Hunting 80,000 Deer to Save Hawaii

Jake Muise1:14

Seeing like those heat waves like pumping off of that pavement. you like that's got to be so daunting when you're like looking down the road and you're just seeing the whole thing like waving around like

Jake Muise1:36

And heat

Jake Muise1:48

Well, I still get the feeling you've ended up on the highway though

Jake Muise1:52

Yeah,

Jake Muise2:09

Uh, grew up in northern Canada. Uh, so small town called Rainbow Lake. Uh, probably the best marker would be like the Great Slave Lake is is way up near the Northwest Territories. And we're a little bit above that.

Jake Muise2:22

Uh, so crazy, brutal winters, uh, very short summers with mosquitoes the size of your head, uh, all the things that come with like living in northern Canada. And then when I was um 16, 15, 16, we moved out to Nova Scotia, Canada on the East Coast.

Jake Muise2:40

Huge move. Um

Jake Muise2:45

Um quickly like brand new world. Uh fell in love really quickly with like surfing and kind of that like maritime atmosphere. Played volleyball, learned to play volleyball out there in Nova Scotia. Got really lucky and and got pretty good at it. played for like junior Olympic teams and then got recruited to play volleyball in Hawaii. So that's eventually what brought me out to Hawaii.

Jake Muise3:07

Yeah. So that's what got me here.

Jake Muise3:14

They just won a national championship a couple weeks ago. Uh we ended up winning a national championship when we were there.

Jake Muise3:20

Oh, division one. Like it it was um culturally like volleyball in Hawaii is like really unique and special. So, I remember coming on my recruiting trip and being from Canada, it was like hockey.

Jake Muise3:32

A little bit of basketball, more hockey. Um, and I remember like getting into kind of the like residential section on the way to the University of Hawaii and seeing all of these like ash fault volleyball courts

And I saw somebody like dive for a ball on like an ashealt court and I'm like, where am I? Like, uh, so culturally I think they really enjoyed and appreciated the sport. uh Stan Sheriff Center packed like 10 12,000 people in it. Oh, really? Like amazing place to play volleyball.

Jake Muise4:18

It wasn't a thing for I mean it wasn't a thing there either. Volleyball was the default cuz we like weren't couldn't afford hockey pads. Like my dad I remember my dad and mom basically saying like pick a sport.

Jake Muise4:29

That we can pay for.

Jake Muise4:31

And it was like shoes and knee pads. And even then like I remember having to like go sell the chocolate bars on knocking on people's door to like even raise money for shoes. So that's what kind of defaulted volleyball and so lucky that did. But yeah, there was my mom and dad and two other people sitting in the stand. So coming from like a place where volleyball had very little value like value culturally to here was just like it was the coolest thing ever.

Jake Muise5:00

Yeah. So there was there was enough there. But I think more importantly is at the in Canada instead of the state level at the provincial level.

We were I was good enough to play on the provincial essentially like the Nova Scotia team.

Yeah. But that got you exposure to the much larger provinces like Alberta and British Columbia and you kept playing like all of these tournaments in the summer and ultimately that competition like playing significantly better people got me the exposure that I needed to be able to come like come down here.

Jake Muise5:28

Um but you know what actually I just remembered this

I think they were looking at me or two other guys from California and I remember Tino Reyes the assistant coach telling me like in my third or fourth year why they picked me.

Yeah. I sent them a video of surfing in uh a bay in Nova Scotia in the winter. Yeah.

And there's like four feet of snow on the ground and there's like all this slush

Jake Muise5:53

On the ocean. And I think I I remember Tina being like, well, if he's crazy enough to do that,

He's probably crazy. Like if like they're trying to make a decision on like which guy might be a little bit tougher.

Jake Muise6:32

Absolutely.

Jake Muise6:46

Um I got crazy lucky. So they screwed up my dorm assignment.

Jake Muise6:53

So you're rolling in on day one. I was supposed to be like kind of down the way in the nicer dorms with the California kids and like all of the continental folk.

Yeah. And they screwed it up and they put me in this place called Johnson Hall B. And this is like the bad part of the city. This is the bad part of like the the campus.

Jake Muise7:14

And Johnson Hall B was where all the Hawaiian kids or like hyper local guys

Yeah.

Stayed for the summer to try and get good enough grades to get into college.

Jake Muise7:26

That was that that like little group of guys there. And this particular wing that they put me in were all guys from this island called Molokai, which is this small island. Yeah. It's 10 miles wide by 30 miles long. And I walked in and you've you've seen Polynesian people like better picture. I'm walking in and I've got the shance on.

Jake Muise7:45

Remember the 3/4 pants?

Jake Muise7:47

I've got like a liners in my pants. We didn't even know what board shorts was. Um, and I walk in the door and there's like these eight guys sitting on this super old beat up couch and like the biggest bones and frames I've ever seen.

And one of the guys looks at me and he's like, "What are you doing?" I was like, "Uh, Johnson Hall B, like 1A." And he's like, "Oh, you got to have the wrong place." And I like showed them the paperwork and they're like,

Jake Muise8:16

They're like, "We're going to eat you, boy." And like you've heard this saying before like you know this Allah spirit is 100% real. In 30 seconds that group of guys decided that like they were going to take care of me and that was it. Like from

Jake Muise8:33

They're like well we're either going to like kill you or you're going to be one of us.

Jake Muise8:38

And they just decided that I don't know what it was like and again like feel so fortunate cuz that single moment like paves a lot of my future.

Yeah. that very night like we were out watching a comedy special together. two nights later I was in a fight with him on the street like when these guys looked at us the wrong way like got to completely grow up all over again embedded in this like ultra unique culture and inclusing including my roommate um was from Molokai and his family it's called Hana but they ended up adopting me

Jake Muise9:12

Um so Nova Scotia was way too far and way too expensive to like go so

Jake Muise9:17

Every like Thanksgiving weekend Christmas whatever else it thing remember it was like 40 bucks. We would just fly to Moai and hunt and fish and hang out. So like got to not just like within school but really got to be like um a real part of this place um from day one. And if id have ended up in the other dorm I remember like the kid's name like if if id ended up with Matt

Jake Muise9:41

Instead of like Makana

Jake Muise9:53

No, that's fine.

Jake Muise9:56

Completely different. Yeah.

Jake Muise9:57

It's a predominantly like uh Hawaiian island. The vast majority of people there are Hawaiian. Uh it's I think right now there's only 6,000 people on the whole island

And there's not like a big tourist spot. There's no hotels. they've like actively fought for years to try and keep that place the way it is. So there's I think there was there was a kind of a peak of tourism in the 80 and 90s ' 80s and 90s they have some of the most beautiful like beaches in the world. Um but that community members of that community have chosen for that place not to become uh uh the Kona Coast or the Maui Coast or and and I think that's like admirable.

