Telling Your Story is Evolving — How Truth and Persistence Built Pickle Juice Into a Global Brand

Filip Keuppens is the CEO of The Pickle Juice Company, a functional beverage company known for its specialty sports hydration beverage, Pickle Juice®. Under his leadership, he scaled the company from $250,000 in annual revenue to over $10 million, turning it into a global, science-backed brand. Before The Pickle Juice Company, Filip held sales roles at major firms, including 20th Century Fox, Warner Home Video, and Kraft Heinz.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:11] How Filip Keuppens joined The Pickle Juice Company and grew it from a small side project into a global brand
[3:45] The biggest misconception about Pickle Juice® and how the company differentiates its product from pickle brine
[7:03] Lessons Filip learned from his early days of entrepreneurship
[12:52] The Pickle Juice Company’s experiential marketing strategy
[18:26] How The Pickle Juice Company evaluates ROI from events and focuses on authentic, lifestyle-driven users
[25:35] Filip’s philosophy for differentiating products in the market
[30:02] Balancing brand identity and a company mission with growth
[34:13] How ethical business practices and sustainability guide decisions
[39:42] Filip shares his leadership approach
[55:04] The Pickle Juice Company’s acquisition by private equity
[1:01:49] What Filip learned about team collaboration from playing rugby

In this episode…

Building a brand that stands out in a saturated market isn’t just about clever marketing or bold claims; it’s about proving your worth through tangible results. How can you create something so authentic that your customers become your loudest advocates?

According to consumer product growth and brand strategy veteran Filip Keuppens, building an authentic brand starts with truth, humility, and action. Instead of controlling the narrative, he advises leaders to let users experience the product and share honest feedback, even if it’s negative. Additionally, showing up, listening, and leading by example is the foundation for lasting growth and team trust. Genuine credibility can’t be bought; it’s earned through consistency and transparency.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris welcomes Filip Keuppens, CEO of The Pickle Juice Company, to discuss building authentic brands through action and accountability. Filip shares how experiential marketing fuels sustainable growth, why staying humble helps scale culture, and what it means to lead with integrity.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

“Never become financially dependent on your project until it's sustainable, because if you do, it's almost guaranteed to fail.”
“If you just…be the thing you want to be, then you can have success.”
“You don't have to be huge to make a difference; these little things you do every day matter.”
“You can’t scale unless you can get other people to march with you.”
“An imperfect plan executed perfectly will usually defeat a perfect plan executed imperfectly.”

Action Steps

Lead by example through accountability: Track your own time and output to model commitment for your team. When leaders visibly uphold the same standards they expect from others, it fosters trust and shared responsibility.
Engage directly with your customers: Show up at events or in communities where your product makes the biggest impact. Experiential engagement builds credibility and turns genuine users into authentic advocates.
Empower your team to own the mission: Encourage employees to contribute to company values and strategy development. This inclusivity strengthens buy-in, creativity, and long-term cultural alignment.
Prioritize ethical and sustainable practices: Make decisions that serve people and the planet, even before regulations require it. This differentiates your brand and builds lasting respect and resilience.
Stay humble and release control of your narrative: Let real users tell your story rather than over-engineering brand messaging. Authenticity drives deeper loyalty than polished marketing campaigns.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders, sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:15

Hey everyone. I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the up arrow podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 million and beyond. As you up arrow your business and your personal life, there's this weird thing that happens when a brand gets too good at what it does. Its name becomes the thing Kleenex, coke, Sharpie. And in the world of hydration and sports performance, that thing is Pickle Juice®, the drink that started off as a half joke in locker rooms, a quick fix for cramps, is now used by professional athletes on TV every weekend. But the real story isn't about electrolytes or vinegar or sodium content. It's about truth. It's about what happens when you build something so real you don't have to fake a narrative around it. My guest today is Filip coupons, the CEO and force behind The Pickle Juice Company, a man who came from the world of fortune 50s, walked into a business doing 250,000 a year and turned it into a global science backed brand trusted by pros, soldiers and weekend warriors alike. Philip, welcome to the up arrow podcast.

Filip Keuppens 1:18

Hey, William. It's great to be here. I'll try to back up that flattering introduction, thanks,

William Harris 1:23

yeah, hey, I do want to give a quick shout out to Matt Kovacs, the President over at Blaze PR, previous guest on the show for putting us in touch to be able to make this happen. So thank you, Matt. Before we get into the good stuff, I do want to quickly announce our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that ipoed. You can learn more on our website at Elumynt.com which is spelled elumynt.com Okay, on to the good stuff. So I read that when you joined in 2015 Pickle Juice® was doing just $250,000 in sales. Today, it's a globally recognized sports drink. What did you see then that no one else did?

Filip Keuppens 2:11

Yeah, it's when I joined the company. It was actually interesting. I was sort of trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I came from 20th Century Fox at the time in the hard goods space, so DVDs and blu rays, and then that industry kind of ended overnight. So I was consulting and sort of trying to figure out what my next project was going to be. And I had the opportunity to meet through someone I knew socially, the guys running The Pickle Juice Company, and it was sort of a side hustle at the time, but having a background in that sports and also a little bit of food science, I was, like, really intrigued. I thought it was a very interesting project. And being completely honest, you know, they're like, hey, we want you to join this. And I was like, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure you have the the scale to be bringing people in. And they were really they took an interesting approach and said, well, we'll put something in front of us that you think works for us and for you. And we did, and 10 years later, we were recently acquired by a private equity firm. So now we're calling it Pickle Juice® three Thank you. Pickle Juice® three point on, we're going to try to scale this thing over the next five or so years and try to get find a strategic partner to to really, really make this a household product.

William Harris 3:37

I love that. Um, what's the biggest misconception people have about Pickle Juice, the company

Filip Keuppens 3:45

that is pickle brine, I think during your introduction, you mentioned that a lot of companies suffer the same fate, where they become endemic with sort of a category, and we, because we were sort of bootstrapping and very organic in our growth. Didn't really have the tools and resources to differentiate between pickle brine and pickle juice. If you think about it, nobody's out there juicing pickles, right? Natural thing and the space. But when you've got a company that's like, oh, wait, this thing kind of tastes like pickles, we're taking a completely different approach to functional Bev, or calling a hyper functional beverage. We want to make sure it's not intimidating to the consumer, so we sort of leaned into the FLA, the flavor a little bit and and just adopted it. But now we've got a lot of people. Interestingly, it's a phenomenon or a problem, if you will, only in the US, in our overseas markets. It's not that big an issue because they don't have a huge pickle culture in different countries. But now our biggest, one of our biggest challenges, is the differentiation between our product and. And pickle brine and making sure that people know the difference. Because they're like, Oh, I drank this stuff out of the jar and it didn't do anything for me. And we're like, Well, you didn't drink,

William Harris 5:11

didn't drink the right stuff. Yeah, yeah. You know you mentioned that this is like a trifecta for you, because it's got sports, it's got food science, it's got CPG, these are, like, three things that were all a part of, you know, what you were already doing. How did those worlds collide for you?

