Fueled By Death Cast Ep. 20 - LACIE MACKEY and TAIT FLETCHER

CAVEMAN COFFEE - LACIE MACKEY AND TAIT FLETCHER

“We are living in a world where you are able to do and create whatever you want. There are so many outlets that are new and worth exploring - all that gets me really excited.” - Lacie Mackey, professional trainer, co-owner of Caveman Coffee

“The things I think of as failure and success are just temporal. In the broad scheme of things they are sometimes my greatest assets.” - Tait Fletcher, former MMA fighter, actor, co-owner of Caveman Coffee

ON THIS EPISODE:

A theory that has long been talked about has evidence to support it finally. On this week's Science segment, the hosts talk about dark matter and how galaxies have been observed to be connected by dark matter bridges. What Fuels You deals with the idea of how to master yourself and become better than you were yesterday. Finally, there are community and birthday shoutouts, and some Nitro Brew news from Death Wish Coffee.

THE GUEST:

Lacie Mackey and Tait Fletcher are both in business together and are incredibly busy on their own as well. They both join the show this week to talk about the origins and future of Caveman Coffee Company and their respective podcasts. Plus, Tait talks about his various movie roles and how he got into acting and Lacie reveals how she started in marketing and how that led to an interest in fitness.

TRANSCRIPT:

Jeff: First and foremost, we wanna really start, now that we have both of you on, we really wanna start just talking about Caveman Coffee. Because everybody's gonna ask us, what the hell are we doing with a different coffee company on our podcast?
But we love you guys. And we wanna know like, a little bit about, for our listeners. A little bit about Caveman Coffee, and it's origin.

Lacie: Yeah, and I mean, my response to that too would be that everyone drinks coffee. There's a lot of coffee to go around. And-

Jeff: Totally.

Lacie: There's a million coffee companies out there. So, I don't really see a lot of people as competition, as opposed to just people doing cool things, reaching different markets. All that jazz.

Jeff: Oh yeah, us too, that's the best attitude to have in this business of course.

Lacie: Yeah, so Caveman is a single origin coffee company. We work with a couple farms in Columbia, Brazil, and Ethiopia. We do all roast to order. We're mostly an online company. We've gotten a little bit into wholesale, and grocery, at this point.
But predominately, our focus on our fan base and our customer base that orders from us online. And then, we ship out roast to order stuff. We do subscription service and a couple things of that nature. We make other products that are paleo related.
So, like a primal or paleo diet, things that would be like non-inflammatory, like creams and stuff which are normally inflammatory. We replace with things that are like coconut MCT oil. We have a non-dairy coconut creamer now that's MTC based.
Things like that, that pair with coffee, but also adds a nutritional aspect to performance and using fuel as performance.

Jeff: Awesome.

Lacie: Thanks.

Jeff: That's a lot of awesome stuff.

Lacie: I would say that's probably like where the part of the market we're in. And that's what differentiates us in the coffee world a little bit.

Jeff: When did the company start?

Lacie: The end of 2013. We, I mean Tait really. You wanna talk about your like Twitter interactions with Single Origin people?

Tait: Yeah, I don't know. As a company, we started in the fall I think.

Jeff: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tait: And maybe a year or so before that, I got really into butter coffee nutrition. I started looking for different ways to have nutrition be implemented in your body as a, like looking at how to be with fuel for your body, instead of filler.
And coffee became a big part of that for me. And I guess I started really going through an experiment with ketogenesis and my body. And coconut oil was a big nutrient aspect at that time. And I would just find Single Origin coffee and I would use butter and coconut oil and scoop it in a Nalgene bottle and shake it up.
And I'd go out the set, I was in Louisiana on a film called Two Guns. And I was out there for a couple months I guess. And I got, I don't know, as shredded as I'd ever been. And I thought man, I gotta be like 216 pounds or something. I'm pretty sensitive about my weight. Like I know kind of what it looks like in different spots, like a fight camp or something like that.
Because I used to cut weight, I used to fight MMA. And I had a really good idea of what that was like. And when I got on the scale, two months later, I was like, I dunno, 240 pounds or something like that. I was bigger than I'd ever been.
And at this kind of shredded capacity. And that kind of sold me on ketogenesis and being in a ketogenic state a lot. And the coffee started going to that because I was looking at like, I was just always a fan of coffee.
I'd kind of fallen in love with it. And I think that you elevate that conversation with whatever you fall in love with, and nurture it. And it, you get to be more refined in your taste for that. And that's kind of where I went with coffee. I became a nerd about it a little bit.
And talk about it, and then guys would text me, or they would tweet me on Twitter. And say, "Oh, I love this single estate coffee that I have out of Ohio." And like, we would, they would send me coffee, and then I would send them stuff from Ohori's, or from where ever I happened to be that my favorite single origin was.
And had like a little coffee club that went back and forth. And then, Lacie was on and off. I don't know, maybe it was, what was that dead, the movie where he dies all the time? Anyway, she was off and on some movie, and she was-

Jeff: The Edge of Tomorrow.

Lacie: Yup, that's it.

Tait: That was it.

Jeff: Nailed it.

Dustin: I loved that movie.

Tait: And I think that's what it was at that time.

Lacie: Yeah it was, I can't talk about that one really. But just from an NDA statement.

Dustin: Right.

Lacie: But yes, was on that, and was working like really long film hours. And doing the same thing where anyone that like encounters shift work is gonna run into that. If you're trying to work twelve to sixteen hours a day, you're not sleeping that much.
Your turn around time's not that great. And then, you're also having to eat like whatever's available. You're not gonna last very long. And for sure, your fitness and your health, and your overall everything is gonna start to fade.

Jeff: Yeah.

