Well, hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes ketose a.com.
Today I've got special guest, Eli Helper and on the line and
we dive into a little bit of everything.
So he is the CEO of golden Cricket which is a cricket
protein, powder bar. So I kind of want to pick his
brain about the Inception of that, how that whole process
works, why crickets etc, etc. But we didn't talk about that.
That much be. Honestly, kind of got into his
story. He's done a ton of different
drugs, bunch of psychedelics, bunch of mushrooms, bunch of
marijuana. Lots of stuff that I don't have
a clue about but he's been sober for 31 days as of this
recording. So kudos to him there and he
kind of just talked about some of his realizations in being
sober and what he's learned throughout that process where
he's motivated to go with the business.
He's also a stand-up comedians. We talked about that, he does a
lot of MMA, we show up with a bit everything.
So it's kind of interesting to get some of life's perspective
through his eyes because it's a very different path.
And I've taken, But I've got no doubt that you will enjoy it.
Nonetheless. So without further Ado, sit
back, relax and do a podcast with Eli.
We are live Eli. How are you man?
Hey, I'm doing good. How are you?
I'm doing red wonderfully. Well man, wonderfully well I
kind of want to dive into I want to talk about your business.
I want to talk about Golden Cricket, but before we dive into
that, man, I kind of want to just get some more back story on
you because you and I don't really know each other that
well. So what got you into the
nutrition? Space that mindset space.
Like what weirdest all even, what's the origin story?
Well I think the origin story is not that special just like any
other man, you know, I wanted to be a strong prominent figure in
this world and leave my mark and one way or another.
You got to just go down the nutrition route because to be a
strong figure, you have to be physically strong and that comes
with nutrition, not totally. So I got into nutrition when I
was You know, I started lifting weights in like high school and
weightlifting was my main thing from about 18 to 26 and then I
started doing martial arts. And now that's my main thing.
Nice man. What kind of martial arts I do?
Jiu-Jitsu Muay Thai, boxing and MMA.
Very cool, man. We had, we've been trying to get
into MMA as well. I've got a gym here at my
warehouse. We've got employees, and one of
them got big in the MMA. So we've been trying to set
aside time every week. Like to spar together, learn
different techniques. So I've just started introducing
Jiu-Jitsu to the mix and it's a pretty humbling sport, man.
I love it. Oh yeah, I hate you Jutsu.
I get my ass kicked every time and that's why I forced myself
to do it because there's nothing worse than having a large man.
Just crushing you and you feeling completely stuck.
Like you can't do anything and just being able to leverage your
Technique and skill set to get out of that, really teaches you
a lot about, Life that no matter how bad life is smashing you and
you feel like you can't breathe, you can get out of it.
Everything in Jiu-Jitsu is like a metaphor.
Yeah, for life. I feel like, for sure, for sure.
And like you said, you had a your first Passion for Fitness
was in weight training, might as well, and I can start doing
Jiu-Jitsu when you assume that, that weight training
backgrounds, going to really pay dividends and help with
jiu-jitsu and you just gonna dominate but then like you have
some wiry person £50 Island. You just Dominate and you
because I got better technique it teaches you.
To really focus on the technique aspect of it, for sure.
Oh yeah, there's there's no cross over to weightlifting to,
I mean if you're big enough and strong enough yet, that'll get
you somewhere. That's not gonna do nothing.
But yeah, it's really just about, I would say, leverage
over technique. I mean, yes, it is technique.
But the technique is leverage, right?
And that's just using what body weight you do have against or
with what body weight they have? Do you compete with with MMA or
do you just do it more? So, for your own personal
development, well, I've competed in Jiu-Jitsu a bunch.
I haven't been as consistent with it because I do, mostly
striking MMA boxing and Muay Thai.
I'm like, 63. So it's a lot more fun to be
tall and punch people than it is to be wrestling.
I'm there's a lot of people with a lot more wrestling experience
than me too. So, in the competition Lane,
it's it's I don't know. I know there's it's just more
fun to punch people in the face. Yeah, I've done.
I've done a few done to Muay Thai smokers, which is like, it
below amateur level, so it's like entry level.
I've only been training martial arts for like three or four
years and I'm 30 now. So that I'm pretty late to the
game. So I'm trying to catch up more,
and I do plan to continue competing even though I'm
technically old. Well, I feel like within the
sport of martial arts specially, I mean, you still weight
training. I'm assuming to some extent,
Right. Yeah, I just do legs.
I just do squats and pull-ups pretty much.
That's it. I think if you do that, you
know, you've got that base and then you focus on technique with
the MMA to the point where you're not risking unnecessary
injury, and you're doing some Mobility work from time to time.
Like, you can just keep getting better as you age.
I'm 31 and I decided to name a year and a half ago and it's
like I don't feel like being 30, 31 has kept me there.
Yeah. That people have been doing it
since they were, you know, kids. Doing Jiu-Jitsu since they could
crawl like they're they're going to, you know, wipe the floor
with me. But I think you can continue to
get better and better and better with it simply because you get a
good base and you just I mean like weight training in general.
Like you just keep getting stronger as long as you're doing
things correctly. Yeah.
They well the key is just not getting injured.
Yeah, for sure. So you wait trying to do squats,
you do all different forms of mixed, martial arts.