It's what they've done. But that means that there's essentially like very little economic opportunity on that end.

Tourism drives like the vast vast majority of like the economy here. So that place has to operate a different way. Like there's tons of like trade and bartering. There's very few like local stores. There's not a single stoplight. Like it's a very it's a completely different place.

Jake Muise10:59

Essentially. Yeah.

Jake Muise11:00

They are. Um and there's all of the goods and bads that comes with a small community. there's crime and there's drugs and there's all those things, but there's also like if you're driving on the highway and you don't wave at somebody, like you're getting a phone call 15 minutes later like, "Hey, is there something [ __ ] wrong?"

Like it's that small of a community like you've been in those communities that like if you miss a wave to somebody like you're going to hear about it.

Jake Muise11:43

A cousin.

Jake Muise11:44

Yeah. So

Jake Muise11:54

Yeah. Yeah.

Jake Muise11:57

Uh this story is actually pretty good. um uh Kuani who is who is my wife and she's extraordinary. Um

I didn't actually meet her. I had been going over uh I finished college. I played uh three years of professional volleyball. Yeah. In the Europe and Maldives and Bali and all these really super fun places. But during the summers I was going back to Moka too. Like that was that was home basically.

Okay. So went back for the summer and in the summers is all the graduation parties when the high school kids graduate. In Hawaii they throw these huge parties. Okay. Um so was helping the family. One of the Ninoa was graduating and we're making his party

And she hadn't been home. Uh she moved um probably six or seven years ago and she hadn't been home in a while and so nobody had seen her and she's admittedly like beautiful.

Yeah. Um, and I'm standing at this party and she walks in the front door and oh, she's going to kill me for doing this, but she walks in the front door and I look at Auntie Lori, who's my Hana mom, and I was like, I don't know who that is, but I'm going to marry her. And she looks at me and she's like, "You don't have a chance. She's like this beautiful, smart, articulate, like Hawaiian woman." And everybody in the like everybody in the entire party like 700 people are like, "Oh my gosh, every guy is like losing it." And I start telling everybody

Jake Muise13:20

And so like

The one muggle in the whole place saying like he's going to get the girl and they're all like you don't have a chance.

And two days later we were inseparable.

Jake Muise13:37

Yeah. Yeah. So, Kamehameha Schools, which is a um school for like Hawaiian kids.

Jake Muise13:43

Yeah. They have one on Oahu. So, she ended up being a border and her family moved to Hilo, which is on the Big Island. Um

And so she she moved when she was I think like 11 or 12. Okay.

Ended up being on a Oahu boarding and then like the rest of the family moved to Hilo. But long story short, uh would have never been

At that party.

Yeah. gotten to meet her uh and make three little beautiful brown babies and all like I continue to get to like be a part of this community and place through her family and all of the different things that we get to do.

Jake Muise14:19

Oh, uh she definitely got it from her family

Really. Um well you have to also remember um I met her in the summer and I'd already signed a contract in the Maldives on Mali. So they had like kind of heard about me. I met them a little bit. I think I met them like very very quickly.

Jake Muise14:39

And but she had already decided that she was going to finish school uh one semester early and come to Europe with me and hang out.

So it was also like it wasn't just like we were meeting and hanging out. It's like we were meeting and like she was like

Jake Muise14:52

Yeah. There's a little bit of an extreme in like how we were meeting. Yeah. But there's definitely also a little bit of cultural tension around, you know, Caucasian a white guy how like marrying a Hawaiian girl.

Jake Muise16:09

And I definitely will take that as a compliment.

Jake Muise16:13

Um definitely couldn't have done that 15 20 years ago and I think maybe why I'm starting to get pretty good at it is I think I've learned I'm still learning but I know a lot of the rules of this place.

Jake Muise16:26

So a lot of the rules of like how you operate specifically in this place within this like super unique culture. All of those have to like find their way into leadership.

Yeah. like any place. I've just been lucky enough to get taught the rules and have my wife is the first one to like correct me constantly. It doesn't matter if it's pronunciation.

Jake Muise16:53

I remember we must have been together for like 5 days and she was like, "If we're going to do this, I have one rule." And I was like, "What's that rule?" She's like, "I'm going to correct you every single time you say something wrong and you're never allowed to get mad at me."

Jake Muise17:07

And I remember saying like, "I promise very few things." And I was like, "I promise."

Jake Muise17:12

And she to this day corrects me both in like speech, but uh can't remember. Oh,

4 days ago, I was there was somebody on the beach and they were they're not they were driving me crazy.

Yeah. But one of the rules here, one of the like unsaid rules of this place is you're not allowed to stare for too long.

Jake Muise17:31

And if you do, it's like super rude.

Jake Muise17:33

And she's like, "You're doing it again." And I was like, "Damn it." Like um learning all of the small tiny rules of this place has I think all of that under is like the foundations of can you lead in this place? Can you fundamentally like inspire, change behavior? So, it's been all of those compounding lessons, I think, is what probably a little bit of what you saw and the reaction you like we get from those young men in that place.

Jake Muise19:30

Yeah. Like these Polynesians have a way of and and Hawaiians especially.

Jake Muise19:36

I think to operate in super small like think about an island

Yeah. to operate in super small islands, you have to be a little bit forgiving in like how you operate and but then there's a line like when resources or family or anything like like come into like real danger.

Jake Muise19:53

Uh and these were very much like a a waring people. Yeah.

Like you're highly aggressive people. That's still in them.

Uh and there's lots of savagery in there and you get to like see it on display with somebody like Holloway. Yeah. Yeah,

But you also see it on display in downtown Honolulu on the right night. So,

Jake Muise20:13

Yeah.

Jake Muise21:30

I ended up doing marketing and management.

Jake Muise21:39

Uh we're just in Hilo on the other side of the island.

Jake Muise22:26

So I think I yeah had some of the base outdoor skills maybe the probably the base of it that's more important was um grew up eating moose meat, eating feeasant, eat like grew up where like wild food was a part of every day.

Jake Muise22:43

And got to continue that when I came to Hawaii when um when I all those weekends when we went over to Molokai like we would shoot deer.

Jake Muise22:51

And then we'd bring it back and put it in that tiny little dorm room freezer and that's what we ate until we ran out and then we had to go to the cafeteria and I like you always felt like [ __ ]

Yeah. when you had to eat the cafeteria versus like what you had there.

Jake Muise23:07

Same thing. Yeah.