Lacie: So for me, that was like a totally groundbreaking thing because I could have like more fats in the morning, and continue to have some fats throughout the day, and never get into the place where I'm like depleted of sugar, hangry, angry, gonna murder somebody if I don't eat something.
And just like eat whatever. I could actually just have a pretty mild day, feel good the whole time, lots of energy. Really good mental clarity. Not super tired. Not eating things that are gonna make me super tired. Not getting too full where I'm gonna be lethargic.
And just able to maintain this amazing energy and feeling throughout the day. And then also, what comes that is that you're kind of doing like an intermittent fasting. So, even though I'm not getting in the same amount of training or workouts that I normally do if I was in my normal sleep schedule and stuff, I'm not seeing a huge increase in body fat or a real depletion of myself.
So, that was a huge deal for me.

Jeff: That's pretty much what brought me to buttered coffee. Was just I didn't have time in the morning to eat a whole breakfast or whatever. And then, later in the middle of the day when I'm really busy, I didn't have time to eat still, so it just became this way to just kind of supplement breakfast. But then, I started to notice improvements on my body and my brain.
And so for our listeners, they might not be too well versed in how MCT oil works with caffeine. Would you be able to fill us in a little bit on that?

Lacie: Absolutely. So the ingredients that are pretty normal, and you can a bunch of different things to it, whatever you want really in a butter coffee, or a paleo latte we like to call it.

Jeff: I like that.

Lacie: But yeah, you can, you're eliminating the dairy for a couple reasons. There's a lot of sugar in dairy. Dairy is processed in different ways and can have like lactose responses in people's bodies. Can be very inflammatory to some people, things like that.
So, if you're cutting that out, then you want to add something to make your coffee delicious and creamy. There are a couple things you can add. Butter, grass from grass-fed cows is one. We want it to be grass fed because you're gonna get more omega threes than omega sixes. We have too many omega sixes in our diet already.
So, we're trying to increase the omega threes in our body for a better balance of omega complex. And then, you would add coconut oil or MTC oil. This is another form of fat, relatively you're adding two fats to replace another fat that would be milk.
And if you are doing this the best way, and eliminating sugars and other complex carbohydrates from your diet, then you're gonna actually run your energy and your brain and everything off of this fat. And what's the benefit to doing that? Well, your body stores sugar that it doesn't use and it doesn't go through.
And we all eat too much of it, and that's how we get fat. We add fat to our body because it's storing. It's basically like turning that sugar into stores for later on when you need it in case you were in the wilderness, and you weren't able to hunt your stuff. But we really don't have that problem anymore.
So then, fats are going to be used as your body, if you teach your body correctly to do so as energy, and fuel for your brain. But the MCTs, medium chain fats are not gonna be stored on your body as fat. It's a use it or lose it situation.
So, whatever you do need, your body is gonna absorb, or whatever it's able to absorb. And there is some training of that that you have to do by committing to this diet. And then, you'll be able to have the energy that you need without having residual effects of stored fats, as well as the drop in glucose that happens when you run out of sugar.
And your body doesn't know how to access fat. And then you get that hangry feeling. And I think we all know what that feels like.

Jeff: Oh yeah, all the time.

Lacie: Yeah, not awesome. So, that's kind of like why and what-

Tait: And the training of it is like, it's not like, it's something anybody can do. And it literally takes zero effort. It just takes discipline. And what that is, is your body will either burn sugar, or you'll burn fat for fuel. And it's very much a catchphrase marketing wise in any health and fitness magazine, or if you're one of those very high-level online fitness coaches that you see out there.
With the dirty bathroom mirrors and the flip phone. And you'll hear people talk about that kind of stuff, and what that looks like is that you need to be sugar deficient for about three days solid before you'll feel really good. But if you eat a high-fat diet, fat is satiating. It's a satiating quality that it has to it.
And once you make that switch over, your body will start to burn adipose tissue in the absence of any carbohydrates. Or exogenous fats. Now, once you start eating a lot of exogenous fats, your body burns that. Then if you go into intermittent fasting and do that, which becomes an easy thing. Your body just burns the adipose tissue stores.
And that's what I was experiencing in New Orleans during that time when I got when I just lost all that body fat.

Jeff: Right.

Tait: And so, that's like there's a simple mechanism that you can look into ketogenic diets, or you can look into intermittent fasting. There's a lot of different things out there that speak to that. And the way that we started was really, what got me interested in it, is also being beset with depression kind of my whole life.
And moodiness, and all that. And when I changed my diet man, I didn't know that I had been eating myself into those situations. Like if you're in a shit mood, or you are a crusty most of the time, you're probably, the actions that you're taking to nourish yourself. Whether that's physically, spiritually, emotionally.
The people you surround yourself with, it's probably poisonous on all levels. And so, I just started looking at my own life, and going, how do I nourish myself on these different aspects of my humanity to the best degree? And what I listened to, what I watch, who I'm around, all that impacts that greatly.
But the biggest thing that I have that changes the sway of my body, is what I eat. And most people don't see it that way. We're really taught and given perspective in this world that our bodies are broken in some way. I mean, people talk about depression. They say that's a chemical imbalance, and they will give that diagnosis without doing one test on you.
They will talk to a 13-year old, with a 13-year old's mind, and they will say, "Well, you're chemically imbalanced." While there's been no testing of any chemicals to see what their balance is. It's an asinine endeavor meant to get you on drugs by pharmaceutical companies. And there's a big push in the FDA.
I mean, Obama introduced the head of Monsanto to the head of the FDA.

Jeff: Right.

