Raising Resilient Kids with Jeff Nelligan

george grombacher 0:02
Jeff Nelligan is United States Army veteran. He is the father of three boys. He’s a well known commentator in the world of American parenting. His most recent work is the second edition of four lessons from my three sons, how you can raise resilient kids. Welcome to the show, Jeff.

Jeff Nelligan 0:18
Hey George, thanks for having me, man, it’s a pleasure and a privilege. Excited

george grombacher 0:22
to have you on tell us a little about your personal lives, more about your work and what motivated you to write the book.

Jeff Nelligan 0:29
Sure, I’m from Los Angeles, and from an early age, my mom was a political operative and used to drag me along to canvassing throughout Los Angeles city and the county, and that just kind of stayed with me. When you’re it’s when you’re seven years old, knocking on doors. It something that doesn’t leave you following that school in the east and then went to work on Capitol Hill. Was twice a presidential appointee in the department’s wants of State and the wants of Health and Human Services, worked on a bunch of national campaigns as an advanced man, was in the Army, Army Reserve for 14 years, but the most important George, I am the father of three sons, and that’s the most rewarding part of life.

george grombacher 1:21
Did you set out to raise resilient sons? Did you set out to be a good dad and recognize, oh, we need more than we thought we were going to

Jeff Nelligan 1:34
i Sure. Did you know I operated from the ethos early on, when the children were very the boys were very young, that our job as a parent is not just to build a relationship with our kids. We already have that. That’s why we’re called parents. Our job is to have our kid build a relationship with the whole wide world that’s outside the front door every day, the neighborhood, the schools, the athletic fields, the Home Depot, the barber shop, the community events, the volunteering, all those things that is where that kid is going to spend the bulk of their life without us By the age of 12, George, we have spent 75% of the time we have spent with our kid

by that world that the parents responsibility is has to take place early and often

george grombacher 2:42
that’s a that is a wild statistic right there, but I don’t know that. Obviously it’s true. So it’s just kind of difficult to get your brain around. What is the age difference of of of your three boys? I’m

Jeff Nelligan 2:56
lucky. I’m fortunate. Maybe, just like you, my kids are pretty tight together, 2927 and 2024

george grombacher 3:06
Okay, great, excellent. And so you these, your boys have been very successful the United States West Point, the Naval Academy and Williams College. Do did was, was, was military an important thing, obviously you served, or was that just the decision that they made on their own?

Jeff Nelligan 3:33
That was a decision they made on their own. But again, you know, it goes back to the book resilient sons is what I wanted. The values of the military are similar, much to the values of an athletic team or a marching band or a theater production or a dance team. You know, you have the camaraderie that is. You’re on a team working towards a goal. You may not like some of the people on the team, but you’ve got to get along with them. Then you’ve got the idea of adversity, and the military is full of that. Obviously every athletic contest is full of that, because at the end of a contest you have a winner and a loser, and if you get real familiar and comfortable with being on the losing side, you’ve already got some challenges ahead in life. And the third thing is, is personal discipline. If you want to get on that field, if you want to be, you know, first chair in an orchestra or a marching band, or you want to be number one on a dance team, you have to put in the personal time, the grinding personal time, to get better at whatever that endeavor is. So the military was kind of the ethos that they fit into. And for all three, they’re all three, military officers, two, navy, one, army. That ethos continues to burn within them and the challenges that they face, let’s say, at five or six years old, on a soccer field or lacrosse field, they only. Get magnified as they go through the years and go through institutions like the three you mentioned, and then into the real world. And when they’re, you know, their officer of the deck standing on the bridge of a guided missile destroyer in the midst of the Persian Gulf at night, surrounded by mines and Iranian patrol boats. Every test becomes larger and larger and they meet it.

george grombacher 5:26
That is an excellent visual, right there, terrifying for for probably 90% of us, or probably 98% of us. Jeff, no problem for them. Alright, I probably should have asked at the top, what is, what does it mean to be resilient?

