Hello everyone, this is Ryan and you are listening to The Vegan Report.
Today we are once again discussing the topic of vegan entrepreneurship, but this time with
Maxime Seguin.
He is a fitness coach with over 10 years of experience in the fitness industry.
He is also an athlete who has competed in Ironman and Spartan races as well as cycling
events.
But most importantly, he is the founder of Fit Vegan Coaching, a company offering coaching
for people who want to get and to shape.
In this episode, we talked about everything related to entrepreneurship, from getting
past your fears to managing money.
But be careful, disclaimer here, after listening to this episode, you might be tempted of launching
your own vegan business. Maxime's passion for entrepreneurship is quite contagious.
So Maxime, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having accepted my invitation.
Yeah, of course.
Thank you for having me.
So my first question for you is about the health problem that we have in our society
currently.
Let me tell you a story. During the COVID pandemic, I went grocery shopping at one time
and I was in the parking lot in my car and I looked around at people and I realized how
many of them were overweight.
And I guess because we were during the pandemic, the thought crossed in my mind, you know,
this is also a pandemic.
You know, the overweight pandemic, we often hear it, but at that moment, you know, I truly
made that realization.
So as someone who thinks a lot about health and how to help people get healthier, what
do you make of that problem?
What are the causes?
So yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I think it was epidemic before COVID happened, to be honest with you.
There's still a lot of overweight people before.
I think COVID made it a little bit worse, but honestly, I think it's just a result of
how society has been built and shaped and what we chose to prioritize as a society.
Right?
You know, maybe if you back up like a few years to maybe a decade, if you go to Europe,
like there's not a lot of overweight people in Europe, just because culturally they value
different things.
But here we value hustle, we value, we were being busy as a badge of honor, we value convenience.
We value just being on the go.
Compared to if you go to Europe, it's like, no, you're going to sit down, you're going
to have a family meal, you got to work.
But you know, like I used to live in Milan in Italy and you have a little siesta in the
afternoon and it's a lot more relaxed of a lifestyle.
And it kind of forces people to be outside, to be in community versus here is no, you're
on the go, therefore you're making on the go decisions and these fast foods are so accessible,
they're so dense in calorie, they're so addicting that as soon as you kind of get into that
world, it just kind of starts to feed itself.
And then it becomes really hard to step out of it until you have a moment of awareness,
which could be caused by sickness, heart attack, diagnosis, you know, whatever it may be.
But yeah, it's I think it's the way that society and the culture has been built, at least here
in North America, that is causing people to kind of go down that path.
The word addictive resonates with me, because when I think about the people around me, friends
and family who are overweight, and try to lose that weight, it's just that, you know,
they can't change their habits, and they truly have that addiction with food.
And I think we can make parallels with, you know, non vegan food, like cheese or meat.
In his, you know, most important speech ever, you know, Gary, you have, you've Oski makes
the point that meat is the biggest addiction out there.
So can food be considered as addictive?
Yeah, I, I would say that yes, because I have had my own personal experiences with binge
eating, where I wanted to diet for something.
And I was doing using unsustainable methods to kind of get there.
And then I would have my moments where I was like, I would eat a, want to eat a box of
donuts, and then I'd be like, No, I shouldn't eat those donuts.
And I throw them in the garbage.
And then I'd sit there and be like, well, the donuts are still in the box in the garbage,
it didn't touch the garbage, I go back and kind of like eat the donut.
So to have that type of behavior, there's some type of, you know, addiction, not to
compare to being addicted to drugs and all that, because that's a whole other level.
And I want to make sure there's a layer of respect between the two of them.
But I also think not to blame it all on the food, the food is, is definitely a big component
of it.
But I think a big component is that change is hard.
And people have to in order to change a habit, nutrition is one thing, but people have to
confront the fact that they have a behavior that isn't serving them, that they've become
someone that are not necessarily happy with and that in order to become the person that
they want or the vision that they have of themselves in the future, they have to confront
potentially, you know, past trauma or just a lot of things that are very uncomfortable
to deal with.
And I think people struggling to get healthier to get fitter is one part like yes, the nutrition
is not helpful, but the second part is that it's very hard to kind of, you know, face
your demons in order for you to get past those barriers that you have for yourself to become
the version that you want.
I'd say it's a two way thing.
I'm interested by that, but by the relationship we have with food, because it's a big part
of vegan advocacy.
You know, the goal is to convince people to radically change their diet to a vegan diet.
And it's a big ask, if you ask me, you know, it's a big request that we put on people.
And you know, I try to think why have people like myself made that transition and it was
easier for me and why is it harder for other people?
And you know, what insight you might offer in, you know, helping advocates out there
to convince or make it appealing for the meat eaters out there to adopt a vegan diet.
Yeah, well, I think there's multiple causes, right?
Fear, lack of knowledge, insecurity.
There's so many components that goes into people not being receptive to the idea of
kind of changing their nutrition.
And you know, there's different forms of activism to kind of help people to get to that lifestyle.
There is people that are going to be more in your face, right?
They're going to be in the streets, they'll be doing some actual activism, there's going
to be people that are going to have some podcasts, they're just going to have people that are
going to be coaching.
There's different ways to do it.
And I think it's important to have all those spectrum.
I don't think there's one that's more important than the other because some people do need
you to be in their face for it to click for them.
Some people that's a little bit too aggressive for them, they just need to be led slowly
to it.
They need to kind of have that understanding.
So my form of activism is let me lead by example, let me help people transform, which therefore
they become living examples of what can happen when you do it right.
And then it kind of opens the door for people to ask questions.
So to me, I'm more of a fan of planting a seed and watering the seed over time.