Filip Keuppens 5:32

Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's, it's, it's just a weird happenstance. I was, I was out riding motorcycles with this guy, and he's like, Hey, my dad's got this side hustle thing, and they're trying to figure out how to scale it. You want to go talk to him? I'm like, Sure. And I was like, wow. And to your point, I was like, Hey, these are kind of three things that I know a little bit about, and I developed a reputation for, like, different go to market strategies and in different ways to to create, if you will, incubate, a company. So I think the stars kind of aligned for me. I don't, I'll probably admit that it wasn't even a conscious thing at the time. It certainly has become one since, and now we're looking at expanding into not just being The Pickle Juice Company, providers of Pickle Juice®, but we're looking to become the preeminent hyper functional beverage company. And we're exploring different ailments, different treatments, different things, where we can deliver acute, real remedies using food grade products that are that are clean and transparent.

William Harris 6:44

You took a risk. The company was small. There were likely moments, nights, sleepless nights, where you're thinking, What did I do? This is crazy, but when did that start to flip for you? And said, Hey, we're doing this. We're going to make it, this is going to be okay. Yeah.

Filip Keuppens 7:03

I mean, I remember one day walking into the office of one of the two former partners, and as I you know, it's wild, like every single week we have a thing that could put us under right. And that's pretty typical of companies that are at that stage, because they don't have, really, the tools, the resources to survive a big miss. And, you know, there wasn't, like this one big, huge aha moment, other than maybe when we we secured Walmart, right? That was, that was our big placement thing. But by that time, we were chipping away at some grocers. We're chipping away at becoming relevant on Amazon, and our B to C stuff was doing pretty well. But I don't know if we ever were like, Hey, we're good. It was. And I think that's probably healthy. A little organizational imposter syndrome is probably healthy. You know, I talked to other would be entrepreneurs and say, I said, Look, never become financially dependent on your project until it's sustainable. Because if you do, it's almost guaranteed to fail. Because if you're not nurturing that, that baby, that is that company, that concept, that thing, until it really, really is sustainable in a sense that it's generating positive EBITDA and positive cash flow and revenue. It's a really fragile, delicate thing, right? That's why 80% of startups fail within the first couple of years. So I think it's just the patience and then recognizing those moments for what they are, and being very calculated about your wrist. So, you know, unfortunately, it's not, it's not this beautiful AHA thing for us. I mean, for some people, it is, but for us it wasn't. It was. It was more of a traditional slog, getting this thing to market and doing it in a in a very real and organic way.

William Harris 9:02

We've all seen those videos of, you know, the racer celebrating before they've actually crossed the finish line, only be passed right at the last second. And so you're what you're saying, makes sense to me. As far as you got to keep your Keep your head down, keep going, keep pushing through. If you let go of that you're you're probably going to get passed up. Yeah. Do you remember the first athlete or team that maybe, maybe they reached out to you and said, Hey, we're using Pickle Juice®, or maybe you discovered it organically. You just happen to see it. You're watching, you know, the football game, like, that's us, right? And they didn't, they didn't hide the logo like you remember the first one.

Filip Keuppens 9:44

Yeah, we developed a relationship with the New Orleans Saints a long time ago, and they the nutritionist there, Jamie Meeks is incredible. Also over the pelicans, and they were early adopters there. Believers, and it was pretty funny, and we it used to be kind of like a secret that a lot of teams wouldn't really just like expose, right? I remember one time we got an order for like, 20 cases of product to this residential address in Norman, Oklahoma, from like, Mrs. Stoops. And we're like, hey, what's Bob Stoops wife's name? Yeah, I guess so he's using the product. And we would get, we would get these, like, large random orders from these hotels, and be like, Okay, this hotel in this city where it's like, who's playing there and where are they staying? Like, well, I guess that team is ordering it, but now it's a lot more overt. It's become more more common. And received SMU was an early adopter as well. So, I mean, I think the saints in SMU were probably the first programs that were pretty overt about it, where we we started seeing it during games and on sidelines, where the athletic training staff is using this and using this in a way that aligned with how we prescribe usage, if you will, and partnering with us on like, Okay, how do we use this? When do we use this? How does it work? And since then, we've been attending the national Athletic Trainers Association conferences, Kat Myers, who's running our hplr program, which is our high profile partnership program, has done a fantastic job of getting us in front of like the WNBA, the NBA, the MLB and some of these others. But more often than not, we're not approaching the teams. We're approaching the athletic trainers and the dietitians of the teams, because we're really not trying to, like, buy exposure. Part of what we're trying to do is be very, very authentic. So we're educating people on its usage. We invite them to try it, and more often than not, they'll then turn into consumers, because they see this stuff actually works.

William Harris 12:09

That's the key, right? The product still has to deliver more than what the marketing hype is for anything. And we see a lot of brands that try to go the the opposite direction with that. You brought up something interesting about hotels. We talk a lot about LTV and about making sure that you're reaching your customer where they are. And I never really thought about if your customer happens to be a professional sports player or musician or actor, like they are traveling all over all the time. Is there some way that you are, you, know, more intentional about making sure that you are reaching them where they are, as opposed to just, hey, we sent out this, this email, like we do for every other customer.

Filip Keuppens 12:52

Yeah, as a matter of fact, one of our biggest go to market strategies is partnering with what we call participatory endurance events. And by that, I mean like ultra marathon, endurance cycling is really big for us, and we're engaging that consumer at the point when they need the product the most. And we we select those types of events because those people are doing their own research, they're doing their research on the internet, and they're able to experience how well this stuff works when they need it the most. So we were very intentional about how we do our our sort of experiential activations and like that. I referenced the conferences like National Athletic Trainers Association and others, where we get in front of the nutritionists and the dietitians and the athletic trainers, and we're like, hey, try it. This is how you use it. Let us know how it works. And then, like I said, we have a person that's sort of dedicated to nurturing and developing those relationships and being a resource for them, but we actively avoid hard selling those folks, because it's about the functionality and the truth.

William Harris 14:11

You don't just do a few of these, if I remember correctly, you do like, 300 to 500 events a year. You're like, this is pretty substantial. Wouldn't it just be easier to like, you know, push the button and run Facebook ads instead of going to 305 100 events. How do you, how do you manage that?

Filip Keuppens 14:30

Yeah, we have a team that manages it. We've, we've got a bunch of people. I mean, for a long time, as we were scaling, everybody in the company, regardless of what their job was, went to events, and we felt that was important because a they're interacting with our consumers, they're understanding what this product is about. They're not just punching a clock when they check in. They're like, Okay, this thing does this for these people, and we're really trying to get people to embrace. That you know candidly, it becomes more difficult to, as you scale and become a bigger company, to get people to really make that connection and that investment and as a leader, that's it's a challenge, right? It's very it's challenging to get people to be as passionate about the thing that as you are and as some of the people who built it with you, without being overbearing or seeming autocratic or unwavering and and you know that's the thing I struggle with at times, and it's trying to find that balance between staying true to our cause without sort of sounding unwavering or inflexible. And that's you know, honestly, as a leader, that's probably the one thing that is that I find the most difficult thing to get right. Every single day,

William Harris 16:00

I talk a lot about doing the things that don't scale, and I would have equated going to events as one of those things that doesn't scale, but you found a way to make that into a scalable thing. Do you think you could have been, or would have been as successful in penetration with this if you had just run these as ads as instead of going to all these events?