Tait: I mean, it's like they're in such collusion everywhere throughout it. And now, what's happening with Trump is even worse. So from the top down, we're getting messages that are gonna create damage, cancer, disease across our whole country. And so, that's kind of where we started this whole thing from, was we were just people trying to get our lives better.
And then, when Lacie was off that movie for a minute, we started a little coffee truck, a little coffee butter truck. And we took it to like Brick Crossfit and took it to a couple events here and there. And it was horrible, horrible failure in all the ways you could mark a failure.
And it was the beginning of what was one of the best things that happened. I mean, so it's taught me a lot too. And the things I think of as failure and success, are just temporal. And in the broad scheme of things, they're sometimes my greatest assets, you know?

Jeff: Definitely.

Tait: And so, then we got with Keith. And Keith is a big coffee nerd too, and he met these roasters that had fled Columbia after multiple kidnapping attempting during Pablo Escobar days. And they were at a coffee and chocolate festival. And we all got together, and had coffee, and were like, wow, I gotta share this with all my nerds on Twitter.
And then, Lacie started playing around with a webpage, and accidentally published it. And then we were live and-

Lacie: We had like 200 orders-

Tait: That's basically it, right?

Lacie: Yeah, for sure. It was like near black Friday weekend in 2013, and that went live. And we got a bunch of orders. And we were like, oh great, we have a logo, but we don't have labels, we didn't have anything. So, we printed out labels, on an Avery printer thing on my mom's home computer. We, I think Keith actually bagged most of the coffee by hand with a little scale.
And we hand wrote all the shipping labels, and went through that whole debacle of dealing with the post office, and learning how to do shipping and stuff in a bulk manner. And we outgrew our website really quickly. We had, it was a big, big cartel website. But it could only handle a hundred orders at a time.
and as we got more than a hundred orders before, it would have to, you'd have to process the orders before new orders came in, because you would lose the old orders if it got-

Jeff: Oh man.

Dustin: Yeah, it sounds a lot like how a lot of the growing pains that we deal with. And it's pretty intense.

Lacie: Yeah, I mean I'd love to hear about what happened after that Super Bowl commercial.

Dustin: Well, lemme tell you. It was pretty much the same thing where anything that you could imagine would go wrong, did go wrong.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dustin: We had, I mean, obviously we had a flood of orders come in. And we were working with some third-party roasters. And one of them completely did not deliver on anything that they promised us. So, we were stuck with pretty much dealing with all the orders on our end, and having-

Lacie: Right.

Dustin: To take care of this mass of buys, and not lose this huge customer base that we could potentially have, you know? That commercial could have sank us if we weren't ready if we weren't able to deal with it. But I feel like that's just the growing pains of any good business.
You're gonna deal with, you're just gonna deal with the shit, that's just the way it is.

Lacie: You learn a lot from those things, and you learn how to get better. And I think you find mentors, and you find other companies that have done that before. Obviously, we're not like inventing anything here with a lot of stuff.
But we are inventing this, or we are taking this product to this market, in this way, for the first time that it's been done. And so, you learn from other people that you admire, and that are doing a good job in the spaces. And you figure things out eventually.

Jeff: Exactly.

Lacie: And as a small company obviously, I'm sure you guys experienced the same thing. And it's just about inventory control, which is a challenge, especially with a product that isn't necessarily a perishable, but you want it to be as fresh as possible.

Jeff: Yeah.

Lacie: So, we stick to the roast to order strategy, which makes it really hard when we get big orders to manage that. But, so far so good.

Dustin: Yeah, inventories a tricky thing. That's actually what I do here at Death Wish. But yeah, especially dealing with Amazon, who has multiple warehouses all over the nation.

Lacie: Yup.

Dustin: And you're dealing with a thing that you wanna stay fresh, and if you're running out of coffee really quick, it's really hard to find that balance. Now, you guys must have dealt with quite a growing business when you became sponsors of the Joe Rogan podcast. And how did you guys deal with that influx?

Lacie: I mean, it's been-

Tait: It's always been slow and steady, I don't know that that, there wasn't, it wasn't a flash like the Super Bowl thing for you guys. It's just, it was nothing that Joe wasn't already talking about.

Dustin: True.

Tait: And then when I was on, I mean that momentum has been created by all of our lives and connections up til now, you know? And our voice as authentic, trustworthy people. I mean, we're a brand that you can trust. And people know that about us, and Keith and I kind of being in the public for a while. And then, with the background that Lacie has in marketing.
And then, what she's been doing in all her double secret shit that she goes online. But it's, we've been loved by people. I mean, all of our old teammates post about us at Jackson's gym. Whoever we meeting in film, they are instant advocates. It's like, so I think the thing is, we didn't try to have a business. There's a lot of people that go, and they go, "Oh, coffee would be a good business."
We never, ever I don't think, ever had that discussion, ever. It wasn't a thing where it was, that was the goal of it or anything like that.

Jeff: Right.

Tait: We don't build pretty, vibrant, fantastic lives, and this was something that we loved. And then we're like, oh well, let's bring this to other people. And it was kind of more of a service-oriented deal, and something that was fun to do together than it was to be a business. And then, lo and behold, fuck, we've got a business, and we gotta become good stewards of that.
And who's gonna do what, and how are we gonna learn how to do this? And it's really only been to the greatness of Lacie Mackie that it's not dead and in the ground. But it's, that becomes, that was so much of an afterthought for all that kind of stuff, you know what I mean?

Jeff: Yeah.

Tait: It's like what we've tried to do is live our lives fully, out loud. People know what my dogs look like, who my mom is. My life is pretty open, and people are like, "Wow, that dude does a lot." I'm just a participant in life, and this is just one of the things I get to participate in. And what I hope happens, is that it shows a bunch of younger people out there, that wow, you can participate in all that shit.
You can do absolutely what you want, and it all is contingent on you being in love with the thing that you're doing. And that's the right way to live through life. And most people fuck that up.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tait: And they make allowances, and they go I've got to trade this off, my security for this and that. And I've just never trusted that I'd have security ever in my whole life. So, I was free in a way from that, you know?