And eventually people come to that realization for themselves.
But to answer the question is still like why people struggle to come to it.
It's just maybe they haven't encountered the right form of activism for them, right?
Maybe people around them have been too soft about it and they need someone to be in their
face and be like, look what you're doing.
Because sometimes people have been surrounded by people that have been in their face and
they need a softer form of activism to be like, okay, let me just like ease into it
and be open to the idea of changing my nutrition.
That's one way.
That's one thing.
The other thing is I think that in our society as well, there's like, especially for men,
it's like, oh, you need to eat meat to be manly and have testosterone and blah, blah,
blah.
So there is an ego component to it.
First outside of the norm of what they grew up with.
And they're like, well, it sounds appealing.
I hear all the benefits from it, but I don't know if I will be able to do it properly to
not get sick, right?
Because there's all the propaganda out there that you gotta be protein deficient and all
of these things.
And just a little bit of a fear and lack of understanding of how it actually works and
actually how simple it is.
And for them, they just need a little bit of education.
So I think people are coming from different places and you kind of different forms of
support.
And I think that's the beauty of being online is we're going to have podcasts like this.
There's people that are going to be on Instagram, on YouTube, they're going to be in the street
doing some activations.
And then people will kind of get to be exposed to all of these things.
And eventually one of those methods will resonate.
And then the like, I think the biggest scenario is someone, you know, gets a heart attack,
gets diagnosed with cancer, gets diagnosed with MS or some type of autoimmune or chronic
illness.
And that's kind of the thing that makes them realize like, I think I need to change how
I'm living because it's obviously not working.
So I think that's a big one that brings people to our world is sickness and disease, unfortunately.
I'm glad you're bringing that point because it's a divisive topic among activists.
You know, do we get in the face of people and are more abolitionist in our perspectives
and approach to vegan advocacy?
Or is it more of a, you know, like you said, soft approach and we advocate for reducing
animal consumption instead of, you know, going vegan right away.
So yeah, it's a big divisive topic and I think it needs more nuances instead of an ideological
approach to it.
Yeah.
If you treat veganism as like a business, it's a numbers game.
If you have like in your face activism and like slow transition activism, if you put
a hundred people through here and a hundred people through here, you will never be able
to convert a hundred percent of each group, right?
But you might get 40% of people here and 40% of people here.
That's a significant amount more of people that are going to turn vegan or start to eat
more plant-based than if we just relied on one form of activism, right?
Because there's never a hundred percent conversion rate on one methodology.
So like, can we have three, four or five of them and convert as much as possible in all
those areas, you're going to get way more people that way than like everyone having
the same method.
Then what about the argument?
We talked about the problem, the obesity problem, and I guess health is a big topic in people's
life.
You know, they think a lot about health, but at the same time, when I look at studies and
my own experience, if we sell veganism using that business metaphor, if we sell veganism
to people using the health arguments, then they're less likely to stay vegan in the long
term.
So what do you think of the health argument for veganism versus maybe the ethical argument
or the environmental argument?
Yeah, well, let's just be frank.
I've never met a vegan that came in from either one of the path, right?
Environment, animal cruelty, health, and all that, that as they got into it, they all discovered
all the other aspect of it.
And then it became about all those other reasons.
So I came in because I lost my late partner to cancer.
I lost my grandfather to cancer.
I lost my late partner to cancer.
And so health is the thing that brought me in.
And then I got exposed to those other areas.
And then it became about all of these reasons.
And so to me, it's kind of the same thing of like, the different forms of activism as
like, I don't care how people get in.
But once they get in, they get open to a whole new world of like, wow, actually benefits
environment, actually saves animal actually like prevents all of these other things.
And so again, to me, it's just more like, the more people we can get in to be exposed
to this to this truth in this world, then it's a win win everywhere because now they're
having reinforced arguments of like, why they should continue to do this, because maybe
they came in because they had a health scare, right?
Like, hey, you have a tumor, but it's not active, whatever, maybe then they get into
it, then they watch forks over a knife and cow's piracy, and they're like, Whoa, there's
so many other elements to this.
And then to me, it kind of just seals the deals as to why people should continue to
move forward with it.
And what about the the the worth, you know, the value of the argument itself, you know,
the health argument?
Is veganism truly healthier than a diet, including, you know, meat and animal products?
That's layered.
That's later of a question, especially nowadays.
So for sure, like, let's be honest, there's there's there's like, there's whole food
vegan and there's junk food vegan, right?
So we could debate that like eating meat and blah, blah, blah is worse than being a junk
food vegan, right?
Because you're not getting the cholesterol, the inflammation, the mucus and all that crap
from animal products.
But then there's like being a junk food vegan and being more whole food, plant based oriented
vegan, like that would be the healthiest, right?
Being a junk food vegan, I still believe is healthier than eating animal products, but
it's still not the healthiest, right?
Everyone should be leaning more towards like eating all foods.
But then who should we listen to, you know, to give us the guidelines to what we should
be eating?
Because there are a lot of people who label themselves as health experts.
And how do we, you know, identify, you know, who's the real expert versus the person who
might mislead us who doesn't know really what they are talking about?
Yeah, the big people, the movers and shakers in this space, Dr. Neil Barnard, Dr. Gregor,
Dr. Clapper, Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Cable.
If you read their books and you listen to any of their talks, they're pretty much all
saying the same thing, right?
So like the truth is basic and it's so basic that people don't believe that that's the
solution, right?
But if you focus on eating whole food, plant-based and a wide variety of plants, you're in a
good spot, right?
