing, you know, sort of weird way. It stayed with me. I'll share it with you though. But it's like there's a person who's going to go for a row on a lake. They're going to take a boat out and go rowing on a lake. And they get down to the lake and it's really windy and there are a lot of big waves. And there's also like pretty dense fog. But they kind of assess the situation. They decide they're going to go out for a row anyway. And just try to be careful. And they're rowing around and it's going great and you know, it's really tough conditions, but they're doing all right. And they get out to the middle of the lake, taking a little rest. And they just see it the last minute, the bow of another boat cutting through the fog. And it's about to hit them. It's about to like hit the side of their boat. And in that moment, the person is like cursing whoever is rowing the other boat and is thinking, how could they be so stupid? How could they be so careless? The person is just cursing whoever's rowing that other boat. And then as the boat crashes into their boat, they see and they realize there's no one rowing the other boat. And it's just been blown into them by the wind and by the waves. And I don't know, there's just so much you can think about. about with that story. I just thought it was, I don't know, I just thought it was very interesting. It stayed with me, obviously partly because of the rowing, but I do think there's a lot that you can kind of, I don't know, there's a lot to take away from it. - Oh yeah, I mean, I'm thinking right now, like two different interpretations have come to mind, and I can only imagine like hearing that story already being in a very like meditative, calm environment and having it hit differently, and then having the time to actually think more about it, 'cause I think, you know, oftentimes we're so on the go, especially in New York and especially people like yourself who are very high achieving and driven and motivated. Like we always are onto the, you know, the next, and we're constantly in movement, either like physically or like mentally our thoughts are always racing, and we never really take the time to just sit with our thoughts and let them settle and let them pass and just acknowledge them. So I can imagine like being in that environment, hearing those stories and hearing those, you know, pieces of wisdom, it's kind of like you're unlocking a whole new set of meanings behind them. And I think, you know, in that story in particular, something that strikes me is like, feels like we tend to put a lot of blame on others, and we kind of think the worst of people and of things, and you know, when you act so quickly on your emotions and you let that drive your behavior, it can really alter a situation and not go that great, kind of like in this story, because the rower then realized, "Wait, no one was controlling that boat. It was just the wind. It was just, it naturally came that way." And I think we're so quick to latch onto strong emotions and act out of those emotions rather than just taking a breath and taking a step back and like reassessing the situation. And I think that's so important to remember. Silent retreats, I've never done one. I would love to try one at some point, but it would be especially challenging for me because I love to talk. But I think there's so much value to not speaking for an extended period of time, because then you can be, you learn how to be so purposeful with the words that you're using and how you're communicating. I don't know if that's something that you have now kind of taken away from that. Like it must have been crazy to like say a word for the first time in five days and like realize like what your voice sounds like. And I just feel like I would come out of an experience like that thinking, wow, I probably talk too much. And I need to learn how to be a little bit more purposeful with what I say and have my words be a bit more impactful and choose them with greater intention and being more wise about what I choose to say. I don't know if that was kind of like a revelation you found now coming out of the silent retreat. Yeah, it was definitely a strange experience coming back into the quote unquote real world afterwards. And I think it has impacted me in many ways and made me more thoughtful about how I'm communicating. And yeah, it's just weird. It's very hard to explain. But I'll say I could have stayed there for another couple of weeks for sure. I loved it. I thought it was great. That's awesome. I guess maybe like the hardest part of it maybe is like right at the beginning and then it's like you rip off the bandaid and you get used to it and it's like you're kind of craving more of it. That at least for me is like my experience of meditating. It's always like if I haven't done it in a while, the hardest part is just getting back into it. And then once I established more like a regular cadence and like a more structured meditation practice, I start to really want that. Then it's like five minutes feels like nothing. I need 10 and then I need 20 and then I need 40. And to the average person, it feels so daunting to meditate for 40 minutes. It feels like oh my god, I don't have the time to do that. But then once you practice and you get used to it, you start to love that and it goes in an instant. All of a sudden 40 minutes is done and you're like wait, I could have kept doing that for hours. Yeah, I'm someone who hasn't spent a lot of time meditating. I am someone who's basically just been go, go, go, go, go, for years. For years. I mean, yeah, since I think since middle school, I started getting very serious about and very competitive with wanting to do very well in school and wanting to do very well in sports and just wanting to have it all going on. And this was like the first time since childhood of just doing nothing for any period of time. So it's definitely something that I want to carry