What's the rest of your day? Typically consists of See, I
wake up at 9 a.m. post, some motivational content, I train
for like two to three hours, I meditate but naked for 10
minutes in my backyard in the Sun.
Eat a pound of beef. Answer emails, work on business
stuff, do podcasts like this one right now, so I'm pretty on
track with that today. And then I will do stand-up
comedy and hang out with a bunch of friends telling a pretty good
life to meet man. Oh yeah.
Yeah. I'm living the dream right now
there's it's hard to strive for more when I already have
everything I want but but maintenance takes just as much
work as a enhancing, you know, and to be to be fair, you're
probably not just maintaining. I mean you're you may Maybe
maintain the same, you know, schedule per se but like you're
getting better in your honing, your craft with each of the
things that you feel your schedule with.
So I don't think you're just simply maintaining your you're
getting better. Absolutely.
I guess what I meant by that was if I just keep doing the same
thing without anything getting better, like that's good enough.
Yeah, totally. So what's that?
I will get better at all. The things I do by continually
doing them because life's all about reps, you know, you just,
I don't know, I think time is cyclic.
So if you just cycle through all the things you do, that's you
just improve. Yeah, I agree.
I feel like my superpower if there was one, it would be to
just do the day-to-day monotonous tasks that I want to
excel at over time and play that long game.
Like a lot of people like that. That's oftentimes is people's,
you know, stumbling block. They don't like doing things in.
Definitely. I feel like when you're able to
do things that you enjoy doing and you plan to do so.
So indefinitely, you can't help but become a master of your
craft. Oh, yeah, that's definitely a
superpower. I don't have that as much at
all. That's why I do so many
different things. Like, I just gotta keep myself
entertained, by just being all over the board, but it's easy to
stay disciplined with martial arts, because I can't get beat
up and then be like, I'm done with this because it's like,
well, I'm still capable of getting beat up again in the
real world. So there's like that that real
world. Threat of allowing myself to get
beat down by the world, literally, if I don't trade.
Yeah, hundred percent. So, kind of going back to your
day-to-day routine there, like that, that is a pretty honed in
routine. Like you're waking up your
meditate and you're doing positive, you know mindset,
work, your training, you're doing MMA, you're eating beef,
you're out in the sun. I doing all the right things at
what point in your life, did you realize that that was the right
thing? Like when did Like did you live
a life that was full of the wrong things?
And then realize that you had to change that trajectory or how
did that come to be? Well, yeah, so I would say my
superpower is being sober. I spent a lot of years drinking
partying doing drugs. The last I really turned it
around about three years ago. When, after the pandemic, I just
spent like a month, just drinking doing drugs, eating
candy and watching Netflix, because that's all there was to
do. I was living in l.a. at the
time. This was during the pain that I
was like. Yeah.
And then I was like oh I'm a
complete piece of shit. So yeah.
I moved to Austin Texas, which is where I live now, and got
serious about martial arts. Martial arts was really the
turning point just taking that seriously and using that as the
addiction and the foundation, because everything kind of has
to follow. Follow a rigorous training
schedule, you know, in terms of like sleep and and diet which
partying really gets in the way of.
Yeah. And I mean I was still smoking
weed and doing mushrooms pretty frequently and people say like
that's fine their natural. But I mean not the way I was
doing. I was doing like three grams of
mushrooms a day and yeah, like 60 milligrams of Edibles a day,
I was just tripping and high as fuck all the time and life was
going well, but there's there's mood issues.
I couldn't control and You know, I've done a lot to challenge
myself and like I fought a guy in a cage on LSD, and I pretty
much proved that. I can do some crazy shit.
And I'm at the point where I just want to prove that I can,
Be happy sober because I mean I just explained my daily schedule
is pretty awesome. That shouldn't need any
enhancements so I just took some time to, actually, I went to
Thailand for like, a month or two and I just got back, like, a
few weeks ago, to kind of like Kickstart the sobriety because a
lot of the, a lot of the intoxication and drug use was to
assist in socializing, because I value friendship and connection,
more than anything. And I for years, I just felt
like I couldn't get in the right, the right mindset to
communicate with people properly.
Lie in a social setting and I knew that I just had to go sober
and rep it out. So and going sober in my city,
like just going from being high all the time to just going sober
and just being around the same people.
And then just trying to, like, play it off, was like difficult
to do. So I guess my plan was kind of,
I'm gonna go to Thailand and practice socializing at all on
all these foreigners and and, You know, I just hit a bunch of
awkward conversations and then like, okay yeah, don't say that.
And so I went through this awkward phase over on the other
side of the world and then sobered up.
And when I came back I was like coasting and now I'm at a place
where for the first time in my life, I am really satisfied with
myself and who I am as a person and as long as I'm You know
keeping that schedule day to day where I'm proud of that, I'm
proud of all those things. I'm proud of that.
I trained and Chase my goals everyday.
So if I just have that internal Pride that's kind of going to
reflect on people around me and cause others to want to respect
me and associate with me and we'll just make it Easier to
exist. Just because I I'm following my
path and Manifesting my vision. Yeah, I would feel like as well
like when if you're if you're constantly socializing and
living under some form of influence, whether it's drugs or
alcohol or whatever. Like there is, it's probably
harder for you as an individual to really pinpoint who you are
like what is your identity? And because of that you have to
kind of like manufacture this, I'd self-identity thing, but you
don't really feel confident in that whereas if you go sober,
Able to just gain a clearer, understanding of who you are,
what you value, what you're passionate about, what your
interests are, what your value towards others is, and then you
can just more confidently, be the embodiment of that person.