Jeff: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I feel like a lot of the interviews that we've had with all these inspirational people that we get to talk to, a lot of them feel that because they've experienced something amazing and life-changing, that it's their duty to kind of spread the word, and help other people understand this amazing thing that they've discovered.
Is that something that you relate to?

Tait: Yeah, I guess to some degree. I mean, I've been my own guinea pig. I love the way when I got abreast of what Tim Ferris was. It's weird because there's a bunch of people that are doing that exact, I mean, not a bunch.
But there's a few of us that are doing that exact thing, and then there's a bunch of people that are like, "I wanna make some money on this. How do I get into this business? How do I get into that?" And then there's a few guys that are like, "Man, I just experiment on myself, to see what's gonna happen, and how. Can I pull this off?"
And for me, it's a lot like, it's like fighting in some ways. You put yourself in an awkward position and see how you fare there. What self it is that you're protecting. How you can bring your training into real life. How you can start to administer flow states into your life in all facets of your life.
Most people's life, they look at, and I'm doing this mundane shit. It's not a flow state. Well, I would offer that perhaps it's super fucking important that you try to create that kind of consequential living with intention. So, that you can understand what the fruits of life are really about, which are living in that flow state.
And I think that's the thing. I mean, and I think that there's a lot of people that give lip service to some stuff, but they don't have any of that kind of authenticity. People are like, "That doesn't even sound right, that sounds like hokum, you know?
And then, when you talk about it, and when you talk to guys that know about it, you're like, holy fuck, maybe me too. And that's magic.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dustin: Yeah, I feel like anything that isn't authentic doesn't last. And that's one thing that we've discovered here at Death Wish, that if we're not really all about, it's not really gonna, it's not really gonna stay in the air.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tait: Yup, totally.

Jeff: You both had said that you both have had incredible careers leading up to Caveman Coffee. And I kind of wanted to touch upon that a little bit. And we actually, we can start with you, Tait. It is widely known, you know what you do in your life. And you started out, kind of getting into the public eye in MMA.
Was martial arts and physical, that kind of aspect of life, was that always something in your life even when you were a kid? Or did that kind of come later on in your life?

Tait: No, that was later.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tait: Much later, I was into my twenties.

Jeff: And, oh, go on.

Tait: Yeah, I didn't have much of an inspirational life when I was younger. I looked for solutions to the mundane aspects of life right away. And then, I started selling drugs right as soon as I was able. And I kind of lived life as a criminal up until my early twenties.

Dustin: What was the tipping point?

Tait: Hm. I don't know that there was one. There's a bunch. There's a bunch of stuff that occurs and I guess truly for me, it's like there's an openness that I think that happens when people that ravage themselves, where there's a point when's there's a moment of clarity they call it. And you can hear a message, maybe that you heard a thousand times.
But you weren't able to access it for whatever reason, and it makes perfect sense at this time. I think maybe there was enough of those conversations maybe that I was privy to. And I'd been hospitalized and I'd been like removed from, separated from alcohol before. But never for, I never knew I had a problem like it sounds funny to say.
I was hospitalized for alcoholism, never knew I had a problem. When I drank again later, and I ended up overdosed again like a week and a half later, I was sure that I had a problem. And that I had to address it I guess. And I don't know, I guess I think that humans live through negative paths a lot. And you go down that negative path enough, and then you go, oh fuck, this is the wrong way. I better go somewhere else.

Jeff: Right.

Tait: But it's not like anybody could tell you that's the wrong way. You're not interested in that. Because it feels good at the time.

Jeff: Right.

Tait: And I think there's a lot of that, and so after the lie comes up, I think for alcoholics, you get into a position where you go, it'll be different this next time. And things are gonna be okay, and I'm gonna control it X, Y, and Z ways, or whatever the deal is. And I think that that's, I mean it's important to find that out.
To find out whether that's true or not. But after you've gone down that road enough and beaten it up, you know that you gotta go a different way. And then you go, no matter what happens I end up on the same shitty road. And I fucking hate this fucking road. And I'm fucking on the road anyway.
You pick a different road, and then you go, I have to be true to this road, and I'm gonna see where this goes. I don't know, I think there's a lot of stuff that goes into that. I mean, if I had an answer for you we would be having this conversation on a yacht somewhere probably.

Jeff: Well I mean, you definitely looked at your life and you changed it around. You became a force of nature in MMA. And then, like you've talked about too, you switched tracks again and got into the acting side of it. You mentioned the movie Two Guns that you were apart of, which was awesome. I know, I mean everyone knows John-

Dustin: John Wick, yeah.

Jeff: Wick, and West World-

Dustin: West World-

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. How did that kind of come into your life? Did you actively look for that after MMA? Or did you, did that kind of just was that another organic kind of road shift for you?

Tait: It was all organic. I had first done a film in 2000. And then I never really thought about it again. I was working at a nightclub, and I was doing that. And I was satisfied with that at the time. I started fighting at that time, around that same time I was doing a bunch of amateur tournaments around the world.
And so, I didn't start looking at film stuff until like 2009 when I stopped when I had my last fight. And I met a guy named Darren Prescott, and Darren was a second-unit director and stunt coordinator on a film that was called Paul. And he'd come in, and he kind of fell in love with jiu-jitsu, and so we would roll every day.
And after a couple of weeks, he's like, "Oh, you did a film before somebody said." And then we started talking, and I ended up, I worked for one of us his friends ten years previously.