Jeff Nelligan 5:45
It means, you know, it kind of goes back to that earlier, that earlier example, every kid, every adult, George and we both know this. You’re a dad of three. I’m the dad of three. We have professional lives. Everyone hits a setback, an obstacle. You could be six years old. You can be 16 to be 26 and no one gets a free ride in life. The whole idea the resilient kids is is that every day they meet a challenge. It may be small, it may be big, and their their muscle memory and their reflex is to hit the challenge and not fold and not be consumed with drama and self pity and find a way around it or over it or through it, in order to move on down the day, down the week, down the month To the next one that they’re going to hit. And kids today are not good at absorbing and meeting challenges. And you could say, well, that’s just old Nelly with his intergenerational snark. Or you can just look at the numbers. I mean, you’ve got kids today between ages of 10 and 18 who spend eight hours and 47 minutes a day on a phone sucking up that passive, you know, vulgar internet, most of it. You have kids three to five, who are looking at over an hour and a half a day of a screen. You’ve got recent college grads who get out of school, and 58% of them are fired before the end of their first year. And this is from recent surveys from HR managers by Forbes intelligent.com and wallet hub. You’ve got 63% of the hiring managers say these kids are not don’t have the skills to succeed in the workforce, which goes back to why 1/3 of two thirds of them are fired after before years up, then you’ve got virtually half of teens have a mental depressive episode within the last three months. And finally, my favorite always, is you got one out of three kids right out of college, their first job interview with a hiring manager. Bring their parents to the interview. Now, all of those numbers, and there are many more, and they’re covered by Jonathan hate and anxious generation, his new book, which is a huge, you know, huge, wake up call. All of these show that we have a frail and fragile generation on our hands, Gen Z, you know, pretty much born 9796 onwards, and the the youngest millennials, which would be from about 1990 to 1996 they’re not resilient. In fact, as the stats show, they’re used to just that. As I go back to it, the self pity, the uncertainty, the inability to follow through on basic, basic tasks on a consistent basis. So that’s why the book was written, why resiliency was in the title, and that’s what resiliency is.

george grombacher 9:01
Thank you. Do I need to be a Army veteran, veteran of the armed services, to be able to teach my kids this stuff? No,

Jeff Nelligan 9:10
you can. A guy like you. I can already tell who uses Galatians and Romans in podcasts, already has a pretty solid worldview, and I’ll just, I’ll go out in the limb and say it. I wouldn’t, you know, I always encourage people to read the book. It’s a 40 minute read. It’s pretty loose. It’s not some 350 pound, you know, anchor on a coffee table full of gibberish from psychologists. It’s straightforward information. And stories about my sons when they were early on that led them to where they are today. I could say my kids have validated that kind of parenting, and I will say it obviously not every portion of the book is for every parent. But. Fundamental values, and you can go back to Romans or Galatians, or you can go back to Malachi or Deuteronomy, those basic values are encapsulated in the book, and they’re easy, personal conduct, confidence, resilience and adversity and ambition. Those are around us. Have Been around us since the dawn of time, and so that’s what this book covers in kind of, as I said earlier, a loose, kind of funny way.

george grombacher 10:32
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I don’t think anybody wants to read a manual that’s too technical with a bunch of gibberish in it, and we don’t want to spend hours and hours and hours. Obviously we do if we’re interested in being good, effective parents and raising great, resilient kids. But I also appreciate that it’s a easier read, so I imagine that it’s a combination of a lot of things. It’s making the decision that I’m going to be a good parent and do everything that I can to raise resilient young men, young women I am going to be ready to teach on the fly when the opportunities come up. Yeah, and yeah, all these, I guess I’m asking, what, what? How. How did you set the book up?