Jake Muise23:08

So, and hunting kind of have grown up in this subsistence hunting wild food lifestyle and then I don't know if it's like the defining entrepreneurial moment for me because I I think I was I've been an entrepreneur for like a long time. Um, but one of the weekends we went back to Molokai when I was a junior uh at uh, they had been going through a pronounced drought and we were walking into our favorite hunting area and I turn the corner. I'm like, "Oh, I can like see them all laying down.

I'm like, "Oh, perfect. They don't know we're there." And then as I'm getting closer, I'm like, "Wait, why are they not moving?" And get a little closer and like see them moving a little bit and realize like, "Holy shit." Like all of them are basically like lying down dying of starvation. Oh my god.

They had run out of food to eat. So the drought had basically like wasn't enough rain to produce more grass there. There's so many deer that they basically like eaten everything available to eat.

Jake Muise24:00

And with no predators like with nothing else to balance populations. That's how that population is balanced on on like every 10 or 15 years there's this pronounced drought and tens of thousands of animals die.

Jake Muise24:18

Invasive is a tough word because like axis deer get to Moka in the late 1800s.

Jake Muise24:24

So they're they're invasive but they're a part of community. They absolutely have like detrimental effects on ecosystems and reefs and forest but like they're food. So there's this like tension with this animal where there it has a lot of value to community but it also is causing all these problems and it's a really tough tension to address and solve.

Jake Muise24:48

Yeah 100% so I have this moment watching like realizing like oh I can't eat this animal it's dying of malnutrition like it's not going to be good to eat and just remember thinking like wait a second this can't be how this resource cuz I didn't even really I'll be honest like I was 20 yeah

21 I wasn't thinking like invasive species like I wasn't thinking any of those things I was just thinking like it's super fun to hunt. It's super good food.

Jake Muise25:16

And when that changed, I was like, I can't hunt it and I can't eat it for food. I remember this just being this like little moment that I was like, wait a second, there's got to be a better way to do that.

There's got to be something else we can do.

And that was my junior year in college. and then like became gradually but pretty quickly like irrationally obsessed with the subject of like how do we manage this animal? How do we turn it into food? Like wrote my capstone college class on like oh I think we can I thought we would follow the New Zealand model and domesticate them. Ended up being completely wrong. Yeah. But won like a business plan competition. Yeah.

Uh started a nonprofit called the Axis Deer Institute.

Jake Muise26:00

Oh yeah. like uh was trying to get researchers cuz the only place anybody was doing research was India in in India where they're native just completely lied like made up my own logo overnight made myself the executive director sent an email to the same person like hey I'd love to get this we're working on our own thing here like oh great here's all the information

Jake Muise26:23

Yeah completely ignoring me I was nobody um that small eye of the accident institute actually turned into a real one actually started a nonprofit that like started to look at and do some research and it was just a mechanism to continue to be obsessed with it.

Okay. And then a very very long story short couple years in Europe continue like continued obsession continued like it's just one of those things that like anytime you have a moment of free time you're trying to read something about it do something but ended up acquiring a pretty large base of knowledge about the species about mechanisms for management all these different things

And then four deer get illegally introduced to the big island about 15 years ago now.

Jake Muise27:08

Huey on a helicopter?

Come on.

Yeah.

Jake Muise27:12

I I never got to meet the people for sure, but the the general consensus was they wanted to introduce them for hunting.

Jake Muise27:20

Exactly. And there was an exchange. They they brought mulon sheep to Maui uh and then took axis deer to the big island. So, there was also a little bit of an exchange. And they call it the Big Island for a reason. Like every Hawaiian island can fit inside this island. It's huge. We have one of the largest ranches in North America at Parker Ranch. Like this is much bigger. I mean, you can, you [clears throat] know, um

The potential like and in the uh 60s and 70s the then state government tried to introduce axis deer to the big island, but agricultural communities, ranchers, national parks said like no way we can't do this. We already know the impacts in looking at Molokai like we can't do this.

Jake Muise28:03

So anyway, deer get illegally introduced to the big island and we happened to be kind of one of the only entities that like knew a lot about the species.

Jake Muise28:11

So we got the contract to try and find and remove those animals.

Jake Muise28:21

And in all places it was in this area called Kaou which is like very much like Molokai. It's like it's the middle of nowhere. It's super windb blown. It ended up being I think like a 200,000 like square mile area. Literal needle in a hay sack. They like just dropped them in the middle of it. It took us um eight months to find the to just get a picture of the first one. We had like a hundred camera traps out. We were walking every single day.

Jake Muise28:50

Took us eight months to find the first one. took us another like couple of months to like figure out how to like remove basically the first two animals. Takes us three whole years. You're walking around every day with this like little bit of like anxiety and tension cuz you're constantly having to like try not to scare something.

Jake Muise29:09

That's hard enough to do for a day.

Jake Muise29:11

Like working under that like mental strain and tension and not knowing cuz like if we' have turned the corner and scared it

Yeah. and it like ran off three more miles. Like it had been three more months before we

And it wasn't like we could stop. It wasn't like we were going home after the weekend of hunting AND BE LIKE, "AH, we didn't get it."

Jake Muise29:29

It like literally one of the most like prolific animals, invasive species on the planet that like had to get found.

Jake Muise29:41

But same thing like if you scare it and run it away, this is ultra dense like super thick place.

Jake Muise29:46

Yeah. And so it's one

And you sleeping out in the woods. While we were camping, we were finding all kinds of different ways, but it's eventually how we developed the use of forwardlooking infrared, which you saw when we were there

To help us like increase detection rates through surveying like like in helicopters and on the ground like we eventually which we eventually ended up finding out which was some of the skills that helped like build Maui was like, "Oh, you got to work in the dark."

Jake Muise30:10

This animal is like ultra ultra finicky. It is not coming out in the day, but at night it'll come out.

Oh, okay. And so my

Jake Muise30:21

During the day they primarily like bed down and hide.

Jake Muise30:24

Um so my relationship with the dark started like 17 years ago.

Jake Muise30:34

We seeking. Yeah. So we eventually

Started using infrared a long time ago like 17 years ago. Um and that's what allowed us from a distance just like using your binoculars.

You seen those binocular units? all these glasses and then we eventually like found where they were found at night which allowed us to like get the first ones and then and again short over 3 years that tool is what allowed us to find all five of them in the end.

Jake Muise31:01

And and remove all of them.

Jake Muise31:04

So it was like a trying to get you to where Maui starts. But

There are very very few invasive species projects in Hawaii that are ever successful. Yeah,

Like any seed going off on the side of the road here and like it just flourishes with like no predator. Like it's just perfect weather for anything.

So actually successfully finding and completing a project was when we started getting phone calls from ranchers on Maui that were like, "Hey, if you guys can do that, come over here and just like

Jake Muise31:40

Exactly. That initial conversation for them was like there was no ask for them to turn into food. They were just like get rid of them, manage these things. But that up like coming all the way back to like northern Alberta and eating moose meat like that denominator of like this food is valuable.

