Mike Fata - From Personal Health to a $419M Exit

Rose (00:01.34)
Welcome to the story of a brand.

I'm Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures, where we turn consumer brands into category leaders. We don't just chase growth here. We build brands that attract customers, capital, and strategic outcomes. Today, I'm super excited because I'm going to be sitting down with someone who proves that point in real time. Mike Fata. Mike co-founded Manitoba Harvest in 1998, built the hemp food category before anyone was talking about it, and led it as CEO and chairman all the way to a 400-

$119 million strategic exit after that he didn't retreat he became a mentor and investor and an author of the best-selling book grow 12 unconventional lessons for becoming an unstoppable entrepreneur and now hosts the founder to mentor podcast helping today's builders avoid unnecessary scars And I know he's got a great story to tell us many of them in this conversation We're gonna explore how personal transformation becomes brand momentum the structure behind long-term

and what it really takes to evolve from founder to legacy founder. Let's jump in. You know, I always say a mission isn't a marketing line. It's an operating system. And if purpose doesn't influence hiring, vendor choices, margins, it's kind of just like brand theater. It doesn't really mean anything. It doesn't have any real purpose. That would be compelling execution. So Mike, welcome to the show and tell us a little bit about the moment you realized your personal transformation wasn't just your story.

and it was actually the strategic fuel of Manitoba.

Mike Fata (01:37.035)
Yeah. Well, thanks for having me Rose. And, I appreciate the, the intro. It makes me think that I've been doing this for reminds me. I've been doing this for awhile. yeah, I, my business came from a personal passion when I decided that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and went on, started my health journey. health became everything that I wanted to think about every day, not only improving my health, but, learning about healthy products. And when I fell in love with the hemp seed,

and thought this is a really healthy product that people need to know more about. I started a little business and then my personal passion and my business passion started to align.

Rose (02:17.404)
That's amazing. How did that insight about your personal passion and where you wanted to focus your life really start to influence the data decisions once you were within the company as you got it going and you got it growing in the early days?

Mike Fata (02:33.441)
Yeah, I always thought like it was, it was 1%, 1 % better, right? When I was losing weight and getting stronger and, doing that through diet and exercise and healthy lifestyle. I thought to myself, well, if I can become the best me that I could be like work on becoming my best self, then not only could I start a business, but I could become an expert or the best at that in business. And, and so I started out with just knowing nothing about business. Cause I was a high school dropout, but when, when you're

in the business and working it every day, how can we make improvements in the operations of the business, sales, marketing, finance? And I became super interested in learning and exploring and experimenting every day. And it took a long, long time to create a foundation of success in the business. But it was from that continuous improvement mindset that got me there.

Rose (03:29.192)
That's amazing. you what I love about your story is that purpose doesn't just live inside the company. It really became your market strategy, your market energy. And that's a turning point for a lot of founders when purpose shifts from that internal language to external demand. It's like it's a pivotal moment. That's, think, really special. And, you know, a big question for you is in emerging categories, hemp, hormone, health, food, tech, you name it, there's so many new categories showing up every day.

Founders don't seem to me like they're just selling products anymore. Now they're building belief infrastructure. That's the best way I've thought of how to term it now.

The best founders are belief architects. They're not just product marketers. I think there's a bazillion product marketers, but really looking at a movement and moving it into belief architecture seems to be an awful lot about what it means to build a new category. And in your case, it strikes me you weren't just selling hemp. You were building belief in an entirely new category.

And that's really special. And I guess my question for you is, when did you feel the shift from, what is this thing called hemp, to where can I get it and how do I build it?