into my daily life now as well. Yeah, well, I'm very curious to see how you choose to incorporate some of those learnings that you gained from this experience in your day-to-day life. Now, once you're back in reality, that was something I struggled with. I was in Bali this summer. And I had the opportunity to go become a certified yoga instructor. And it was one of the most blissful experiences of my life. And something that I was so afraid of while I was there was like, oh my god, this is so good. It's going to be gone. And then I'm going to come back to New York. And I'm not going to be able to keep up my yoga practice and my meditation practice. And I just didn't want to lose what I'd gained there. And it's still been a struggle for me trying to bring those experiences into like this different environment. But I think something that I'm trying to do is separate those experiences from being in that environment, from being in Bali and really extracting that away and learning how to just take that and bring it to a different environment. Because you can do yoga anywhere, and you can meditate anywhere. And you can practice those skills really anywhere. It's just hard when you really attach it to a place and a time. But I'm so curious to, you know, in the future here, how your meditation practice evolves and how you will start to hopefully incorporate, you know, what you've learned from that experience into being back in New York and resuming what you're doing with growing Blazers and just being back in, quote unquote, "normal life." Yeah. And congrats, by the way, on, you know, on getting your certification. And I know Bali is so amazing. So that must have just been an incredible experience so congrats to you as well. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I could talk about that for hours. But it was really like an experience like no other and to have just graduated from college and have this extended period of time where I had no responsibilities. Like, you'll never get that back. Especially now that I'm just starting the workforce. So it was really a special time. But aside from my experiences in Bali and this meditation, as we're wrapping up the episode, I have a few final questions. My first question is, what is a piece of advice you'd like for my listeners to take away, you know, specifically people who are interested in following in your footsteps in one way or another? Like, some people who are super creative and are building something or they want to take that entrepreneurial leap in their life. What advice do you have for someone who is experiencing something like that right now? Wow, well, how much time do you have? (laughs) No, I think, you know, it's a little bit cliche, but I think the biggest thing is to just be focused and be very, it sounds like such a cliche, but it does to be very true to your own vision and what you're trying to create. There will be a lot of distractions. There will be a lot of opportunities, especially once you get a little bit of momentum. There'll be more opportunities than you ever imagined, but not every opportunity is one that you necessarily should take or can take and, you know, you'll soon find, you can't do all of them. So you need to be really thoughtful and think, you know, how is this serving the vision that I, you know, want to achieve? And, you know, to learn to say no to things. And I think that's a big takeaway. I think just keeping a sense of balance is really important as well. This is something that I, you know, wasn't that good at for a long time. I'm still working on getting better at, but I think it is important to maintain a little bit of balance and to, you know, to make sure that you get some downtime and some time to switch off and pursue your other sort of interests and passions as well, you know, when you're pursuing like a passion project, it is, it is kind of like, well, I saw something, this is a long time ago, actually, but it was like a piece of paper and someone had written, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. And they had been crossed out. The last part of it had been crossed out and so it ends up saying, do what you love and you'll kind of be working all the time. And it's so true unless you actively give yourself the structure or the space or the time to not be working all the time, you know, because it is your baby, because it is your passion, it can feel a little bit like, well, why not? Why wouldn't I just do this the whole time? And, you know, you feel very motivated to wanna make it as good as it can be. And that's how I've operated for most of the past, you know, four and a half, five years. But I actually don't think it's the best way to do things. I think it is better to try to build in a little bit more of a sense of balance from early on. - I love that. And I think that's something we're all trying to figure out. Something I'm also trying to figure out too with my podcast is it's something I love. And I have so much fulfillment and joy out of it, but it can feel super overwhelming when you're also balancing another job and you want to have a life, but you also want to put a lot of your energy towards this. And how do you balance everything? And how do you really achieve the goals that you're setting out for yourself to do? So I really love that advice. And I think my listeners will definitely benefit from it. You know, whether or not they're looking to build something on their own, I think just finding balance is something that we all need because a lot of, you know, my listeners are recent grads, few years out of college and we're just constantly going through a series of many transitions. And it's in those times that we're dealing with challenges and it's things always kind of go up and down. And so how can we just find some sort of equilibrium from, you know, the extreme highs and the very low lows? So I love that piece of advice and my final