Jake Muise32:00

That relationship on Molokai with all of those like amazing people and like their relationship to this animal. All of that was what created then the first phone call to the USDA and federal government to be like wait a second how do we turn these things into food.

How do we like think about managing them and had already had a lot of that framework in mind through the axis deer institute. So basically like an opportunity presented itself that after like six or seven years of obsession I could actually go and start the mechanics of like oh how do we harvest this animal and turn it into food.

Jake Muise33:14

Yeah.

Jake Muise33:48

How you get started.

Jake Muise33:57

Yeah. like what what's the process? So slowly

Jake Muise34:08

Yeah. So I mean there are already like the the state of Hawaii um who govern like public lands

Um where axis deer exists as well too along with goats and sheep and all these other like in you know unullet. They don't have a mandate to feed people. They have a mandate just like in California or in Montana to protect native species.

Jake Muise34:30

These are not native species. The birds here are native, the bats here are native, the plants here are native. Like so these core initiatives for them, they they don't get to like they're not the bad guy. They don't get to extend themselves to say like, "Oh, we're going to shoot them and turn them into food." That's not their job.

Jake Muise34:45

Their job is to protect native species, which means easiest way to do that is to like get in a helicopter and shoot animals that are eating them.

Okay. So that's the current management solution in you know 14 15 years ago and what we were trying to introduce was the idea that like through USDA harvesting and this like very very complicated process cuz basically you have to follow all the rules of a brickandmortar facility.

Jake Muise35:11

So if you've ever like there are very few people that have ever walked into like a real slaughter house.

Yeah. It's a cow in a giant pen that goes into a chute system that gets clamped. Their head gets held and then that animal gets it's called rendering, but that animal gets like rendered immediately unconscious.

Jake Muise35:29

And then it turns into a widget in a giant supply chain, right?

Jake Muise35:33

Those rules we had to figure out how to follow without ever touching the animal.

Jake Muise35:39

Which means the the inspector had to be able to view them to ensure they were healthy first. Y

We had to render them immediately unconscious which we just talked about like you have to like shoot them in the head

And then all of the food safety protocols that follow which you saw the like how meticulous those boys are.

Jake Muise36:08

Yeah. And so like slowly with mistakes learning how to follow all those rules and then scale it larger like we were never we never built this thing to be like oh let's make some money shooting deer.

Jake Muise36:23

We built it to balance populations. So although we were making these like small incremental like wins with like mistakes to go along with them. The big picture was always like how do we do 15,000 of them a year?

Yeah. And so with that framework in mind, you were like, well, this small thing all the way down here, like that the small angle of that rope.

Jake Muise36:44

That helps pull off the hide.

How do we make that better? So it goes 4 seconds faster.

Jake Muise36:49

Because I'm going to need to do 90 at night. I can't do 20 at night.

Jake Muise36:53

So this is was like constant iteration to like the larger goal.

Yeah. And I think probably just always holding that in mind is what made it possible because otherwise you would have just stopped at like, oh that thing works good enough.

Jake Muise37:07

But we knew we couldn't stop at that thing works good enough. We had to stop at like this thing has to be perfect always.

And so I it it would take me I don't even know hours and hours and hours and hours to kind of explain the entire process. But I think that kind of summarizes it is like we knew we had to create ultra unique systems to be able to do this thing very differently. And then we had to what I didn't realize cuz we built the systems. I built the systems with like two or three great guys. But then when I we started like letting other people run the system.

Jake Muise37:38

And they weren't doing it properly. That's when we were talking about earlier about leadership. That's when I was like, "Oh [ __ ] How are we gonna take these like hyper local people that are the best people to like take care of this place and like

Turn them into crazy disciplined individuals that can execute this super particular system for the outcome of like balancing populations.

Jake Muise38:02

So six or seven years of building like the actual physical system

And then realizing like oh doesn't work unless you build a people system that can go execute it. So,

Jake Muise39:08

Uh so we

Jake Muise39:16

Yeah. So a little bit of backstory is like we started to work with those ranches but we didn't have a solution yet with the USDA. We were like gradually working towards it. So those first couple of years would which would be you know 13 and 14 years ago those animals went to pet food.

Okay. So because we didn't have a means to like turn them into food for humans and sell them. We had like didn't have that system figured out yet,

But we still needed to like have a imperfect solution to help starting managing them.

Jake Muise39:44

We turned those all those animals into pet food.

Jake Muise39:46

Outside of like whatever we were donating to community.

Jake Muise39:52

Yeah. Well, but what we did is we decided that like but we were going to act like they were food for humans.

I see. So we started practicing and we practiced like every single night and we cuz we knew the parameters that were in place. We knew what we'd have to do. We knew like head shots had to be perfect. We knew what the meat had to look like. So we basically started practicing. So we got like two to three years of practice.

Jake Muise40:14

And same thing with the end goal in mind 17 now 14 years later. Right.

Jake Muise40:21

No. And I'm calling every month, every week saying like, "Hey, I think we can do this. I can think we can do this." And they're like, "Yeah, whatever." uh finally convinced this guy to come out and this USDA official to come out and look at the process.

Jake Muise40:32

So, like that was our Super Bowl.

Jake Muise40:35

And we nailed it.

Jake Muise40:39

He comes out, he rides along. He sees the whole thing. We're we're showing him the inspection process with forward-looking infrared because the the USDA had never used forward-looking infrared at night to like inspect animals and watch the process. And you've seen it like the technology is so good. You can like see that bullet path all the way to the head.

Jake Muise41:03

Yeah. So he's moving well. He's not limping. He's like he has he can't be laying down like he has to like very similar to them like standing outside in a corral system looking at a cow being like man cow looks healthy cuz they still come and look at that animal after. So we do the whole night. This guy is saying nothing.

So we run the whole night. Uh we didn't have a slaughter unit or anything. So, he was just like watching the process. We're on the whole night and son comes up and he like pulls us over and I can't say no. I'm like, "Is that a yes?" And he's like, "No, cuz you haven't like showed me the whole process yet." He's like, "But if you do this, I can't say no."

Jake Muise41:36

And as a like irrational optimist, I'm like, "That's a yes."

Jake Muise41:40

I can just go to a slaughter house and work 9 to5." I won't say his name, but for the next four or five years, that guy was like, "Do this, not this, do this, not this." Like he really helped us like create then the food safety systems within these like ultra unique mobile trailers that we move around.

Jake Muise42:05

Amazing.

Jake Muise42:07

Yeah.