So it's more of a true confidence.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. When you were in Thailand, I've
never been to Thailand. I've got friends that are that
are tie. I would imagine that having
conversations there with them and kind of like, cutting your
teeth on socializing and that environment is different than in
America. Like they value different things
to some extent and like it's just probably different in
learning to socialize their verses in Austin, Texas.
I want to clarify. I was mainly associating with
English speakers because talking to Thai people is very easy
because there's only so many words you can choose to make
sense. It's actually way easier to
socialize with people that don't speak.
English is, the problem is not being able to communicate and
it's like, well you already know from the start, you can't
communicate. So it's like that barriers kind
of blown through. It makes sense.
That makes sense. And you were there for how long
too much you said? Yeah, what was that?
Like, apart from the socialization aspect, I think
just simply getting out of America and experiencing
different cultures different environment.
Different value system probably is therapeutic in and of itself.
Well, it wasn't my first time I went there because I just wanted
to get away from what kind of kind of what you were saying,
how, like, losing sense of self, mmm in, not only because the
drugs, but, because I know a lot of people here, everywhere I go,
I am surrounded by people. I know, and I love that, but
everyone has like a perception of who I am.
So, I'm kind of like, Held in like the confines of how I'm
perceived which can, which caused a potential loss of self.
So I just kind of wanted to remind myself who I am without
anything. And turns out, I'm pretty cool.
So that helped assist. I like it.
Man. I like it.
So what were you as you come back to Austin and you've been
in Austin for how long now. Three years, three years,
Austin's, a cool place. May I go to Austin a few times a
year and like, actually I'm gonna be in Austin in three
weeks for a conference. I'll be speaking at but like
Austin's got a really cool vibe to it.
It's like it's like the Melting Pot right now.
Like everybody's going to AAS. I think it used to be La where
you're from, but then now it's like, it's like, it's awesome.
A man. Oh yeah, Austin is the fucking
best, man. I love every single person here.
I and that it's the, the future of Comedy is right here.
I mean, we have like four comedy clubs within walking distance of
each other right? Between, you know, Rogan's
comedy club, and the LA was the entertainment capital. but so
Austin has comedy and it has music and it doesn't have any
actors, which those are those are the people that People have
negative things to say about when they don't like La, it's
like, oh, they're fake people. Well yeah, that's their job.
Their job is to be fake. That's what an actor is.
Yeah, but comedy is real musics real.
It's from the heart you coming from experience.
So the people here are our real and real cool.
I like them. How long you been doing comedy?
We didn't come to the almost eight years now is that kind of
like your main thing is that like more your enjoyment thing?
Well, that's, that's always been my main dream ever.
Since I was a kid, I wanted to be a stand-up comedian.
Um it's it's hard to excel in that and I haven't always put
the most effort into it because it's pretty hard and unlikely to
make money in it. So I've always been doing
e-commerce like my first business was opening an eBay
store when I was 12 years old. When I found out that eBay was
it thing? Yeah.
And That's pretty cool though, man.
Like comedy. I feel like I've only recently
been watching comment. I watched a Rogen Netflix
special and then I watched a Chappelle Netflix specially at
night as those like literally the only two special ever.
Watch never really been one to sit down and watch a comedy
special, but I feel like the world needs to laugh more right
now. Yeah.
Yeah, the world is hungry for comedy right now, for sure and
the there's proof of that where every time I post a comedy clip,
it seems like I don't even, they don't even have to be good
jokes, I mean they are because I'm hilarious but they don't
have to be because once you've someone sees a guy holding a
microphone there like? All right, let's see what he's
got to say. Yeah, and I'll throw them up on
YouTube shorts and they'll blow up to 1000 like real quick.
Every time. Nice, nice, Philip with comedy
to like it's like the only everybody Sensitive right now
and they get sensitive about everything.
There's so many things that are banned from the conversation.
Like, you can't talk about certain things, but comedy kind
of gets this like free pants. Like you're able to just talk
about things and as long as you do, so in a somewhat tactful
manner, people don't really take offense to it, like there's
certain people that will take offense at anything, but
generally speaking, you can get away with saying a lot more shit
in a comedy, you know, scenario because it's supposed to be
taken lightly. Yeah, I mean the whole point of
Comedy is just you can you can say whatever as long as it's
funny. Yeah.
And I think that's important, that's how Humanity has managed
to survive this entire time. Like we're in probably the best
ERA in recorded history that we know of and we've been through
tremendous atrocities and massive amounts of suffering to
get here. And I mean, you think everyone
was just sobbing and weeping the whole time.
Like they were cracking jokes. Yeah, that's how they push
through. What do you do to know when when
people say like you shouldn't joke about that terrible stuff?
I think that more terrible. It is the more you should joke
about it. Yeah, there's definitely.
There's definitely therapy and just simply laughing.
I just mean, look at the the chemical, you know, if you look
at it, what happens internally from a chemical standpoint, the
endure endorphins you release, like all the benefit of that has
to come from? Just simply laughing like that
that you can't really argue the science there.
Yeah. Like you ever have so many bad
things happen to you in a row that it's just funny.