Mike Fata (04:42.315)
You know, I think that, Simon Sinek says it best, right? People don't buy what you're doing. They buy why you're doing it. So most of our customers, when I had a chance to connect with them and tell them about my own personal health journey and how I became super passionate and changed my diet. And now I'm offering hemp seed because I truly believe in it. I created this product for myself. People really, really like, started to adopt and not only adopt the product and our brand, but I felt.

became lifelong customers. They like super into the lifestyle of it. And so I see that across not only our business, but a number of businesses that this is why personal brand building and storytelling has become such an important part of being a founder is because people are buying into the lifestyle. They want to understand if you're creating a product to sell it, that's one thing. If you're creating it for yourself and then offering it out to the world, that's where you could see a lot of magic happen in a number of different brands.

Rose (05:41.031)
Yeah.

think what you're saying is brilliant there. And I see so many founders who, as they build and grow their brand and grow the momentum, as they start to take a step back and start delegating things, oftentimes what gets lost is the connection to the consumer because they're the consumer. And if you bring a new CEO in who isn't that consumer, it will really lead to different decision making. And I think a big question for me to you is, what resistance did you face educating

market because it was new, new thing. And how did you push against that without losing momentum?

Mike Fata (06:18.175)
Yeah. the only thing harder than launching a hemp food company in 1998 was being a guy with a ponytail doing it. there was definitely a bunch of stigma around hemp and cannabis and, you know, literally people would just laugh when they walked by our trade show booth or when we were having a demo saying like, no, I don't, I don't do that. I'm not into that thing, you know, and there's just so much stigma. And the way that we combated that was.

Twofold one from with a volume like we realized we needed to talk to more people but two it was really with education And I and the turning point for me was realizing that hemp had a mystique to it that got people super interested in But they didn't really have the right information. They thought it was a drug. They thought it was it was marijuana and and so they were primed to

really learn about it, you know? And so we got their attention, which I think is really important for a brand. And then we fed them educational content about how healthy hemp foods were and how to easily incorporate them into your diet. And then just how, yes, the...

the plant was part of the cannabis family, but it didn't have any psychoactive drug and so on. So instead of like flashy marketing, more educational marketing. And, and I see that for a lot of new industries, you know, if you're, if you're starting your business into a brand new industry, you're probably just as much educating the consumer, about, all aspects of the product and, and, and industry as you are kind of normal flashy marketing.

Rose (07:55.706)
Yes, that is so true. And once belief starts building, people believe in it they start to understand it, usually that's where the pressure to scale will kick in because you see the demand, the concepts, the stories are resonating with people. And here's where I see too often founders will chase velocity over the integrity piece. That is not, it's a very special spot in the road. How, when you think about that, how did you keep, keep yourself disciplined enough to think about when to put

harder, when to keep steady, when to pull back? How did you do that?

Mike Fata (08:33.164)
Yeah, I'm a big believer in governance and governance really starts with a, a clear mission and values for the organization. It's really the operating playbook of culture, right? How, what we're going to do, what we're going to focus on, what we're going to be good at and how we're going to do it with those values. And I was clear that,

because hemp already had two things. One, it's a very healthy food product, but two, there was already this, you know, negative stigma against it that, that quality was going to be one of our core values to lead people, to the product because anything that would done hemp before that, and you may recall, like, you know, they were just poor quality products, but people were saying, yeah, it's available. It's hemp now, you know? And so quality was, was number one. And, and just the way that I personally operated, I brought a lot of those values to the business being

honesty, transparency, trust. And as soon as I was clear and we literally took our core values and printed them on the wall, and maybe made it very clear to our team. I felt that I was, best to uphold our values and, and, and create that culture in the organization instead of manage people to it. And so it starts right in the, right in the job description and the interviewing process, right? Not only does.

new team member have the competency and experience to do the role? It didn't matter if they are an accountant or a salesperson or worked in our operations team, but do they personally fit to the core values of the business? Can they demonstrate when they made hard decisions to take the quality route or when they had that hard conversation and honesty was what they brought forward? so

I developed a list of interview questions, you know, around the, the fit of the business around our core values. then right from onboarding of that hire all the way through to all of our communications, our values were front and center. And not only did we print them on the walls, but we literally started printing them on t-shirts and stuff after that the team would wear, you know? And so that's really, really, really how you make an impact and can drive the, drive what the business is all about, how you're going to operate and build that.