Jake Muise42:09

No. Because and and the U like the way the USDA operates the USDA food safety inspection services is like their only job is to make sure the food is safe.

Jake Muise42:18

They're not there to help you. They're they're there to get you in trouble. And so this guy was like an ultra unique guy and definitely like another really lucky moment where he bumped into the right person. But I remember him leaving and the crew starting to clean up and me grabbing my phone and calling my wife, calling Kulu and being like, "He didn't say no."

And she's like, "What does that mean?" I was like, "It means we have to reortgage our house."

She's like, "What?"

Jake Muise42:40

I was like, "The next step is to have one of these mobile slaughter units, one of these trailers that we can bring to site, which you've seen."

Jake Muise42:49

Yeah. We've been profitable. Like we've figured out how for years to like just make it work as a business.

I remember calling her and and like she just been rationally obsessed for now like six, seven years and she's like, "Yep, let's do it."

Yeah. And so that was the next major step is like taking that financial risk to like put the rest of the pieces in place to get a truck and get a mobile slaughter unit because we were just operating like out of the back of my Tacoma at this point.

Jake Muise43:12

That was like kind of the inflection point to then scaling the harvesting systems and like literally every dollar we made after that including investment like we like put back into building the business to what you see today. But it started with like one truck and one little slaughter unit and one UTV.

Yeah. and three guys and it's turned into like what it is today.

Jake Muise44:05

We're not in

Yeah. So I think it was a combination of a couple things is like one I think they saw even they knew how valuable I thought the resource was and I was very clear with them upfront that like we're going to like price this as a premium item

For two very important reasons. One like it was critical to be able to like produce cash flow to keep building the business. So like I had to price it the right way. Two, we knew like anecdotally, and we would soon find out how nutrient-dense it was, like how much better it is than beef.

Jake Muise44:37

But three, I wanted to make sure it was accessible locally. So basically something that somebody pays $60 a pound for on the continent,

Somebody locally pays seven for.

Jake Muise44:47

And that was like non-negotiable was like how we were going to support community in building this thing. I remember having some of those initial like investment conversations and and through those funding rounds and it was a little bit of like oh they really like philanthropically they want to do something ultra unique with community and in supporting ecosystems and like all these different things but the other side that I think they saw was like oh this also has the potential to be like a very premium highly soughta item and that like that has the potential to obviously then be a sound investment very very lucky Luckily, that is like proven to be true, which is awesome.

But we never did like any there was no venture firms. It was basically like a bunch of great people that said like, "Oh, we'll come and support this thing." And I've been so thankful to have a cap table that

Like I can call any one of those guys or ladies and they're just like, "Yep, whatever you need, we're like so happy to help." Right. [snorts]

Jake Muise46:05

So, and and really like have driven a lot of like my collective growth as a CEO and entrepreneur. They've been an amazing resource. I I'm getting better at asking for help for a long time. Like, I didn't even like really know what to do with it.

Yeah. and really know how valuable it was until I got to the point where I was like, "Oh, wait a second. There are like

Problems to solve that there are playbooks like

Creating wild harvesting systems." There wasn't a playbook. I didn't get to like call anybody and ask.

But when I was like, "Oh, um,

How should I be thinking about like these assets on the balance sheet?" Like there's people to call about this.

Jake Muise46:39

Um, really lucky to like get this group of people. We ended up doing like three different rounds of funding. Each one was basically like capital expenditure steps like we need to build more stuff to harvest more deer.

Jake Muise46:50

Um and each one of those went really well. We're able to execute them. And then

Now very luckily 17 years later and the overall mission of like how do we balance populations? This year we'll harvest less deer than last year and that's a win. like we are actively balancing populations on Maui through the work we're doing and and it's been it's one of the like I think it's probably one of the larger just conservation projects as a whole. We're going to quickly pass I think we're going to pass 80,000 deer harvested.

Jake Muise47:26

So it's it's a little bit less than it is now. And part of it is we do lots of things pretty well. One of the things we do really well is surveys. So you probably you remember meeting Ki and seeing all the drone systems, but like we're constantly surveying like we have a livestock level understanding of deer. And what we do is then we go to the ranchers and be like, hey, this is about about every quarter. We're like this is about how many you have,

You good with this? You want less? And like so right now with so much rain, they're like, oh, we're good. Like we don't keep doing what you guys are doing. There's lots of grass for deer and cows.

Seven months ago, I was like, no, let's let's put a little bit more pressure down. Let's bring that population down. we need more feed for cows. Like so everybody's making decisions uh everybody's they're all just grass farmers like they're making decisions collectively for their area as a whole and that's balances like now the constant tension of how do we keep it in a good place that's good for ranchers good for community good for moving this food resource forward for customers and community. So now there's just this constant balance which is

Jake Muise48:39

Yeah.

Jake Muise48:43

There's basically four. We work for all four of them.

Jake Muise48:50

Yeah. In terms of ranch lands, uh we currently operate on 11% of Maui.

Jake Muise49:00

There's lots of them. So there's still lots of work. So deer are really interesting and they have like highly preferential habitat.

Jake Muise49:06

So deer actually don't want to be on the roadways or in somebody's backyard. They want to be in these big beautiful open pastures.

So the way the way to think about it is like you've got a bucket of water in a pool and we're drawing water out of the bucket, but the pool is big.

Jake Muise49:22

And the water just keeps coming in.

Jake Muise49:24

That's what the deer are doing.

Okay. So part of the tools to balance populations is you're harvesting deer from the ranch but deer are coming into that preferential habitat.

And we do surveys outside of the ranch as well. So collectively the population as a whole is about the same starting to come down a little bit but there's still lots of work left to do. And then there's

Definitely other parts of the island like the west side of Maui and other places have emerging like they don't have the same density yet. So we have populations that are emerging and those will be something that like we'll work to address in the future if it's a good fit for community. Part of scaling any business in Hawaii, I think if you're trying to do it the right way is like kind of scaling it at the pace of community. So making sure you have the right relationships and the right support structures in place for the people that are in and around that place.

So balancing populations now is

Forever. I'm sure everybody's excited about AI, but like it's that not going to carry dear for me. Uh, and those robots aren't going to get that good for a very very long time. Like those those boys and those teams that you saw are going to be in place hopefully or some of them are old as gray as me

Jake Muise50:50

Nope.

Jake Muise50:51

You're done. So again same rules as the brick and mortar.

Yeah. Basically, if you one violation of something like that, you have to like basically do corrective action. You have to be like, "Okay, I'm going to change my plan. We're going to start doing this."

Jake Muise51:06

Two, if you don't have an actual solution that works.

Yeah.

You're done.

Jake Muise51:14

So one of the things we developed, um, they're not going to be able to see this, but like if that's ahead,

Yeah. That's where they're allowed to aim.