Yeah. And there's a point to that for
then. When it comes to like comedy
man, like, I don't know much about come like, suddenly watch
to Netflix specials. Like, how does one go about?
I'm assuming there's probably different for each comedian, but
I'm assuming you have like a like, a structure that you
follow, when it comes to figuring out, what your B going
to be figuring with the punch line is going to be kind of
structuring that like, is it something that you've taken
inspiration from other comedians?
Just let me totally just drum up inside yourself the night before
you go up first and look like how do you structure that?
At this point, I kind of just have thoughts and I'm like,
that's funny and then I write it down and then I say it on stage.
Gotcha. You can just memorize all that
and keep like, know what to pull from depending on have a you
kind of read in the room. All I mean, it'll kind of come
from conversation and hanging out with people.
But sometimes I'll just be alone.
I'll think of something, but I will definitely like test stuff
out. Just socially.
Yeah, which you're not really supposed to do or like, people
talk shit about that but I don't care.
It works. Hey, if it works, it works man,
if it works, it works. But yeah, if I'm just hanging
out with people and I say something and everyone laughs,
I'll be like, okay, I'll use that.
Yeah. Because I don't know.
I'm I think my purpose is to make people laugh.
I think that's what I'm here to do and post any of your
stand-ups like online to or people.
Just have to go there in person to see him.
Yeah. I have a ton of stand up on my
YouTube channel. Yeah.
Actually, I wonder who I helped her.
H. LP e RN.
Nice. Nice.
You mentioned earlier, when you kind of go into your name that
you eat a steak in the morning, some of them Eat a pound of
Bison. Ground bison.
Meat, usually, are you doing like a carnivore diet?
no, I I don't stick to a specific diet, I'll usually,
I'll usually get a couple pounds and then I'll eat, I'll eat like
a pound, like several days in a row and then I'll be like, okay,
I'm sick of going home to cook every day that I'm gonna go out
to eat. So I don't stick to a rigorous
diet. I just, I train like two or
three hours a day to the point where I don't need to worry
about my diet that much, I just try to maximize protein intake.
Yeah, totally. Totally what about talking about
your company, golden Cricket. So, you have a Cricut, protein
bar, how did that come to? To me, like, were you just
getting tired of your pound of beef and a side of me?
You know, I'm gonna eat some crickets and see how that goes.
Well, so my first time in Thailand, when I was 22, which
is also when I decided I wanted to move to LA and start doing
comedy, I ate a scorpion and it was delicious and I did some
research and it turned out that insects are incredibly healthy
and like, crickets are 65 percent protein by weight.
They contain all nine essential amino acids are high in calcium.
Magnesium, zinc, iron potassium. Omega-3 omega-6, there are a
natural Prebiotic. They also take two thousand
times less water to produce than whey protein and a fraction of
the space and time because you can Harvest them in like 30
days. So I mean, compared to plant
protein, that's 12 times more annually.
And I think it takes like 5 years until you can get milk out
of a cow or maybe that's when you can Slaughter it.
But either way, it takes years, To get milk out of a cow.
Before it can start producing milk.
So it's incredibly nutritious and Incredibly sustainable and
it was just kind of a belief. I held that people should be
eating bugs because like why not?
They are super healthy. They're not the most delicious
thing but like there's a whole like negative stigma against
them and I never really understood why.
So that was just kind of a belief that I held for years and
I never really did anything about it. and then, after doing
martial arts and you know, being part of an MMA team and having a
lot of people That support me and stuff.
I was like, well, I've always wanted to just create something
Innovative, that's weird and funky and make it happen.
So, I came up with powder Rising crickets crickets because there
is already the existing infrastructure.
Hmm, to be used as food for like, reptiles and fish.
So, the FDA or they just piggybacked on top of that and
got FDA approved for human consumption, so I could find
Cricket powder for sale pretty quickly.
I formulated something in my kitchen.
Peanut butter, chocolate banana Cricket, protein bar, peanut
butter. Chocolate banana is the smoothie
I make. So I was like, what a, you know,
that flavor combo doesn't exist in a protein bar.
So, I wanted to make that a reality and came out the shiny
gold packaging, cool logo, fun marketing.
Our Instagram at Golden Cricket. Ink is pretty evident of that
and started sponsoring martial artists and yeah, we got we
raised about 150,000 dollars in funding by seven months after
launch. Nice.
You like doing crowdfunding now? No, we got an investor and
alone, pretty cool. Yeah, I mean you're packaging
like it looks legit man. Logo looks freaking awesome.
I don't personally have a negative stigma against eating
eating crickets. Like I've been camping and
eating crickets before and they are pretty nutritionally dense.
I mean that there is a great source.
I definitely prefer Taste of a big old juicy ribeye but I think
most people would, but I think from a sustainability factor in
from a you know, Mina profile standpoint.
I mean, nothing worthwhile looking at crickets.
Yeah. Absolutely.
And there's also another humorous layer to it, where it's
like, you know, you're doing bad at comedy.
You hear crickets in the audience?
Yeah. So I'm gonna kill those crickets
and use them as food. I actually hate crickets.
I think that's kind of also why I want to eat them because
there's like revenge in every bite.
There's there's so many layers to this.
It's just a lot of fun and I just really believe in the
science behind it. Is it cool man?
As cool and when did it launched?
March 21st of last year, March twenty first, and last term.
And it's been pretty pretty well-received this far.