Jeff: Oh cool.

Tait: So, in this thing, and then I went into Red Dawn after that, like a month later. I go, "Wow, maybe this is a real thing." And I was doing bodyguard jobs and shit. And I was like, I knew I didn't want to fight anymore, because I wanted to fight so much still. And I knew that that was dangerous at the time that I was.
At that time, it was like you're only getting more damage for fewer results. And I was like, I could maybe fight another five more years, but then I knew that whatever that five years, well that would be five years from when I start the next thing after fighting, and what is that, and what's the risk-reward.

Jeff: Right.

Tait: And all that kind of shit. And I was seeing guys, I was seeing friends of my man, Liddell had just left my gym, and he'd gotten knocked out pretty badly like earlier that month. And he was still looking to fight because he wanted to make a nut, you know?

Jeff: Right.

Tait: And there's a fucking, then I remember when I was a kid, see Evander Holyfield fighting in a fucking fairgrounds. And I'm like, that's a, what the fuck.

Dustin: Man, nobody wants to do that, that's sad.

Tait: You know? And there's a thirst and a craving for a combat artist to do his thing, that is beyond what anybody can imagine. And you will do it to your own detriment, times a million. And I was like, I wore that shit as a cautionary tales. And I go, "You know, you're going to really, like you're not."
It's the first time I started thinking of my future self and going, you're not gonna do your future self any favors if you don't address this right now. Because really, it's pushing off the inevitable, and it was not being brave enough to have the conversation about how are you now. Which I think is one of the most important conversations that a man can have.
And one of the fewest conversations that most men ever have. If you get ten guys around, fucking know of them are gonna know what I'm talking about. It'll be like one out of a hundred guys who will have really faced up to that question.

Jeff: Yeah, that's-

Tait: It's an ego decimating question.

Jeff: Yeah, that's an incredible outlook to have. To keep that in your back pocket like that. And obviously, then, this leads to Caveman Coffee. And I wanna hit the ball over to Lacie now. Talking on your career path, I know and Tait actually hit on this a little bit.
You I think started out in marketing? Or at least that's where you started really cutting your teeth in business right?

Tait: Martial artist-

Lacie: Shut up, shut up-

Tait: She was a lifelong martial artist.

Jeff: Well, I was gonna get there too, but I just wanted to start. What came first? Was is the martial arts or the marketing?

Lacie: No, he's making things up. I did like cardio kickboxing class once in high school. And the coach saw me and my girlfriend come in, and I could see that he was looking at us and deciding what kind of music we'd wanna put listen to. And we're both blonde girls, so he put on Britney Spears. And we were both like, oh my God, come on dude.

Jeff: Oh no.

Lacie: No, yeah. My background is in marketing. I started out of college, working in the event space, and the production space. And I worked for MTV, and Viacom networks, and did a bunch of gorilla marketing things that involved finding people to go to different recorded TV shows that would happen during the day. So, it would be kind of hard to get people to come to them.
Like TRL or different top ten shows, I did a couple Comedy Central shows. And really-

Jeff: So, you're literally the girl who's on the side of the street being like, "Hey, jump in my van and come see a TV show taping."

Lacie: Yeah, don't you guys wanna come to a show later? Yeah. It wasn't above that, and sometimes it was a little more glamorous than that. I got to, I did a show with Greg Geraldo and got to travel to a bunch of different comedy clubs, and stuff, around New York City for a couple of months. And get people that were fans of comedy to come to specific days.
Like when Louis C.K. came on, getting all his fans to come, and stuff like that. But we would record on Tuesday at two, so people would be at work. So, you have to talk people into either ditching school or coming to work. The MTV stuff was a little funnier because I'd be sneaking onto high school campuses.
Definitely wouldn't fly these days.

Jeff: Oh my goodness.

Lacie: As like a junior high or high school kid. And handing out tickets, and getting, at the time there were emails. There was no social media. So, we were getting emails and phone numbers.

Tait: Beeper numbers.

Lacie: Yeah, basically. And doing a system of grinding out, taking all those numbers that we got, hundreds of numbers in a day. Like a team of ten people going out, scavenging the city to get these whatever our goal was for that day. Call all those people. It was really before texting was a big thing too because now you could do like a robo-text.
But we would physically call all the people, talk to them, we'd try to touch on three different times in a conversation. And then, we'd had 50% of the people show up.

Jeff: Wow.

Lacie: So, it was this whole formula. But that really trained me in face to face marketing. And how to go out and find the target, the right people that are actually gonna show up, and really target marketing in a totally different way. And then, that kind of led me to actually working for on the agency side, for a gorilla marketing company in New York, that I worked for a couple years.
Doing like stuff before social media was a thing again and before there were a lot of terror threats. We used to do all kinds of stunts to get PR for companies. So, we did a consumer electronics convention for an internet service provider, which I won't name, because I have an NDA with.
But basically, we stormed the CES show, with a bunch of girls in candy stripe outfits, handing out suckers that say, "Cable sucks." And we got kicked out immediately-

Jeff: Oh my goodness.

Lacie: So we had 200 girls in these cute little outfits, and it was like everyone was getting their phone out, or I guess it was cameras at the time. They weren't really camera phones yet. And we were all over the internet, we were asked to come back by Microsoft the next day to tour their house and stuff.

Jeff: Holy crap.

Lacie: Just like doing stunts that would get attention, whether it was Guinness World Records, or a flash mob in Times Square, or whatever. Things that we'd get arrested for often definitely were involved, the company got involved in lots of lawsuits. If you Google like top ten gorilla marketing campaigns, or top ten gorilla lawsuit campaigns, I was probably part of at least half of them.

Jeff: Wow.

