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The conversation with formulator Matt Legge pulls back the curtain on the supplement industry, framing it as a metaphysical struggle between genuine intent and the corporate Machine.
Matt’s journey is a hero’s exile from structures like Metagenics, which prioritize efficiency over the soul of the product. This machine churns out soulless, AI-generated formulas that chase "white space," utterly neglecting the deep clinical insight of Root Cause Analysis—a meditation of the pulse.
The founder’s sacrifice creates the Pearl of Reciprocity, the organizational soul. The primary struggle is protecting this soul from "middle management" by constantly acting as the Chief Reminding Officer (CRO). The ultimate takeaway is a profound choice: to ethically play the regulatory puzzle with a full-spectrum approach and prioritize being the most respected—the "early bird gets the worm"—over merely being the biggest.
CORE INSIGHTS:
- [1:00-1:50] The Formulator's "Exile" and the Call to Invent: Deemed "unemployable" by a major practitioner brand due to his excess of innovative ideas, Matt Legge was effectively pushed to start his own supplement brand.
- [2:30-3:30] Critique of Claim-Driven Formulation: The core problem in the supplement industry is formulating for claims using single, trademarked extracts, disregarding the natural synergy of multi-ingredient or whole-herb formulations. [5:30-6:30] The Threat of AI-Generated Formulas: New brands often use AI or agencies to formulate identical, "soulless" products (e.g., Ashwagandha, B6, Magnesium Glycinate) based on market "white space," which sidesteps genuine root cause analysis.
- [9:30-10:30] Root Cause as Clinical "Meditation": Identifying the true root cause is subjective, requiring deep clinical insight—like a "meditation" of the pulse—that goes beyond generic university diagnoses. [11:30-13:00] The Limitations of RCTs in Natural Medicine: The parachute analogy to argue that natural medicine, with thousands of years of traditional use, does not always require modern RCTs that often exclude the sick people the medicine is meant to help. [14:00-15:30] The "Pearl of Reciprocity" and Organizational Soul: Mason views a founder's genuine intent and sacrifice as creating the "Pearl of Reciprocity"—a metaphysical, organizational soul that guides the company toward its purpose of "health and harmony."
- [29:00-30:00] The Chief Reminding Officer (CRO): To combat high staff turnover ("The Wiggles Theory"), the founder must act as the "Chief Reminding Officer" (CRO), perpetually repeating the brand's foundational ethos and "campfire stories" to maintain its core cultural spirit.
- [35:30-36:30] Innovation Stifled by Middle Management: Middle management, lacking the company's ethos, stifled innovation by rejecting Matt's inventions because a market segment for the original ideas did not yet exist.
- [54:30-56:00] The Ethical Full-Spectrum Formulation Approach: Modern ethical formulation uses a nuanced approach: combining standardized extracts (for regulatory claims) with full-spectrum whole herbs to ensure nature's full synergy. RESOURCE: Instagram: leggylegge. LINKEDIN: Matt Legge
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Check Out The Transcript Below:
Mason:
Well, I think everyone knows you from the last episode. I assume that everyone listening to the show has gone through the back catalog of every single episode that, you were here with James last time. Yeah. But we are doing solo. We had a nice, little luncheon the other day with Kyle from Level Up., Pete Evans was there. Yep., got tuned in again. Which is really lovely.
Matt:
Yeah, it's really good. It was actually inspiring. It's good to get out again and having a chat with people like you is really actually cool.
Mason:
Yeah, it was like a little bit of a supplement Avengers.
Matt:
It was, Hey.
Mason:
Yeah. Yeah.
Matt:
It was just good because you couldn't probably get more, as far as brands and products that we make, everyone was so different and so totally different beliefs, but when or not different beliefs. Different concepts and ideas and tools, but we all had such shared common beliefs that it was actually just magic.
Mason:
It was funny, eh?
Matt:
Yeah, I know.
Mason:
Yeah. I was really grateful for that. I never do. I'm, I'm a hermit., I was grateful that you guys came to my local.
Matt:
Yeah. Well, I've been in exile for a while, so it was kind of nice just to chill.
Mason:
what's the exile?
Matt:
Oh. You just get into that business side of things and then. You get out the other end and sometimes you don't go all the way to the end. Mm-hmm. And then you kind of just hide for a bit and refresh and reset.
Mason:
I've had a few friends that have gone through that. lately,, it's a path of everyone would be aware of here as you go through the loops of like, maybe hero's journey, dark Night of the soul, whatever you wanna call it.
Matt:
I'm just not, or imposter syndrome is what I titled my book because that's really, you know, I was never an entrepreneur. I never wanted to have a supplement brand or a business. I was always a formulator or a naturopath, and I was more excited about inventing products and just wanted to make products I wanted to use., And then I'll never forget, I was actually working for a big brand and they told me. I was unemployable. I had too many ideas and ideals and I should go start my own brand.
Mason:
Was it like business partners telling you that or other?
Matt:
No, there was actually, at the time I was employed by them. Mm. They told me I'm unemployed. Was this a polite way of firing me? But no, they was working for one of the bigger practitioner brands, actually, Metagenics. I used to formulate a few products for them.
Mason:
What made you unemployable?
Matt:
I had all these ideas. I just wanted to get every product to market, and I just kept pitching new ideas, new concepts, and it was all always about creating like protocols and stacks and not trying to make hero products as such. 'cause, when you're a naturopath and you're working in a clinic, you'll often be creating stacks. We'll. Space foundation of nutrients that we can keep relatively consistent and then we'll spike and add things in. But one of my biggest issues was that I really hated the way products were formulated for therapeutic claims. I really hated the way you design a product to get a claim or use a trademark material that had a published study that you use at a specific dose. To get a claim where the, science was on that single herb, which was not really even necessarily a natural herb. It could just be a proprietary. Way of extracting an active ingredient,
Mason:
kinda like way, is it the, like the KSM ash, is that what it's called? Yeah,
Matt:
exactly. That sort of stuff.
Mason:
Mm-hmm.
Matt:
Where you actually get a specific branded material that is not like it in any other form, in nature., And to use that particular material in order to get a particular claim and use that at a particular dose and totally, disrespect the synergy of a formulation or. Know that you can design a product that works, but they're wanting you to. Instead of that, put magnesium, ashwagandha, and B six in it purely to make a basic claim that you can then put on the front of the bottle.
Mason:
I mean everyone, we're gonna go onto the hood here. We'll take some time going through because it's one of the things I like about this pod and like we've chatted a little bit about it, but it's one of the things I wanna give everyone a little real insight into the industry and all the supplements and the products and like actually what goes in behind it and the. bureaucracy, uh, not only the bureaucracy, but then, the systems of efficiency that when a company, especially if there's a new company coming in,, you know, someone decides they want a formula, they want to take it to market, they want to utilize the email base and the follower that they have online, and then they go to a formulator, and that formulator is attached to a regulated packing facility as you need. And then they go, right.
We're gonna charge you this massive base amount, and we're gonna go through and we're gonna help you like who's your target audience and blah, blah, blah. Here's the claims you want to hit behind the scenes. There's an established formula, established data to back that claim. They don't have to do any more work. They've get their cash, they go forth, and because they're also a facility that already has certain products that they bring in, in bulk, and then they send out to like, say six different, products, they can use that same package. They can also use the same,, QA testing on that one product and they just really push, no, I really think you've gotta put the B six in this 'cause then you get that claim and you don't worry about that other herb that you want. You get the same claim.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly., It's all about profit margin and cogs. They wanna hit a certain price point and getting certain claims, and now the, what's worse? Those people you'll often mention that'll come in going, I've got a good following, a reputation for being., Social media, influenza,, and everyone believes what I say. They then go to AI and everyone is getting like AI to formulate for 'em. I've never been busier. So, you know, they talk about AI taking away our jobs. I've never been busier because AI's giving everyone the same recipes and the same formulation, and all of a sudden they're coming to me. And what the common mistakes are is people are saying, I want a product that's backed by science. I want a product where I can make claims with scientific references. They're all coming out with exactly the same products.