In person. Yeah online there's a lot of a
lot of hate. A lot of hate like house up.
Yeah. Don't because they have that
negative stigma towards eating bugs.
Yeah, they're just like, Fuck this.
I'm not eating this. Yeah.
Huh. But in person that everyone is
like, this is really interesting.
This is a lot of successful people.
A lot of marketing professionals have told me that it's a solid
business, a good idea. Great product, people who know
what they're talking about, have given it, good feedback a lot.
A lot of people what is the the cricket protein flour taste,
like by itself without any other flavoring components just the,
the cricket protein fats up. What's that taste like?
Likes and it's not really, doesn't really taste like
anything. Maybe, like maybe Pencil
shavings and slow jamming. If you sprinkled a little bit of
that Ramen packet on it. Kinda, it's not salty, though.
I don't know. There is like an earthiness to
it. It's very mild though.
They don't really have a taste and how many crickets like when
you're comparing something like whey protein?
Like, most scoops of whey protein, have 20 25 sometimes,
28, 30 grams of protein in it. How many crickets would make up
that much protein. Depends on the size of the
cricket bat, the average grades like a half a gram to 1 gram.
So 30 grams of cricket flour. Could be up to like 60, grams
are 60 crickets, nice. So, you Revenge the Crickets.
Your Kiln, 60 crickets with every every bite you take, man.
I like it. Yeah, they gotta pay - why do
you know like trick it discusses strange?
When I never heard of that before, I don't know.
I I've never been scared of spiders, but crickets for some
reason they got that. It's the yellowness.
And then the, the black I just always staring at you.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. I can see them.
And also crickets crickets eat like anything.
If you were if you had your hands tied up.
If your hands tied behind your back and you were locked in a
small room with like a million crickets, they would eat you
alive so it's really US versus them at this point.
Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, man.
Like you look at bugs, like, they're like the strongest, my
insights, like the strongest, you know, Animal by their body
weight throughout their body, weight of anything.
So, like, if they ever got bigger than humans, and it's
game over. Yeah exactly.
So why not eat the strongest thing.
If we're eating protein for strength which is that's that's
the point of protein intake for muscle and strength.
Hmm. What's the whole the process
around harvesting Cricket protein?
Look like, what does that look like from behind the scenes?
Cause I have no idea. They're basically.
In. In like egg cartons stuffed into
plastic bins or the bin size and material can can change our
cricket Farm is a free-range Cricket Farm?
What does it free-range Cricket Farm?
I honestly, I don't really know. It's, I just think it's
hilarious. It's just a bigger.
It's just a bigger box really, and bigger box.
I like it man. A bigger box.
All right. So they ran and they get After
about 30 to 45 days. Depending on the temperature, if
it's if it's warmer, it'll be quicker.
Or or in the summer, rather the the temperature controlling the,
they still somehow know if it's winter and you're just turning
up the heat like I'm not, you know, fooling me humans. and
they get a They either get frozen or CO2 gas.
To suffocate them. That's how they get killed.
And And then they get like heated up and dehydrated.
So they get hot enough to sterilize them and also
dehydrate them. And then they just go into a
blender and just powderized into a dry powder immediately.
So, there's no room for any moisture for any sort of
bacterial growth or parasites or anything, and it's the entire
Cricket, it's in the flaps and I cured D heading the cricket and
separating the legs. And it's like all the cricket
gets into the powder. Yeah, yeah.
Now there's not just some guy with tweezers, just like picking
off the leg meat. Gotcha, just the whole thing.
So, like in the end, you know, keto carnivore space, were
always talking about the importance and the
bioavailability, and just the nutritional component of, you
know, grass-fed, grass-finished beef, all the good things there.
And, you know, you always get a lot of Kickback from vegans
because you know, you're killing a cow, you killing a pig, you're
killing a chicken, you kill him. Something, do you get much
pushback from the vegan Community, when it comes?
Killing crickets or they just like that.
Kill them all. actually, no, the vegans have been incredibly
supportive of it because there's much less death farming crickets
than farming, any other food source, because only the
Crickets are dying, but you're obviously not using pesticides
because that would kill the Crickets and They're, you know
when you're farming vegetables, you're killing rodents and foxes
and whatever else is in the field.
When you harvest, hmm, not to mention the trillions of insects
that are just dying for nothing, they're not even, you know?
They're just going to waste. They're not being used as food.
So we actually have a lot of vegans that have converted to
Golden Cricket. So our company is like, the only
company putting an end to veganism which is funny.
It's interesting for sure because like you would think
that they would place the life of a cricket on the same tier as
the life of a cow because a life is a life but I guess that's not
the case. No, I don't think they think a
life's a life because plants are alive.
Yeah, but crickets are technically animals.
Yeah, for sure. The prominent sentient though.
They probably don't know. They have a conscience or have a
conscience rather. Well now you're getting into a
whole nother thing, you're talking to a guy who just quit
doing 3 grams of mushrooms a day.
So, I that's a good point. Good point.
What's it been like having? No, no substances like that,
man. Like going from, you know, one
extreme to the other. Has that been a pretty easy
transition, or a little hard? It's been, it's been great,
babe. I I have no desire to use any
drugs because I already know what they're going to do.
I've already, I've done them. I've done.
I've experienced every possible Epiphany.
You can have, like, I've seen the afterlife.