Lacie: So, I think Mafia Wars they got sued by the city of San Francisco for doing these fake dollar bills on the ground. But they were making so much money off of that campaign, that we just kept doing it, and kept doing it-

Dustin: I remember that.

Jeff: I remember that too, that's crazy. So, that's obviously given you a lot of skills towards what you're doing now. And I wanted to ask you as well, how did you get into the physical side of what you do? I mean, you train, you are a physical trainer now. How did that kind of come into your life?

Lacie: Yeah, fitness was always a thing. I was a junior Olympic volleyball player when I was growing up. And played up through those levels. Didn't try to go to college for that, because I really wanted to focus on actually a career. A lot of my friends that stayed in, especially with girl's sports. You end up going to division four schools and stuff.
And the education is maybe not as good. So, I choose not to go the college route, or to continue that. But I did continue to stay somewhat in fitness, by you know, I was running marathons doing things like that. But I had really lost my connection to sport. And I really missed that, because I grew up doing that.
And being on teams, and being with people. And so, when after I left New York after the economy was crashing, people weren't paying for marketing campaigns quite as much. I decided to dabble in PR, because I wanted to sharpen my sword, and have more experience. I went to work for a Chamber of Commerce, he was the director of communications.
And then, that's where I met Tait. I interviewed him on the radio one day, for the Chamber of Commerce. Because his gym had just joined the Chamber. And we did a ribbon cutting. And he was starting to, he was at that phase where he was phasing out of fighting, and focusing on his businesses. And what was next. And so, that's how I met him.
And he invited me to come in for a workout. And I went into the gym, and we did Fight Gone Bad, which is, I don't know if anyone has done that. If anyone's in the Crossfit world, they'll know exactly what it is. But it's a rough, rough workout.

Jeff: Yeah.

Lacie: And Tait didn't have a lot of scalable equipment at the time. So, I was probably doing things above my strength, but I didn't also wanna look bad. I was trying to impress him. So, I gave it my all, and then I couldn't drive the car home afterward.

Jeff: Oh no.

Lacie: And thought like, God, this is really amazing whatever this is. I thought I was fit. And I was working out like many hours a day, and I was doing the stuff. But in this thirty-minute workout, I was totally destroyed. And so, that got me instantly hooked on doing Crossfit and learning about strength and conditioning from a different standpoint.
And at that time, I was also coaching a junior Olympic volleyball team. And doing their strength and conditioning. So, I was learning those skills and kind of applying them to them and seeing them improve, seeing myself improve. And then, really feeling like I was connected to that team sport community again.
Because you're doing fitness with other people. I wasn't just at the gym by myself.

Jeff: Awesome.

Lacie: So, yeah, it was kind of how I got into, back into that. And when I decided to move out of New Mexico and to Los Angeles, part of that decision is not going back to New York was the Crossfit community was really good. And they got here, and I was really interested in that. And so, I kind of did that as a hobby.
Then went into training for the Crossfit games in 2011 I believe, 2010. On a team with Crossfit LA. And because of that, making it through regionals, and making it into the games, and doing that training I got put in a bunch of places that had people that were working at different levels. And there was a chiropractic group that was looking for a trainer.
And somebody with production experience, and also training experience. And I just thought that training was a hobby at the time. And they talked me into interviewing for this job, that I didn't really know what I was getting into. And I thought well, I don't love what I'm doing right now.
It was award show season in LA. I had just worked a bunch of award shows. And I wasn't sure what I was gonna do next. So, I interviewed for it, ended up getting the job. Thought I would do it for six months, ended up doing like five or six movies. And staying on this roller coaster for five years, with one of the largest action stars in any movie that he was involved in the world.
And so, I got to work with a bunch of different people, and on a lot of really exciting action movies. And I got to apply my skills of being in production, and understanding timelines, and responsiveness, and all that stuff. And making things happen to my athletic skills. And applying strength and conditioning methods to getting somebody ready to do a stunt that had never been done before.
So, breaking down movements into different movement patterns that were learnable, and easier. And it was a really fun thing for me. And as it turns out, I was pretty good at it. So, I've been in that space now for seven years. And have worked with other people, in other films, and have been kind of all over the place.
Currently helping out with Jurassic World right now a little bit. And some other projects. So, it's a really fun job, there's a little bit of pressure, but it's a lot of fun for me.

Jeff: That's excellent.

Dustin: Speaking of Jurassic World now, I saw one of your influencers is Chris Pratt. Is that how you got tied up with him?

Jeff: Yeah, we saw him on the Caveman site there, the Caveman Coffee site.

Lacie: Yeah, so Tait was actually, Tait and Keith were both in the original Jurassic World.

Jeff: Yup, yup, yup.

Lacie: That's how that connection happened-

Jeff: He was a bad guy.

Lacie: But then I, no, they were good guys.

Jeff: Yeah, they were good guys, that's right.

Lacie: They're helping guys. But it sounds like this new one there'll be some bad guys. But yeah, and then I got recruited through my connections with people in the Mission Impossible franchise to help with Bryce, who was getting ready.
Because she also wanted to do some of her stunts. And she's been pretty vocal about me being around. So, I feel okay mentioning her. But-

Jeff: Yeah, that, we all saw that Snapchat video of you guys the other day, that was adorable.

Lacie: The cat's out of the bag. But yeah, I was very fortunate to get to work with her for about six months. And help her get ready for her project. And man, that was a lot of fun. And that's happening right now, and there's still other things happening.
So, I'm still involved in that a little bit. And yeah, you might see a few Caveman type cameos in 2018-

Jeff: Awesome.

Lacie: When that comes out. So, that's very exciting. So yeah, we're very involved in that set, from a bunch of different angles.