Filip Keuppens 16:23

I don't think so, and it's it's because of a couple of reasons. One, we didn't have the resources financially to invest in the the amount of ads it would have taken to tell our story, we would have had to, you know, acquire influencers, reviewers, all of these things that we would have had to pay for. Instead, we found the people that needed the product. We weren't afraid to release our narrative and let them tell the story for us, and that's the thing I think companies are apprehensive about. But, you know, I say all the time that if you just do be the thing you want to be, and sort of encourage everybody that's part of it, to be that thing, then you can have success. So I think that that experiential model, and redefining how the experiential model works and in a way that ties into the uniqueness of our product, has allowed us to scale in a way that's sustainable and profitable, and while as we get bigger, we'll layer on more traditional forms of media. I think that the activation piece is still going to continue to be important. It's still valid. It's still relevant. I mean, there's a reason companies like Red Bull still do it.

William Harris 17:54

I am going to dig in more on this, because it's one of the things that I think is the most unique about the way that you guys have gone to market, compared to a lot of other people that I talked to. That I talked to, you're not just selling this out of the back of your trunk, right? Like there's like a plan here in place. How do you determine the ROI of different events that you guys are at? So for instance, if you're at 500 How do you know those were the right 500 as far as maybe you could have gotten the same benefit out of 400 of them in the 100 of them in the others, how are you kind of evaluating that?

Filip Keuppens 18:26

There are a couple of different strategic points we look at. One is geographic alignment with key retailers and key target audiences. Two is scale and use case. Three is Participant type. So we try to avoid bucket list type events. We try to avoid sort of novelty events. So what we're looking for is the lifestyle participant that we convert them to become users. We get them to be believers. But we need to make sure we're hoping that these are people that continue doing the thing that they're going to do. And what I mean that by that is a significant portion, if not 70% and I don't know if that number is accurate, but there's a large portion of people that run marathons, that only run one. Wow, I didn't realize that. And for us, you know, we may help that person with that one marathon, but that's not really a strategic conversion for us, in the sense that they won't become repeat users. They they may say something once or twice, but unless they have another application that time, energy and money is better spent at like a cycling event, where these people train for months and months and months, and tend to do a lot of them. They invest a ton of money in their equipment, their time and or ultra running, right where these folks spend a ton of time training, and it's more lifestyle than it is. Sport, and those are the types of people that we're targeting, because they're also super, super passionate, and if they believe in something, they will scream it from the rooftops. So those are probably the things we look at, look at, and then some of it's subjective, right? Our team will go to these events and be like, Hey, did we get something out of that? And and it's a feel thing, as much as it is a quantifiable thing, where it's like, you know, I don't know how many interactions we really had. It's also a matter of, does the event really want to partner with us, or is it a transactional relationship for them? So if it's transactional, we tend to avoid it because they're not really looking to support our message, I guess, for lack of better terms. So we tend to avoid the pay to play stuff, and we really partner with people that see this as a value add for their participants.

William Harris 20:58

I love that the whole ultra marathon thing is absolutely wild to me. I'm not a distance runner. I did the 100 meter, the pool vault, the long jump. I'm definitely short twitch. But I did run five miles the other day last week, and I was like, yeah, that's that's as far as I need to go. I don't need to go any further than that. But those 150 you know, 50 mile, 100 mile ones are just that's on another level.

Filip Keuppens 21:21

It's some of the most fascinating people I've ever met, too, because the sports I played rugby and freestyle skiing, I also compete in track and field when I was younger, those are the type of sports that you can will yourself through a game, an event, or whatever, because they're from a relative perspective. Short, sure, but you can't fake your mindset in an ultra marathon, because you're out there for hours and sometimes days. And these are some of the most collected, real people you'll ever meet in your life. And if you know, if you, or any of your listeners or watch are ever, ever curious about finding some really, truly fascinated, centered people, go to an ultra marathon volunteer at an aid station, and you will meet some of the most incredible people. I tell people, I go to some of these things. I just collect fascinating stories and just being out there listening to people, and it's so rewarding to be able to be part of that space.

William Harris 22:27

I bet is there a story that you are able to share with us today

Filip Keuppens 22:34

about ultra marathons? Yeah, I met my now good friend, Kara Lubin through this space and care is an amazing human being. She founded an organization called the 100 mile club, and I really encourage everybody look this up. And essentially, what she does is she works with schools to teach kids that running, in and of itself is an activity you can participate in. And these kids, if they run 100 miles over the course of a year or whatever, they get a shirt and they're part of the 100 mile club, and wow, she works with about, I want to say, 2500 schools in the US or something like that, to get these kids just to be active in a really healthy, engaging way. And it's so good, it's awesome. But Kara was telling me that she was running this ultra one time. And, you know, these folks start, like, hallucinating and stuff. And she was like, in order to keep her mind centered, she was looking for the alphabet in in the nature scapes that she saw, because she was like, starting to, like, hallucinate a little bit, I guess. And she's like, Oh, that looks like letter A. And she was like, collecting the alphabet, I think she wrote it on her arm or something. Wow, but, but that's kind of amazing. And then the Kevin and Michael and Kimberly Miller, who are also amazing people, and they spend a lot of time in the UK Valley, working with and running with the tarimara, which is an indigenous tribe of amazing, world class ultra runners. And so not only are they incredible human beings, but I once asked Michael, when I was learning about the ultra running space. I said, like, like, when do you sleep? Like, like, how does that work into your races? He's like, Yeah, I mean, anything over four days, I feel I have to work sleep in. Re inverse must be true. I was like, holy cow, this guy's out there, like, running for four days period. It's just unbelievable what these what these people are able to achieve and allow their bodies to achieve. The other thing that's fascinating about that space is that it tends to age older, like, there there are. There are so many people in their 50s and 60s and even 70s participating in these, like, 100k 100 mile runs. And I think that too, it speaks to the power of the mind over the body. So, yeah. It's I could talk ad nauseum about these, these stories and experiences and some of the fascinating, amazing people I've had the joy and pleasure of meeting over the years.

William Harris 25:11

That's cool. I find it wild. I love the alphabet thing. That's a good idea. I feel like we play that in the car when we're driving somewhere far, with kids, right? So we've already played that game. You probably need to play it when you're trying to just keep your mind sane. Something else you told me that I liked was you said, if you have a product that's better than anything else out there in the world, prove it. And I feel like that's something you've done. Like, how do you go about proving it?

Filip Keuppens 25:35

Though? Yeah, it's, it's, it's really simple but difficult, right? So conceptually, it's easy. You release the narrative, and you get this stuff to the people that need it when they need it. The concept is very, very simple. The challenge is checking your ego to allow everybody else to control your narrative. And that's what I think a lot of companies are afraid to do because they're so worried about how their product is perceived that they feel they need to control that and and what I believe is that instead of spending all this time trying to convince people that your your product is a certain thing, just be that thing, and then find your the people that benefit from it, your point of differentiation, and put it in their hands at the moment when they need it most. So the formula is not very complex. The execution, however, requires some some some real humility and and risk. How do you make

William Harris 26:46

sure that they are going to share it? Though, just because you got it in front of them doesn't mean they're necessarily going to share it. And some, sometimes people, you know, gamify this a little bit, and they incentivize people to share their stories, stuff like that. Are there ways you're going about to make sure you incentivize them without tainting that very real, honest feedback.