Mike Fata (10:42.754)
culturally in a team.

Rose (10:44.548)
And when you see it printed on someone's apparel, it's in front of you at all times. Like you can't, you don't escape it when it's living with you, living and breathing. You know, and I think another angle to which talking about is discipline. know, audience growth without financial discipline is just expensive ego, really, frankly. Revenue is easy, but I think discipline in leadership is hard.

And you are a great shining example because you scaled to a $419 million exit without burning everything down for hype. And I think that that's really unusual. And I would guess there might have been some early decisions or guardrails that protected the health of that business long before that exit moment. know, was there really anything that you could share with us about how you thought about what are those guardrails? I mean, you've talked about values, right? But were there others when you think about the financials of some people say spend at any cost, who cares

so much to acquire the customer, be first to market, take the market share. Others say, go slowly, you've got to be profitable. What were your guardrails when you thought about the financials?

Mike Fata (11:46.89)
Yeah. I mean, we were always scrappy, right? I grew up, with a single mom and we were pretty poor. So we didn't have enough. We didn't have enough money when I was young and we were always looking for ways to make something out of nothing. So when I, when I formally became an entrepreneur and launched the business, we were doing the same thing. Like how can we build the product and build the business and prove, the next couple steps before we.

You know, really heavily invested in, in resources because we didn't have them. Even after we started raising capital and we brought investors into the business, I still maintain that scrappy attitude because we, just never had enough money to do all the things that we wanted to do. And so we had to be creative in, in, ways that we did them. And that's ultimately how we, you know, not only grew a very large.

base of revenue in the business, but we had very strong gross margins and we were profitable as an organization, highly profitable. did take us a long time to get there because we needed, you know, $10 million of revenue scale before we became profitable. It took us 10 years to get to that 10 million in revenue, but we built the organization in a way that was,

resilient and scrappy enough for us to, be able to go through that whole decade of, not being profitable and, and still come out the other side growing.

Rose (13:05.884)
That's great. It really sounds like restraint, said another way, was actually one of your most powerful strategic moves, having it at all times.

Mike Fata (13:16.642)
Yeah, I think, I think, you know, one of the superpowers is, if, if, know, entrepreneurs are like magicians, they, if you can make something out of nothing, you're going to add a lot of value to, to your business. And, where I've seen it fail, unfortunately, too many times where even people, know, and you hear it, someone that's not financially responsible wins the lottery a year later, they grow broke. Same thing in business. If you're not financially responsible, you could raise your biggest, investment round ever.

you're just going to spend that money and not, not, waste it, you know, not on the right things to, to, to help the business become sustainable and, and you can have failure even with money.

Rose (13:54.44)
Yep, that's so right, which is why restraint is a very powerful, it's a superpower for sure.

You know, and that approach of protecting margins and systems requires a lot of maturity beyond I call it the day one founder energy and identity architecture. Like I was talking about at the beginning just becomes as important as business architecture. And I think one of the biggest friction points I see today is that as a company evolves, the founder has to evolve his or her identity right along with it. And scaling isn't just operational. It requires a full identity redesign, so to speak. So how did you.

as an individual, how did your identity as a leader have to evolve from founder to CEO and then to chairman? Because you've worn all the caps along the way. So I would imagine you have some points of wisdom on that.

Mike Fata (14:44.022)
Yeah. Always be growing is a good point of, of wisdom. and, and know where you're growing too. Right. What I, what I started to study as we, was we became more, successful in business. And I realized that I was a born entrepreneur, but I had to become a made CEO. I had to learn what is good look like, you know? and so I always ask that question. I think it's a question that most.

Rose (14:46.632)
Yes.