If you have different goals, like being athletic or shifting your body composition, same principles,
but with certain guidelines to be able to accomplish that goal.
But ultimately the basics is going to work.
Eat a variety of whole food, plant-based and you'll be in a good position.
Yeah, I like Dr. Neil Barnard, he's the one who wrote How to Live...
Power Foods Diet, his latest book.
I just had him on the podcast to promote his book, The Power Foods Diet is his latest one.
Oh, but did he write a book called How to Live Forever or something like that?
How Not to Die?
Yes.
That would be Dr. Gregor.
Dr. Gregor, that's the one I love, Dr. Gregor.
And he always says that health, it's relative.
An ice cream could be healthy relative to something else less healthy, like a bag of
chips, and so on and so forth.
So I like that relative approach to things and I guess that's what you're trying to express
here.
Yeah.
Again, it's layered, right?
There's layers to what's considered healthy.
Like, is it if you're going to be eating, like you said, ice cream or eating two steaks,
right?
One's going to be worse than the other.
So one technically would be a healthier option, but there will always be a healthier option
than the healthier option you're selecting.
Well, whatever we may think or what opinion we may have of the health argument, it is
the easiest one to make in terms of selling veganism because the ethical one, that's a
harder one because sometimes it touches people feelings and it upsets them.
And then some might argue, that's the goal.
That's the way we plant the seed.
But I feel like people are more receptive to talks about health and how to get healthier.
It's less of an offensive and disruptive topic of discussion.
For sure.
But the health element will only convert people if a, the person themselves get sick, or b,
if someone has someone that they really care about and love gets sick, then those are pretty
much only two scenarios that would wake someone up.
You can go to someone and be like, hey, this is healthier for you.
But if they're healthy and they're eating, if they're considered healthy and they're
eating meat, they won't listen to you, right?
Unless they get sick or someone they care about gets sick.
The animal cruelty aspect is we have as people more control over that because it's not waiting
for sickness to happen, right?
It's more like, hey, this is a truth that you get to look at.
And it's not dependent on you getting sicker and sicker until the point that you realize
that you should change.
It's like more upfront.
I was just actually, I have a, I have fit vegan athlete shirts, because that's my company.
And I always wear them at the gym.
And I had a guy come up to me, really big muscular guy, the gym's like, hey, man, are
you vegan?
I was like, yeah, I'm going on a decade this year.
And he was like, dude, I just transitioned.
I think it was like four weeks ago.
He's like, I saw a video on animal cruelty.
He's like, I just couldn't take a part.
I just couldn't take part of it.
And I think that was beautiful because he's a pretty in shape guy.
He was younger.
I was like, he's probably not going to get sick until, you know, he's in his fifties.
So it's beautiful that he got to watch a video and realize that at such a young age.
You know, when you become vegan, you don't have a choice but to get educated in nutrition
and health and because you get so many questions and it feels good to point to models out there,
vegan models.
And I don't mean like fashion models.
I mean like examples, like ambassadors, like Maxime, you know, let me show you.
There is an example of a vegan who's fit and who's healthy.
And you know, this helps a lot because you're always put against this image of a sickly
vegan that is, you know, present in people's minds and I guess propagated on social media
and stuff.
Yeah, for sure.
And, you know, I tell people like, hey, come and do an Ironman with me, come and work out
with me and, you know, see if vegans are weak.
And also like, you know, we've transformed always 800 people at this point.
I'm like, I have 800 proofs of people between 20 and 82 years old showing you what happens
when you get fit on a whole food plant based lifestyle.
It's like there's so much proof out there that it's undeniable that it works is just
the people that are getting close minded to it are going to choose to kind of ignore these
things and be like, ah, these people are special or I'm different.
My body needs meat, you know, but people come up with a lot of weird stories.
So lastly, I want to talk about the social media part of it.
As you might know, you know, I'm not very sympathetic to social media and the platforms
out there.
I think, you know, they do a lot of harm in terms of misinformation, in terms of, you
know, biases and the echo chambers and the list goes on and on.
And you're in the health world and I always feel a bit, you know, it feels funny to have,
you know, health content on such toxic platforms.
And I'm thinking, you know, yeah, maybe you're getting, you know, healthier physically through,
you know, being exposed to that kind of social media content, but you're not getting healthier,
you know, mentally.
And, you know, I wonder what is your, what are your thoughts about, you know, social
media and, you know, the mental health aspect of getting healthy in terms of, you know,
physically adopting that discipline and so on.
Yeah, that's a great question.
So if I did not have an online business and I was just like a regular person that had
a regular job, I would not be on social media, right?
So for me, every two months, I take one week off of all screens.
So I had no devices, no electronic devices for a full week I go offline.
I'm blessed to have scaled my company to a point where I do have a team that will post
my content for me.
So I don't really need to spend too much time on social media.
And yeah, there was a phase when I started, I was spending a lot of time on Instagram
and on YouTube creating content and I was like, man, like, this is affecting me in a
negative way.
But at the same time, I had to realize that it wasn't about me, that there's people out
there looking for help and that that's where the majority of people that are struggling
with their health and their weight are spending time on.
And so it felt like it was a duty for me to be on those platforms to educate people to
offer a service that would be life changing for them.
And I had to just not make it about me.
But what I did to kind of protect myself and layer myself is I do take these one weeks
where I do a digital detox for seven days every two months.
I do have a team that helps me post the content so that I don't have to be in there every
day kind of posting.
I pre create my content like this week I will have done, I will have record the next three
months worth of content so that I don't have to kind of like focus my my mind on that all
the time.
But yeah, the big part is if I was a normal person working a normal job, I would not be
on social media.