Filip Keuppens 27:05

No, not really. We just, we've relied, in the past on on the law of averages. And sometimes we'll tell people, if they come up and tell their story and they're like, oh my gosh, this stuff's amazing. Be like, Hey, if you want to share that publicly, go for it, but we haven't actively solicited that. Again, we've been really, really focused on on being honest and transparent, and I think that's why we've had so much success, both at retail and with our consumers, because we're not pushy, you know, a story was shared with me internally recently about some competitors that are trying to enter that the cramp stopping space, that are just like, really, really pushy. And we've been told by some high profile customers that like, look, they like the fact that we take a science forward approach and not a sales forward approach, and that especially with like the the professional sports and things like that, where it's like, look, we we're going to trust the narrative to you. And as a result, we get some real organic exposure, and that exposure is so true and so captivating. Where I remember one time a few years ago, Francis TFO, on his 21st birthday, made the quarter finals of the Australian Open, and he's sitting there in his post match interview, talking about how Pickle Juice® is the reason he's still there. But then he was like, Oh, it tastes terrible, but it works so well. And I was asked like, Does that bother you? And I said, Absolutely not, because we it's about the function, and if somebody is sort of giving you that backhanded compliment, you know, it's real, you know, it's authentic. And we're sort of unapologetic about the flavor, and you know, we hope people enjoy the flavor, but if they're like, Oh man, I didn't even want to drink it because I don't like the flavor, but it works so well I will anyway. It's it's hard to imagine a more real and honest review than that.

William Harris 29:16

What's your Achilles heel? Because I look at other, let's just say, drinks that are in this space to a point prime energy being one that I'm going to call out, because I've called them out on other things. One of the things they did very well is they went viral. Very well, like Well done to the team. They crushed it. The hard part of that was, I don't think the product was able to live up to everything that they were wanting from it, and we saw that decline. But they're still in a good spot overall, relatively speaking, um, the the benefit to going after it, the way that you have, the way that I see it in my brain, is you're you're incrementally adding very real, Die Hard people. But what's the area that you have to be careful with, as far as making sure that the company maintains where it's at, maintaining. Means momentum, etc.

Filip Keuppens 30:02

I think it's staying true to what we are as we scale, and doing it in a way that people, our internal team, buys in and doesn't feel that sort of staying on that course of who we are, and remembering what got us here, and differentiating that directive with not with them feeling like they can't have their own voice. And I think, you know, I alluded to it earlier, that's that's honestly a challenge I personally face every single day. It's something I don't always get right, that I'm trying to get better at, and making these people feel like this isn't my thing. This is a thing, and it needs to stand by itself, independent of of my beliefs. And, you know, I think it's kind of like, you know, you pride in pride in a child, I suppose, right? Like everybody thinks their kids better than everybody else's kids, sort of thing and should be the starting quarterback, and it's having sort of the confidence to allow that thing to organically morph into what it's going to be, and let that child sort of grow up on its own. And I think that's what I'm trying to as we scale, do a better job of and I've noticed one of the things I need to do better as a leader is trust that, and trust the people who've gotten us here, and not be afraid that the message will get diluted, or that we would get away from our identity. So I think that's the biggest one.

William Harris 31:51

That's huge. I feel like this is a good opportunity to actually just share one that I've seen here. Share my screen, and let's share this tab here, and hopefully the sound should come through on this if I set it up correctly, let's see, can you hear it? Not yet.

William Harris 32:22

Bummer. Okay, so you don't hear it. I might not have that set up correctly. Unfortunately, I will share that link in the show notes then for everybody. But it's really fun, because there's like a six year old kid interviewing Kim. It's Kim Jordan's kids, right? It's actually his kids interviewing him, but they go into Pickle Juice®, a little bit. Good opportunity there, but maybe you could tell us a little bit more about that, like what you know about that clip?

Filip Keuppens 32:46

Then it's adorable. And, you know, I joke, I say, I don't know if it's the best coverage we ever got, but it's definitely the cutest. It was really cool. I talked about partnerships earlier with some of our customers, and actually, that was sent to me by the head dietitian at the at the saints. So it's really cool that we've been able to develop this real relationships. But what I love about that is, sort of the backhanded compliment, right? Is the athletes asked, like, do you like pickle juice? Do you use it? And he's like, Yeah, I use it all the time. And then, because, like, I hate pickle juice. It's awesome. It's so cute. But I think the kid pivots, like, at the end is like, I like it, but,

William Harris 33:33

yeah, I think it's real, right, right? And I think the fact that you have made that be the thing consistently is what speaks volumes about it. And to a point, you and I have talked about this, there's like, an ethical thing about making sure that you just allow people to speak honestly about the product, but you don't allow you don't just keep the ethics there. You're ethical in everything you do about this business. And one of the things you told me that I really appreciate it is that you use 100% recycled materials, not because you have to, but because it's what you believe is right. How do you define ethical business in CPG,

Filip Keuppens 34:13

I think it's tough. I think it's one of those things that it's hard to define. But you know, when you see it sort of thing, because I think it's you, you aim for perfection in order to achieve excellence. And you know, anybody that works with us can tell you that I'm kind of a stickler, and maybe a little bit too much at times for every little detail. But To that end, we we've achieved some really cool stuff. I remember, it was pretty recently when Brendan cybulski is our PCNL manager and deals with compliance and procurement. And he's the person who who got all of this, all these organic vendors in place, or. Cycle product vendors in place, and the state of Maine is imposing a very strict carbon neutral policy for packaged goods. And I think it's in 2027 so. And he had, like a sort of a confusing interaction with them, and it came out that they're like, oh, it's because you're already compliant. And you know that was really cool, like we are compliant with a policy that doesn't yet exist, and we are also told that we're the only company they've talked to that is and and I think it's really cool when those moments happen, and you realize that you don't have to be huge to make a difference, and these little things you do every single day that may not in the moment seem like they matter, and you have that one big moment, you're like, Oh, dude, that's unreal that we achieved something that no other company In the United States has been able to achieve when Europe mandated tether caps for plastic bottles, we were able to turn that around source it. As a matter of fact, tethered caps weren't even available in the United States yet because the demand wasn't high enough. So we're able to get those overseas, get them over to the US, create that product, make that product and make it available for that market before anybody else. And that's a credit to the to our team, who's who believes in that, who believes in their urgency and their mission, and I, and again. I don't know if they recognize it in the moment, but it's when you see how much further ahead than everybody else you are as a result of these little, tiny efforts. It's really, really rewarding.