Jeff Nelligan 11:22
You know, the last kid had left. I drove the last kid to West Point, the youngest and dropped him off, and for the the hell that he was going to go through for the next four years, I’d done the same thing with the middle kid. Went to the Naval Academy, and I got back, and I’m sitting on my back porch, and I’m smoking a big old cigar with a can of Red Bull sitting next to me. And I thought, What have I learned now that the last kid is gone, out of my out of the house and out of all the activities the school brought brought us? And I thought, this is these are the four cornerstones that made them where they are today, and inside the book are just actionable items. You know? I mean, any parent listening to this right now, what? Whatever age their kid is, obviously, the younger, the better it’s. You know, here’s three every day. You read with them for an hour, if they can read, then you sit right next to them and you read a book, and you make that part of the ritual routine of their life. Number two, you walk them outside least half an hour a day. You grab them by the hand or the shoulder, and you say, we’re going to go look at the real world nature, the neighborhood, a park, wherever. And the third thing is, in this most important George, you have got to yank that device out of their hand. If a kid’s on a phone nine hours a day, that’s more than they sleep, and that doesn’t include the homework portion or the school portion of a day, you’ve got a major league problem because that kid who’s on a phone nine hours a day taking in that passive stuff, the thinking done for him or her, just the glazed eyes on the screen, that kid at 12 or 14 is 22 or 24 and they’re living in your basement, and they’re getting really good at Minecraft. And I always wonder, and I talk to parents every day, every week, every month, what’s the end game? What’s the end game on a kid living at home not really launched, no real prospects ahead of them. How does that turn around? Well, a lot of times it doesn’t, because then the kid is 34 48% of kids between the ages of 18 and 32 live with their parents. Still. Come on. You know, that’s unbelievable. So those actionable items are in the book, but it’s also to return to what I was talking about with the screens, the social media contract. Sitting down with your kids and saying, Okay, we’re going to have new rules in this house about how much time you get to see that thing when the routers go off at eight o’clock. And I’m going to have the same rules too. You won’t see me with a phone in my hand, or a tablet or a laptop. We’re going to have a new way forward with this stuff, and we’re going to spend more time together, because if a kid’s on a screen nine hours a day, where the hell is the parent? Where is that parent not engaged 100%

george grombacher 14:22
we can just, maybe, maybe, you know, is it just convenience that the P the parents are like, You know what I want to do, what I want to do, I’m just going to put the kid on a screen, put them in front of a TV.

Jeff Nelligan 14:34
Yes, I can’t tell you the times that I see people in all the walks of life, and the places that I am in a typical day. How many times I see a parent on a phone with a kid who’s on a screen, and that’s it just it makes my blood boil. That’s time you could spend with your kid, you know, engage with them doing whatever is. Interesting or fascinating to both of you, and instead, you both just are stuck in the tube, and there’s no there’s no positive with that. As I said earlier when we were speaking, you either raise the kid or the culture raises the kid. And if the culture raises a kid, there’s a good chance that kid is never going to leave your house in one way or another.

george grombacher 15:28
What do you think about the breakdown versus nature and nurture?

Jeff Nelligan 15:35
That’s really good question. I totally think nurture can really drive the train. You know, there are plenty that the story of this country is people who grew up in less than great circumstances. My father, Great Depression. Kid, 15 years old, he’s working in a vanadium mine in the Sierra Madre Nevada Mountains. At fifth, 18, he’s participating in the invasion of okay now, and at 19, he’s patrolling Tokyo. Okay, has to come home after the war, after not having seen his family for two years, and takes care of his old man. That’s not very you know, that’s not very good. But the nurture from then on, and the nurture he got doing those tough, hard things throughout his entire adolescence, made him, you know, very successful. Self made man through the years. You can overcome nature if you you’re in the right environment with the right people pushing you.

george grombacher 16:38
It is a when I hear stories about that. My grandfather grew up on a farm in South Dakota during the Great Depression, on the Dust Bowl, and was drafted World War Two when he was 18 years old. Yeah, and then got recalled to the Korean War. And like, Man, I couldn’t be softer.

Jeff Nelligan 16:55
Well, that’s and that’s what I mean. That’s where you know the nurture takes over. That’s where, you know, you realize what you’ve been given somehow can be magnified to be something that is would be unbelievable to your former self. I mean, this country is full of people who got over nurture. You can look at Obama. You can look at Wes Moore, the governor of, you know, Baltimore, the governor of Maryland. All these people look at JD Vance. You know, his mom’s a drug addict, and he grows up with his grandparents, and now he’s a vice presidential candidate. You know, was in the Marines, venture capitalist. I you know, you can choose anybody, any political party. Look at Steve Jobs or Bezos adopted kids who have the right beginnings with parents who love them to become what they are. This there’s a story everywhere.

george grombacher 17:54
Is it ever too late?