Mike Fata (15:07.862)
that entrepreneurs can ask or business people can ask is what does good look like in this situation? What does good look like in this position? And so I could say, what does good look like for being a CEO of a $10 million company? Like what do I need to know? And that came to some of the things, you know, culture building and strategic planning and governance and oversight of the organization. And so

Reading and learning through mentors, what good look like, and then practicing that, like getting up every day and saying, Hey, I'm going to become a better leader. I'm going to become more well read, more well planned and, and do the reps, over time. That's how I've become a very strong executive. And, and, and, and really without that, we didn't have the foundation to grow to become a hundred million dollar business and X the company.

Rose (15:57.072)
It makes a lot of sense because I do think there are a lot of.

born entrepreneurs, but to have the personal awareness to understand that, like you said, where you're growing to, you had to be a made CEO. And how are you going to do that? Well, you have to have the mentors to teach you, because if you don't know really what good looks like there, others can help you with that, because they've been there, and they know what you have to work on. And I think I wonder, I'm curious, did you ever look in the mirror and ask, am I still the right leader for this next phase? And how did you answer that honestly?

Mike Fata (16:31.182)
yeah, that was, it was, it was constant both from imposter syndrome, you know, which, every time we get ourselves into a new situation, our brain can try to keep us safe and, and tell us that we're not fit to be there. And then there was the actual where I wasn't sure that, that I could, you know, I was the best leader for the business after $10 million. And then probably another stage of like 20 or $30 million in revenue. so, when I did have those,

points in time that I was reflecting like that. I gave myself space to do some inner work and, and then, and then just look at, and this is why I'm a big fan of mentorship. Look at others around me and surround myself with individuals. and so I have some great friends that are in the, in, in the natural products industry that were in non-competing businesses that we could get together and I could see what healthy peer to peer mentorship look like.

what it meant to take, what they were doing to take their businesses and their personal growth to the next step, and then modeled after that. So you are who you hang with. If you're in a high growth situation as as a entrepreneur or an executive, you best surround yourself with other high growth minded people in a similar situation because that peer to peer mentorship is everything.

Rose (17:53.288)
Well, and what I find fascinating about your journey is that you didn't just exit. You reinvested all the wisdom that you gained through all your experiences you had.

to put it back into other founders. And I love that you're touching on the mentorship point, because a founder's exit shouldn't just be the end of their impact. They've learned and grown so much. When exit turns into mentorship, perspective becomes, I think, the most valuable form of capital in the ecosystem. And it's one where you have even more impact than you do when you're selling products or a lifestyle.

And now that you mentor and invest, what patterns, be it good or be it dangerous, I mean, it could be either, do you see in today's founders that's unique today versus when you began your journey?

Mike Fata (18:39.054)
yeah. Well, first I'm, I'm a, I'm a creature of the game. So even though I'm a recovering entrepreneur and I knew that I wasn't fit to operate another business, that's why I invest in founders and advise them and coach them and mentor them because I enjoy building businesses, building teams, building success, and, it keeps me mentally and physically strong. And so that's the reason why I'm doing it. what I, what I see, you know, the, the, great thing about

building even a startup, a growing and scaling a business. nowadays is there's so many options to do it, differently, you know, there's, there's not one right playbook when if you turn back time to 28 years ago, when, when, when I got into business and we started Manitoba harvest, it could probably be said that there was, there was different ways to go about it, but there was, there was one general playbook. And now that playbook is a lot different, right? you can,

I'm a big believer in growing customers one by one. In our day, that was like going out and literally, you know, sampling or demoing to them one at a time. Now, you know, that may be like connecting one-on-one with one of your true customers on social media, sending them a voice note, leaving them a video message or something. So you can like make them feel special. Like we have so much connectivity with,

with social and storytelling that you can get your message out from, doesn't matter if you're in a small little town somewhere in Canada or the U S or, or you don't need to be in one of the big cities, right? You can, you could punch above your weight nowadays because of the tools we have to connect to our customers and also even just, you know, figure it out with, you know, stra with AI and, and all that AI can contribute to strategy and business.

Rose (20:26.49)
It's amazing. And if you could install just one mental model into every entrepreneur who comes to you for advice, what might it be?