William Harris 36:56

I love the mindset of optimize for where things are going not there they are. Now I've said this for years in the SEO space, where it was like, You know what Google actually is aiming for? That might not be a part of their algorithm yet, but you know that they're going there. So optimize that way, which was optimizing around the human being, and the way that the human being was thinking, instead of gaming the search engine. And then the flip side, I'd say, like AI is that same way right now. Ai, there's an opportunity to scam AI a little bit by doing some of the things we did in SEO years ago, but I think that AI is going to continue to do more and more and more to go towards that human user as well. And so the better you can align yourself towards where AI is going, the better off. I can't attribute this to anyone, because I feel like so many people have said this, but the way that you win is to stay in the game. If you quit the game, you lose. Like that's the guaranteed way to lose, but the best way to win is to stay in the game. And so instead of focusing on hacks, if you focus on sustainability of the company, of where things are going, you position yourself very well to be in the game 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 100 years from now? Yeah, I think

Filip Keuppens 38:06

it's also why we take such a focus on earn media right? And I think AI scrubs verifiable things, and the more verifiable, credible third party data that you put out there, rather than paid advertising and stuff like that, the more credible you are, not only to your consumers, but to these engines, and the fact that you know chat is going to allow in in experience purchases from walmart com. I mean, that's that's game changing where you're now, you know, and social media platforms have gone down this path as well, but now this in social in social platforms, you had to go find the thing. But now the thing can find you. So I think that's a huge opportunity for hyper functional beverages, for things that actually make a difference, that that treat an ailment. And if you have a lot of credible sources out there telling that story for you, you're the probability of appearing in an AI, and then that turning into a transactional conversion is a lot higher than a bunch of people just paying for

William Harris 39:27

ads. Yeah, I love it. Something else you're doing that I think is really interesting as a CEO, is you track your own hours. How did that get started? Why? Why does that matter to you?

Filip Keuppens 39:42

It's leading from the front. I suppose it's it's doing. You know, when you're in an emerging company or growing company, I tell people all the time that the work will always precede the reward. You kind of have to create the. Need for the job before you have it. So during the interview process, I tell people all the time, I said, if you're going to join a growing company, it's oftentimes a lot more work for a lot less money, not a lot less money. We treat our people as well as we possibly can, and I know we're treating them better than most companies now, but but from a work demand perspective and a and a resource perspective, and you can't be you can't demand something of your people that you aren't willing to do yourself, and for me, as we evaluate professional performance, we're really only looking at three things, right? It's output, input and culture. And I really think that you have to have two of those three as a minimum to be successful. And if you you can control. What you can control, and input is the easiest thing to control. It's, it's literally just showing up and and I think if, if people see you showing up, they'll be more inclined to show up. So it's really that simple. It's, it's, it's work harder than anybody that works for you and that I can't control if they believe in how I operate. They can't I can't control in what the outcome is going to be of what I do, but what I can do is control how much I do it.

William Harris 41:39

You've challenged me. I don't do it on an ongoing basis, but I do do it periodically, maybe about once a month or so. It doesn't always end up being once a month where I will do an hourly audit of everything that I'm doing. I'll track it for a week or so. Maybe I need to do it every single day and just get in the habit of that. And so I appreciate but to your point, I got this concept from Dan Martell. Dan Martell has a really good book called buy back your time, and that's what got me starting to at least do it as infrequently as I do compared to doing it daily. As you How can I even optimize my own Tim if I don't know where all of my time is going so as the CEO, but if I can actually write down all of the things that I'm doing, then inevitably, what I look at is I'm like, why am I spending my time doing this? This is a thing that can easily hire somebody to do. So I can do these other things that I don't have somebody that can do. And so I've actually found it to be a very beneficial thing for me, not shackles, but something that helps, has helped free me up as well. Yeah, and

Filip Keuppens 42:37

you make a really good point, William, a lot of times when we encourage other people to do that too and eliminate the noise, and sometimes that can come across as sort of being controlling and stifling creativity, but really, what you're doing is encouraging them to focus on the things that matter and the things that matter matter. But you know, they matter not just to the output of the organization, but to that person, because it gives them worth and value, and it allows people to realize that, man, I am so much more capable than I thought I was because I allowed myself to be pushed out of my comfort zone a little bit, and now I'm doing these things I had no clue I was able to do. But, you know, I noticed two things when I started tracking my time. One, I shifted my day completely. So I realized that I was wasting about two, two and a half hours a day just by going to bed too late. So now what I do is I try to go to bed early, and I wake up early, and the reason I do that is because the morning is a lot more flexible than the evening. You have more options. Totally agree.

William Harris 43:48

So I'll get up at like 430 in the morning. I was gonna ask how early we're talking. I'm not at the 430 zone yet.

Filip Keuppens 43:56

Well, my alarm clock set for for six, but I it's very rare that it rings.

William Harris 44:03

So how are you going to bed? How early Are you going to bed? In order to get up

Filip Keuppens 44:08

at 430 honestly, as early as I can, and that might be, that might be eight. Might be 830 good for you. It's, it's when you, you know, sit around. I'm trying to be more even that decompression time. I'm trying to be more sort of creative with and instead of watching TV, we're challenging one another to read every night. It's just more engaging and stimulating. And, you know, I joked the other day, we're like, man, we just stare at our at these phone screens where maybe maybe be more productive and useful, and also like decompressing to stare at a book. So we're going to try that, and I kind of join our own little mini book club. So it's just. Little things like that, and it doesn't feel at all like it's, it's the Be. It's workaholic type behavior. It's really just shifting your perspective and shifting things and noticing that you get so many more rewards out of being creative. It's, it's, it's, it's sort of delayed gratification, rather than pursuing the immediate dopamine high, if you will. And I think, as we have so many distractions and and I'm guilty of it too, like I can, I can look, I can appear disengaged because I'm thinking about 1000 things at once, but with so many short term distractions to consciously try to focus on those other things. And then I wake up in the morning and I have options, right? I can make a make a nice breakfast. I can lay, lay in bed a little longer. I can go get a workout in. I can go to the office early. And it that just having those options reduces your stress.

William Harris 46:00

I just last night, finished up a book that I was reading called switch on your brain by Dr Carolyn leaf. It's literally become one of my favorite books. And so I had to find a new one. And so I just finished that one last night, but just in the mail today, I have to give a shout out buddy of mine, Clayton, Christopher, who was on the show earlier, sent me from strength to strength. And so I've got a new book I know exactly. It's, you know, down there downstairs, right where I keep all my stuff. And so I'm excited about that. But I got to ask you, if you're thinking about reading a book, then is there a book that's on your list that you're like, This is a book that I'm excited

Filip Keuppens 46:33

to read? Yeah, I'm reading the inner game of tennis right now, which is, which is great read. I mean, it's sort of timeless. It was written in the 70s, and it's still very, very relevant. The Five Dysfunctions of teams is another one that's really cool. I'm looking forward to reading more books on soft leadership. I think that's a skill set I need to improve on and and appear less authoritative and improve my listening skills. Because, you know, it's not enough to care your audience needs to know that you care. And I think we can all get caught up in being results focused or looking at tangibles and quantifiable things that we we give people, and we forget that that qualifiable things matter. So that's that's something I'm working on them and looking forward to, to exploring more within myself. So, yeah, that's next.

William Harris 47:40

I love it. You're traveling, so you're not by your whiteboard today, but if I remember correctly, you had three words written on your whiteboard the last time we talked. What three words are those?

Filip Keuppens 47:51

It's a urgency, accountability and collaboration. But we've, we've sort of pivoted, and we had a very drawn out process intentionally that involved everybody at different levels of the organization to try to create our core values. And it's something I really believe in. And we've adopted the acronym Kasich, collaboration, accountability, solutions, mindset, integrity and then champion mindset. So those are the things that I think are really, really important to pursue. Those are things I need to constantly think about, and those are things that I want everybody that works with us to really value and focus on and promote, because I think those five things, more than anything else, are super critical.