Jeff Nelligan 17:57
Never too late. Now you can always turn around. You know, that’s the redemption factor. All you need to do is meet that one person or read that one book or get inspired by something or someone, and you can turn it around on a dime. And those that perhaps don’t again. You know, in this age of equity and feelings and sentimentality and diversity and inclusion, all the feelings that are meaningless because action is the only thing that counts. Feelings. Feelings are jive. It’s action every day. From the moment you know you wake up, that’s what’s going to determine how you fare in this world.

george grombacher 18:44
Well said, Jeff, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? Where can they get their copy of four lessons from my three sons, how you can raise resilient kids?

Jeff Nelligan 18:56
You bet. My website, www, dot Nelligan books.com. Has all my books on them, including one I wrote about the post pandemic, how kids parents could help their kids thrive again. My Facebook is Jeff Nelligan books. My twitter account is resilient sons, and I’m on Instagram at Nelligan underscore books,

george grombacher 19:23
excellent. Well, if you enjoyed as much as I did, so Jeff, your appreciation. Share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. Get your copy of four lessons from my three sons. Where, Where’s, where’s the best place to get the

Jeff Nelligan 19:37
book my website, nellaginbooks.com You bet?

george grombacher 19:40
Okay, perfect. Let’s go to Nelly good books.com check out everything that just been working on. Pick up your copy. Find him on social media, and I will link all of those locations in the notes of the show. Thanks again, Jeff,

Jeff Nelligan 19:53
hey you bet. George, thanks again to you. Until next

george grombacher 19:56
time, remember do your part by doing your. Test and.

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

george grombacher 0:01
Kristian Hansen is the jeans guy had slow he and his team are redefining what it means to build companies through community with zero ad spend and 100,000 person waitlist, they are starting a slow Fashion Revolution. Welcome, Christian.

Kristian Hansen 0:17
Hey, thanks very much for having me. Appreciate it.

george grombacher 0:19
Yeah, excited to have you on, tell us a little about your personal last more about your work, why you do what you do?

Kristian Hansen 0:26
Sure. I mean, I’m kind of the definition of a serial entrepreneur kind of always been that way. He just kind of jumping from project to project kind of my whole life. And so, you know, startups and building things has kind of always been something that makes me feel like me. And so, you know, really, this project kind of happened completely by accident. And it’s, you know, kind of just a byproduct of, you know, many different projects and many years of work that’s kind of just, you know, blossomed into to what we’re doing today. So that’s, that’s kind of my little in a nutshell.

george grombacher 1:01
Appreciate that. So, from project to project, slow, just kind of happens. Tell me more about that.

Kristian Hansen 1:10
Sure. Yeah. So I mean, I was in the fashion industry, I first I was a hockey player originally, and I had a nasty injury ended up not being able to play hockey anymore, as usually, that’s kind of how those stories and, and ended up moving into, into fashion just to something like didn’t want to sit there and do nothing. My agent at the time recommended, you know, hey, talk to this person, just get a job, just get moving again, get back into life. And so I did, and I took a job in the fashion industry working for a big fast fashion company, because I didn’t really know very much at the time. And, you know, I kind of discovered some pretty horrible things. It’s a very broken industry, very heavily polluting industry. It’s, you know, a giant machine built on a lot of exploitation of people. And so I couldn’t really be a part of that. And I thought, you know, I really do like fashion, but I want to do it right. And so I started working on sustainable fashion brands, from that point, kind of just jumped one ship to the next. And one day in the pandemic, I accidentally went out and bought a pair of jeans at a thrift shop just for myself. And they turned out to be women’s jeans. And I made a tick tock about it saying, Hey, ladies of the world as this literally, this is what you’re expected to wear every day. The pockets are horrible, the material is itchy, they don’t fit. Well, this is the standard. And it went mega viral. And that was really the beginning of slow or I went, Hey, I’m already in this industry. I know how to make things. I know manufacturers. I could fix this. And it just exploded since that it’s now been a year we’ve made 11,000 pairs of jeans. And yeah, it’s it’s it’s been pretty rock and roll.

george grombacher 2:51
So you’re in this thrift store for former hockey player. So I imagine you’re a bigger person. Yeah. And you’re like, these are cool jeans, you just kind of didn’t think too much about it. I’ll grab these because they’re probably inexpensive.