Has it been easy though? So I did 27 days, sober.
I'm at 31 days right now. Nice here.
I did 27 days sober about a year and a half ago, and the
difference is when I did that, I was miserable the whole time.
I did not want to be sober. I ended up relapsing on
everything because I was just like miserable.
And I was like, why am I doing this to myself?
I'm not happy. But, but this time, I don't
remember exactly what I was doing at that time but things
that things are different this time because I don't I don't
want to go back to the my old ways at all.
I'm really enjoying Building this momentum and getting reps
doing all this stuff sober. Hmm.
And you know, if I can Anyone can have a few drinks and go to
a party and stuff, but not everyone can just be sober and
stay out till 1 a.m. laughing having fun.
Yeah. And and I can do that now and
that I feel like I have a superpower and my memory is
solid, I remember everything. I never forget, all these little
things, who Woulda thought being high all the time, makes you
forget stuff. There's been like the really big
push as Late for people to it just seemed to about the society
as a whole has become much more accepting of using psychoactive
substances. Using mushrooms getting high.
You know, going to Mexico and trip it on Ayahuasca.
Like, it seemed like the society is, as a whole, is much more
accepting of that. Having done all that stuff?
Do you feel like people are coming out ahead for those
experiences or would you recommend?
People to not go that route. Well, I would recommend that you
follow the laws of your local jurisdiction but for me
personally I don't regret doing all that stuff.
Yeah I don't think it led me down a dark path.
I think I caught myself just in time.
I think it opened my mind to a lot of ideas and possibilities
and open a lot of doors for me just by being in the right place
by being the the right mindset. and, There it was the last like
month or two of being high all the time.
I Epiphany I kept having was, I should be sober.
Yeah. And I was like, that's not
really an epiphany. That's just like, I guess I just
have a problem. Because it's, I don't know, man.
We live in. If you choose to look, you'll
find so much wrong with the world, and so many bad things
happening. Mmm, and things things in the
news and whose whoever's running whatever is going on, basically,
I unfollowed all the I was in a conspiracy theories and You
know, whatever is going on to the government and stuff.
Basically, I unfollowed all the pages that were talking about
that and I realized that I didn't have to take on the
problems of the world. Yeah.
I just living in the moment. I never really, and I guess I
didn't understand what that meant.
And now what that means to me is literally just focusing on my
body. I think, I think this whole
dimension is just about your body, building your body, and
fueling your body, and that's the whole eating well-draining
sleeping, whatever. Because, Before I would think
like, you know, I'm in a bad mood because this thing
happened, and that's affecting this, and that's affecting that,
and it was like a whole, sophisticated, emotional logical
or rational, explanation. As to why I was not feeling,
right? Whereas now I'm like, if I don't
feel good, it's like I didn't sleep well or I'm hungry or I
need to train a just simplifying it and just making it all about
the body. Because I think if you have your
body as your number one goal, everything else will follow.
Yeah, I like them and I feel like I can totally get behind
that message. I feel like you've only got one
body. You've only got one tempo so to
speak. And if you're taking it for
granted and Wrecking havoc on it, then you're going to be
viewing the world through a skewed lens because your vehicle
for operating in the world is tarnished, Yeah, I mean, I think
Consciousness is just an awareness.
I think the only difference between us and a cricket is the
body. I think we're still like viewing
the world, the granted completely different
perspectives, but a perspective, nonetheless, and he had just
focusing on the body and improving it and taking care of
it and not ignoring it or focusing on on other stuff
because it's so easy to not focus on your body because
Society has been manipulated in ways where There's so many other
things to distract you, but really it's all about you.
It's all about yourself. And add.
Another thing is in living in the moment.
Instead of focusing on the world problems and keeping it about
the body is just focusing on what is my body experiencing
right now, right now, I'm sitting in a comfortable chair,
and I'm in my home office. I'm well fed.
I'm hydrated. And I have my phone and wallet
in my pocket. I can buy food right after this,
like everything's everything's pretty good.
Yeah, and that's that's as far as I need to go with that
thought. I like that, man.
I like that. Do do you feel like you'll ever
go? Do you feel like you'll be sober
and definitely or do you feel like at some point you'll fully
intend to go back to using mushrooms marijuana stuff like
that or do you have no intention whatsoever at the moment.
I have no intention whatsoever of ever being intoxicated.
Again I think it's a huge power move to be able to be like,
yeah, I don't need Anything to be happy.
I feel great as I am right now. Yeah.
Like when I tell people that they're like, what the fuck?
You must be insane? Like yeah, I actually am insane.
You have, you have to be insane to be sober and happy in this
world to an extent. I mean, I do a great job of
entertaining myself to like, I play a lot of music.
And recording like freestyle raps and just like YouTube
shorts and stuff and I've just like me talking to my phone and
I do a great job of entertaining myself and that's kind of crazy.
I'm gonna have to definitely check out your YouTube channel.
Looked at the cricket, you know, profile but I didn't look up
yours so I thought some of these shorts for sure.
Well I kind of just did a rebranding.
Did you follow the my personal Instagram is Cricket lowered,
MMA Cricket, Lord MMA, okay, gotcha.
And then and then the company is at Golden Cricket ink Kasia.
With I realized more that I should be putting more effort
into building my personal brand because I think people are a lot
more likely to follow me as a person as opposed to a company.
You know, no one's like Did you hear what?
