My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:

• Set a MOST goal:
  • Motivating
  • Objective and measurable
  • Small
  • Timely- something you can accomplish in months.
• Is there something you can look forward to when you make that change and are feeling less overwhelmed? What matters to you most?
• Small changes: pack lunch the night before, take a walk during lunch, etc.

• Change your relationship with technology. On average, people spend more than four hours on their phone each day! Many people scroll on their phones as soon as they wake up.
• Popcorn brain – the urge to constantly bounce from task to task while we are online
• The pace of life offline is much slower than the online one and needs more time and attention. Set boundaries with your phone. Limit scrolling to twenty minutes per day, disable push notifications, and resist the urge to grab your phone by keeping your phone a distance away.

• Tap into your mind/body connection to lower stress. Your mind and your body are in constant communication and are linked. Do regular deep breathing exercises. Stop, breathe, and be. Daily movement can help your brain and body. Not enough movement/no movement is bad for the brain and body. Find ways to sit less and move more.
• Do tasks one at a time and take regular work breaks. Time block.
• Quiet your inner critic. Your inner critic has a megaphone during periods of stress. Practice daily gratitude journaling. Work on cognitive reframing.

• Overtraining – unless you are training for a bodybuilding/physique competition or a certain race or event, you do not need to be training more than five days each week. Working out too much can go against your body.
• Undertraining – if you don’t have a specific plan or goal in mind, you may be undertraining. Aim to hit each muscle group 1 or 2 times per week.

• Cardio – cardio is not bad. You will not tone your entire body by doing cardio. Cardio can lead to being worried about calories burned.

• Worrying about calories burned – if you’re worried about the calories burned, you will do more cardio. You need to do strength training. The amount of calories you burn in a workout has nothing to do with the effectiveness of a workout.
• Being afraid of lifting weights – you will not look manly or bulky. Start out slowly. Add in three days of weightlifting. The only way you can build muscle consistently and have the body you want is to apply progressive overload and make it harder for your muscles to work. Increase the difficulty of your workouts by increasing weights, increasing reps, or decreasing your rest time. Your last rep should be difficult.
• Not resting – if you are not taking rest days, you will not see results. The only time your muscles can grow is when you are at rest. Your muscles grow as they repair themselves and build when you are resting. You can do yoga, stretch, or go for a walk on rest days. Give yourself rest from lifting weights.

“The communication model breaks down the content of our statements into 4 categories: Facts, opinions, feelings, and wants. The idea is that when you directly address all 4 of these things in communication, it makes your message clear and fully understood.

First are the facts. This is what actually happened with no emotional connection, and no assumptions. You know something is a fact when it’s impossible to disagree with. When you start by stating the facts, it creates a neutral ground and firm foundation.

Next comes opinions. This is when you state your perspective or frame of reference. This is an elaboration on the facts and how you’re interpreting it. Note that your interpretation is not factual itself; it’s simply your biased judgment of the facts. When you express your opinions with that level of awareness, people are more likely to listen and see where you’re coming from.

Then we get to feelings. This is the specific emotion that your opinion, interpretation, or judgment caused within you. When you communicate how you’re feeling about everything, it removes any blame or fault. This reduces the threat and allows people into your world so that they know how you have been impacted.

And last, we get to ‘wants’. This is your opportunity to talk about what you’d like to happen next. When teed up correctly, your ‘wants’ don’t come off as so selfish because you’ve explained the context, and your request is more reasonable.

In a practical example, this is how a manager might speak to an employee:

Fact – The deadline was yesterday and I did not receive the completed project

Opinion – To me this means that either you have too much on your plate, or you’re not being efficient with your work

Feelings – This makes me worried because we have a lot riding on servicing this client

Wants – In the future, I want you to meet your deadlines but if you know you’re going to miss it, give me 24 hours’ notice so that I can plan accordingly.

Doesn’t that feel effective, fair, and solution oriented? The next time you find yourself miscommunicating with someone else, take a step back and make sure all 4 elements of the communications model are being addressed! It will make things clear, smooth, and understandable.”