But again, it's not about me and the people that do need help are on these platforms.
I just honestly personally invite for people to curate their profile, right?
To me, my one of my main platforms is Instagram, like you choose who you follow.
So if you follow a bunch of people that make you feel anxious and negative, just don't
follow them, right?
Like screw their feelings.
There's a lot of friends that I have that I'm good friends with that I don't follow
on social media because I don't want to see their shit, right?
It's just not what I want in my life.
And I still love them, but it doesn't mean I have to follow them.
And at first it offended some of them.
But I was like, hey, if you're offended by that, like maybe we don't have the relationship
that I thought we did.
But yeah, ultimately you get to curate your feed.
So have things on there that you want to see and there's been points in my life as well
where I just unfollowed everyone.
When I opened my Instagram, there was nothing.
There was nothing for me to look at.
So yeah, just curation of what you choose to consume.
And second is if you don't make a living out of being on social media, like just don't
have those apps on your phone.
Like I don't have those apps on my phone.
They're on my computer or my laptop.
So when I go somewhere, I can't be on them.
So it forces you to be present because there's literally nothing to do on your phone.
That's amazing.
People take notes of that.
Those are great recommendations.
Okay, let's get into the business part.
You talked about having a team, staff.
When I hear that, I hear you're successful at doing business.
We're doing good.
Well, then let's start with the people who are listening to this and thinking, okay,
I want to start a business, but why a vegan business?
Is there a demand?
Is it not more difficult like an added challenge?
What do you think of vegan entrepreneurship in general?
And is there a place for initiatives, innovation, and entrepreneurship in that field?
Yeah, that's a loaded question.
So every business you're going to start is going to be hard, whether it's vegan or not.
It's going to be hard.
It's going to be challenging.
There's a reason why like, what are the stats?
Like 95% of businesses fell within five years, right?
So whether you start a vegan business or not, vegan business, like I'm not saying like starting
a steak business, but I'm starting like you start like an iPhone case business, right?
Not necessarily vegan or not vegan, but like any business you start is going to be hard
and challenging.
So for me personally, it is because I lost my grandfather.
I lost my late partner to cancer.
She passed away like three years, over three years ago now.
I've always been into fitness since I was 12 years old.
So I've been in the fitness world for over 18 years at this point.
And so to me, it just made sense to go in this path because when I saw my late partner
suffer for almost five years through her cancer treatments and ultimately losing her health
and her life, I was like, man, I don't want anyone to have to go through that.
And so to me, I was like, how can I help people reduce their risk of going through cancer
the way she did?
Well, like if I can get them to move their body, have a healthy body weight and eat whole
food plant based, which has been shown to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease,
diabetes, and all of these things, then I'm doing my part in the world.
I've had so many experiences in my life that led me to beat down this path.
It didn't just happen.
I had a lot of bad experiences and good experiences that led me to be in this position.
So my biggest piece of advice is if you are passionate about veganism, veganism is pretty
broad.
So obviously, it would need to be a bit more niche.
You can just start a vegan business.
What are you going to sell?
What's the service?
There's just so many types of, there's like four types of businesses you can start.
You can have a physical product and do B2C, so business to customer.
You can have a service B2C.
So like for me, coaching, business to customer.
You can have a physical product that's B2C.
So physical product could be like you sell desks, you sell iPhone cases from business
to customer, or you can have a service base or a software B2B.
So like I invented Zoom, I sell it to other people.
So this is pretty much the only four types of businesses you can start.
Like a physical product or a service slash software and then business to customer or
business to business.
I invite you to pick something that you have knowledge in, that you have skills in, and
that you enjoy doing because every new thing is exciting at the beginning.
There's always that honeymoon phase when you start a business, but then there's the part
where it's like you get, can I swear on this podcast?
I would say, yeah, you just get kicked in the nuts and you're just like, oh man, this
sucks, right?
Like we're short this month.
I got to pay 20 grand out of my pocket to kind of keep everything going.
And then you're like, whoa, is this really worth it?
I just spent 20 grand to kind of maintain things for a month, right?
And it's during those times you're like, no, I'm committed to the mission.
I'm committed to the vision.
And so if I have to do that for another month, I will do it to just keep everything running.
But if it's something that you're kind of just like, man, I don't care too much, you
might just shut down the business and lose money ultimately at doing it.
And so pick something that you're good at, that you're passionate about, that you know
you have the ability to serve the world in and then start with that and start small.
So whether it's offering a service like coaching, whether it's starting a product like a good
friend of mine, Robert Cheek, I was recording with him yesterday.
He does those like goodie boxes that he sells online.
So it would be like a physical product, right?
It could be something as simple as that.
Yeah, I would just say start small and test it out.
Just tell people like, and you have to tell people, right?
I have to tell people all the time that I do coaching, even though I've been doing it
for four plus years and we have almost 800 transformation.
Some people still don't know that I'm a coach.
That's the thing with online, right?
Not everyone, the algorithm doesn't show your stuff to everyone.
So you just have to keep repeating people the thing that you do.
But yeah, just getting started and ultimately not to get too far ahead and to kind of overwhelm
people but there's going to be a point in your business where you have to decide, do
I want to make it like a lifestyle business where it's just like me offering the service,
selling the goods, making some great money and just kind of keep it that life or do I
want to scale?
And when you go into scaling, you kind of stop doing the thing that you started off
and that you love.
So for me, I don't coach as much anymore because I have a team of coaches now because I cannot
coach everyone coming in because you have too many people coming into our program.
And so then I've kind of, I don't do as much coaching as I did when I first started.
And so yeah, does that answer your question?
Yes.