Kristian Hansen 3:06
Totally, I’m six foot three. So there’s not a chance I ever considered. Oh, okay, that’s my inseam. I know that’s my NC and these will fit that definitely men’s jeans. And you know, it’s still to this day, I tell this story to fashion people. And they’re like, what you found you found jeans that fit you

george grombacher 3:22
crazy? Funny. You’re like, wait a minute, what’s with these pockets and everything else. So

Kristian Hansen 3:30
I dropped my phone that was those that would basically was so frustrating. I had no social media following anything. I was just walk into the train station, trying to put my phone in my pocket, just like jamming it in the pocket. And I’m like, What is going on with these things. And I just dropped my phone and it breaks the case. And I’m like, Oh my God, these are women’s jeans. And this is what I’ve heard about this is that elusive tail that I’ve heard about. I’m now living it. I need to I need to rant about this. And that that was really what exploded. From there.

george grombacher 3:57
How funny. So I am interested in a better design on women’s jeans. And I’m also interested I think people would be in, in the non sustainable aspects of the fashion industry as it was before you decided to put a dent into it.

Kristian Hansen 4:15
Sure, yeah. I mean, the biggest issue with fashion, whether it’s women’s fashion, or men’s fashion, or anything along those lines is we’ve really we’ve had this kind of shift in like a manufacturing kind of a paradigm shift per se, kind of in the early 2000s When fast fashion was really born. And you know, clothing collections used to be released with the seasons. You know, you probably very familiar with summer collections and fall collections and winter collections. That was the standard for, you know, 100 years, if not more. And all of a sudden in the early 2000s with kind of like the beginning of the rise of social media and kind of just media and the internet in general. These brands realized we don’t actually have to hold it to four collections per year. We can do a collection every month. And then it started in a collection every month, and then it was every week and ever, you know, multiple times a week. And with that kind of shift came this shift in consumer behavior where it’s like, oh, I can buy this. And I only need to wear it a couple of times, because it’s cheap. And next week, there’s going to be new things for me to buy anyway. And so, as a whole, you know, that’s really what’s affected everything from denim, whether it’s women’s denim, or men’s denim, you’re probably seeing the quality of clothing getting worse over time, the price is staying the same or increasing over time. And it comes down to this mass standardization model, they’re trying to get as few sizes as possible, as few options as possible, pump out hundreds of 1000s of the same thing, put them in stores around the world and basically hope they work. And as a result is created a massive waste problem, because we have a hundreds of 1000s of garments around the world that are not being sold that are being sold in the wrong markets that aren’t fitting people well, return rates are through the roof on ecommerce sites, because things just don’t fit properly. And it doesn’t really matter because this fast fashion machine that’s that’s actually music to its ears, because people are gonna just keep on buying. And so that really, you know, is what motivates us to you know, call ourselves slow, you know, we are slow fashion are the opposite. We’re trying to take it back to the way that things used to be made where you would almost, you know, commission a piece, you’d go to a tailor, you would go to a seamstress and be like, hey, I need a suit, I got a wedding this summer, these are my measurements, make me a suit. And the tailor would say, Hey, I got this fabric, I got that fabric. And that was really inspirational piece for us was let’s bring it back to the way it used to be and make sure that every pair of jeans that’s leaving our factory, it already has a home. And so we’re making those jeans specifically to that person to their preferences to their sizes, we know they’re not going to be returned for a sizing issue. And we’re keeping those you know that waist low.

george grombacher 6:52
I love it. That makes a ton of sense. So I’m just going to talk about my personal experience as just me, I would buy a pair of jeans and keep it for a decade. Are women is? Is my experience common with men and with women?

Kristian Hansen 7:11
I would say you know, for good pieces. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the biggest issue really, for women’s jeans in the last about 1015 years has been the trend has been going towards like basically thinner and thinner and higher stretch fabrics, which you know, they’re very polyester based, they’re not designed to last, and denim went from being this thing, 100 years ago that, you know, miners would wear, you know, because of how rigid it was and how, you know, you could wear it in the fields. And you could wear it at the bar. And you know, it’s like tried and true, you can have that, you know, denim jacket for 25 years, we’ve now taken it and just basically created this version of fabric that looks like denim, but isn’t denim. And that’s really what’s kind of infiltrated the market and has created this kind of longevity problem. So one of the key things that we’re trying to do is go back to that using real denims from real mills that lasts a long time and don’t have that kind of throwaway effect.

george grombacher 8:07
And how hard is that? Is it just easy to start making real damn again?