William Harris 48:55

You said that it was intentionally a drawn out process. Why intentionally a drawn out process to get to your core values.

Filip Keuppens 49:03

I didn't want it to feel like checking boxes. I didn't want it to be something that was a reflection of a specific moment in time. I wanted people to think about it, take different looks at it, take different approaches at it sort of creating intentional disruptions, to really get them to think, to reflect, to discuss, to talk and to really believe that this isn't just being parroted from the top of the mountain, if you will, and then it really is something that We can all get behind, and we can all believe in and I think a lot of people think those are just words on a board, and you know, they're new, right? And until that, we create an environment where those aren't just words on a board. They. Are just words on a board. So it's important that every leader, myself included, embraces those and exemplifies those, so that they can, in fact, be embraced by everybody else. You can't force somebody to do a thing to have a true value, they have to believe it and want it. I

William Harris 50:25

totally agree. When we went through our values, we we didn't want to just basically say, here's what we ideally want to strive to be. But who are we today? Because at the time, we were a very effective agency, right? So like, when we were doing this, it wasn't like we were broken, like, No, we're effective. Can we figure out why we're effective? What are the things that has made this team be effective? And so we just tons of brainstorming around this, of all of the different things that are going on. And then we try to say, Okay, how do we narrow this down? I don't want seven, right? How do we narrow this down to the ones of the absolute most important set? Way it's like, you can it's like you can have a lot of other things, and we narrowed it down to three that we felt bubbled up the most to our mission statement. For us, the mission statement is to amplify joy through profitable business growth. The whole point of what we do is to grow businesses profitably. If we don't do that, we're not actually doing the thing that people are hiring us to do. That's it. But the amplify Joy piece to us is there will be times when the economy is down, and no matter what you're doing, they might not be profitable for a quarter a year. Like these things happen, or hopefully still profitable, but maybe not as profitable as we had hoped that they would be. And so we still want to amplify joy, right? Because there's still ways we can, like, can we make the experience joyful? Did we do what we say we're going to do? Are we trying new things, like, are they looking at this saying, if everything else was okay, we know that you guys would have us in a better spot. We understand where that why we're not so we narrowed it down to three, which was to be innovative. We're not going to be a very effective if we're not innovative. That is a core part of what we have to be. We need people on our team who are like, I'm going to think about how to do this better than the 99% of other agencies out there be accountable. Because again, if you have the best idea in the world, but you don't actually follow through on it, it's not going to be effective and to be human. Because ultimately, understanding that every single one of these people that's coming to the table from our clients, our vendors, us ourselves, our families, all of these human things are a part of what's in there. And if we don't understand and recognize that, then we're likely to be short with people, or whatever that might be, and that's going to deteriorate things faster than anything else. And so we said, these are the three things. If we focus on those three things, that's going to make a difference. One of the things that you told me, that I really appreciated was you said, don't make it about you. Make it about the product. What's the dangers when leaders make it about themselves?

Filip Keuppens 52:50

Yeah, I think we can. We can all become a little guilty of that, right? Particularly if we are creators or have a change agent mindset, because we we have to buck convention, and you can't innovate without breaking stuff down and finding that balance between making it about the thing, and conveying that in a way that people don't think it's about you, is really important, and something that I'm probably not as good at as I want to be. Because, you know, people identify it with me, they identify certain approaches we take and and that can come off as unwavering, which is which is challenging. And then people think it's about you, even though you're really just trying to protect that baby if you want. And I think it just the danger with that becomes that you end up marching, marching by yourself, and you can't scale unless you can get other people to march with you. And you think, that's the that's the danger?

William Harris 54:16

Yeah, I think I saw Curtis mats go posted on LinkedIn just this morning. And Curtis is the CEO over at Portland leather goods, and I think they're on track for 200 million this year, like, so they've, they've done a great job. And he basically quantified out, I think he's got like, 1500 employees, and he figures out 40 hours a week for them, 60 hours a week for him, and he adds all these hours in. He's like, I do like, point 1% of the work of our company, right? Like, the output. And so when you look at it from that frame of mind, he's like, the best thing that I can do is enable everybody else in the company to be as successful as they can be, versus it all about me.

Filip Keuppens 54:50

Yeah, I think that's a great mindset. I

William Harris 54:54

want to chat a little bit about the acquisition, if that's okay. You were recently acquired by PE, which we said, Congratulations. You. What? What made this the right time?

Filip Keuppens 55:04

There are a few factors. I think it was the the way we were going to market and really harvesting where we could, from an opportunity perspective, was, was maxing out. We knew we needed some additional resources. We knew we needed to pivot in order to continue to grow and scale rather than getting into preservation mindset. We knew directionally that we had to pick a lane. Were we a manufacturing company? Were we a brand? Were we an idea? Were we a solution? And that lane aligned more with a CPG brand mentality. So we had, and we still are trying to become that. So it was just a lot of things, and we found who we thought was the right partner, and that too is very

William Harris 56:07

important. I had a conversation with a buddy of mine, Dave Mortensen. He is the founder of Anytime Fitness, and I think that there is a conversation. I don't remember if it was a team that he was acquiring or something along those lines, but he told me that sometimes it's better for businesses to go with an acquirer who maybe is offering less financially, but is the right acquirer? Right? It's like the right culture fit. It's the right trajectory of where they're going. It's not always about what the multiple is of the EBITDA,

Filip Keuppens 56:42

yeah, I think, and we, we found the right partner that also gave us the right tools, but they're also challenging us to be the thing that we want to be, and that is to say they're holding us accountable to being good stewards, not just of our communities, but of our of our people to be focused on making sure that they are taken care of, both financially and culturally, and that we're trying to shift a culture which is which is interesting, right? Because you have to get them to really believe that you can be a legacy employee and still change, and they're like, well, we opt we we were a completely different thing five months ago. How am I supposed to believe that this is genuine, and a lot of companies can struggle with that, right, and particularly companies that technology, companies that struggle to evolve into the new version of that technology. I remember when I was working for Warner Brothers when they acquired AOL, and I thought it was fascinating that AOL, who was at the time, was the number one dial up service in the world. But imagine walking into that office one day and say, Hey, we are the best at a thing that's about to be obsolete, sure. So now we have to stop doing that thing that we are the best in the world at and do a completely different thing in order to stay relevant. So again, conceptually, sure we get that. But how do you do that? And get and understand when to do it, get everybody to believe it, to buy into it, you know, some of that comes probably with some force direction, where it's like, look, we're doing this, and then they kind of see the why and the how. They see the why after the how, which is tough, because you can find yourself on an island during that process, and hopefully that the results happened. People see what happens and why, before you have a complete mutiny. But yeah, but yeah, those, those are necessary things, and I think that's why that's probably one of the things that leaders have to force themselves to do, is make decisions that may not be popular at the time, but are necessary. Are right? And you know, people inherently resist change. People fear the unknown. And as leaders, it's our job to steer the boat into those dark waters, whether the people on board want to in the moment or not, but then when they come out of the other end and be like, Oh yeah, okay, now I know why we did

William Harris 59:34

that. Yeah, they may be fearful of the unknown, but you have put the time in to develop that trust, where they say, All I see are dark waters. I'm a little bit scared of that, but I I trust you to lead well. And so I might not agree with that decision, but I trust you, so let's go for it. You teach a course on entrepreneurship, which I thought. Was pretty cool. What's the number one mindset you wish every founder had before they even got started?