question is something that I ask every guest that comes on to the podcast. What is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? There are a couple ways to answer that, but I think one is just every day is a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I've tried to find a little bit more of a sense of balance, I guess, but every day you do have some pretty big victories and some pretty big wins. And you also have, you know, at least for me, I have things that are like blowing up that I'd never even could have imagined that you're just blindsided by every day as well. And I think one thing I've also tried to get better at is celebrating the wins a little bit more or the, you know, the highs and taking a moment to just appreciate them a little more. I think for like four and a half years, I've been very, it'll be like, oh, Esquire just said, like, you know, Rowling Blazers makes the best rug be shirts of all time. And then like, you know, 15 minutes later, it'll be like, oh, we just got a call from like, I don't know, some shipping agent and I don't know, like, the tariff on this type of corduroy changed and no one realized and they're like, held in customs now. And like this whole project, this whole other project is going to be late because of that. And you're like, well, I don't even know what your custom tariff on corduroy or like, what are you talking about? Like stuff you could just never foresee. And then, you know, an hour after that, it'll be like, oh, Gwyneth Paltrow has been like photographed wearing like Rowling Blazers outfit. And then, you know, after that, some other just inics, it'll be like, like Instagram is just down. And this big launch we're supposed to do, we can't even post about it. So like, and just every day, just have those like, and at least in my experience in this business, in this brand, you know, and being in my shoes, you have such high highs and you have lows that do seem barely disastrous like every day. And I think just taking the time to appreciate the cool stuff a little more, like I would always just be like right onto the next thing. And I'm trying to do a better job of appreciating the cool stuff when it happens, basically. I also just think I have historically been a guy that's kind of all or nothing when it comes to many things, including like working out. And you know, it a little bit comes from my sort of Rowling days too, like I retired from the sport like three or four different times and then came back. And every time I'd come back, it'd be like this huge, like, you know, like montage from a movie almost where it's like, okay, I have to lose like 60 pounds in like two and a half months or, you know, something like that. Or even, even since those days, like during the pandemic, there was like three month period where I was like working out, like two or three times a day for like at least two hours, you know, per session. And it was just like going so hard with it. And then there've been also like months where it's like, I'm just doing nothing. And I've just tried to now just be a little bit more of like, just, let's just try to do something active every day. Maybe sometimes it's something pretty serious. Maybe other times it's just like, okay, I'm just gonna do like some pushups and do some like core on the floor for like 15 minutes and do some stretching. But I think that has really helped me a lot as well, you know, just getting active every day, but in a way that's not so all or nothing, and in a way that's not putting so much pressure on myself, basically. - Yeah, I mean, I totally can resonate with the exercise component because it was a challenge for me just redefining my relationship with exercise as a non-athlete in college, because we're trained to do such intense workouts and so many intense things at the boat house and on the water. And over time, I've started to realize that physical activity should be incorporated in your day to day. Like it's important to just stay active and do certain exercises that like energize you instead of deplete you. And that's also like a personal goal of mine is bringing more movement into my daily life and not being too hard on myself, if I didn't achieve a certain workout, or if I really needed to sleep in that morning, not being hard on myself or not getting up and working out instead. So I think it's like really listening to your body. And I also totally agree on that point of just celebrating the small wins, because we are like wired to put more of our attention towards negative affect and negative experiences. We kind of overlook the positive things in life. But those really, when you put more attention to them, that's where your energy is going. And hopefully you can start to manifest more positivity into your life. So I think that's something we're all working on as well. Thank you, Jack, so much for coming onto the podcast. It has been such a pleasure having you as a guest. For my followers, you can find Jack on @JackCarleson on Instagram. And you can also find Rowing Blazers at @Rowing Blazers. Hopefully there will be a pop up again in the city coming into the new year. Hopefully, when that happens, I can post information about that on my Instagram and in the episode description as well. The pop up that was previously in New York was super fun, had a great time working there a few years ago. So hopefully get to see Rowing Blazers back in the city sometime soon. Yeah, it was so great having you on the team, and so much fun. And we are planning to open a new store in 2022. So stay tuned for that. Awesome. Thanks, Jack. Hey, thanks so much. I really appreciate you having me on here. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thank you for listening and remember to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. Don't forget to keep spreading in Dorfins. And find things that bring you in Dorfins every day. See you next time. [MUSIC PLAYING]