I want to get back to this intention concept because often when I encounter entrepreneurs
or people who want to go start a business, their only motivation seems to be making money.
And it's a total contrast with other successful entrepreneurs like yourself who I listen to
and who are talking about their impact and their passion and the good they're doing,
but never really about the money aspect.
So what do you make of people who are motivated by money, by becoming wealthy?
And yeah, yeah.
Again, there's so many layers to that as well.
I think it's a really, I'll give you a complex answer to it.
I'll be transparent.
To me, the impact is important because I don't want people to be in the position that my
late partner was because I saw what it was like 24-7.
And so I created this mission for myself to help 10,000 people get lean, thrive, disease
proof their body on plants by 2033 and a million by 2050.
Massive goal, which will require massive amounts of action and a lot of risk to kind of get
there.
So that's going to help me have that impact.
On the second side, I do enjoy making money for multiple reasons.
One of them is every single month we donate money to cancer patients that are on their
own healing journey.
Because when I was going through it with my late partner, I was dead broke.
I had nothing.
I lost my apartment.
I got into thousands and thousands of dollars in debt for paying for treatments.
And so if I can go to other cancer patients that were in our position before and I get
to give them a thousand dollars, $2,000, that feels so good to me because I wish someone
did that for me.
And from a selfish standpoint, I'm trying to have a ton of money in my bank account
out of my pure trauma.
And here's what I mean by that.
When my late partner was going through cancer, I was working at a smoothie bar making $12,000
a year.
I was spending about $5,000 to $10,000 a month on cancer treatments.
So spending almost more than a month that I was making in a year.
Right?
And money was the thing that prevented me from offering her treatments that would make
her feel better and that potentially would have helped save her life.
And so for four and a half years, I hated myself for not making enough money to be able
to pay for the treatments that would have potentially increased the quality of her life
or potentially saved her life.
And so to me, again, I understand that it's my own trauma, but I'm trying to get to the
place that if my mom gets sick with cancer, if my dad gets sick, if my wife gets sick,
I can just be like, Hey, we will spend any amount of money necessary for you to get the
best treatments in the world.
Because I personally don't want to have to go through that where money is an issue for
me to try to save someone that I love.
So it's not coming from the place of like, I want a Ferrari in a big house.
It's like, I want money so I can save the people that I love in case they get sick.
Right?
But I understand that that's my own journey.
That's kind of my own trauma, and that's kind of driving that.
So that's one side of the question.
But for people, I feel like a lot of people that want to get into business potentially
grew up or with not a lot of money.
That was kind of my scenario.
We didn't grow up with a lot of money.
So I always try to like start small businesses as I grew up to try to get out of that and
try to have a better life for myself where I didn't have to work a job where I didn't
have to work for someone else.
But then as you kind of start to make money, you kind of fall into and I've never met anyone
that has it, but you fall into the hedonic treadmill.
Right?
Which is, oh, you make a little bit more, you spend a little bit more, you make a little
bit more, you start to spend a little bit more.
And then next thing you know, you know, you're spending a significant amount of money for
you to maintain your lifestyle.
And I fell into that because I grew up with no money.
And then I had access to a lot of money.
And I didn't know how to deal with it.
Like people think that they would know how to deal with it, but you don't.
Once those transfers hit your bank account, you don't know how you're going to deal with
it until it actually happens.
And so to me, my lifestyle crept up on me.
And then I had to come to a point of like, okay, I don't need all of this stuff.
Let's just scale back.
Because I've made a significant amount of money in the past four plus years.
And I had some mentors and I just realized that it's not about how much money you make,
but how much you keep.
Like what's the point if you make a million dollars a year and you spend 950,000 of it?
Yeah, 50,000 left at the end of the year.
There's nothing impressive about that.
Someone that makes 100 grand a year would be able to potentially put that aside, right?
And so you kind of have to go through that.
It's kind of like your parents telling you not to touch fire because it's hot.
Like you kind of have to get your hand close to the fire to be like, oh, this burns, this
sucks.
I need to go backwards.
But unfortunately, some people like get really close to the fire and end up kind of losing
it all and it kind of creeps up on them.
I'm just blessed that I had good mentors around me to kind of be like, hey, you need to be
smarter with your finances.
You gave an example of spending 20k on a month in order to keep your business afloat.
And that example gave me chills.
And I think this is the greatest obstacle to people becoming entrepreneurs.
The fear.
They're afraid of failing.
That's I guess the first fear.
And then they're afraid of a number of things.
And I think every person, it's personal.
They have their own thing.
But what do you say to the fearful people out there?
How do we address our fears and how can we overcome that obstacle in order to get to
that entrepreneurial island?
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
I saw you bring that up.
I was thinking of a quote.
I was listening to the Kevin Hart video on Netflix that came out because he got like
the Mark Twain award.
And his speech at the end made me tear up because he was like, it was a gamble.
It was a gamble for me to build all of this.
And then he's like, in life, you have to take the gamble because you may choose to take
the safe path and kind of keep your job.
And let's be honest, we have a job and you have a family and you have a house and a car.
You're not stashing that much money aside per month.
And most people don't have a security account that if shit hits the fan, that they'd be
good for a long period of time.
And so even if you choose the safe route, you may still fail because what if you lose
your job and then the interest rate goes up on housing or whatever it may be, and then
you have two months in your bank account to live and then that's it.
And so to me, I was like, well, that doesn't make sense to me.
I know that I'm a hard worker.
I know that I'm smart.
I know that I will do what's necessary for me to succeed.
And so let me take a bet on myself and go on my own because then now if it fails, I
can blame me.