Mike Fata (20:35.896)
the continuous improvement mindset, you know, that, whatever's happening to us in our business, if we believe that it's happening for a reason and we're, and we're taking insights from that and, then turning that it back into continuous improvement into our plan, and refine our plan before we go out there and, and execute again, that is an unfailing model. You know, you, you, you, you can't lose. All you're going to do is learn.

Adapt, readjust, and then go out there and execute again.

Rose (21:06.96)
Yep. And when you think about legacy now, beyond capital, this is different conversation. What do you hope founders will take from your journey?

Mike Fata (21:16.108)
Yeah, you know, I've, I've always, thought like I'm, my legacy isn't what is Mike Fata done. I, I, I like to think that I'm building first for my kids and my family, but then, generally out there into the community that anything is possible. If you, if you put your heart and soul into something and a lot of hard work, you know, it's, you don't need, there is no, there's not just one path to success. The unconventional paths do still lead to success.

Rose (21:46.642)
So if you were talking to your younger self, you shared a lot of really good nuggets in here already, but is there anything that you haven't said that you feel like is something if you knew back then you would have wanted to have known that you now have learned over time?

above and beyond the continuous mind and growth piece of it. Is there anything else that is critical for you to prevent burnout or to stay in it? Like you said, it took you 10 years. I think so many times people see the headlines, $419 million exit, but what they don't see is the 10 years of grit and struggle and every day the reps like you described. mean, now that you've been through it and you go through it with others, what would you say to that younger self?

Mike Fata (22:34.24)
And never sacrifice your health, not even for one day, one week, one month. It's a trap that we have as entrepreneurs, especially male entrepreneurs. But I think both men and women struggle with this. So we think that we can just get our inbox to zero for the day, or we can accomplish one more meeting or do one more thing in business, but we don't have time to exercise or to eat healthy or to get the required amount of sleep that night. And it's such a slippery slope.

sustainable, that is the big risk to burnout or your light switch flipping, you know, is that, is you don't realize on how that sacrifice in your health is actually sacrificing your whole business and your whole life. And so don't do it. even if it means, you know, putting it on your calendar, which I do every day to do some form of physical activity and, and, and make sure that you're getting good enough sleep and water and nutrition. you know, that that's what's really sustainable, for us.

individually and for sure when we're trying to grow something special in business.

Rose (23:38.76)
And with all the trends in AI and scrolling and do say scrolling and

You know, on one hand, it's so wonderful because there's never been a time when we have access to so much. Like all you have to do is say, I don't know how to do this. I'm going to go figure out how to do that. And pretty much anything's at your fingertips if you really want to go and learn how to do something. But then the flip side to that is there's so much choice in decisions and going a little back to your comment on the playbook, like there used to be a playbook. You follow the playbook and that's the playbook. Now it almost strikes me as though the playbook

has turned into constant change and constant evolution and whatever works today might not be working tomorrow. And so you almost can never be caught up on all your emails and be caught up on everything you'd want to know. it seems to me like that's the new way of the world and the entrepreneurial journey is you just have to factor in and understand you have to take time for self care. It's like required.

Mike Fata (24:38.2)
Yeah, I wrote a, I got some clarity on this personally. So I wrote an exercise on it and it's the best day ever exercise. Okay. And I think it's. Yeah.

Rose (24:45.266)
The best day ever. Tell us about it.

Mike Fata (24:48.268)
The best day ever exercise is, really sitting down and being honest with yourself on how do you want to spend your time in the day? You know, what do you want your days to look like? And included in that is the healthy things that we were talking about, right? Like how much sleep is truly going to leave you energized in the morning to have a, start a good day. You know, what kind of foods are you going to eat that are going to give you energy and, and, and make you feel like you're, you're living your best self.