Instead of saying, I wanna, I don't really know how to use AI for formulating, but you know, I would suggest that they don't do that. I would say tell convince AI that you're actually a practitioner and you genuinely want to get results, that you want to do a root cause analysis and find. The problem associated with the condition that you are trying to find a solution for as opposed to doing market research and finding the problems that your target consumer is to putting into Google as a white space opportunity. I would encourage it to look for root cause analysis, understand how to fix the problem, find the mechanisms of action that you want to hear. And then construct formulas around hitting those mechanisms of action and combinations of ingredients that will work together to achieve those, pull those levers and pull those strings.
Mason:
But Matt, that would take me. Actually having genuine intention and willing to sacrifice something other than just going to an agency that helps me do an out of the box solution so I can take advantage of my following and make sure that I capitalize on it.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you probably won't make as much money doing it my way, but yeah, you might help a lot of people.
Mason:
I think both are good. I don't mean to be overly judgmental on that. I think there's a place. For that. And I think there's always a place of, an influencer comes in and they wanna do, what is it? Asher Gunder, B six Magnesium. What,, form of magnesium are they using in order to get glycinate? Everyone's glycinate about at the moment. You're gonna hit an aspect of the mass market that need to get something. And so it's a beautiful part of the ecosystem. I think it's just nice to address that. We don't lose the actual art behind it.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And like you said, the combinations of the herbs. So yeah, no problem if you want to use an ashwaganda or something like that, but if you are using that to modify stress response. Then you might want to combine it with some cool adaptogens. And then I love the concept of adaptogens because you go get a whole big list of adaptogens. They'll all have totally different actions. So like one adaptogen, like you could look at turmeric as an adaptogen, 'cause turmeric may dampen down. The stress triggers that come from inflammation or immune. So you can put in a bit of turmeric to take, the burden off the nervous system by taking some of those stress triggers.
We could use a Cassandra that does everything from controlling acidity triggers in the lungs and the blood, but also modifying the liver pathways that might have been upregulated from toxic exposure thing, and that's gonna be a cool combination. Then we can use a totally different adaptogen that has a totally different mechanism of action. But all of them together will normalize your physiology regardless of the direction of change.
Mason:
Mm-hmm.
Matt:
And bring you somewhere in the middle. So that way, and if you strategize 'em, you can go right now. I understand. And that's when you can do your market research. So with my consumer, yeah,
Mason:
good
Matt:
call. What are they stress triggers? What are their problems? Is it plastic exposure? Is it radiation? Is it., Immune. Is it inflammatory? Is it pain? Is it hormonal? You know? Yeah. And then target it towards your consumer that way. You know,
Mason:
I think I mentioned it on the phone when we were chatting earlier,, it's like how,, like, in TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, there's a lot of out of the box, which is really good for like mass Chinese medicine, pulse taking based on. University level, you know the pulse, the slippery pulse, and that's what you notice. That's what you've got the focus on. Therefore you diagnose that person or you know, whatever. You've got dampness here. I'm gonna notice that verse once you start, and it's the same in naturopathy, if you actually have root cause. Root cause is really subjective, unfortunately.
Matt:
Yeah.
Mason:
Within academia and within science, it's like, oh yeah, yeah. No, that's the root cause. It's stress and ability to adapt to stress. I was talking to my mate yesterday who, was training with, his mentor and his, teacher on a very deep classical lineage of pulse diagnosis, and he's like, the amount of time it takes about 400 clinical hours working with., And as my acupuncturist says, like pulse diagnosis is a meditation. Yeah, I know exactly that. I can very easily diagnose that this is going on with the liver or this is going on with the lungs and I could apply and I can get good results,, you know, I'm gonna go macro, like what does the soul want? . What is the genuine root cause based on where the human wants to go long term or based on the situational linchpin of their life and them to go through their difficult periods, transition to different phases of themselves.
Undergo,, transformations in their personal life, their profession, all of a sudden root cause changes. Yeah. Completely. Yeah. That takes a new level of meditation expertise. And when you're doing, as you said, then you do market research after you've realized, oh, I've got this real intention to meet people. At that point, I'm really good with my brand at communicating. That to people at that phase. Now let's go and formulate. Then you go to a formulator and they're like, yep, slap dash bang, you know, here you go. And it's like, well. You're gonna have to cut your teeth a little bit more and get a little bit more of an understanding of what's going on, right? Yeah. How to get to genuine root.
Matt:
And that's the problem with some of the, the regulations around that, where they specifically want you to use a particular extract or a particular type of extract, or then again, if you wanna make any of those claims, they want you to have it. Double blind, placebo controlled trials. You know, uh, I went to a seminar, a four M conference in America.
Mason:
What's that? A
Matt:
four M last year? . Functional medicine practitioners in the states. It's like bizarre 'cause it's like medical doctors and I thought it'd be really conservative, but it was really not conservative. It was very alternative, really interesting conference., But one of my favorite speakers, there was a guy, Dr. Sheldon Jordan. He started this speech,, it was quite funny actually. He starts going brace your seats for a Sheldon Jordan presentation. He's something like 80-year-old funny Dr. Guy. And then you just hear this screaming and on this, then you have a look at, the screen and there's this dude just falling from the sky and then this big thump at the bottom. And then he goes, . Did you know that parachutes have never had a double blind placebo controlled trial to prove efficacy? And then he, and everyone's laughing, he goes, he goes, yet it doesn't stop experts from recommending them.
You know? And it was really powerful 'cause it's like not everything needs a double blind, placebo controlled trial when it's got thousands of years are traditional use or when those styles of trials. Eliminates the group that you're actually trying to treat. Because in order to do those studies, they gotta be healthy people, you know? They
Mason:
eliminate. Oh, right. Yeah. They've eliminated the people that actually gonna need that, her procedure in the first
Matt:
place. Yeah. So with naturopath stuff and natural medicine, we'll pick people that have suffering from a condition to try to help bring them back to normal. It won't make a normal person. Or under, like once we get 'em back to normal, that's kind of when we stop and to do a double blind placebo controlled trial on natural medicine. Otherwise, you're making a drug. So if you pick someone that's got a condition, a diagnosis that's outside of the normal, then all of us, if you correct them and bring 'em back to normal, then you're making drug claims. We're not allowed to do that for our natural medicine,, you're only allowed to do it on healthy people and then you've gotta make healthy claims that you've made a healthy person healthier.
Mason:
Mm-hmm.
Matt:
Which makes it really hard to prove that in a double blind, placebo controlled trial, you know?
Mason:
Yeah. Or really superficial claims that are kind of on the edge of people will be like, oh yeah. That kind of relates to this deeper issue in which classically maybe, you know, within, like, you know, in Chinese medicine, they're often talking . In their classical textbooks, like this is what you're treating. But when it comes to what you can actually say on a label, it's gonna be like, you know, damp spleen kind of, but you can't actually hit what that diagnosis is
Matt:
or may aid, help support in maintaining normal, healthy, it's
Mason:
always may
Matt:
function of some sort. Yeah. So it's a funny old system.
Mason:
I think that's the one thing, I mean, know, maybe you're not interested in it. Everybody listening and I'm sorry for that, but there is a wild world that stops us. I enjoy my karma around it. As an Australian, you know, I feel like an interesting puzzle, which is what I always see My Daoist lens of what the pearl of reciprocity, I call it, from SuperFeast. I've given and sacrificed and I, gave my side of the deal and I always talk about an organization if you. Do that. It'll give you, as a founder, a pearl of reciprocity, which is a very metaphysical belief., That will be more about, you know, and this is how you get out of being,, so much involved in the world. You've helped me engage in the world and be a bridge between the cosmos and earth to bring the manifestation of what all of our goal is. I believe, heaven on earth. Health and harmony for everybody.