• There are over 80 brands of bottled water in the United States.
• Mike Cessario had no experience in water, but he had almost two decades of experience in advertising. He knew that if he tried something totally outlandish, it might just work. Seven years later, Liquid Death sells more than $100 million of water each year.
• Liquid Death is water in a tall aluminum can that looks like an energy drink.
• Before Liquid Death was an actual product, it was just an ad on social media that was used as a test.

• Mike attended the Warped Tour and hung out with bands who were seemingly drinking cans of Monster energy drinks, but in small font, the cans were labeled “tour water.” Since Monster was their sponsor, they created water for the bands that looked just like their product they wanted to promote.
•  Mike’s goal was to create a water brand that looks like an energy drink and it was all about making fun of the fact that this is what people actually drink (such as at Warped Tour).
• The original idea for a tallboy can was that it looks like something like a beer or energy drink that feels fun, but what’s inside is really good for you.
• Mike also wanted a can because aluminum is a better alternative to plastic.

• Bottled water is typically bottled at the source. It was challenging to find a manufacturer for his canned water.
• No money for marketing – wanted to create something people would naturally share on social media – wanted to come up with the dumbest or craziest idea – Liquid Death was an odd name people would be drawn to and want to share.
• Mike chose a German black letter font that was used on beer cans.

• Mike started an Indiegogo fundraiser trying to raise $150k featuring a video of a woman pouring out Liquid Death – trying to position water as extreme and causing death – kills surfers, avalanches, etc. The Indiegogo was not successful and only raised $1,500. After that, Mike made posts on social media over the course of four months and the video had almost 3 million views and the page had about 60k followers, despite not having any product to sell!
• The ad campaign was started before he had a product! In 2018, he had a Facebook page with several followers, a video with millions of views, a 7-11 franchisee from Michigan wanting it in his three stores, and the biggest non-alcoholic distributor in New York wanting to talk to a sales rep about the product.

• Many people told Mike his product was impossible in the United States. Mike found a place in Austria that had canning capabilities, but he still needed the capital.
• Mike says the branding is more important to him than the taste. People buy things that have the same functionality as other items, but are loyal to a brand and are willing to pay more for it. Mike said the source mattered to people, but that’s enough to make people feel that it’s a premium product.
• Some people find the brand appealing and want to try it instead of trying an energy drink or a different brand of water.

• Mike wanted to use Amazon to ship and fulfill the product. Amazon charges you a fee for every case that they ship and fulfill, so he had to charge $20 for a 12 pack in the beginning to make any money because the shipping costs were so expensive.
• Amazon was originally selling a 12-pack for $20 due to shipping, but then Whole Foods sold it for $14.99 for a 12-pack since shipping wasn’t required.

• Spring of 2021 – container ship blocked the Suez canal and started a chain reaction of ocean freight costs increasing by 5x. Mid-way through 2022, it went up again. They decided to move to co-packing in the United States in western Virginia.
• By 2021, Mike raised a series-C with over a 500 million dollar valuation!

• In 2021, Liquid Death did $45 million in gross revenue, which is small for a beverage company.
• Smart Water (plastic bottles of municipal tap water) sells over $1 billion each year.
• Coca Cola, the biggest company in the world with all of the resources and shelf space, tried to take share in the energy company by creating Coke Energy. The experiment lasted two years and was a massive failure, and it shows that giant companies are bad at creating brands.
• If the brand was only about water in aluminum cans, Coca Cola could make the product much cheaper. That’s why Liquid Death has always led with the brand and what they can own first: funny, irreverent brand making people laugh, murder your thirst… forget the plastic was always the second focus, as they knew they couldn’t own aluminum cans as a brand.

• 2024- predicting well over $100 million in revenue this year
• What makes this brand sustainable in the long run? What makes it have staying power? Internet and technology makes it so that brands don’t often last 50 years. In five years, you could be a brand doing billions of dollars in sales.
• Mike says luck was involved in his success, but his previous experiences helped him make the right decisions. He says the brand is a true reflection of himself.

I haven’t tried Liquid Death yet, but it was fascinating learning about the brand!

I really enjoyed this post from Gabe the Bass Player this week:

https://www.gabethebassplayer.com/blog/scary-thoughts

Scary Thoughts

February 6, 2024

So far you’ve survived every scary thought you’ve ever had.

That’s a pretty good track record.

Let that inform you the next time the thoughts come back.

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!