What kind of work are, do you want to spend your focus on sales and marketing, or do you love that operations and finance? Like, what do you want to spend your time working on? And then what is, what is fun time for you and what is loving time with your friends and family? How do you want that to look like? And actually slot it out and, in, the hours and, and, and I have this exercise in my grow higher workbook that was a companion guide to, to grow. And it's really helpful for people just to sit back and say, here's what I want my ideal day to look like.

And then you can do an audit of where you are right now and then put a plan together to bridge that gap and get to your best day ever because we all deserve to work towards and live our best day ever. And it's, very possible. We just know we need to know what good looks like for us first, like craft it, and then you can go and execute it.

Rose (26:06.194)
Well, and that seems to be a theme out of everything that you've said thus far about you need to know what good looks like and constantly asking that at each next step in the journey, each next step leg along the way, knowing what success looks like. And it's a daily exercise. It doesn't seem to me like it's something that you do one day and put it on a shelf and away it goes. It's going to constantly keep evolving too, depending on where you are. Yeah.

Mike Fata (26:30.616)
100 % yeah 100 %

Rose (26:33.992)
Tell us more about the book. I'm so excited to hear a little bit about it. I know you've pulled some pearls of wisdom out of it in the conversation that we've had, but what inspired you to write it? What do you hope to achieve from it? Give us a little more because I want people to hear about it because I think more people need to get your book. help everybody understand why. There you go. Yes.

Mike Fata (26:52.672)
Yeah. You get a copy of the book. yeah, you know, I, again, when, when I was growing up, and especially when I started in business, I realized that there was not a lot of success stories like mine happening. A lot of the, a lot of the success stories were someone had, they made it because, know, their, their, their parents helped them go to Ivy league school, and then they found the job of their dreams and then the lifestyle of their dreams and.

That's not how I grew up. And so as I became, started to become successful and realized that there's other ways to create the success. And that is some of the things that we've talked about, like becoming your best self, doing your best work, like making the best thing possible for what you're interested in. Um, you know, and, building strong community and doing that by like giving back and being helpful. Like these are tried and true ways of creating success, but, um, it was less talked about. so.

I had it on my list for about a decade to write the book. And then finally, a couple of years ago, I sat down and wrote it and it's been a gift. You know, I go around the world and speak to audiences on improving themselves and getting into business, whether they're an entrepreneur or an executive. And I like them to be able to, I, there's no shortage of things that I say online on social media and connect with my community, but

Grow is a way for people to use actually a handbook of my mentorship and understand how I've created success and how they can create success doing similar.

Rose (28:27.88)
It's amazing, it really is. And what do you hope, you know, in the long run, in the legacy of that, what do you hope to see changed in the world as people read that book?

Mike Fata (28:38.092)
Yeah, more people living their best day ever, you know, and, and, and, and that's, that's success for me. I've already, I've had the privilege of investing in, you know, over a dozen entrepreneurs. I've, I've coached hundreds of entrepreneurs and now I've mentored like hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs with my mass mentorship tools. And, and, and that makes me feel really good. You know, the only thing that I like better than winning myself is watching other people and helping other people win.

Rose (29:08.744)
It's amazing. And to what you were just saying, you've had the privilege of investing, being on boards, being in the companies operating them. Where do you see, when you look across all the experiences you've had, the number one spot that is the hardest when a business is scaling? Founders created it. They've started it. They're starting to grow. Is it the $10 million to $20 $20 to $40 Is it a revenue mark?

or is it some other kind of a mark? Because I bet you'd have a unique lens and perspective on that.

Mike Fata (29:40.47)
Yeah, revenue is definitely one thing. most, most, entrepreneurs will start to struggle with their leadership. So their business will struggle if they get to the $5 million mark. and Hey, you know, it's, it's, then it'll, they'll really start to struggle with the $10 million mark because it's less entrepreneurial and more, governance and, and executive leadership that's going to help to business scale. but

you know, that's one in like 10,000 businesses gets to that scale. I like to surround myself with entrepreneurs and, and businesses that are in that space. but you know, most, most founders are going to struggle with getting their business to a million dollars and then getting it to multimillion dollars. just because it's, it's, it's super tough. You know, it really challenges to you of like,

how unique of an offering and how helpful it is to it, to the world and how good are you at putting that together and making profit off of it.