Kristian Hansen 8:13
No. It’s been really, really hard. It’s, it’s, by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s, you know, you think about pants, you’re like, Okay, it’s easy, I go to a store or buy them, I take them off the shelf, there are hundreds of decisions that go into a single pair of pants. And unless you’re like on that side of it, you never think about any of it. And you know, there are dozens of pages of just technical information to make a single size, a single size of pants, you know, not even getting into engineering the textiles, like we’re talking about real denim or not. And so it’s really complicated. But you know, it’s been about we’re about a year in now. And we finally got the hang of it. Now we’re building our own manufacturing facility so we can take more control over things and really kind of dive even deeper into it. But ya know, it’s hard.

george grombacher 9:06
Like, oh, that’s why they just make the cookie cutter stuff.

Kristian Hansen 9:11
Yeah, exactly.

george grombacher 9:13
Do you have that moment are like, Oh my gosh, this is going to be too hard. I’m going to quit. did. Maybe you’re thinking that right now?

Kristian Hansen 9:23
No, you know what, I think it’s much the, you know, the despair of some of my partners. I think I’m just far too headstrong for that. I think it goes back to like sports and you know, and whatnot. I you know, I I have such strong belief in the team that we’ve created and the product and the vision and the need for it because of you know, this community that we’ve grown and I get DMS and emails and messages from people every day who are on both sides of the coin to say thank you I finally have jeans that fit me and also please make this please make that please do this. So there’s such strong consumer demand. It’s like okay, At times the socks, I’m going to figure it out because we got to make it work.

george grombacher 10:06
So the, that first viral video of you in the lamenting about the the the the plight of women having to wear a crappy jeans that that gave you the idea? And he said, Okay, I think that there’s really something here that we can tap into from a community standpoint. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Kristian Hansen 10:29
Yeah, totally. You know, at that point, it was like, Okay, what is that? What a fashion brands do? And why is it not working? And the first thing kind of came to me was fashion brands. It’s not a two way conversation. It’s a one way conversation. It’s always been it’s, this is our new collection, look at the celebrity that we’ve paid to endorse it, look at it on the mannequin in the store, you want this. And I think that was really the root of the problem, because you have 1000s of people saying we don’t want this, we want that. And so from the beginning, it was like, you know, what, if we’re going to do this, this has to be like completely, like open source based on what people actually want us to make. And let’s just ask for ideas. And so I put together a Google form on a really bad website, linked it to my tic tock and just started making tic TOCs. And in the first three months, we had over 700,000 form submissions. Wow, it was ridiculous. It was like we, at one point, I had to figure out, I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the notifications on my phone. And my phone kept crashing, because basically, every minute there was so many form submissions, I couldn’t get into the phone. It was ridiculous. And it was like, Wow, this means something to people. And it’s so simple. It’s pants, you know, but that was the core of it. It was, look, there’s this huge demand, let’s listen, and let’s just build this feedback loop that doesn’t exist in this industry. I’ll take your suggestions, I’ll show you your suggestions. If you like it, I’ll make it. And that’s really the loop that we’ve been building now for the last year, and then the loop that we’ve been operating. And that’s the core of kind of the direction that we’re trying to hold moving forward as well.

george grombacher 12:06
It makes sense. It’s one of those good problems when he can’t access your phone. Right? Is it? Is it? Is it genes? That that is there something special about genes that this is resonating because of or is it just just the industry that we’ve been talking about?