But if I have a job and I get fired, why can't really blame me like my before I started my
company, I was working at a corporation and just randomly one day they call me into the
office and like, hey, man, we have to let you go.
And I said, guys, I'm one of your best employees like we know, but everyone else has been here
for like longer than you and your last person hired.
We made bad financial decisions and you know, we have to let you go like effective immediately.
I didn't have a car.
I had a company car, which I was using to drive my ex partner to my partner to get cancer
treatments.
That was my income to pay for cancer treatment.
So I had no job and no car.
And I was like, I got home.
I was like, man, because of these schmucks that made bad decisions, my whole life is
in shambles.
I was like, never again, I'm never putting the quality of my life in the future of my
life into the hands of other people.
It's my it's it's I have to take ownership of that.
I cannot leave that to another human.
And I went on my own and became really successful.
And man, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbow the whole way through.
Like I said, like, there's there's months I think, like over the course of five months,
I bled like 60, 70 K just because I didn't want to fire employees.
I wanted to hold on to them and trying to turn things around.
But I could have let them go in the first month and not bled all that money.
But I was like, no, like this is a good team.
I'm trying to make it work and turn it around.
And so to me, like, I just don't like the aspect of putting the future of my life and
the quality of my life in the hands of another human being.
And I from a personal level, like my my wife works for me in the company.
And sometimes she's like, oh, like, I I kind of want to have like my own things.
I'm thinking of going to get a job.
And I'm like, you want to go to a place where you have to ask another adult to go on vacation?
I'm like, that's this that doesn't make sense to me.
I'm like, we go on vacation whenever we want.
Like we're going to Hawaii, we're going to New York.
I was like, I'm not going to go.
I'm not going to I didn't build this life for you to have to ask another human for us
to go on vacation.
I was like, I'm going to help you start your company.
She's going to start her skincare company.
Like, I'm gonna help you start your company.
There's no way that we'll ever be in a position to ask another grown ass man or woman if we
can go on vacation.
And so to me, that's like, yeah, that's why I took the bet on myself because I get to
choose if it doesn't work, it's my fault.
But if it doesn't work, I get to turn it around.
Right?
Like I have full control.
It's not like I'm making less money at my job.
And I work harder.
Doesn't matter.
My boss still gets to decide whether I have a job or not, whether I get a raise or not.
And so to me, I'd rather have my my revenue related to how hard I work and how smart I
work than to the opinion of another human that goes like, yeah, I think you deserve
an extra $5,000 per year.
And I guess you failed multiple times and on so many levels.
You know, let's talk about some of your failures.
Man, I did I did my math, I probably made a million dollars worth of mistakes in the
past four years.
Like just me hiring coaches didn't work out trying different strategies didn't work out
invested in some stuff thought it would turn around didn't work out.
But there was million dollars was like my education, it helped me learn lessons that
I would have never learned if I went to school that I would have never learned otherwise.
And I'm so much more wise and educated now when I move forward, I move forward with efficiency.
And you know, one of my good mentors always said like, with new levels comes new devils.
And I've had to like, face all those devils to continue to get to a new level.
And right now I'm in a great place.
I'm facing new devils now that's going to help me get to that new level.
Once I get to that new level, hey, something else is going to hit the fan.
There's always going to be something.
And that's why I said earlier, it's important for you to enjoy what you do.
Because if you don't, you'll want to quit as soon as it gets hard.
And you know, for those people listening that are in business, you'll relate to the moment
so I'm like this, this is kind of my studio slash office, man, there's days when on my
computer and I'm like, yes, we're crushing it.
Like we're taking over the industry.
And then two days after I'm just laying on the ground crying and I'm like, what the heck
is happening?
Everything's falling apart.
Yeah, it's literally it's it's a wild ride for sure.
Okay, let's get technical now.
You talked about the different failures.
And my question is, how do you evaluate what is a good idea and what is a bad idea?
And how do you even, you know, get the idea to start your business?
Because maybe listeners are thinking, okay, I'm vegan, I have the passion, I want to make
a difference.
And I love that pitch from Maxime, I want to the life of an entrepreneur, but I don't
have any good idea, any worthy idea, you know, to pursue.
And even if I did, how do I evaluate that it's good enough for me to bet my life on?
So what do you say to that?
Yeah, well, hey, we live in a beautiful world.
We don't need a lot of money to start a business.
Right?
Like, let's just say like, I don't know, what is something that you enjoy?
Plants, gardening, I love gardening, and it's summer.
So I'm thinking about it.
Okay, shit.
So what you're about, you go on like, Kajabi or school.com, and you build a whole course
on gardening.
And then you go on social media and then you create content on gardening.
And if you guys, hey, if you guys want the full details as to how I built my beautiful
garden and blah, blah, blah, join this course for nine bucks, 10 bucks, 50 bucks, 1000
bucks, whatever it may be.
Right?
Like, what you are selling, knowledge is the easiest thing to sell, to be honest, right?
Because if you're going to build like a phone, a phone case, you need a prototype, you need
to sit on inventory, you need to pay for shipping and you know, deal with all that stuff.
So I'm not a fan of physical products.
I've invested in companies that are physical products because I don't have to run it.
I don't have to deal with the headache, right?
I just give the money.
But from my personal standpoint, I love service based business because it's purely knowledge
base.
So to me, I have the knowledge of how to help people transform like that.
Right?
So that's the thing that I'm selling.
And so whatever knowledge you have, there's probably someone else out there that would
want it.
And so what I would say is start with something small, see if you can get people to buy it.
And then as people buy it, you can just even run like a case study.
They know it's 100 bucks.
Now it's 50 bucks for the first 10 people that join.