The capacity for everyone to go about whatever the human journey is, without experiencing massive suffering. So the pearl for me of SuperFeast has been the Dao way beyond what I talk about it SuperFeast, but it's taught me about the yin yang of the universe and that. It's just more or less this giant puzzle that you need to sit in and comprehend what the light of Yang and the dark of Yin is. And in that yin and yang puzzle, I really do accept that a part of being Australian is that there's like great things about how hectically regulated we are and how difficult it is.
To navigate it, and if you're willing to cut your teeth enough and give enough of your life, the blossoming that comes on the other side doesn't mean I've, I haven't got like a thousand complaints about it, but everyone listening always, I do enjoy giving you all a little bit of look under the hood and into the background, and you can obviously. It's too much to say, but you read between the lines and you can hear about this is what we're dealing with.
Matt:
Oh, yeah. And I love in Australia too, for different reasons, is that we're not bound by any definite cultural beliefs. We don't have to use particular types of herbs. We can understand the same philosophies between Yin yang and then have a look at the, you know, the ADA Peter Kapha from the Ayurvedic systems. We can understand the similarities that find in the same language. Used between all of the different modalities and we can still pick and choose our favorite tools for each one of those functions from anywhere in the world. And we can also have the ability to, through our regulations, and that it's led to lots of good testing facilities.
Mason:
Absolutely.
Matt:
And good systems for us to make sure that we know what the active ingredient is, that we're trying to build our own markers of standardization. Or even our own fingerprint of, the whole herb. So we understand we're gonna get consistent results.
Mason:
Well, that's something you don't experience in Australia, is the actual, the fingerprint chromatography is occurring with every registered product in America. They don't go through that. So no, you don't actually know what type of, we're talking about now, like pl. You're actually getting in America. Yeah. Because it all falls under one classification and they have completely different actions. You don't get that in Aussie.
Matt:
Yep, yep. And also too, I love that. That's the part I love about it. I, when I was at a TP, I made a product, alpha Mars, and we had this shilajit in it, and shilajit, it's very popular now, but at the time,, I had to test all these different shilajit. So shilajit, for those that don't understand what shilajit is, it's from the Himalayas where we get the cracks in the rocks. Plants will grow in the cracks of the rocks. Those plants will drop leaves and bark and all sorts of stuff into the cracks of the rocks. The bacteria and the microbes there start breaking it down and making compost. It's sitting in mineral rich soil and depending on what part of the Himalayas, whether it's iron rich or goldrich or whatever. So every part of the Himalayas at different heights from the sea level,, totally different forms of shilajit.
And in amongst shilajit you'll get all of the minerals, plus you'll get the breakdown of the products that are, uh, a lot of them are high allergic acid or allergic tenin products and they convert and make a lot of these things called urolithins the same health benefits, the same compounds that are got the health benefits that come. Whiskeys and wines and pomegranate peels and all these herbs that are famous and that all of these things are found. We get the fulvic acid minerals mm-hmm. And all those colloidal minerals. And then we get these other urolithins and algi tendons when they do the markers of standardization on shilajit to know that it's one of the unique features is the fulvic acid. So they'll often standardize it to fulvic acid., So then all of a sudden, because it's standardized to that, people start to think, oh, the active ingredient in shilajit, it's vic acid.
So then it naturally, it comes outta the ground at like 0.5%. Once you clean it and purify it, it might go up to about 1.5%. But often these companies are trying to claim that their shilajit is the best because it's like 80% foic acid. In doing so, they've removed all of the Ella tendons and all the urolithins that do all of the hormonal benefits, all the mitochondrial biogenesis, and basically made a mineral pitch just selling you minerals. So with our product that was famous for fertility and vitality and . Real manly sort of stuff. But then on the flip side, women would use it to fix menopausal hot flushing and, and all those sort of symptoms as well. Significantly increase hormonal load, improve fatigue and everything like that. And it was all based on the fact that our shilajit, I get it standardized to 2% fulvic acid.
And make sure that the fingerprints showed very high levels of urolithins and very high levels of Ellagic acid, and they were the actual active ingredients to do that. Otherwise, you're just selling mineral pitch. And the other problem, then I had to check, the reason why I did the fingerprint and testing everything is 'cause everyone was making shilajit high fulvic acid, like 80% fulvic acid, and then dodgy companies were buying the 80% fulvic acid. And then when I wanted 2% fulvic acid, they're like, you little ripper. They'll go and,, fill it up with sawdust and dilute it down to 2% and try to sell me something else. And then you're like, it's lost, all the magic by over purified and then diluted., And then what ended up happening, we found a part, a supplier from part of the Himalayas that was consistently delivering, and we just pretty much bought everything that they could make.
And then when we had the earthquake that hit the Himalayas, we were like, oh, no, we went and rang them up and said, look, you guys okay, do we need anything? So we actually went and paid for a year or so in advance of shilajit, so we'll pay you up front. For the next shilajit, so you can go back and rebuild your roads and get everything ready so that way your business is safe and secure and you know, we are partnering with you and we want to keep this stuff good.
Mason:
Wow.
Matt:
Yeah. And tongkat Ali was also in that formula. tongkat Ali was one of the other most commonly adulterated ingredients you'll ever find.
Mason:
Well, it's because it takes such a high concentration to get it down to something that's actually gonna have that.
Matt:
So we've got root stock, so we've got root stock from the farm. Of the actual stuff that they would grow and generated a fingerprint outta that and went and got tongkat Ali at different growing stages and went and did testing to make sure we had a, we knew exactly if it was the same material every time and from the same farm.
Mason:
Who was this with?
Matt:
That was with a TP when we had that product that was killing it., And winning all these awards for like test booster of the year or whatever. It was such a great product.
Mason:
Was this like 2016?
Matt:
Yeah, around then.
Mason:
Yeah. And I remember that was like Tahnee, my wife was meant to go over when that earthquake hit and then the earthquake hit and then instead, 'cause we'd kind of broken up and gone our separate ways and then we got, had a conversation and instead of going there, she was like, right, I'll come and meet you in Costa Rica instead of, that's how we really got together.
Matt:
Oh, that is awesome. Yeah. That is a great story. Yeah. No, I love how, ., That magic of that sort of, like you're talking about with your brand, it's more than just making products to tick boxes for a target consumer. It's that whole magic behind it. And honestly, in the early days, I was making it myself, like sourcing all the materials, like getting it blended at my friends, the guys that own international protein and that protein. But they used to blend it all for me down the road. And then I'd actually be sitting there at one stage. Making the capsules and making it into the powders, like actually doing it. And you, and then at the end of the day, I'd go out to the stores and try to teach people about my products. You get everyone sitting around on protein buckets, you know, in, in the health food stores and the sports supplement stores. And,, you're so passionate about it.
You believe in it and then you constantly, and you dream about it. The man I used to, this is a funny story. There's this stupid dream that I have all the time. And it's, it's really retarded. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I used to always have this dream and it's such a wanky, I can't, anyway, it'd be like in an award ceremony and be wearing suits, you know, by fireplace. You're almost like with all those rich people laughing in that meme,
Mason:
the goblets of scotch and,
Matt:
yeah. Yeah. Literally, that's why my hand is doing this right now. I'm holding my, goblet, the brandy. I think it is Giles. That's true., I used to have this dream and I'd always be aware of my friend go, ha ha ha. The product didn't work until I added this. And then I'll be like, hang on, I don't have kelp in that product. And wake up and go. And I'd write and I started writing this stuff down. 'cause it would just stick in my head and I'd go back and go, oh my God, I need to add kelp. That's the exact ingredient that's missing. And I had, that's happened like three or four different times. And every time I did it,, and it was always this same, ha ha ha. Yeah. Funny. Eh, it's weird.