That company did the other day? Yeah, but but people people
follow people. Yeah, I agree.
People need, don't think of themselves as a brand for sure.
Do you plan on keeping keeping the brand long-term, or do you
feel like you're going to sell, sell it off to somebody at some
point, the future? What's your plan with that?
Oh, you mean the company? I don't.
If I get another ideal sell it, but I'm gonna, I need something
to work on at all times. Yeah, totally.
If I just sold it for like 10 million dollars, I would
probably Go into a deep depression because I'd be like,
what do I, what do I do now? Like yes I could still do all
the other things, but comedy is a nighttime saying.
What am I going to do all day three hours of the day?
That's a big chunk but that's is more than that.
Yeah, I'm awake for what? Like 16 hours a day.
I will say this being sober and sleeping is difficult and I
would obviously quadrant edible is better though.
Like you may be getting less quantity but I would think that
substances impact the quality of your sleep quite a bit.
I don't know man going to sleep after an edible s Le crêpe.
I've never I've never done animals and ever done in his
death so I don't really have any perspective to pull from here.
Maybe I'm missing out on ammo. I mean how old are you?
31 31. All right.
I've been doing a joke in my stand-up lately that I'm like,
yeah, if you, if you want to level up in life you should be
sober. But first you should do a bunch
of drugs because if you just start out sober and you you're
just been sober your whole life. Then you're just a dork.
You gotta, I'm a dork. I don't know what life's all
about. I definitely would imagine
there's a lot more experiences that would have been gained
Under the Influence, but I don't know, like, I don't know if I
would because I've gained a lot of experience has totally sober
too. So I mean, it's kind of like,
Two different paths, you know, I don't know if one's better or
worse than the other. No, you reach the same.
I mean, Enlightenment, there's one level of Enlightenment,
there's just many roads to get there.
Yeah. I would say without substances
is probably. more difficult, which would be better because
just taking the drugs to reach, it would be more of an instant
gratification thing, which We can.
All agree is not the best route to take.
Yeah. Yeah.
I like that perspective. I don't like, I like that better
than thinking I'm a dork for sure.
I mean, there's, I've heard people that come out of prison
doing like 14 months in the, in the, in the shoe or that.
What's that? The private thought of private
room? What you call the solitary
confinement. Yeah, that have reached the same
Revelations. I've had on DMT.
Yeah. In that we're all a collective.
And another thing is that got me out of my head is that I
realized I was just putting a lot of pressure on myself and
really focused on improving myself and being How to word
this? I basically realized it's less
important about what I do with my life for myself and more
important of who I am to my people around me.
Yeah, it's not me. It's we know I totally agree
with that. Has 0 as long as I'm a part of
my people's lives and they're all winning, then I'm winning
and just naturally, you know, you're the people, you hang out
with. So I'm going to win as well.
Yeah, no I totally agree with that, for sure.
So have these experiences your past, the substances etc, etc.
Has that made you like I guess long term, it's made you less
selfish and more forward-thinking to you know the
society at large make you more spiritual more religious to like
what's it done from a mindset standpoint that regard
Absolutely. Yeah, I was a was a stone-cold
atheist when I was a kid, I thought that we were just a
bunch of overcomplicated monkeys on a rock flying through space,
and nothing means anything. And we're all going to die and
none of this matters. And then After doing DMT and
LSD. I basically saw the afterlife
and felt the presence of God, which in my experience was a
fractal, holographic matrix. Of intelligent life. in the same
way that Wi-Fi is like radio waves, which is light, which is
made of zeros and ones literally that are translated by your
computer, which would be us the antennas and I got really into
studying ancient civilizations. and the Sumerian Tablets and
stuff, and I basically discovered this whole ancient
history of humanity that had been covered up by the
mainstream media and the schools, the school system, the
government, everything and That kinda is.
I was always looking for answers and then I found all these
answers and I was blown away and then it started taking a toll on
my mental state because I was like freaking out about all this
crazy stuff that I can't even like talk about with most
people. And yeah.
Part of the sobriety. Just letting all that shit.
Go just I got to the bottom of a lot of things and I don't need
to worry about it anymore. Yeah I can appreciate a sickly
basically I think we're We reincarnate.
And this is not our first life and not our last and We should
try to do our best but if we don't we'll get another shot at
it. Hmm, interesting.
Is there like a, is that represented in any main accepted
religions or spiritual beliefs, or is that just totally your
perspective based off of your own experiences?
Well, Hinduism believes in reincarnation Buddhism believes
in reincarnation. Judaism and Christianity
initially believed in reincarnation, and they tweaked
it for a Whatever reasons. There's also a bunch of Articles
of children that have been born and at a young age will like,
there's this one. This is one white kid.
This one little white, baby. I'm just specify because he was,
like, Mom. I used to be like a black woman
in Chicago, and they're like, what?
And then he found the family are that the parents found the
family, found a picture and showed him the picture and he
like pointed to all of them and knew their names.
Boys. And their story and And that
that's not a unique occurrence either, that was just the most
recent one. There's a lot of kids that
remember, their past lives and have been able to locate the
previous family from which they left as pretty trivial.
Sure. That's crazy.
You think crickets will be reincarnated back as something
big enough to eat you. I mean, yeah.
But uh, you need them first. I don't know.
I was just, I think you should live your life to not be
reincarnated as a cricket. Yeah, karma.