Jake Muise51:30

So our guys have to be able to shoot a 2-in group.

Jake Muise51:34

So right at 200 yards.

So any human that's like a great shot. Yeah.

It's going to be like this, right?

Jake Muise51:42

There's no way you can shoot this the whole time.

Jake Muise51:45

Okay.

Jake Muise51:58

Remember I don't know if you were there and you you heard like our team say like good miss.

Yeah.

Jake Muise52:23

You should miss 25% of the time.

Jake Muise52:26

So, when like and we keep crazy data. You saw all the iPads and everything else.

So, I first thing in the morning I wake up and I check all the data

And we got a couple guys. Uh I don't know if Ken was shooting when you were there, but like he's magic. Like the guy can do anything. Uh last week I woke up and I looked at the data and I was like 93%. I called Kena. He's like no no no no it's okay. I was like Kena nobody can shoot 93%. He's like, "I promise like I was staying disciplined with me cuz for him to shoot 93%."

Jake Muise52:55

He was down here.

Jake Muise52:57

And he's increasing the risk of something bad happening.

Jake Muise53:01

Cuz the the human brain wants this like sound and visual reaction when like you are successful and like properly like hit a deer in the head like there's something that happens.

Yeah. the discipline to tell your brain it's okay when there's a miss and trust it versus a hit without even knowing that like humans start to like pull their aim point down after a miss. And so what was super interesting trying to answer your question of like what were some of the major hurdles one of our best shooters now had never shot a gun before they came to us

Really I had to like find the guys with the right attitude and it's this combination of like a little bit of a rational confidence in themselves

Really really like humble like they're willing to learn and listen and they're like almost dead pan like nothing phases them.

Yeah. That personality will maintain this aim point without moving it down, without like forcing it down and getting us in trouble.

Jake Muise53:57

A typical personality without them even knowing, even if they're telling themselves like aim here, they like they'll start to pull this down.

Jake Muise54:05

And everything down here is like the risk of your business.

Jake Muise54:09

So, so we have like one of the best rendering rates of any facility in the entire Pacific basin.

Jake Muise54:32

I've been in a lot of slaughter houses.

Think how happy a cow is.

Yeah. First of all, it's in like a super stressful corral system. It gets moved into like a it's a called a press and like like a whole body gets like lifted up and pressed.

Yeah. And then it head comes out, but his head is like still open.

Jake Muise54:48

So it's pissed

Jake Muise54:50

So his head is bouncing around and a guy has to like walk up and try and like shoot it in the head with like a a stun gun.

Jake Muise54:56

That's honestly probably harder than this.

Jake Muise55:00

That's probably one of the hardest things. Like forget all of like bacteria mitigation and like clean up. Like literally every buffet like bucket has to be perfect every day. forget that we're doing it all in the field and and like with a bunch of guys that are like I mean a bunch of alpha males that are brutes that you have to like teach them to be like

Carry this 250 lb deer

And then detail this bucket like

Jake Muise55:30

time and then all of a sudden like he's like polishing a bucket like a gut bucket like it it's just as important. So discipline is probably the thing that solved the vast majority of like those issues with the USDA.

Jake Muise56:30

Yeah.

Jake Muise57:14

So it hangs there overnight. But we get a 6 hour, we call it like our performance period.

Jake Muise57:18

So in 6 hours you go from like not knowing where they are

Jake Muise57:23

To the night you were with us and I actually have something for you. Um 89 deer

Yeah. clean in a freezer without a hair on it.

Jake Muise57:31

And those deer had to be like found, rendered properly, carried, moved back, processed. Um, I'm going to I'm going to show you this. We're

Jake Muise57:47

Yeah.

Jake Muise57:53

I just texted that to you.

Jake Muise58:00

Well, a little bit. You know, I'm a competitive person. You got 13,000 meals there that night.

Jake Muise58:06

But we're going to actually invite the first customer ever to do it with us to do what you do.

Jake Muise58:12

This month. And so we're making all these like little playing cards for all the boys.

Oh, that's come anyway. We you'll learn more about it. But for sure. um that experience for somebody to be able to like yourself a customer a like for them to be able to come and be a part of not only like the work and understanding like how difficult it is and everything that goes into it but then being able to like help feed community and customers a super cool experience.

Jake Muise59:31

"Oh, I mean, on those nights, it could be anywhere from like 4 to 5,000bs." Yeah.

Jake Muise59:44

Two a day. Yeah.

Jake Muise59:50

Yeah.

Jake Muise59:55

It's a community resource.

Jake Muise59:58

In the end, like this wild animal is still a community resource. Yeah. And I think same thing going all the way back to Molokai and like having that foundational relationship with the animal. Me and and Ku were always like it has to serve community and it serves community through great jobs and balancing ecoss but like it's food. Actually the first time we like really stepped it up and started to like provide meat for community was like the first week of COVID because food security in Hawaii is really fickle.

You basically I think a lot of people know this but like in 2 days if the boats and the planes stop coming we have no food on our shelves.

Jake Muise1:00:39

Two days. That's how much food is cycling. Everybody has moved to this just in time inventory. We about that earlier, right?

Jake Muise1:00:45

Two days. It's gone.

Jake Muise1:00:48

So when that first week of COVID happened and they really started shutting things down, the food bank, the Maui food bank basically put out a call out that's like we have no food.

Jake Muise1:01:01

Oh, tens of thousands.

Jake Muise1:01:03

Yeah.

I think it's a lot higher than most people think.

Jake Muise1:01:07

Because the the Maui Food Bank itself is like its own hub, but then it like feeds all of these smaller

Jake Muise1:01:12

Like community organizations that help feed smaller communities.

Jake Muise1:01:16

Um so anyway, CO happens. We don't We're I'm back at beginning of co I'm still like one truck, one mobile slaughter, you like I'm very small. Yeah. Or we're very small. We're giving them just like chunks of meat. Yeah.

And then they're having to work with these amazing chefs like Mark Naguchi and all these amazing guys and then turning it into meals for everybody. So holoai and the idea of like holo is the definition is to like rush food to where it's needed.

Jake Muise1:01:40

It started with co but then as we grew in capacity and processing capacity because we didn't have it at the moment. We said like what's the easiest thing to share with community that they could use every day is ground.

Yeah. And we were like slowly trying to build it and then you know unfortunately the Lahaina fires happen.

Jesus.

Jake Muise1:02:06

3 years.

Jake Muise1:02:07

It it wasn't like it was it was it was there was a little bit of time there.

Jake Muise1:02:11

Lahaina happened and immediately displaced 35 40% of our community.