Mason:
That magic. I mean, that's probably why you're on. Employable., Because businesses don't structure themselves around that root crop of intention, and magic and subconscious finger on the pulse of reality of how to actually deliver something that's gonna get to root cause for people. I'm sure in other industries there's other ways to talk about it. I've talked, I think everyone's heard me talk about the so essence of SuperFeast enough times and how difficult it has been for me. Not to. If I'm around, I can constantly remind everyone, but how do I know when I'm not around that the entire strategy and direction of the company always aligns with a very,, deep. Objective,, emergence from the intentions I've had from the experiences, that I had, that led to the company that had genuine intent.
And if I,, just bring people in, I go, well, you know, if I get what I call a born again executive that comes in and invests and they're like, yeah, no, I know what you're talking about. I'm like, so spiritual as well. And then they get enough. . Stake in the company that then they just steamroll and they're like, well, that's actually just bullshit. Yeah., That magic that you are talking about isn't real. You are just talking about brand story. We just want market penetration and we just wanna make sure that we change and we streamline everything. It's like. No, it's unequivocally not what we're talking about and, so what is the magic then? So from an your point of view, naturopathic point of view, dream interpretation. Mm-hmm. That intention, where that comes from, because we've got the ai, we've got the ability to go to consultants that understand how to read the.
Science and the double blind that gets us to, you know, in America, maybe just something that we can make a claim on successfully or in Australia, go with the regulators and get an official claim that we can put on the label. That's all being covered. That's all textbook, that's all university. What's the magic then that they're not willing to capture within an ? Organizational structure?
Matt:
Yeah,, it's really hard to say, you know, like my personal motto is. As a naturopath, you know, I was always first do no harm. So that was what part of it. But my other motto was always results, not excuses. And my whole thing was I always wanted to work towards getting a result. I was never happy to compile excuses., And I wanted also for my products to work was the first and foremost. I didn't want to ever have someone's. I didn't wanna come to someone with excuses for their lack of results. whether it was regs or whether it was the science said this. That's why I thought it was a good idea,
Mason:
and you had that, despite the fact that you might have, 10,000 units going out of one product in two months through retail channels. Yeah. You still wanted to have that accountability.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I used to be in the naturopath clinic and I loved my clients and I loved the naturopath clinic. And I justified leaving the naturopath clinic because in the naturopath clinic I could help one person per hour if I did what I said and actually followed through and, if I was right and all that sort of stuff. But then if I figured if I made products, how many people I can help per hour and I could justify leaving the naturopath clinic to that I could help more people by having a brand, . And I'm kind of a big sucker for stuff that I convinced myself of. I just tend to. Stick with it and believe it and hold onto it pretty tightly.
You know,, when I first met you, one of the things I loved about our conversation is I love when you were talking about the ingredients you put in your products and even ingredients you don't have in your products, just your passion for the ingredients. But the funny thing is, is you're talking to 'em like they're family friends, you know? So you list off these herbs or you list off, talk about a mushroom, and you'll explain, you know, not only what it looks like, but where it lives. What it likes, what its favorite things are, and then also relating those sort of things back to how it works in the body. You know, not just talking about the doctrine of signatures, you know that it looks like this, so it might be good for that, but actually talking about them as their own personality or their own little entity, and then all of a sudden when your formulation start making sense.
Because just like with any kind of super troop or. Cool gang, you're gonna have a little bit of everything and they all compliment each other.
Mason:
Mm-hmm.
Matt:
You know, that's why I really realized that we kind of resonate a little bit with the way that we, again, very different with a lot of things, but along the same lines with the way you kind of familiarize yourself with these ingredients in these herbs and you understand them on a level. It's just kind of different.
Mason:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's one of the things I think,, big businesses,, there's always gonna be a big business that's gonna be really happy just being handed around through venture capitalist firms and keeping cash flow. And,, having their shelf space and they're gonna have the executive playbooks of the people that are working within them, that they've got the relationships with the big box retailers and they're never gonna lose that. Yeah., Whatever synergistic business in,, you know, Ken Wilber, psychology models, teal level organizations, holocratic that which has to be built around like an objective soul of an organization that has intent, .
I think we're all kind of learning how patient sometimes we have to be, as you were saying, you hold that magical intent and then all of a sudden people with playbooks who have, quarterly things that they need to deliver on, of course they're gonna steamroll over at, and that's, yeah., That's on us,, for handing over reigns., If we did, I think that happened to you a little bit, right?
Matt:
Oh yeah, definitely. Like I said, in the early days when I was doing it myself. We had the ability to go into the stores and really educate the staff a lot.
Mason:
Well, that's when you said your intention was around those ingredients and then delivering context protocols, how to meet the intention stories. Yeah.
Matt:
Yeah. And, then the staff would learn the stories. They'd learn that you'd give them something to talk about. They'd get passionate about the products. They'd feel the results themselves, and then they could relay that. I actually used to. Talk about the Wiggles theory a lot. So with the Wiggles, the Wiggles the kids thing,
Mason:
I know wiggles
Matt:
their, their audience, they got, two years, three years maybe with their audience.
Mason:
Mm-hmm.
Matt:
At the time, at the supplement stores that I, the sports supplement stores in particular, most of the staff, their average age was about 20. And the average duration that they would stay working there was about 18 months. So I had the theory about the Wiggles. I just had to keep repeating the same stories every couple of years because the staff turnover was so high.
Mason:
We call that CRO Chief Reminding Officer.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, exactly. So we got to wonder what color wiggle that would be, but we used to just keep having to go back and do this same stories all the time.
Mason:
They got a tree of wisdom right now in the Wiggles. Maybe it's that.
Matt:
That's a good idea. See, that's what the problem, that's where we get regulated, you see? So then we tried to get leverage outta that with a podcast, and the podcast was amazing for that. But then all of a sudden when we lost the ability to communicate our stories and educate on those things, then all of a sudden that Wiggles theory kicked over. It only took 18 months of not being able to. Repeat those stories and access the new, new staff coming through. And because our products weren't just front label, this trademark ingredient making this claim and stuff like that, it relied on us sharing stories. It's almost like a stolen generation, you know? It was almost. We lost that moment of the campfire stories and then all of a sudden that part of history was gone.
Mason:
Mm-hmm.
Matt:
Trying to go back and reeducate. Sometimes it's too hard if the regulations won't allow you to educate, because the way the regulators look at it is you can't, no one educates. For free. That's called marketing. You know, so if, if you are giving someone free education, then you are trying to convince them and trick them or mislead them, and that's marketing. Mm-hmm. Education is something that they pay for they do as it's something separate to, to products.
Mason:
Yeah. That's been an interesting thing. I think we've kind of overcome recently in terms of like, of course everyone's like, oh yeah, no, that's just a good business move. And of course the entire point of business is to,, make the sales and make revenue. And I'm like. If you really do break down, the sheen, the Qi, and the Jing of the organizational being of SuperFeast or any organization, yes. It doesn't exist for any other reason than throughput, which is you take the inventory, you apply operational expense to turn that inventory into a sale. And once we've put that in combination with an effective sale, and the effective sale was lined up right next to the evolutionary purpose of.
The entire point of that sale is to, yes, it's getting people onto herbs, but within the context of reducing disease and degeneration, making them superhuman so they're on energy wise and metabolism wise, and allowing them to enter into the realm of elderhood.
Matt:
Mm.