Huh. I don't know how it works.
I don't know. The Reincarnation process.
I just I just know that. It happens.
Yeah. What you meditation practice
look like. I sit my backyard but naked in
the Sun for 20 minutes, if I have time.
Ten minutes if I got shit to do. I say, a mantra in my head and I
just focus on sitting still, keeping my eyes closed and
repeating that Mantra over and over to focus in a mantra.
Not really letting your mind wander or try, not to let your
mind wander. yeah, and I naturally have a pretty pretty
chaotic mind. So that meditation practice
helps me. Like if I can sit and do nothing
and when thoughts creep in, I can just redirect them to the
Mantra. Then like throughout my day when
I actually have things to do and focus on when thoughts creep up,
it's easier to redirect them to the moment.
I got you Interesting. Are you a you read much like
what are you reading now? If so no I don't read, I'll go
to sleep, listening to podcasts. What podcast listen to I've been
listening to a lot of West Watson lately.
Wes wants. I'm not familiar with that.
What's it about? he's like, He was the guy.
I was talking about. That was in prison.
He was in prison for like 10 years and he's a fucking wild
character, man. He's, he's this jacked bald,
dude. That was.
Like a like a shot caller in prison that just like screams at
you, to get off your ass and work out. and, but he has a lot
of the same insights I got from psychedelics just from Having to
be alone at this thoughts. And in prison, It's interesting,
he was there for her and you said, 14, you I yeah, I also
listened to listen to Jordan Pederson for a while.
For a few years. But then after a while, you
know, he starts saying like, you have to be a Man capable of
violence and which I totally agree with.
But like, I could flick Jordan Pederson across a room.
So it's hard to it's hard to listen to, or like I've, you
know, Robert Greene the guy wrote 48 Laws of Power.
Yeah. Like he has a lot of good
quality stuff, but then he'll pop up on my feet to be like,
how to seduce anyone. And he just looks like a stick
of butter. It's like, it's hard to listen
to a lot of people that don't live what they speak.
Yeah. So I just, I just try to jump
around and listen to basically Rich successful people that that
live a life that I would want to live and then just take it take
a little bit tidbits from each of them. usually things about
like running businesses and Having a solid mindset.
What is your, what is your main goal, man?
I what is the purpose? Like what are you, what are you
here to do? It sound like a pretty deep
question. I'm going to ask that on a
podcast but I feel like you've probably got an answer.
Well, I said that early, I'm here to make people laugh.
Yeah, that's the main thing, huh?
Yeah. Well, and through my Dare I say,
wisdom. like, if I can talk about reincarnation and also
make it funny, I think. I think that was that would be
successful. Yeah, do you feel like people?
Yeah, live life better or worse in the present moment?
If they believed they were going to be reincarnated?
That's a good question. You could go either way, you
could, because you could be like, I'm just gonna go fucking
crazy. This lifetime and jump out of a
thirty. Four story building in Singapore
and I really depends man. It there's so many variables in
everything. Also, I don't think I just have
one purpose. Yeah.
I just know that's my my favorite thing to do.
When's your next test and that, man, I'm gonna be like, sending
me awesome, few weeks, not to come and watch you perform.
let's see, I got April 6. I'll be doing a set at Roscoe's
comedy club, and then April 11th, I'll be on Creek in the
cave and then April 14th. I'll be at Sunset Strip.
Nice. Very nice.
Well cool man. I'm definitely check out the
YouTube content. Some of the stand up you got
online and I'm definitely up to try some of these Cricket bars
to for the macros on these things.
You know, have top your head. Well, it's 14 grams of protein,
26 grams of carbs, which isn't great.
But I like I said, I designed this bar for me and I trained a
lot. So I eat a lot of carbs.
Yeah. um, and then, I think 12 grams of fat Nice.
And what's the website again for that?
The website for that is golden cricut.com and then your give it
your own personal website as well or just the personal social
profiles. No, I don't have a personal
website. Also, I can set you up with a
promo code right now, what do you want your promo code to be
shoot, man. Most people they search Savage
whenever they're looking at my stuff.
All right, let's do promo code Savage for 15% off.
Lowercase, all right. Just some Cricket protein.
And it's all the one flavor. You said, Ryan chocolate, peanut
butter banana. Currently.
Yes. But then we are working on a
horchata Cricket protein powder for smoothies which has great
macros. There's not many carbs or fat in
that at all, we're still working on the manufacturing for that.
That's not for sale yet, but you can pre-order it.
And if you use the promo code presale, you get 20% off that
order which you cannot combine with the Savage because you can
combine discount codes. Make sense man.
Make sense what? Dude, I'm excited to follow
along the journey and said, watch some of your stand-up.
I'm excited to see where the company is in a few years, man.
Like you said, you launched March of last year, shoot me.
I'm just hitting the ground running.
Looks like everything's growing so far.
So it's exciting. Times ahead, man.
Yeah, man. Yeah, thank you so much.
We we covered a lot today. We did.
We did you're very interesting individual, man.
I'm excited to like, say to keep following along and see see how
you do things. Best of luck on your quest to
continue the sobriety man, like like kudos to you for being 30.
You said 30 or 31 day so far? 31 days. 31 days, man.
Well awesome. Congrats on that and keep
killing it, brother. Thank you.
Have a good one. Take care.
Eli.