Kristian Hansen 12:25
This little bit of both, you know, jeans, I think there is something special about jeans. And you know, if you just look at it from an economics perspective, there’s something special about jeans, jeans have transcended culture, you know, around the world, you know, there are almost a dozen markets in the world wear jeans are a billion dollar industry, you know, everywhere from you know, you go all the way to the Far East, in Japan, they love their jeans in India, they love their jeans in the States, the classic Levi’s have been there for 100 years. And you know, every single country on Earth that you go to, if you walk around, you will find people wearing jeans. And it’s become such a staple of fashion, it’s the most popular garment on Earth. And I think that there’s a lot of people that, you know, they romanticize the idea, especially with the origin story, you know, back and cowboys and the Wild West, and you know, that whole Gold Rush kind of era, and then into the 70s and 80s, where, you know, it was a staple in disco and movies and pop culture and denim has hand in hand been a part of pop culture around the world for 100 years. And so I think there’s a lot of people that felt left out, and they felt left out for function, they felt less, you know, left out for fit. And all of a sudden, I’m here saying, hey, you’ve never been able to find a pair of those things that everyone else has, I can make them for you. And that, you know, was something that no one had ever said to them before. And that was, I think the core of it. And so it is larger than just jeans. And we are already branching out into more things in fashion. And there’s a lot of problems to be fixed in fashion. But there’s something special about denim.

george grombacher 14:02
Yeah, yeah, that’s really well said. Jeans are a billion dollar industry in 12. Markets. Is that what you said?

Kristian Hansen 14:09
Correct? Yeah, we produce it’s 100 and roughly $20 billion industry worldwide. We produce about 3 billion pairs a year. It’s it’s crazy.

george grombacher 14:21
Got it. So getting back to creating a really quality denim. I’d love to learn a little bit more about that.

Kristian Hansen 14:33
Yeah. I mean, there’s many stages and you got to kind of do it right, you can pick right you can get really great fabric from a really great mill and put it together really badly and you still get a bad pair of jeans. And you know, that’s what we see a lot of right now in fast fashion, fast fashion. There’s a lot of companies that are using great denim, maybe you’ll see if you walk around to one of these big brands to see the tag they’ll say like organic cotton or you know this certification and that certification and in some cases they’re out Actually, they’re they’re legit. They’re really good fabrics. But they take those fabrics and they ship them to Bangladesh. And they have them made by children in sweatshops and the quality ends up being horrible. And you can’t call that a sustainable garment. You can’t call that a good end end garment. And so really, for us, it was about figuring out okay, how do we not cut corners at every single stage? And how do we add an experience to something that typically isn’t something that you experience the experience for most people buying pants, you pull a random person off the side of the road? You say, Do you enjoy buying pants? Most people say no. Most people are like, I don’t like buying pants are hard to find they don’t fit well. I don’t like buying them online. Why there’s just it’s a bad experience. Why is it bad experience? So going back to your question, what is quality denim, I think it comes down to that whole experience, it comes down to fit, and making sure that you have a size set that works for everybody for all body types and a new way to collect those sizes. And to get those people sized. It’s making sure that you’re using quality fabrics and quality construction that you’re making them from people who are qualified and you know, are working in ethical working conditions so that they’re happy, the happier the people in your factory, the better your teams are going to be. And then not cutting corners, and all of these different areas, whether that’s buttons and metal where and all the little pieces and accessories that make a product great. And so for us, it’s really just been about you know, not trying to cut corners, and people think I’m insane. I walk into these these different factories and showrooms and mills. And they’re always trying to show us the cheapest stuff possible. Because most people who show up, they’re like, I want the cheapest garment possible, get it on the shelf for five or $6. And I’m here like, show me your best stuff. And they think I’m crazy. And you know, so it’s it’s, you know, in a nutshell, long story long. It’s really just about making sure that every single stage that you can possibly put the thought into you do. And that’s really at the core of what we’re trying to be as a brand.

george grombacher 16:52
Beautiful. Well, Kristen, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? Or can they get a pair of slow jeans?

Kristian Hansen 16:59
You can come on our website at slow jeans.co SL o jeans.co. All of my socials are there as well. My personal email is there as well. If you’d like to ever reach out feel free. I love having conversations with people about anything. So yeah, everything’s right there and our genes are right there as well.

george grombacher 17:17
Awesome. Well, if you enjoyed as much as I did show Christian your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas and loves wearing jeans. Go to slow jeans dot C O S O S LOJEA M s.co and pick up your pair. Thanks, Ken Christian. Yeah, thanks

Kristian Hansen 17:38
for having me. Appreciate it.

george grombacher 17:39
Till next time. Remember, do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.