Get those 10 people that come into the program, pay 50 bucks, you just made 500 bucks.
And out of those people's like, hey, the exchange, I give you 50% off, but I need your feedback
on how I can make this better.
And then they give you feedback on make it better, make it better, sell more of it, get
the feedback, make it better, sell more of it, get the feedback, make it better.
The program I have now is world class compared to when I first started over four years ago.
It's over shit over four years ago when I started.
So yeah, it's just like start with something small.
It could just be like you coaching people one on one or building a course.
And then yeah, just offering people to come in at a discounted rate in exchange for their
feedback.
How can we make this better and then make it better and then continue to sell it.
And that's literally the game is you continue to make your service or your product better,
get the feedback, sell more of it and just kind of continue to grow that way.
But I think people are looking for the million dollar idea.
They want, you know, to invent the iPhone or something like that.
Yeah, man, I'll be honest with you.
Like when you listen to those stories of people that actually are billionaires that own like
jets or that live this lavish lifestyle where they're not like flexing, they're secretive
about it, right.
They own like Horto potty business.
They own like moving companies like they own some of the most basic non flashy companies.
But everyone sees like the Alex or Moses, the Steve job, like all the people that are
on TV that are all over the news and they want that.
But I think I think you just have to choose what you want for your life.
Like are you trying to be flashy because you want to impress people?
You're actually trying to make money so you can provide for your family and be there for
the people that you love.
To me, I'm trying to be the guy that's loaded wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a time X and
no one knows that I'm making money.
Like that's who I'd rather be.
And that's who I'm being now.
Right.
Like fun story for your listener about business.
So you know, growing up, if you had a Rolex, you were like, you made it right.
If you bought a Rolex.
So when I made a million dollars in my business, I went to go buy a Rolex because to me that
was growing up.
That was a sign of like, I've made it.
And so I paid 15 grand for my first Rolex.
I've never spent that amount of money on anything in my entire life.
My credit card got declined because they thought I was getting frauded.
Right.
I had to like, I was at the jewelry shop on my phone.
I was like, Hey, just let this go through.
I look stupid right now in the store.
And I bought the watch.
I got in the car with my wife and I started crying and I just realized that it wasn't
about the watch.
It was about me being in a position to be able to buy that watch and not have to worry
about my finances.
When I came from struggling with buying cancer treatments, sleeping in my car, eating at
food banks and all this stuff.
And then I bought the watch and then, you know, I wear it from time to time, but it's
an expensive watch.
So I can't, I live in LA.
I can't wear that stuff everywhere.
Like it's pretty sketchy, you know, depending on kind of where you go.
And then I came to this realization like a few months ago and I was like, man, that's
probably the stupidest purchase I've ever made.
I was like, I don't want to like show people that like, Hey, I've had great money and all
of these things.
And so I was like, I need to get myself a humble watch, like just a watch that is just
like the most basic watch ever.
And so I bought a hundred dollar Timex watch.
That's what I have on my wrist now.
It's what I wear all the time.
And I told myself that for the next decade, I'm not buying another watch just as like
a delayed gratification thing for the next decade.
But like just to be like, Hey man, you need to continue to be humble.
It's not about trying to impress others.
It's about thinking to build something that's going to change the lives of people and screw
spending money on those stupid things.
When you look at the vegan movement and the vegan activism world and the vegan advocacy
space, do you think, you know, Oh, I feel positive about it, you know?
And yes, the future is vegan.
Yeah, I think the vegan movement is going to continue to grow.
I think it was doing really well before COVID and it kind of took a dip during COVID.
I know a lot of vegan restaurants kind of had to close down and everything.
I have for some reason, I have a sense that people will develop a new model for vegan
restaurants, that it may just be like, I don't know how you call those, but like, I'm making
this word up like a white label kitchen, right?
Like one kitchen that cooks food for different restaurants and ships them out where there's
not really any like physical locations for it.
I feel that it's going to grow over time, but we're still like far from it becoming
the norm.
I don't want it to come to that, but I feel like once there's like a catastrophic environmental
event and that like the government has to step in to kind of change of like, Hey, everyone's
eating plant based, like we're, you know, running out of trees and blah, blah, blah.
I think it takes for the government to step up if they want the world to change to that
extent, right?
Like they're, and I think unfortunately it's kind of like humans, they're going to wait
to have like that cancer moment to be like, Oh, I need to change.
I think it's going to take like a cancer moment for the world, for the government and those
big organizations to step in and be like, Hey, we recommend this and we kind of need
to change this.
Or I think that once they figure out how to monetize the heck out of the vegan movement
and they can make more profit from that, then they'll potentially ditch it meat.
It's a money thing for them, right?
So I'm like, if they can make more profit from plant based eating, then I'm sure that
they're going to push it a lot more if they can get their hands in it.
And if we can have more vegan entrepreneurs, more people starting those businesses, you
know, that that's one way to kind of bring more money into that space and to show those
big organizations of like, Hey, there's funds to be made.
And I think they know because more companies are coming out with vegan lines or plant based
lines of product.
We're subsidizing a big ag, you know, the meat industry, but I feel like we should be
subsidizing you because you're making people healthier.
So yeah, the government is putting its finger on the scale.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
And it's a yeah.
And it's you know, like there's places that are like food deserts and you know, we didn't
talk about that earlier, but man, eating junk food is so cheap.
My wife and I were on a road trip.
And you know, when you do road trips, it kind of across the United States and some of those
small towns you see by the obesity epidemic is happening, why it's where it's happening.
And then you go into a restaurant and it's you can get like 700 calories for like a buck
50.