Filip Keuppens 1:00:08

I guess. Can I cheat and say there's a couple of things that I think please important? I think the first thing is, have a true point of differentiation. We talked earlier about it's not about you, it's about the thing, and that that also means that if you are trying to be an entrepreneur because you don't want to work for somebody or you want to be independently wealthy, you're going to fail. If you want to be an entrepreneur because you want to change something, you want to create something you're passionate about that you'll have a higher chance of success. The second thing, I think is equally important is having the willingness and ability to fail. And by that I mean is you can't become financially dependent on your thing until that thing is ready for you to be financially dependent on it, if, if you don't recognize that, and you have to go into the piggy bank earlier, you're not sort of nurturing the thing the way it needs to be nurtured, and it won't grow. And sometimes that means knowing when it's time to get outside resources, knowing when you need to change how you scale, and things like that. So I think those are the most important things.

William Harris 1:01:32

That's huge. You have also learned a lot about business from rugby. You said that organized team sports have taught you everything you need to know, or at least a good chunk of it. What are some things that you learn about leadership and business from sports

Filip Keuppens 1:01:49

the I guess the best analogy I would use is that some of the most successful games I've been part of had the had some pretty mundane individual statistics, and some of the best statistical games I've ever played resulted in losses, because not everybody's contributing. And what I found in playing and now coaching sports is that I would rather have a bunch of above average performers performing together than a small group of exceptional performers performing individually. And that holds true almost at any level. And I think, you know, I say that a imperfect plan executed perfectly will usually defeat a perfect plan executed imperfectly, and that's the power of collaboration.

William Harris 1:03:05

Yeah, there's another example that's probably way overused, but the idea of rowing together, and I remember when we started down our path of implementing traction, Eos, traction by Gina Wickman, one of the things they talk about, it's like, if you can imagine, it's like, you're, you're on a boat, and this person's rowing this way, this person's rowing this way. It's like you could have phenomenal, phenomenal rowers, right? But if they're rowing and even just slightly different directions, you're not going to be nearly as effective as somebody who's less of an effective rower themselves, but they are all rowing together in unison in the same direction, correct? How do you define success today? Differently from when you were 25 I

Filip Keuppens 1:03:50

think when I was 25 success was a purely capitalistic status statistic. I think success now and obviously I'll acknowledge there's a maslovian component, right? I mean, you have to have enough of those things to be able to not worry about food, shelter, etc, and live a lifestyle that you're comfortable living. So I'll caveat it by saying that. But beyond that, I think success is creating something that outlives you and that could be influencing another person's life in a positive way. It could be creating a sustainable brand. It's the value of giving more than you take. It's the the the ability and willingness to sort of fall on the sword when you need to be able to fall on the sword in order to benefit others, to to be misunderstood in a moment, while waiting for the truth to present itself. Yeah, I think that's, that's how I look at success. Now,

William Harris 1:05:04

that's a really good definition. That's one that I haven't heard before. And I think the thing that I like about it the most is that it opens the door for everybody, because not everybody's going to, you know, start a 10 figure business, but a lot of people can have that lasting impact, like you said, that could be as simple as, like a grandma or a grandpa who have made an impact on, you know, their grandchild who is goes on this could be you had a big impact on your neighbor, like this. There's a lot of ways in which you can create that type of success. And I think that's beautiful.

Filip Keuppens 1:05:35

Yeah, one of the most powerful lessons I ever learned in my life was from my father, and it was not even an intentional lesson. It was just him presenting part of his mindset. And we used to get together every Sunday morning when I was in high school and read the newspaper. And I remember at one point there was this, like double page fold out ad for the brand new Jaguar XJ 12. And I remember my dad saying, Man, I'd love to have this car. And I was like, well, so buy it. You can certainly you can afford it. And your other cars got, like, 200,000 miles on it. He goes, Yeah, but if I did that, what would I have to dream about? And and I was like, and that was so powerful to me. And then that very moment, I understood why some of the wealthiest people in the world are the least happy, because they pursue that one measure of success that they've been told to think equates happiness, without really understanding that that's not it.

William Harris 1:06:36

I go for a walk fairly regularly in the afternoon, just a short, little, you know, 1015, minute walk. But it's just, I found it to be one of the best ways to kind of clear my head and think about things differently, just getting away from the computer. And I was thinking about this literally just last week. I was like, the interesting thing about dreams is that they are potentially more often than not far enough away that they're exciting, but the things that are, let's just say, and I had a word for it. I don't remember the word that I wanted to use, but like, things that are just within reach, it's just, it's literally right there, within reach. Oftentimes, people are more frustrated by it, right? Because it becomes an obsession. It's like, I'm right there. I can obsessive. I'm going to do this. I'm going to work this much. I'm going to do this much more, whereas it's usually not a source of excitement for a lot of people, and a lot of times it becomes a source of frustration. Why don't I have this yet, right? Whereas a dream, it's sometimes so far off that you're like, I'm just excited to think about what this could be one day, maybe, maybe never. But like, it's fun to dream. We've started to get to know you, which I really appreciate. I always like having a portion of the show where we get to know who is. Filip Keuppens, you said you've told me before that you have always been somewhat into fringe subcultures, skateboarding, freestyle skiing, rugby, motorcycles. Is there one of those that you are still involved in today?

Filip Keuppens 1:08:05

Yeah, I'm still involved in rugby at a couple different levels. I'm on the

Filip Keuppens 1:08:12

USA club rugby competitions committee for for sevens. I'm currently the director of rugby for the Dallas rugby club. And, yeah, it's it's rewarding. The game has given me a lot. It's humbling, but it's rewarding. And and being out there, and the thing that's amazing about it is that you lead people to do a thing that they have to pay to do that is tough, requires sacrifice time, effort, energy, and you have to get them to do it because they love it and they have a common objective, and I think that has really helped me be sort of results oriented, and get people to understand the pursuit of the bigger Picture and understand that like, like suffering in the moment, if you will, and sacrificing in the moment can pay dividends in the end, and understanding that whole type two fundamentality, but, but I think the thing that really attracts me to those fringe things, as we've discussed before, Is that the people who are in those spaces are truly passionate people. They really, really believe in something that isn't accessible, oftentimes isn't popular, and is oftentimes isolating from the norm, if you will. But I think that's what draws me to those things, is that these people are truly, truly passionate, and they're driven, and they are unwaveringly committed to that thing. And I think that's that's a really contagious energy.