Jeff: That's awesome, I mean-

Dustin: That is so cool.

Jeff: What's really great about the both of you, is that you have, you both have great outlooks on life, and you both have this ability to look at your life, and just take that next step. That next turn in the road on that journey of, which is life.
And that's really refreshing and inspiring to hear about. And one thing that we always ask all of our guests on this podcast, and I'll start with you, Lacie. With everything that you've done in your life, leading up to Caveman Coffee, and all of the cool things that you're doing outside of that as well.
What fuels you to keep going? And to keep getting out there and trying new things, and growing your business?

Lacie: I mean for me, I've always envisioned a life of being able to work on different types of projects, and being creative on those projects. And all that stuff. And so, Caveman and all these other things, kind of fuel into that. And I, in a weird way, I never could have planned it, but all of the history that I have, and the experience that I have has funneled into that.
To make me ready for this time now, and these businesses that we've created, and these different things that are happening. And with Caveman, it's just fun. It's a really fun product. Coffee is obviously the second largest traded commodity in the world. So, people like it, it's not a hard sell.
And we have a great product, so it's easy for me in that aspect, where I'm not having to really push it. It's just here's the thing, let's see how far it can go. Again, for a long time, because we didn't really intend to start a business, there was very little pressure. It was like, oh, just try this, and try this, and cool, if it's working out, it's working out.
It's not like, oh my God, my paycheck's coming this way. Now, it's a little more like that. But and other people rely on us for their paycheck, so of course, we wanna build this business. But it's also, we're living in a world where you're able to do whatever you want.
And create whatever you want, and put whatever you want out there. And there's so many outlets and things, that are new that are worth exploring. And all of that really gets me excited and jazzed, and upon a Saturday night working.

Jeff: That's excellent.

Dustin: That's so cool. And Tait, you seem to have a hand in everything. From acting to the Caveman business, to training with fighters. And what keeps you fueled? What fuels you to keep on broadening your horizon in all these things?

Tait: I guess that I'm not super impressed with myself. And maybe equal parts of self-loathing and wanting to be useful. Would maybe be an answer of some kind. Yeah, I feel like I always look at even if something goes really well, how it could be done better. And how I could improve.
And I try to stay in that space. And reach higher, and it seems like to have the awareness of that, it becomes a responsibility to the people around me. For me to be better than I wanna be sometimes. And that's what kind of keeps me showing up, is because I have an innate empathy to the universal fact that we need each other.
And I need to do my part. And I think that's where growth I guess comes from for me. And that's what I feel like I need is that if I'm not scared about what I'm doing. Or I'm not, you know the thing that you're doing that's gonna be the most helpful, isn't gonna be easy to do. And it's not gonna be well timed.
And you're gonna have to go your way. And it's like, so I've just chosen a life that looks like that more. And try to do something scary and push against myself. And I think it's all about an ego control thing, to be a master of yourself. And I guess that's what all these things are. And maybe that sounds crazy.
But that's kind of how my mind is about it. I never thought I could be, I remember when I was in high school, and they said, "Yeah, none of you guys are gonna have jobs like your parents had. Where you just had this one job for the rest of your life."
And I thought, "Fuck yeah." I was like relieved because I was kind of ADD about it all, or it seemed like, and it also seems like a horrific choice for people to tell you about. To say choose something, this is what you'll do forever.
Like holy fuck man, that seems like a long time. And then, you see how forever pans out for almost everybody around you. And you go, oh, that's not true. Maybe I'll just get as good as I can, and get as purposeful as I can. And live like that. And I think that that's the thing, is I guess being a good steward and falling in love with the things that are interesting to me is the thing that's the responsibility.
Because I think that's the way of life, I think that's what it is kind of.

Jeff: You hit the nail on the head man, Tait. I mean, you are, I'll tell you right now, you're very inspiring to me. And saying stuff like that isn't crazy. That is some of the best advice that humans can give other humans. Is that, you don't need to worry about the people around you or the things that are supposed to be laid out for your life.
You only need to worry about being better than you were yesterday. And bettering yourself. And that's what, I take away just from this conversation with you. Is like, you have such a handle on that, and it's really, really awesome to hear.

Dustin: Well, self-loathing is something that I think that we all deal with. We all deal with that in some way. And there is a way to take a positive spin on it. There's two sides to every coin. Is it self-loathing, or is it a need to be better?

Jeff: Yeah.

Dustin: And I feel like you guys, both you guys, hit that very well. So, is there anything big and awesome? Any big news or any upcoming things for you guys and Caveman Coffee?

Lacie: You can see us at Paleo Effects coming up soon. Hopefully, you will see us in retail, some spaces, pretty soon. We're trying to take our ready to drink items into stores. And we have some delicious new things like emulsified MCT oil coming out. You guys are gonna have to try some of it, I think probably at the Southwest Coffee and Chocolate Festival.

Jeff: Yeah.

Lacie: But it's pretty awesome. It's a non-dairy creamer. And you get your hit of MCT for your brain, and goodness as well. So, we're excited to introduce those new products to the market and get them out to people.

Jeff: That's excellent.

Lacie: Tait's gonna be a comedian.

Dustin: No way.

Tait: Yeah, I'm gonna go, it's tonight, gonna up and pee my pants in front of people, underneath lights. So, I'm gonna try that, because it seems terrifying.

Dustin: That's awesome, do you have stuff written? Or you're just gonna wing it?

Tait: Enough with all the fucking questions, I'm nervous enough about this.

Jeff: I hope there's video cameras because I wanna see this.

Tait: A ton of people about it, and all these different things. And yeah, we'll see. I'll lay it out, I'm sure-

Lacie: You're gonna kill it.