You know, and it's not filling, but it's a buck 50.
And it's food for them if they're especially they're on a tight budget.
And so yeah, like making that healthy food as much as it's affordable, like let's be
honest, rice and beans and it's cheap, but it's not as convenient as going to a drive
through and paying a dollar 50 for burgers and fries.
Right.
And so there's still some work that needs to be done in that space.
Well, at least don't build the McDonald's of this world near your neighborhood school,
you know, and I'm saying that as you know, the neighborhood school in my in where I live
is just next to a McDonald.
Yeah, you know, at lunchtime, you see just a flock of students going to that McDonald
getting their lunch.
And I feel so, you know, I guess the depressed about it, you know, I know those kids are
now building a habit of eating junk food.
I was my wife sent me this video on Instagram.
You know, it is your partner sends you a bunch of like a reels and by text, look at this
video, it's funny, but it was just like this, just like average American overweight mom
and like she was like, Hey, I'm making lunch for my kids, right.
Because I loved them.
And I was like, I can feel the love that she had for her kids in that video.
But man, it was like Lunchables and Kit Kat and sugary Gatorades and blah, blah, blah.
But like, I can, you can tell in the video, she really loved her kids and she was so happy
to make a meal for them.
But you can tell that there was a massive lack of knowledge because she didn't have
those habits for herself.
And therefore she would definitely not have them for her kids.
And so yeah, for the parents listening like, man, you're the biggest leading example.
If you gain more knowledge for yourself, you're going to start feeding your kids differently.
And it drives me nuts.
When people say like, you make your kids eat plant based and people go berserk, but they're
going to feed them McDonald's and Coke and Gatorade and Kit Kat.
Like that's crazy to me.
Rice and beans in a kale salad versus a Big Mac.
Like I don't know why people go nuts over that.
So we're getting near to the end of this conversation, Maxime.
And I wanted to ask you quickly three health questions.
And I know my listeners will be grateful for that.
So first question, your favorite vegan hack?
Air fried tofu.
I see.
I just in between meetings, I'll go throw in the air fryer, I'll come out and it's
it's ready to go.
That's my number one hack.
Okay, best physical activity to lose weight.
It's general but strength training, resistance training.
That would be the biggest one.
And concretely what does it does that mean?
Any, any type of like big movement, like assisted pull up, push ups, squats, deadlifts, things
like that, the things that are going to help you strengthen your bones, build lean muscle
tissue that will help increase your metabolism far more than running, hiking, Pilates or
all of those other things.
Really even jogging.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
It kicks jogging in the butt for sure.
Is jogging overrated?
Some people like it from a mental health standpoint, I enjoyed from that standpoint, because it's
just like it's peaceful, not thinking about anything.
But if you're looking to kind of shift your body composition, which means like building
muscle and losing fat, strength training by far outbeats any other form of exercise.
And you know, jogging, some people hate it, right?
Some people hate running.
So if you hate running, don't run, go bike, go swim, go play soccer, like you go to there's
other ways to do cardio than than than to run.
And lastly, a general question, but I have to ask it.
What's the question people should be asking you but are not?
I've never been asked that before.
That's a good question.
Man, like thousands of podcasts, I've never been asked that question.
You have a question people have never asked me.
Do you stop me?
I always have something to say.
I think that's the best question.
What's the question that people don't ask me?
Yeah, ultimately, like what's the what's the biggest factor that prevents people from moving
forward with their goals?
That would be the biggest question that people don't ask me.
And the answer would be that people are too attached to the timeline.
If you can manage your expectation, if you can, if the goal is that important to you,
and you can detach yourself from the timeline, you will always reach your goal.
I'll just give like a small example has nothing to do with health and fitness.
But like, I have a picture up here with Mr. Tony Robbins.
When I was 15 years old, read his book.
And I was like, I'm going to meet this guy in the next two years.
I want to have a photo with them, right?
Like you have a photo of the president with them, right?
I was like, I want to photo with Tony Robbins.
Two years, it took me 15 years to be able to do it.
Do I care that it took me 15 years?
No, I met him.
I chatted with him.
I got a photo with him.
And so when you actually really care about the goal, you don't care about how long it
takes.
You're just committed to getting there.
And once you get there, everyone that I know that has had a lot of success and has reached
the goals that they wanted to always say that it took longer than expected, and always say
that it happened perfectly whenever it happened.
And so whatever your goal is, detach yourself from the timeline, just keep showing up consistently
until that thing happens, and you're going to be stoked once you get there.
Amazing.
What a great way to end this interview.
And I have to say, so funny that I had, I fell sick and I had to do this interview while
being sick while talking about health.
And if people could see the video contrast, I'm gray, I'm all looking sickly while you're
in this glow of health.
I got a big light.
I got a nice studio.
You look great.
Don't worry about it.
Well, I thought it was really funny.
But Maxime, thank you so much for your time and for your precious answers.
And I hope you're inspired plenty of listeners to consider entrepreneurship as a way to make
a difference in this world.
Beautiful.
Well, thank you very much for having me.
I appreciate it.
And you don't want me making a little plug.
If there is someone listening that wants to get into vegan fitness coaching, we're actually
expanding our coaching team.
And we're actually teaching our coaches on how to earn six figures a year working from
online without running a business.
And so if you're someone that loves to create content and it has a heart to serve, just
head over to our website, fitvegancoaching.com.
There's a career tab and you can kind of apply there just for the people that don't necessarily
want to be have a business without wanting to work online.
Amazing.
I'll add that link to the description below.
Thank you everyone for listening.
I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans you know.
Let's encourage more people to take action.
Again, thank you so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.