Mason:
That all of a sudden Fortunate that I've got a team, I've gone slow and I've got a team, but I'm like, therefore, what is a core pillar of what we have to do to make that an effective sale? And everyone unequivocally knows now that that education and walking with people, and also it, it comes down to a certain point. I imagine if I was an executive in your company and it was this open-ended education and they weren't actually applying. Systems and structures around what was genuinely 'cause me and you, I will run off and educate on things out of my generosity that don't lead to the effective throughput of the company.
Matt:
Where's the hook?
Mason:
And sometimes that's all that's necessary. It's very good. I'm allowed to go and do that in my personal time and in my personal brand. But in terms of what's gonna lead to the contextual education for that person that purchase the product, whether it's in store. Or online when they get emails, they only need a certain amount of education that sweetly it hooks. Yeah. It's like, you know, appropriate delivery of information and we can measure that. That's leading them to taking the herbs and formulating a habit. And we know based off classical data, and, um, modern data that that's gonna lead to their immune system and their nervous system gaining this skill. Therefore, we're going to deliver on the evolutionary purpose.
Matt:
Hmm.
Mason:
And . I think it's difficult to land that.
Matt:
Oh, . It's very difficult. Especially when we kind of, what happened in my instance is once we lost that ability to communicate and have that direct link back, it was easy too. 'cause we even had Facebook groups back in the day where if someone joins your Facebook group and you create content, they actually get to see it.
Mason:
Yeah.
Matt:
Not then they change the algorithms where like 1% of the people that are in your group. Even get to see it. And then you've actually gotta pay to access 10% of your own group. And these are people that have specifically asked to see your content, you know? But we're in a back in the era where we could directly interact with these people. We could share ridiculous amounts of information, whether it was a product sale or not. They got that brand trust and they got that loyalty and build a big tribe of people that would just. Support us no matter what we were doing. And it was so cool. But once we lost that direct connection with the consumer, and it wasn't so much taking on investors, it wasn't so much going bigger and all that sort of stuff, it was actually the middle management.
It was when they started, people were hiring people for resumes or hiring people that think, oh, we don't know these things, so we better hire someone that has those skills. Having those skills is great, but if they didn't have the ethos, if they didn't believe in what we were doing, they were the real toxic ones in the company that really shut down. The innovation and really shut down the soul and they stifled the soul and it couldn't get through from the, innovation, the formulations, even in the manufacturer, like I was very specific about what sort of music they would play in the facility. I didn't want to have a nasty music making my beautiful products, you know, but, and I, we had like these belief systems that ran through the whole company, but when that middle management got in there and just.
When I had to present my ideas to a new middle management that had been there, some old touch shop lady that hated natural medicine, never taken a supplement, things, everything, we're doing rubbish, but very good at project management or something like that. And then I'm having to pitch my ideas with them going, well, I wouldn't take it. So at one stage in my own company, I had to pitch my. Inventions to middle management that they would then take to the board to get approval to see if we can proceed with this product development. I started the company from scratch. It was all my original recipes and stuff like that. All of a sudden, I'm having to pitch. My idea is to someone that will then go away and do a market research report and say, did you know no one's spending any money on your invention? I'm like, it's an invention. Like doesn't exist yet. That's the point. Yeah. The
Mason:
market doesn't exist. It's not a segment.
Matt:
Here's the problem that we're trying to find a solution for. Here's the problem that there is no current solution for research. That here's what I reckon would be a really cool solution. And then they're going through going, yeah, but there's no money spent on that. You know
Mason:
What's your insight now,, I don't know if you have one or whether you care to dive into that in terms of what would be, I think organizations aren't like a solution to nearly, you know, everything that, of course, symbiotic organizations that beat with the heart of intention of the founder. Yep. That then don't just. Grow and scale without resonance to what's possible to deliver on the purpose. But like structurally,, what have you got like some reflection of what you'd do next time?
Matt:
Well, it's kind of cool now. It's a funny, almost a full circle with that a TB science brand. Because recently, so what's happened is a lot of those, the company basically revenue went down to probably 10% of what it was when I was there. . Next thing you know, they, a lot of the middle management, they've all gone., They brought in a CEO,, a new CEO, really great guy., He was, uh, the CEO for another brand when we were doing really, really well. And what he knew of our company was the sole and he knew me as the face of the company and stuff like that. So he's come in, he's basically consolidated to go right. These are the parts of the company that reflect the original foundation structure and soul of the company.
These are the ones that we have gone and made for different reasons, and he separated and rebranded and now invited me to come back and help out a bit and rebuild the soul in the company. Go back and talk about the history, go back and show the philosophy of how we, where we started, what our belief systems are.
Mason:
Mm-hmm.
Matt:
And actually gone through and said, now. This is the segmented brands within the company. These are the ones that we will be finding in Kohls and Woolies and stuff like that. But here's our opportunity to go back and revamp our original vision and get back on track. And the kind of cool thing is now. Is because like I said earlier, I love starting things. I'm not good at doing things or finishing things. So in the meantime, while I've been gone, they've got this big beautiful facility. They've sorted out the infrastructure. We've got a lot of the logistics and operation stuff sorted itself out. Right? It's looking really neat. Now it's kind of in a cool position where it's come back in and go, Hey, I can come back in and play. And .
I was talking to another one of about Will from Primo Bollocks was another Will and Kyle took and they said How, what, what was it like when you go and see your brand at a trade show or you see your brand somewhere? Uh, hopefully, I swear on this podcast. Yeah, you can go for it. I just, because I said it's like, look, I'm the biological dad. I look at it, I'm biological. I made them. I love it. I'm proud. I want to see you do Well. They've just been calling some other dickhead daddy.
Mason:
Mm.
Matt:
You know? But now it's like I finally get my chance where it's grown up. It's matured, it's evolved, and it's like now we can do all the shit we always dreamt of. Now we can get leverage and scale and we can help more and more people and we can still bring that soul back in and go back and. And like when we launched a product like Gutr for example, we went and revolutionized the whole gut stuff, in my opinion, because we were the first ones to talk about these things called mod biotics. Every time was everyone's talking about probiotics and prebiotics. And I had a totally different belief system around. Most people have the overgrowth. I don't wanna just feed an overgrowth. I don't wanna realize, say someone's got dysbiosis, which is. Too many are the wrong type of bugs.
Or someone's got SIBO small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and just give them probiotics and fiber, like giving them, it's like throwing grass seeds at weeds and expecting to get up and go., And our natural stuff, like your products and all the stuff we used to do, most of them have work on the gut. Brain es do all these sort of things, but they do it by killing the overgrowth. They do it by modifying the microbiome. Mm. They're not feeding. An imbalance, microbiome, uh, we will build diversity, not overpopulation, you know, and that's how we get really good results. So I had a whole vision for where that product line was gonna go that I never got to because once we launched a product and it was making money, they're like, oh, no, can't launch another product. It'll cannibalize the sales of the hero product. And I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. It's gonna amplify it because, well,
Mason:
it's like what they said to Steve Jobs, right? When he was coming
Matt:
out with
Mason:
his new products. Yeah.
Matt:
So it's now, it's all of a sudden, and this is like the Steve Jobs story. It's like I get to come back hopefully with better health. Your
Mason:
job's in hard. Yeah, no, just don't go through the, you're not a authoritarian.
Matt:
Yeah, no, that's right. Definitely not. So, that is kind of like, I'm genuinely excited about being able to help out. Go back and reinvigorate the soul and even just sitting down with the new staff now and just talking about how we got what we did and to see how much legacy was still living through the company of, of policies or something that were, that they didn't know why they were still living with these policies. It was.