Jake Muise1:02:18

Exactly. So they like had to go somewhere. They went to like people's houses. They went to shelters. They went to like all these different places and in these small little like local communities, everybody immediately is like, "How do we help?" And so we did the same thing. And so it ended up being for two weeks, we were basically, we talked about this earlier, but like we were fighting fire every day trying to like stop the pastures from burning cuz there was down power lines everywhere. and every night we were harvesting and turning it into ground for like the 40,000 bowls of chili that they needed to make the next day

Um through these community groups. So the whole program the way you see it today really came from that place of wanting to be a resource for community

In emergency and then after we had started it which was really cool we had to find unique ways to share it. So the the way you usually do this is you take a pallet and you go put it at the food bank.

Jake Muise1:03:15

But tons of the people that were affected by that fire and continue to like need help on this island are have too much pride to go to the food bank.

Jake Muise1:03:24

Most often times they both have jobs.

Jake Muise1:03:26

They got a house. They got a car. But like getting 2 lbs of ground every couple of days to like make meals like makes a difference.

Jake Muise1:03:34

So what we tried to do and we originally had it in like those coolers in like the back of people's yards. Like we had them everywhere

And where you've landed today is like we've put them in these small local stores

So that somebody can walk in,

Buy a popsicle for their kid, grab two pounds of ground and not feel like

Jake Muise1:03:52

Feel like it's a reciprocal relationship with that that meal.

Jake Muise1:04:00

Well, they have to have like a local ID. Um but you have to that was one of the things we had to learn is to just figure out how to share freely.

Yeah. Cuz somebody can walk in that looks like they need more help than somebody else. Yeah.

And somebody can walk in, have parked their BMW, have a Chanel bag over their arm, and take two pounds of ground. Yeah.

And you have to be okay with both of those people.

Jake Muise1:04:23

Taking that because typically the food bank or these other organizations serve as the filter.

Jake Muise1:04:28

But the filter is somebody filling out a piece of paperwork that says like, "I need help."

Yeah.

Jake Muise1:04:33

I'm not going to do it.

Jake Muise1:04:34

You're not going to do it.

It's interesting. So it was a we have learned to share better

With community through that need and now it's just a permanent part of who we are. So I got

Two nights of the month we shut all operations down like all overhead everything everything goes to

Feeding that community and those are typically the nights that we invite like amazing guests in to help us go.

Jake Muise1:05:21

Uh, so I don't I don't think you know this, but we have a really unique it's called HHS. So, you you probably remember the really dirty signs up on the board that said humble, hungry, and smart.

Jake Muise1:05:30

Okay. That's actually a peer-to-peer grading system.

Jake Muise1:05:37

Okay. So, we don't hire anybody. We let them try out.

Jake Muise1:05:40

So, somebody comes in to try out and their entire first month only thing that decides whether they can make it or not. And remember, the boys are already like they're inviting somebody in. So, they're telling them like, "Hey, you're going to have to do all these things." And 20 grown men are going to grade you on humility, work ethic, and emotional intelligence.

They're going to tell you if your body language sucks. They're going to tell you if the joke's inappropriate. They're going to tell you you don't work hard enough. Like,

All of the things in the vast majority of organizations that go unsaid because people just don't like having hard conversations. We created a system for them to be able to do that.

Jake Muise1:06:35

Yeah. So, it's that filter for us, which again like took a long time to build. I didn't have that in the first couple of years. And um even in building it made a whole bunch of grown men cry. Didn't do it the right way, including myself. Like the

The first time I remember doing it and like telling the whole team cuz I get graded every time we do it.

Jake Muise1:06:53

So the whole team gets to tell you about

All the things you're not good at.

Jake Muise1:07:00

Well, I remember one that actually made a big difference early on. I used to swear. I've sworn a few times on this conversation.

Me too. But when I would swear and I was disciplining them, it made it way worse.

Jake Muise1:07:16

But if I would swear and it was like funny,

It was in like it was in joking or it was in like being positive, it actually really really helped.

Jake Muise1:07:25

And two or three point people pointed to that like if if I just made that small change, it would make it way easier for them to understand like what message I was trying to convey.

Jake Muise1:07:51

Yeah.

Jake Muise1:08:09

But that's the thing like

Jake Muise1:08:12

A whole bunch of grown men tell you

Jake Muise1:08:20

And then you're sitting with this information and you're like, what do I do with it?

Jake Muise1:08:24

And if like in being like humility is that like most important one for us, you're like, well, if that's what's going to make everybody better, then I'm going to stop doing that thing or I'm going to sure as hell try.

Yeah. And so for a new guy that rolls in and they learn that like the jokes that they tell are inappropriate or they have like poor body language in meetings or they don't listen and have like good eye contact or they're not like moving quick enough in certain areas like they don't have like the work ethic at the end of the day. They're not the guy saying like hey what else can I do?

Jake Muise1:08:55

Cuz there's a lot of work to be done. Those are always those uncomfortable thing like nobody wants to tell another human,

Hey that thing you do is like a little bit weird or not good enough.

Jake Muise1:09:05

Nobody wants to do that.

Jake Muise1:09:06

And we just made it easy and we gave them language to use like humble, hungry, smart. And now they know how to use that language and they're able to say like, "Hey, that's not hungry enough. That's not humble enough." And it gives them a mechanism to like have these uncomfortable conversations. And so to answer your question, somebody walking in on month one, we don't grade them on anything else.

Jake Muise1:09:28

They have to pass HHS and a passing grade is a B. And so what we do is if they pass, then we give them like these super specific things that they like need to work on to like make their teammates better every night. And so a lot of our guys come in with zero skills. But if they are truly humble and like want to learn, not willing, like they want to learn and they have great work ethic and they're emotionally intelligent, they know like the words that are coming out of their mouth and if it's going to make the people around them better, guess what?

I can train them to do anything.

Jake Muise1:10:00

It used to be a lot less, but actually what's happening is

The boys are getting so good at identifying somebody that will fit

Cuz it's actually a little bit of an embarrassment when they

Jake Muise1:10:18

They bring in their friend and then their friend gets told they're not good enough and not like you don't have the skills.

Their friend gets told you're not cool enough.

Yeah.

That's brutal. So that filter now the boys are so good at understanding that that like the hit rate is really high. Yeah.

Um in the guys that they do bring in and then the whole team every quarter goes through the same process. So every quarter everybody gets graded by everybody.

Jake Muise1:10:45

And if you're an A, we give you a raise. So we actually like financially compensate people that are willing to change behavior that makes their team better.

Yeah. cuz in the end that's improving skill and process and safety and all the things. If you're a B, you get like immediate things to work on. If you're a C, we fire you on the spot.

Jake Muise1:11:06

Somebody has like a a bad 3 months.

Jake Muise1:11:09

And they've been with us for 3 years. Doesn't matter.