William Harris 1:10:17

I was going to ask why. I'm also going to ask how, because, growing up in Ohio, where I did, there was one kid in my school who played hockey. We did not have a hockey team, so he had to go somewhere else to play hockey. And I didn't even know that we had a professional hockey team in Ohio. I mean, like, that's just how little it was looked at where I was, I was in Canton, right? So, pro football, of fame, football, basketball, baseball, sure. Hockey, what? So, but how did you end up getting turned on to this sport? Did you watch a commercial for it? Like, what made you say, like, rugby, this thing that nobody else in my school is playing. I'm going to go do that. Mom sign me up for rugby. And she's thinking, where I don't even know where to find a rugby like, how

Filip Keuppens 1:10:59

actually it was. It was, it was a really weird story, because I was, I was a really passionate mogul skier, and I got pretty good at that, and I wanted to find something to do in the summer to stay in shape. And that sort of gave me that same sort of joy. And it was interesting, because rugby was really the first team sport that that I became a part of, and before that, I really didn't understand how to operate as a team. So it was very valuable to me to learn those lessons. But I jokingly tell people, you know, being from Belgium originally, that, you know, I wasn't any good at baseball, basketball or hockey, or any of the American sports or football. So I had to find a sport y'all suck that too. I'm just kidding, though. I'm just kidding. No, it was again, I think I I remember just meeting some rugby players. I was really fascinated by their passion for it, their commitment to sort of the humbling components of the game that I still really appreciate. The fact that the number on your back is dictated by the position you're playing that day is a constant reminder that nobody's bigger than the game. There's one referee on the field that has a sole discretion of the law and how to interpret and apply it. So we answered to that one referee no matter what. And you have to manage that referee and collaborate and work with that referee. And then I think the power of after every single game, the home team will socialize, you know, over drinks and food with the visiting team. And it's, and I think that's so, so powerful to be like, you know, we, we just literally spent 80 minutes physically beating each other up. We're going to step back and say, you know, we're, we're kindred spirits. And I think those things are so attractive to me about that game, and I feel an obligation to give back to it, because it gave so much to me. And I feel that whenever we're fortunate to experience something that gives to us, we should try to give it back so that future generations can experience that same thing we did.

William Harris 1:13:20

You have already 10x my rugby knowledge. I didn't know any of that, but I find that all very, very cool. I especially like that idea of getting together, even with the opposing team when you're done, if you are walking out on, I believe it's called the pitch, the rugby pitch, is it? Right? So if you're walking out the rugby pitch, what's your walkout song?

Filip Keuppens 1:13:40

Oh, man, my I was never a hype up song guy. I was always a guy that, like, during warm ups, I was kind of jokey and loose and goofed around a bit. And the thing that would really get me into the game is like that first hit, like getting hit, and it was kind of like that woke me up, and that sort of got me going, and that that was my thing. What's really amazing is, though, is how pregame warm up stuff has has changed almost 180 degrees from what we used to like identify, and it's less now about hyping up as it is, like calming and centering. And at halftime of every single game, before anybody says anything, we go through a box breathing exercise. That's it's to center our minds, to calm down, to be collected, to be present, and yeah, those days of like smashing your head against the locker, yeah, AC, DC. I'm sure that's still a thing for some people, but most people I know now and. Especially at the really elite levels, it's it's about centering the mind being present, and being able to tap into those, the that, the that neural component that you need firing and to act in a more cerebral way. It's really, really fascinating to see that transition over the past few years.

William Harris 1:15:23

That's interesting. Do you have insight to know if that's true outside of rugby as well? Are you seeing that? You know from hearing that from NFL, NBA, etc?

Filip Keuppens 1:15:33

Yeah, I actually see it now. When I'm watching different sports, I'm seeing particularly the ones where, like the half times, like on the court, or where you can see what's happening at halftime and, and it's and you see it in all these sports where the players will sort of circle up, and you'll see them going through these box breathing exercises and, and that it's a very rehearsed, strategic conversation, rather than a rah rah emotional conversation. It's, it's really okay. Let's, let's take this time. Let's think about, analyze what is happening and create solutions to the things that need, where we need to make adjustments rather than, Hey, bro, make your tackles. Well, yeah, we know that. Like, that doesn't help. That's not, that's not constructive. No, it's not, yeah.

William Harris 1:16:31

I mean, I can say that I like the sound of that. My daughters play volleyball in high school, and there are definitely games where I've watched, I'm like, they, they only lost this game because of their mental game. Like, like, they're more than capable of winning this, but something got in their head and they weren't able to shake that. And you almost kind of want to just, like, look at the coaching, like, now's the time. Now is the time to, like, go through some kind of, like, you know, box breathing, something. It's like, they, they got to reset their brain, and then they'll get back out there and play. And so I hope that continues to catch on more and more. I like that. Yeah, I I understand that you wear the same outfit every day, mostly every day. Is that about focus? Or is that just about saving your laundry days?

Filip Keuppens 1:17:19

I think it's, I think it's part of a routine. Very almost every single day I'll wear a branded shirt. I'm ironically not wearing one today because I have an event tonight, but yeah, I wear a branded shirt. It's says Pickle Juice® on it. I don't know why I started doing that. It's kind of caught on. A lot of people are doing it as well. It's, it's one less decision I need to make. I can get from my bed to my car in 11 minutes in the morning. So it's just one of those things where it allows me to start my day thinking about the things I need to be thinking about, thinking constructively. I think psychologically, it helps me be present in that moment of the company that I'm I'm representing that brand. I'm in that mindset. I try not to be distracted. But, yeah, I mean, it's, I guess, the same reason Mark Zuckerberg does it right? One less decision.

William Harris 1:18:22

I appreciate that. You know Zuckerberg, like you said, is that way Steve Jobs was that way. Dean came in. A lot of people don't know him, but the inventor of the Segway scooter. But before that, he was also the inventor of the insulin pump. He's got, you know, serial entrepreneur, serial inventor, I should say. And there's something to that. I've even gone as far as saying to my daughters, one of the things I talk about is there are other decisions that you can eliminate having to make as well, if you just know what your goals are. So if you say your goals are to be healthy, do you believe that working out is likely to lead towards being healthy or lead you away from being healthy? And it's like, what's gonna lead you towards your goal? It's gonna you know. You don't have to think about this. So you can actually just know, I wake up, I work out, you know, going to bed on time. Is it more likely to help you reach your goals, or less likely to help you reach it's going to increase the likelihood. Then you just know, okay, I go to bed on time. And so there's a lot of decisions that, if you really think about what your goals are, those decisions can be made for you, and you don't have to make that decision again every single day. What time do I want to go to bed? Well, I've already established what time I want to go to bed for sure. Philip, it has been so much fun getting to know you today, talking to you, learning from you, I feel like we've been able to dig deep into some things that are unique to the way that you guys have approached business, if people wanted to follow you or work with you in some way, what is the best way for them to reach out, stay in touch, get in touch.

Filip Keuppens 1:19:51

Yeah, you can find more about Pickle Juice® at picklepower.com. You can find me at LinkedIn or social media. You. I guess, fortunately or unfortunately for me, I'm pretty easy to find given the spelling of my name. So, you know, I think there's only one other Filip Keuppens out in the world that spells his name the way I do, and he doesn't look like me. So that's helpful. I think he's got a shaved head. So for look like look for the guy that doesn't have a shaved head. And click on that LinkedIn profile and but, but, yeah, it's, you know, I'm always happy to talk to people and learn and collaborate. You know, I, I really, genuinely believe in a learning, learning mindset, we either win or we learn. So, you know, we, I embrace those opportunities so

William Harris 1:20:42

well again. Thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today, and thank you everyone for listening. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Outro 1:20:50

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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