Rose (30:38.052)
Yep. And how strong is the mindset? That's another thing that I frequently see is that that imposter syndrome and fear.

Mike Fata (30:44.31)
Yeah, we can't, yeah. Yeah. We can't give up, know, in life in general, we learned this, right? As we come, as we become more mature as an adult, no one's coming to save you, know, and the same, the same, and even more so is true in business. No one's coming to save you. So I tell entrepreneurs this all the time. You can give up for the day. Okay. Go to bed, get a good night's sleep, wake up in the morning and then get back at it because

Rose (30:54.808)
No.

Mike Fata (31:09.238)
Like if I look at my journey from zero to a hundred million dollars of revenue over the 20 years, there is so many times that I, that I wanted to quit. even when a lot of the signs would have been, it looks like it's going to be successful. It's still, there were so many days that we had challenges that felt impossible. And, and all I, all I told myself was like, listen, wrap it up for the day and get a good night rest and then come back and start swinging really strong tomorrow again, you know, and that's all we could do. And sometimes it's like,

moving the business forward day by day. And that's what it takes to get to the next stage of success or the stage of sustainability. and that is all mindset, know, like I tell people, asked me all the time, this it's like, should I quit my business? I've tried, multiple years in, and I told people, Hey, I mean, it took me six years to get to a million dollars in revenue. It took me 10 years to get to a place that I was, I was profitable in the business. Right. And so, but here's the thing.

If I would have stopped doing the business, which it felt like many times to do, I would have drove myself nuts if I would have gave up and then went and got it and went and got a job. And, so I tell entrepreneurs, if you feel like it would, you're, you'd be okay just shutting down the business and going, trying something else or going to get a job. That may be your sign, but if that would drive you just crazy because you'd never maybe have the chance again to do that business again and just go one more day, you know, and just go one more day and keep.

making success in the business one day at a time. that's ultimately what may get you to the place that you really want to be, you know? And time is that big factor.

Rose (32:50.322)
Well, and I think one of the...

most exciting things, even in moments of the largest struggle for me. One thing you said I so believe in, which is if it's really been a tough day, the most important thing is to say to yourself, go to sleep, we'll try again tomorrow. It's all going to be sitting here. So continuing to spin and cycle on it is not helping anybody, but that sleep and that recovery time, it's like your subconscious gets a chance to work on it with you. And then I always wake up inspired in some way, shape, form. And I think the other thing that you just sparked a thought in my mind

And when you were saying that you don't go, then if you feel like you should get a job, then maybe that's a different job. Maybe that's right path for you. But I also think you have no, this is what gets me inspired every morning is I have no idea what's going to happen.

And I used to have no idea what's going to happen. In early days, for me, I would think, no, I don't know. Is it going to work? And now I turn that around, and it makes such a difference to say, you have no idea what amazing new conversation is going to happen, or something's going to fall in your lap, or you're going to get inspired by something you heard. And if you can just get sleep, get the energy, eat nutritious food, as simple as it may sound, sometimes that's what it takes to just allow time for that door to open and unlock.

to give you the answers, but you know, mean, it's hard. It's a lonely journey, so it's hard.

Mike Fata (34:08.106)
Yeah. Yeah. You got to, yeah. At the, we have to control the controllables that we can control. Right. And so you can control going to bed, getting a good night's sleep, get up in the morning, workout, and, and eat some, eat some healthy food and you're going to feel better. And I believe when you're feeling better, when you're feeling good about yourself and with, especially with optimistic philosophy, you think something is good is going to happen to you.

more good things happen to you, right? And I like to reframe it nowadays too. It's, more of the treasure hunt mentality in life. You know, what, what's around the next corner, what conversation, what's going to be presented or pitched to me? What am I going to stumble into? And, and those are the exciting things in life, even if they're riddles or challenges that we have to solve, right? Like that mindset will, that, that growth mindset will take us very, very far, but

It's hard to do that if you just physically don't feel your best. That's why I always circle back to the things you can control, which is like control your health habits, right? Dial in your health habits before we can do our best work or build our best community. We have to work on becoming our best self.