Mason:
We haven't talked about this yet, but I'll give you, all my models that I have, but you know, that's like, what I'm doing. That's one of the reasons why I was like hanging out with,, some of the people at Salty Mangrove is like, I don't charge for it I'm sure it'll become something in the future, but I've, I'm doing organizational soul retrieval with those that I
Matt:
brilliant
Mason:
But I've actually got a bit of a model for capturing. It's very different. Everyone's like, oh yeah, that's just a brand story. Oh, yeah. That's just a founder story. No, I've got a very metaphysical process, which I've actually just been, had my hand forced to create some documents. I'll send over to people. I'll send it to you and then jump on the phone with you.
Matt:
Yeah.
Mason:
Just that process. If it's a cathartic process of a founder to go and capture those ontological things that happened to you, that if that moment and that intention and that context of your life didn't happen, it wouldn't have led to you giving birth to the organization. But then you gotta go through that process of actually handing it over. Yeah, to your baby, and then that locks in as an actual energetic constitution. Then from there you derive an ontological evolutionary purpose statement, and from there the values, 'cause you'll go in and everyone will be like, the value is integrity, and you'll be like. Lame. Here's the actual value. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the value that I had of what emerged at that inception. Lightning. The lightning hit you and then you in practice, something would've happened. Yep. Lightning hit.
Then you wouldn't have known it, but then down the track you would've been like, I'm creating this company because that happened. If you give that to the company, then those lightning in the bottle moments become the evolutionary purpose., And then the how and the what, which essentially the sheen, the q and the Jing of the organization. The values become super objective and they just, there's no subjective, oh, I just think we should do this. It's like, no, I know my baby.
Matt:
Yeah,
Mason:
there and I'll send it to you.
Matt:
Oh, and it's so powerful if you can actually articulate it. 'cause that was where I really sucked. Like, you know, I used to do everything. Like I said, I was right in amongst it all, but I could not explain. Why I was doing it, or even what I was doing.
Mason:
Yeah.
Matt:
Or how to do
Mason:
it. So everyone goes, you are the heart and soul of this company. So just keep on walking around and Yeah. And talking to everyone. But that's like saying, you know about, you know, children, you are the heart and soul of your child. It's like, no.
Matt:
Yeah.
Mason:
It's its own thing. And it becomes, all of a sudden your Jing stands in for, the essence, Jing structure of the organization and it drains you and leaks you. Right.
Matt:
But if you can somehow. Articulate that to explain it, and then you can get leverage from it and then scalability and all that sort of stuff. You know? And
Mason:
executives love it because once you've done it, and that's like, there's no. Choice.
Matt:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mason:
There it is.
Matt:
Yeah.
Mason:
That's where it came from. Here's the values. There's the purpose statement, which is like a deliverable. Yeah. Like the purpose statement. Everyone comes to me is like, oh, that's not a why. That's like a how. Yeah. Yep. And I'm like, no, no, no. Why we exist. It's like a SuperFeast. Why we exist, because this happened when I was leaving university, I said this, that's where super fee's birth. That's why I want to absolutely decimate disease and degeneration. And then we polish it up. And for the forward facing evolutionary purpose statement, it looks nice. Yeah. Super humans elderhood. But that emerged out of all of those situations.
Matt:
But the story behind it is what people you need to say. So yeah, you'll have your little statement, like you can have a catchphrase. Yeah. And it'll break it down into three words. Then that'll be summarized by one word. Then you can have a picture that'll demonstrate it. Yeah. But, the story behind it is actually where people get the aha moment and go, oh no, I get that now.
Mason:
Oh, and executives. They love it because they're like, oh my God, that's like brand differentiation. And you know, like I've been given my, it's like a mandate from heaven.
Matt:
Yep. You know, you should come and do stuff. I've got this Australian innovation labs. And what that was is I just kept getting hit up by people to help with formulating and then I'd be going through going, yeah, cool. I can formulate anything. And that's the problem. I could formula you out anything. Mm-hmm. You better give me a very specific brief of what you want or you're gonna end up with like some crazy ass kitchen sink. And so I'd be sitting there asking them like, where's your product brief? What do you want me to make? What solution? And what's your consumer? Or what's the problem that I'm solving? And. Then realize that they kind of dunno. And then they go, I'm just really passionate about the health industry. And then you really get down and say, no, I'm really passionate about making money in this industry. And then, and they don't really have anything.
So I started this Australian Innovation Labs because I had a business partner, Natalie, and she's a business strategist, but very structured. She come from the corporate world and she has these wicked tools so she can just collect the data. That sort of stuff. And then I used my belief systems around everything else., And it was kind of a perfect little synergy because she's, like I say, she's my left brain. So she'd come in and create this systemized approach on how to collect the data. And then that was just purely to facilitate the conversation on. Really getting to the bottom what it is, but what you are talking about would be a perfect little thing. If you ever want, we'll bring you into our workshops to go smash this part, because that's a thing that I've always struggled with is to articulate or work out a system to really.
Understand the soul and how to explain that and I can do it.
Mason:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. You do it,
Matt:
but I dunno how to teach it or,
Mason:
yeah. I mean, that's been what I've been doing to keep myself sane and actually try and find my own emancipation from this thing. 'cause I don't, I'm probably similar to you, I don't enjoy business. I don't like being a part of just money making for the sake of it. And I don't feel satisfaction once we get these corporate purpose tags, that then can be interpreted in any. Which way,, it needs to have, so for me it's like a, I use the word karma very liberally, but like there's a karmic obligation Yeah. That I know I have and I know that I'm not able to do it within my personal time and following just what I do in my day-to-day work. I'm gonna give birth to an organization and I need it to have that karmic impact on the world in order for me to feel like I'm resolved in that.
Matt:
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm a very. Private kinda dude,, like to be alone a lot. I like just wander down to go fishing and go to the beach. And I like to think, I like to be in an office by myself. I'm terrible manager.
Mason:
Mm-hmm.
Matt:
Yeah, my door's always open, but if I'm not there, usually because I'm somewhere else.
Mason:
Yeah, I'm the same.
Matt:
But, I just could not settle into that kind of lifestyle. It just didn't feel right. And part of it too, it's interesting because it's almost like. I could feel the hooks. It's like all of my staff, all of my clients, all of my customers, all of the consumers and everyone, all the podcast listeners, it's like they kind of all had their hooks into me. They all had, I felt like I obligated to owe them something. I was constantly giving out everything, and it's almost like I could almost feel 'em, you know when people say, you know, your ears burn when someone's talking about you. So some old body was on fire just. Being in that element. And I needed to be shielded and protected, and I needed to be able to trust people to go and run the rest of the business and allow me to forget about everything else and stop being influenced by all these hooks in that dragon into me.
And just be free to think, free to invent and free to read, free to learn and all that sort of stuff. And that's where I got so caught up in big business that it was like. It got to that point where it's just like, oh my God, I don't wanna talk to accountants. I don't wanna talk to lawyers. I don't wanna talk to customers. I don't wanna talk about purchase orders, or, I used to hate even going into my manufacturing facility when it got to that size because it was like, I. Just so nervous about everything. I was just so freaking out. I just wanted to go back to that magic of inventing,
Mason:
oh, it's full on that you're back there now. Yeah. I think it's everyone listening, you know, people who are just fans of wellness, looking for health tips is, and, but I think that,, other people who are interested, whether they're owners or working in companies, I think it's always lovely to get under the hood and hear. What's going through the founder's mind or their CEO's mind. And, you might be able to see the writing on the wall that you're going into a hierarchical direction of machine-like structure when you know that's not going to nourish, what you know is the soul of that organization, which has massive market viability. It might just, you said white space, like you know that blue ocean? Yeah. Going away from the blood bath of the red ocean of everyone fighting over market share.