Tait: I'll do my own, I'll do a podcast about it probably tomorrow. You can hear on Pirate Life Radio how it all goes. But it's been something I've been poking my finger at for a little while. And it's just one of those things. It's like, and then the self-loathing starts.
Like, you fucking pussy. You gotta big mouth, you talked about it a little bit. What are you gonna do? You gonna do it? And this is my head talking to me. It's not the most fruitful way, it's not the way you should talk to your athletes. But sometimes, I think that whole thing shaming works.
Fuck fat people, you should be ashamed, look at yourself. You're ridiculous.

Jeff: I love this.

Dustin: Is that one of your jokes tonight? I don't know if that'll fly.

Tait: I don't give a fuck.

Jeff: That is awesome.

Tait: I mean, that's it's true. Get so disgusted with your shitty behaviors that don't serve you or anybody around. Become so nauseating disgusted by that, that it impacts changed.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tait: I mean, I don't see anybody that changes another way.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tait: Then they do that first, and then they get the encouragement and inspiration from somebody.

Jeff: Right.

Tait: But without being completely disgusted with where you're at, you ain't changing directions.

Jeff: Yes.

Tait: And now, we teach people not to do that? Okay, that's some fat lady out in Northwest somewhere, that's saying, "You shouldn't say that." In the meanwhile, she's blubbering at 240 pounds, eating some Cheetos. Talking about equal rights, she doesn't know anything about even treating herself right. And it's like that's the thing, is like.
I mean, my big overall thing, in the whole like outside the companies, outside of this and that, is we need to be real and authentic, and that's not. So, let's really talk about if we really wanna impact change, and impart, change in people's lives, what is useful?
How is that being honest or dishonest by saying we shouldn't say those things? To me, that's being horrifically dishonest. And you don't get to address a problem if you're not gonna come at it honestly. And I think that's what comedy is, is honesty.

Jeff: Yes.

Tait: And so, maybe people will hate it, but-

Lacie: He's gonna kill it.

Tait: I'll have four-

Jeff: I'm ready, that's awesome.

Dustin: I think that's great. And finally, I just wanted to bring, I'm glad you brought it up. Obviously, everybody can follow you guys. Caveman Coffee co dot com. That's where all of that awesome product is. But you both are into podcasting, which is awesome because we're on one right now.
You mentioned Pirate-

Tait: Girls and they're all these hot, super achiever girls. That these [inaudible 00:50:22] get around, and they just talk about cocks and fucking coffee. Being business bosses, and how to dominate the world, and fucking how to be a young lady and grow into a woman of some kind of stature.
And it's fucking pretty awesome. And it's how many episodes do you guys got?

Lacie: Oh God, I don't know. I think we're probably, we've done six months straight. And we released every week. So, we're excited about that. It's called the Grown Ass Woman's Coffee Club.

Dustin: There it is, yup.

Lacie: And we have a lot of fun. And I don't really know. I mean, we actually do have a lot of male listeners. So, I don't know why, but-

Tait: Basically, like 100% males.

Lacie: No, there-

Tait: Thick asses, and blonde hair turn heads. I'm saying, people, listen.

Lacie: I'm the only blonde on there. But everyone is a good butt. But yeah, I think it's a good one. If there's any ladies out there listening, we get a lot of feedback that it's just like hanging out with your girlfriends. So, hopefully, it's funny and exciting, and we love feedback.
So, check that out.

Tait: And for dudes, you can get an insight into women's minds.

Lacie: Yeah exactly, you'll know what's up.

Tait: Which, you're expected to-

Lacie: Might have your mind blown, yeah.

Tait: Know as a dude, it's the worst thing.

Lacie: You should know.

Tait: You're expected to know.

Lacie: You should know.

Tait: But how would you know?

Lacie: You should know.

Tait: You never get to be in on gossip sessions.

Jeff: Right?

Lacie: You should know.

Tait: So, here's your opportunity. Grown Ass Woman Coffee Club.

Lacie: That's right.

Jeff: There it is.

Dustin: The thing I like about your guy's podcast, is that you take feminism to where it should be. Where it makes more sense. I really like what you guys talk about.

Tait: Here on Pirate Life Radio. That's my number one goal. And I think I hit it out of the park, most of the time.

Dustin: Oh man.

Lacie: And then, there's the other side, which is Pirate Life Radio. Thank you for that. We have a lot of fun, and you're probably one of our few listeners. But yeah. Tait also has a podcast, which is widely listened to. Getting like hundred thousand downloads, versus our fifteen hundred or whatever we get.
But yeah.

Tait: It's not a contest.

Lacie: Yeah it is a contest.

Tait: Oh.

Lacie: It's all I'm saying. No, he's killing it. And has some really amazing guests on there. So, if you haven't listened to Pirate Life Radio, you should.

Tait: Like last week, I had this guest on, well it was myself. It was just me talking for fifty minutes.

Lacie: It was just him.

Jeff: I'd listen to it. In fact, I do, I listen to both of yours, and I think they're great. It's great to have more podcasters out there. And it's great to have more people in coffee like we said at the beginning of this.
Thank you both so much for taking the time to talk to us.

Lacie: Thank you, guys.

Dustin: This was amazing.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tait: It was a lot of fun, man.

Lacie: Good to meet you guys.

Tait: Look forward to seeing you guys again.

Jeff: Definitely, definitely.

Dustin: Yeah, definitely.

Jeff: And we'll obviously be in touch for all sorts of different things. And it's, the world's our oyster. It's gonna be a great ride.

Lacie: Yeah, awesome.

Tait: Right on man, have a great day.

Lacie: Thanks, guys.

Jeff: Alright.

Dustin: Thank you.

Jeff: Thanks.