Rose (35:14.372)
It's so true. It's really so true. And I just I thoroughly enjoyed being able to spend time with you and I, know, parting words of wisdom, anything, and I'm going to use it from a perspective and an angle of pretend you are talking to a 20 year old who is call it a sophomore in college.

and who might be struggling with trying to decide, do I need school? I know I want to go and create my own thing and I'm really not having that great of a time. I'd really just get rather get out there and do it versus saying, I should just tough it out to get the degree. mean, what's your perspective on that front for any young, you know, young adults that are rising through the ranks now, life is different now than it was when you started the business. But what do you think about that whole educational angle of it and the value of experience?

Mike Fata (36:02.776)
Yeah, I could, I could speak from personal experience because I'm a high school dropout, but now I have two teenagers in, in high school, that are going to make a decision whether they want to go to college or university. And, and, and I would say the same thing, like there's many different ways to learn in life. So if you feel like you found your calling, like you have a gut feel, like you want to go and pursue this business or this opportunity.

You should go for it. In your 20s is your time when you could take on your greatest risk. And it's so much upside benefit with actually there's not that much downside to it. You could try 100 different things that don't actually work out and you still have plenty of time. All those learnings in life are just gonna serve you well. So yeah, I'm not a big fan of, I'm not anti-education.

because it can help, especially, you know, it could help a lot of people that want to go a specific route in life. But if you have this gut feeling, this urge or this calling to go and do something, I'm a big believer in like follow your passion, follow your intuition, follow your gut and go and try it. And, and if you don't succeed, then you got, you got, you got plenty of time from there.

Rose (37:13.65)
Take two, three, four, and five.

Mike Fata (37:15.776)
Yeah, I went, I went back to school after 34 years of being a high school dropout to get my, director's education. we took one of my portfolio companies public and I was a public chairman and I thought, you know what? I should have a certificate and a foundation of being a chairman at a public company level. And, and so I went back to school, know, so there's always, there's, there's, there's so many different ways to, to live life and, and educate yourself, and find your success.

So, you know, when you're, when you're youthful, use that energy and just go after something that you really want to tackle. I mean, that's, that's what I did at 21 when we started mental harvest. And I credit that to, to really the foundation of my success.

Rose (37:58.16)
It's amazing, amazing. So I am certain people will want to get in touch with you and how do they stay learning more from you? Like what are the best ways for people to get in touch with you, Mike?

Mike Fata (38:10.16)
I mean, all things me or at my website, Mike Fata.ca. but I'm very active on, LinkedIn and even on Instagram. If people connect with me on social, just, drop me a note and say that you, you listen to this show is usually a good, good intro. And, and if you want to get deeper under the hood, then, read my book, listen to my podcast, utilize my mass mentorship toolbox at fatafleishman.org. All that can be found on my website or on my LinkedIn profile.

Rose (38:40.56)
Amazing. And you know, I just, love following you. So it's, it's a, it's wonderful. The content that you put out is super valuable and helpful. And Mike, thank you for sharing not, you know, not just your success story, but the actual decisions, the discipline, the wisdom beneath the big headlines, beneath the 419 million exit for everyone listening. If Mike's story resonated, do pick up his book row and plug into the founder to mentor community. It's wonderful. And that kind of perspective is rare and it's earned.

And if this conversation sparked something about building with margin, soul, strategic clarity, anything, either of the two of us would be more than happy to be in touch with you. And this is a story of a brand. I'm Rose Hamilton. Build bravely and build with legacy in mind. Thank you.

Mike Fata (39:28.002)
Thanks again.