But genuinely pioneering out there into something which you also can be like, we can pretty much guarantee this is also gonna lead to revenue. It's not just some pie in the sky thing. And, so I think it's cool for you to share that and for people to hear that. And they'll be able to look at their own businesses.
Matt:
Yeah. Don't have to be the biggest either.
Mason:
Yeah.
Matt:
Like that's the other thing, just drop the ego. Like you don't need to be the biggest, like, we'd have sayings, you know, like, we'd be innovators. So the early bird gets the worm. But other brands would often copy us and make more money than us. They'd copy us, they'd do it cheaper, sell it for more. They'd just be better business people.
Mason:
Yeah.
Matt:
And we always used to, early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese, and so then we're always looking at, oh, maybe we should do market research and just go to where. Where people are spending money rather than having to pioneer everything.
Mason:
But that's interesting. That wouldn't have been captured in a value that gets taught to those middle management and then doesn't also, when you're doing the vetting in the beginning, which isn't fair to them either, as you would, you know, like they've been brought in for a particular playbook. If you needed that. I've learned that a lot. You know, I do a lot of,, mission impossible. When I need a playbook, I go, I zip line down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I extract it and I get out. Yeah. And I try and do the minimum viable when it is a trap, you gotta go, just go and hire someone. Yeah. And it's not fair to them because you haven't captured the soul in an effective way, and you don't actually know how to communicate the values that you do have.
Matt:
Yeah, exactly. And that was where I really got caught up. It's just trying to communicate. It was okay when people were just doing it with me. 'cause they'd, whether it's through osmosis, they kind of absorb it. They just, I could listen to my staff or listen to the people I hang it, the stuff they would say. It was like they'd been absorbing everything, you know? Yeah. And they could relay it and they, we shared all these common beliefs, but just when you lose that. Ability or your, you run out of energy or your Qi or whatever is not enough to spread across.
Mason:
Spread. Yeah. Well, and that would be, that would be your operational expense spread across something that isn't actually yet a cheese strategy rather than a worm
Matt:
strategy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I like the worms. I'm happy with the worm. That was
Mason:
cheese, not chi everybody.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm happy with the worms. Like I'm happy to be in the Well,
Mason:
that's s very interesting as you said. Like, you know, you obviously weren't at a point where that was resolved for you, . Because you're back there now. But some founders do get to the point where they're like, I'm actually willing to let go of the company now. And venture capitalists can eat it up and take it out there to the world. And at that point, whatever, let it go and get all the cheese.
Matt:
Yep.
Mason:
But as you said, like you don't have to be the biggest, you can just sit in your essence, you know? And, that worm and cheese is a nice analogy to give people an understanding and this is what we're about. Exactly. And this is what we're gonna continue to do and we're gonna be known for it and everyone's gonna be happy because of it.
Matt:
Yeah. Yeah. And that sometime is just who you are. Sometimes, you can happy to be the most respected brand, not necessarily have to be the biggest brand, you know?
Mason:
Well, they actually couldn't make it work, as you said, which is an interesting, it's no,, not putting shade on anybody. Yeah. And hope this isn't boring for you or everybody. I hope like we, we could've kept on talking about herbs and supplements. Oh yeah. But I think hopefully this is interesting like that It didn't work. You were out. They were free to go after mass market capture. Yeah. It didn't work. And that's why I've started thinking about organizational soul retrieval because sometimes you can have a child and as much as you want it to be a concert violinist and a lawyer and you scream at it. Yep. To do so, it wants to be a vagabond that does documentary capture or whatever it is.
Matt:
Yep.
Mason:
And organizations are kind of the same. And it's interesting, everyone, you'd know your, you know, super food companies or like health food companies and wellness brands and that. start smelling differences when you see it on the shelf or when you start getting ads and you know, sometimes you need like, oh, you know, eyebrows up. Maybe that's a good thing, a bad thing or whatever. Yeah. But if you go into the actual soul of the organization. I hope this is cool for everyone. You can start to get a sense of whether that is, like, whether they've gone off course of the root crop, soul expression of a company.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny, hey, you don't have to be everything to everyone, but you can have a house of brands and then you can kind of like building a family, you've got a hip of children. They can all have their own personalities. They can serve their own purpose. And live their own dreams. You know, there's nothing wrong with sub-branding.
Mason:
I like that. I, I think it's very romantic.
Matt:
Yeah.
Mason:
So with the formulating now,,, when you come back into your magic and the way that you are looking at, the way that the sourcing is at the moment, I don't know what's changed for you in terms of like, you know, isolates,, usefulness versus when you are using a whole herb and meeting,, is it different now in terms of what. Community are dealing with its root cause than when you were formulating back then.
Matt:
Yeah., What I've learned is you gotta kind of still play the game to a certain degree., But you can do it with your own ethos. So there's nothing wrong with taking a extract that is standardized to have an active ingredient that will allow you to get some claims to put onto the label. There's also nothing wrong with you fortifying that extract. With the whole herb. That gives you the other full spectrum because often you'll find, like you take fenugreek for example, they got a fenugreek extract that's 50% saponins that does all the hormonal effects. And that's,, uh, ethanol extraction, a fat soluble extraction to get the saponins out. And then they've got the water extract from the fenugreek that's standardized for four hydroxy isoleucine that does all the blood sugar regulation.
And it's the one that helps., Works like an insulin mimetic, so there's nothing wrong with being able to say, Hey, I want to get fenugreek this extract and combine it with this extract, and I want get the full spectrum of fenugreek and have the hormonal effects, plus the ability to shuttle the sugar into the muscles, you know? Mm-hmm. Imagine having a . fenugreek product where the saponins are boosting the testosterone and then the I four hydroxy isin is driving creatin in and then all of a sudden you get all that vitality and energy. There's nothing wrong with playing the game where you can do it, but if you understand how to formulate and then reconstruct it to be in alignment with our belief system, then we can reformulate., Using today's modern science, today's modern regulations, but still follow our traditional belief system of nature knows best.
Mason:
You mentioned creatine there. Now you brought up that when we were having a chat at the Salty Mangrove the other day and it blew me away because quite often people don't understand we're industry's really come from or where data's come from., I think creatine team's probably one of the, one of the biggest supplements at the moment. Oh, at the moment. At the moment it's probably up there like. Catching Ashwaganda on Amazon sales and all that kind of stuff. Yep. And everyone's talking about, the data and what,, like, in saturation points and you know, the protocols of rolling out, when you were talking about where that came from in the first place. Yeah. Yeah, because, um, I made friends with a few of the guys from the International Society of Sports Nutrition.
So you got Richard Kreer and Eric Rolson and all those old original dudes that even did the grass certification for things like creatine. And when I was talking to Richard, he was explaining that, um, they all went to uni together and they were all like NFL players and bodybuilders and all that sort of stuff, which is why they got into sports nutrition. And then they're all eating a lot of steak. So what it was is they truly believed that all the, the more stake they ate, the better athletes they were. So then when they actually had to go and do their, their thesis and do their assignments, and get grants and do studies, they all went through and analyzed what was in stake. Gives you the health benefits and the main things I discovered is creatine, carnitine and choline.
And they're the, if you actually go back through the history of sports nutrition, they're the real and protein of course. So I talk about protein and then those others and protein high and leucine. So this is where the whole. Almost the, the textbook of exercise started by analyzing what was in stake, and that's when that, that's why all the original research was creatine and carnitine and choline as the major. How do they build our muscle? What ones make us stronger? So yeah, it is funny they all, that's where it just led to a whole legacy of that driving the sports nutrition industry globally. Are they taking protein and creatine?
