Chris Ashenden, Athletic Greens Co-Founder

Chris Ashenden (0:00)

If I share my vulnerability with you, and I back it by genuinely caring, and I back it by just consistently delivering on my personal brand promise, which is, you can trust me, I trust you, I want to empower you, I want to help you achieve what you want.

Let's do this together. That's been my secret source man.

Michael Gervais (0:30)

All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist licensed in California, spending time in the trenches with people that are extraordinary at what they do, working on developing the mental skills so that they can pivot and adjust and pursue their potential. And the idea behind these conversations is to pull back the curtain, to speak with best in the world, people that are on the path of mastery, to better understand what they're searching for, what they're driven by. We want to understand their psychological framework and the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft.

This week's podcast is with Chris Ashenden, the co-founder of Athletic Greens.

With complete transparency, Athletic Greens is a partner on this podcast, but I wouldn't be comfortable having Chris on unless I fully believed in their product and their mission. And this conversation is a reflection of that.

Okay, you know I love the product. You know how much I enjoy the product as I talk about it in the ad reads, which don't feel like ad reads. They feel like celebrations of a great product that I use and enjoy.

And I'd have Chris on anyway, because I want to understand how it is that he's built a model that does good for other people. It's built on wellness and health and has incredible scale on it. So I'm interested in that. So from a business lens and a business skill, and just the fact that it is a product that I enjoy, this is like a double whammy for sure.

So I've been using whole food supplements for a long time, maybe somewhere around 20 years. And I became exposed to Athletic Greens, and I liked it. And I happened to be down in Australia where the CEO of the company is, and we had a lunch. And I loved their mission. I loved how we articulated it, the way that they're building their business, the intensity around getting the formulation to taste right, to have a digestive process that works. And I was like, you guys are on it. And so we kicked off a nice little relationship that way. Then I met Chris as well. We started to work together. And that basically led us to this conversation.

We touch on Chris' upbringing and how his experiences traveling around the world with his family shaped him. And it is awesome what they did. And ultimately how that was the impetus for the creation of Athletic Greens.

There were times where Chris was close to broke, living on a diet of rice and beans just to get by, but Chris stayed the course. And he believed in his mission and his vision and to do it the right way with the highest ethics. And it's rad. It's just flat out rad. It's exactly what you'd hope. And we worked to unpack how. How did he do that? What were the skills that he used? What were the strategies that he employed to stay the course even when he was completely broke? And he refused to alter the quality of the product to stay mission minded. And a lot of people were telling him, as it comes out in this conversation, like just downgrade the quality and sell it for a cheaper price. And he said, no, that's not how it's going to work. And I've got incredible respect for that. That's exactly how integrity works and high character works. And when you build that around a product that you believe in, I want to say good things happen. Not always though, because there are other things that take place that expose, you know, businesses and practices that are unforeseen even. But this is a celebration of a product that I love, as well as a person that I think is incredible in how they've approached life. So I hope this conversation inspires you and that it is possible to do things the right way and live with integrity in all the right ways. And, you know, I don't know, I love the idea when business and mission and wellness and potential, when they all hub together and we're able to create communities and products and services that, you know, are working to make, I don't know, it sounds cheesy, but make the world better, you know? And like, that's really kind of it. And one last thing, support Athletic Greens and their mission while you're at it. Go over to athleticgreens.com forward slash Finding Mastery and check out the offer that they put together for us and our community. And with that, let's get right into this week's conversation with Chris.