Matt:
Probably just eating steak. I dunno. Because that's the funniest thing about it is you,
Mason:
well that's what I think is always interesting is that like, regardless of whether I don't have like an outcome, it'd be like, yeah, see everybody, you go and do stage. I'm like, no. I think, you know, they started to show that CREA team Oh hell yeah. Is is, is amazing for. But the protocol and the maintenance periods, the maintenance, maintenance dose. And if you're not a professional athlete looking for some super abnormal outcome, which maybe keep on taking proteins and all that kind of stuff, it, it forms a story to be like,
Matt:
oh, definitely,
Mason:
you know, maybe you can just, maybe you can just land back here in maintenance mode and eat, eat steak. Or if you're vego you can approach it different ways. Also,
Matt:
fortify it, you know, it's like, that's why I'm really kind of cool. I don't, you know, I laugh a little bit with certain supplements because we don't look at supplements as our sole source of nutrition. So yeah, we've got science that shows to make this claim you need this dose of creatine. It doesn't mean you need it in that every serve, you know? So the funny thing is, I don't mind if someone's having a creatine chewable. They're having a creatine chocolate. They're having a. You know, creatine supplement, they're eating steak, you know, because it, it's gonna accumulate, it's like fiber, you know? No one expects you to get all your fiber outta one, one serve, you know? Yeah. We, we'll eat food all day and eventually hit our fi fiber quota. So with protein, you know,
Mason:
that would've been one of the things I'm sure middle management wouldn't have liked, that you would've given the, you know, and at this point, the, the supplement becomes a little redundant for people, and they can, they can come off it and go about their way. They're like. No's, keep 'em on it.
Matt:
That was the other thing. No, that is a dead, dead set thing because I built all my supplements to cycle through because also, like when we were in a naturopath clinic, and you know, with your TCM you take that formula until your, your profile changes to your pulse, your tongue, and to you go from damp and hot to cool and dry. You, you, well,
Mason:
even the tonic herbs, the superior herbs is, you know, the one, the Ben Sal Jing is just like, these are the ones you can include in your diet so you don't get sick and protect you being able to enter into the realm of elderhood. At some point your sixth sense emerges and we, we've got a humans a super fees video with Lane Beachley coming out, um Oh yeah. Soon. And I just got a behind the scenes and she was talking about, she found Jing, the Jing herbs, and she's like, I went hard on the Jing, my naturopath said yes. And she's like, and I hit this point and I was like, I don't need Jing anymore. Yeah. And she shifted onto Shen Herbs and onto Shara. And then she's like, and now I'm back on it, but other, and like. That's
Matt:
perfect.
Mason:
That's sovereignty.
Matt:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mason:
That's the magic emerging, not just in the formulator, but in the person themselves.
Matt:
Oh, and also too, then it's you wear that as a badge of honor because you've actually fixed some things. If you've got a product that does absolutely nothing, yeah, you can take it every day. As long as it's not hurting you and full of rubbish.
Mason:
Yeah. Just go numb and have a multi.
Matt:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Don't do that. But yeah,
Mason:
facetiously said,
Matt:
yeah. Yeah. Cycle
Mason:
cycling's. Interesting. I mean, that's another thing. I mean, people are like, you know, so do we cycle? I'm like, well, you've opened up a Pandora's Pandora's box here. Yes. No if, but, but yes. Short answer. Yeah. Cycle. Yeah. Try it. Go off it. You feel a big dip, maybe you've got some work to do because a supplement, when you go off a supplement, you're not meant to have a dip. Yeah, yeah. You're meant to take a supplement and also when you get on a supplement, you're generally not meant to get this explosion of results, but that will show that, oh yeah, maybe there's some work for you to do there and stay on it until you don't get that explosion of results. Yeah. That was
Matt:
the, that was the biggest lesson as well I learned with effect and how hard it was to explain to people that wellness is the absence of symptoms. Wellness is not euphoria. That's spirituality, fitness, and everything else. So what happens is people forget how they feel. I remember it was a naturopathic clinic. People used to come in, I had these headaches every morning. I went to bed every night. I got this. I got that. Come, I'll give them some products to take. They come back a couple of weeks later. How do you feel? I don't feel too much different. Okay. So I'll go through your notes. Do you still get headaches every day? Oh no. I haven't had headaches since I've seen you. No, I don't wet the bed anymore. You know, and all that sort of stuff and say, okay, so what, what? How do you still feel the same? Oh, I'm still feel a bit mere.
So, okay, so let's talk about your fitness regime, your spirituality. Do you get to see sunrises? You know, and usually rules down to fatigue or something anyway, you know, but that used to spin me out and I used to have to try to remind people 'cause they'd take your supplements and complain going. I haven't, I don't feel euphoric.
Mason:
You haven't gotten rid of my existential dread of meaning in life.
Matt:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go, well, do you have an absence of symptoms? And they're like, well, yes. It's kind. Well, it's kind of, you're in the wellness space, a good place to start work from. Yeah.
Mason:
And stop looking to all of the supplements for, you know, answering all of that.
Matt:
Yeah, exactly. And
Mason:
that's why I started
Matt:
getting out. We haven't, psilocybins still not allowed, you know?
Mason:
Oh yeah.
Matt:
So, yeah. But then that's when we can talk about just feeling weird. And different
Mason:
often to the cow paddock.
Matt:
Yeah.
Mason:
For some nature. Time for you.
Matt:
Yeah,
Mason:
man. Far out. Thank you.
Matt:
Oh, it was good fun.
Mason:
It was very good fun. I feel like everyone just off the back of that sometimes I know, like, you know, when I'm having these types of chats and me and Matt have lots of, we, we'll, we'll have a little, um, dig in as well. If there is anything in particular that was particularly interesting or if there's something, as you can hear, we're willing to go under the hood. Um, and share with you the reality of these brands and these supplements that you're engaging with. Um, by all means just reach out and just let us know via the email or. SuperFeast Instagram, you're easy to find online as well, aren't you? Yeah.
Matt:
Yeah. I'm just sharing inappropriate memes every day.
Mason:
I love that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can find Matt on Instagram, um, and Facebook, right? Yeah. And we'll, we'll put the, all the links in the bio so you can reach out to Matt. There's, if, if anyone is wanting to get into, um, you know, you can see like, um, someone willing to do formula, who, if you do have a genuine intent and, um. A soul imprint within an organization that you are wanting to put into the world. You've talked, you, you've, you've heard that Matt is going to have an understanding of that intention and be able to go into those more, um, I'd call like an imaginal realm to ensure that you land in something that's gonna manifest the results, but also scratch that itch of what you're wanting to give birth to.
Matt:
Yep. Yeah. Sounds fantastic. Yep. Do any of that stuff now. I love it.
Mason:
Yeah, happy to
Matt:
help
Mason:
and if you want to just make a bunch of cash, Matt can also help you formulate in that sense as well.
Matt:
We can also do that personalized nutrition. We got everything. We do the whole lot.
Mason:
I love it. Thanks man. Is there anything else I've, I've missed? That's a nice little I flow away message.
Matt:
I think you covered it. I think you covered it
Mason:
well. Yeah,
Matt:
likewise you did as
Mason:
well.
Matt:
But I like to do the business, like I said, first do no harm. Focus on results, not excuses. And then I'm happy to help and get involved and support fellow brands too. That's the other thing I love is the new little link that we're building between a couple of really cool brands that are out at the moment where we're just happy to support each other. Happy to catch up, happy to share, um, and genuinely build the industry out knowing that everyone needs a little bit of something. Yeah.
Mason:
Yeah. I love that. I think we should leave everyone with that no matter what sector you're in. That cross pollination all boats rise. Identify if you have any genuine parasites and you know, feel free to block them out, but don't let that dirty. The, your willingness to interact with other colleagues. Yeah. That have got that really, you know, beautiful intention.
Matt:
Yeah, exactly.
Mason:
Love it.
Matt:
Yeah.
Mason:
Beautiful. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming.