Jake Muise1:11:12

Yeah.

Jake Muise1:11:16

But now they know it only took like a few of those instances where we drew like a hard line. And don't get me wrong, like I gave lots of second chances as I was like learning like, oh, maybe the guy just like maybe it can be get get better. Like I'm a sucker for second chances.

Um, but we've just learned that like once somebody decides to get a C, you really got to like be putting yourself first every night.

Jake Muise1:12:16

But everybody knows like the Everybody knows the guy that can walk into a room and just with his body language change the room.

Jake Muise1:12:24

That's not allowed.

Jake Muise1:12:26

Yeah. It's not allowed on the bad side. That's not allowed. The on the good side like So I think a lot of organizations try and they call them like soft skills.

Jake Muise1:12:36

They're not soft like these are skills. Yeah.

And if you can actually change them, if they can actually get better at humility, like improve work ethic, improve emotional intelligence, like literally everything they're doing gets better. And so we just took it to a little bit of an extreme in that we like financially compensate people if they're willing to make those behavioral changes. And we're 50s something now and like I don't have an HR department.

Yeah. It also like solves all these other like issues and by no means is it perfect but it solves a lot of like the prevailing like he sheds she shed like a lot of the things that happen in a workplace especially one as intense as that especially one that has like 25 30 alpha males running around for the most part like they're the opposite of that could be pretty dangerous right

Jake Muise1:13:33

I have some again like on [clears throat] the cap um have some frequent conversations with like Tim Ferrris about some of this stuff. Uh a guy named Ricky Elias uh Red Ventures amazing leader and organization. So I've had like a few of these conversations um and gotten pick I try to like pick things up from lots of different places

But a lot of it specific to our organization is like trial and error. It's like what experiment actually changed the behavior. So I'll give you an example. At the beginning of the year, I ran a experiment. I'm trying to teach these boys how to like learn how to focus in the moment. Like in these critical situations, like I want them to be able to like pull on and create additional focus. And I always try and make it fun. Uh cuz I believe like a combination of like gamification, a little bit of fun, and true win loss.

Like if you win, it's awesome. If you lose it sucks.

Jake Muise1:14:25

That can create like real behavioral change. Uh, so it's going to seem odd, but I bought uh for the 30 guys, I bought four identical pairs of socks for every single one of the guys. And I told them for 3 months, you're not allowed to lose a single pair, like a single sock. And you've seen that base. Yeah. Like,

Doesn't matter if you believe dryers eat socks. It doesn't matter. Like, and the idea was I was trying to think of a moment that you have the least amount of focus. And when you're putting your socks on or taking them off, you are literally always thinking about something else.

Jake Muise1:15:00

It's this like activity that you do that like anything else could be happening in the world, but you're not actually paying attention to like what's happening in the socks. And so the deal was they weren't allowed to lose a single pair. They had to create systems that allowed that to happen. All working together, living together, like 30 lockers, like

Uh only two washerd dryers. Every single sock they lost was $10. The entire team had to pay. And by the way, I did my own laundry there. So I know when there was laundry in there, there would be laundry in the wash. You'd put yours in, wash it, then you change it all. Some people had it in a bag. But it was like there was a lot of laundry.

Jake Muise1:15:38

Funny exercise that to this like item that doesn't mean a lot that said like, can we create a focal point around this thing that is like seemingly unimportant? Yeah.

For three months and will it change behavior? And I'll give you those boys credit. They didn't lose a single sock.

Jake Muise1:16:59

Yeah. So like these small experiments in like how do we change behavior and what super interesting what ended up happening over the three months is and we shared this with the boys later but like paper towel simple green ammunition all the other small things in our organization that sometimes you don't pay attention to.

Jake Muise1:17:16

Costs for all of them came down.

Jake Muise1:17:19

Yeah.

Jake Muise1:17:20

Cuz you're like changing your orientation to like this thing that is seemingly like invaluable or like not very valuable.

And don't get me wrong, it was disgusting. Like some guys wear the same socks every night. Like they found like all different ways to make sure they didn't lose one.

But every single one of them personed when I introduced it believed it wasn't possible.

Jake Muise1:17:40

They're like, "Of course we're going to lose socks."

Jake Muise1:17:42

And then 3 months later, they're like, "Holy cow."

Jake Muise1:17:46

I was like, "Not if you want them."

Jake Muise1:17:57

Yeah. So it's not like doesn't matter if it's an experiment like that or like bigger conversations around like system building like it to kind of come back to your question of like where have we learned these things. A lot of it is just trial and error.

Jake Muise1:18:11

And I've kind of landed at a formula that we talked about was like it has to be somewhat of a game.

Jake Muise1:18:17

There has to be like emotion involved. Like there has to be like either humor or stress or like anxiety. Like there has to be an emotion involved. that's primarily positive and then if you win it's got to be good and if you lose it's got to be bad.

Jake Muise1:18:33

And in that scenario I've typically seen we can like change behavior

And we've done like box car races and water balloon launches and like we've done the craziest stuff.

Yeah. And all of them are like built to hopefully change the behavior of these young men to foster discipline and focus and then ultimately all that turns into the execution that you see every single night, right?

Yeah.

Jake Muise1:20:12

Yeah.

Jake Muise1:20:21

Yeah. And like I know there's been lots of conversations around like toxic masculinity over the years.

Not at that place. those boys thrive in the ability to be masculine. Yeah. They don't have to hide it like but it's as long as it's like positive and like making the people around them better. Like it's something that like is like incredibly valuable.

Um and it's not to say we've had some incredible women come out and like carry all kinds of deer. Yeah.

Uh but that environment and typically it's requirement is like for these like hyper local 22 to 35 year olds and they don't all stay which is awesome. We have like we call them graduation ceremonies. I don't know if anybody graduated when you were there but like it was super interesting. What ends up happening is we bring in you bring in these guys and you teach them like hey oh your pants don't actually belong here. Yeah,

They belong up here at your waist and you tuck your shirt in

And you do your [ __ ] belt up and like that's the way you should appear in like those small things. But all of a sudden they learn all of this discipline and we see it they like change the behavior in their lives.

Jake Muise1:21:27

But we have that unique schedule where they have these big chunks of time off.

Jake Muise1:21:31

But guess what? Like they start a fencing company. They start like they start like realizing like oh wait I could do more. And we have now we call them graduation ceremonies where

When somebody leaves us because they found something really cool that they're going to go do

We actually like

Call them like we graduate them and like call them alumni and like cuz they've picked up these skills and now they're going to go do this other thing and I think that's a win.

Jake Muise1:21:55

And I think a lot of employers would think of that as like oh you've poured all these energies and resources into somebody but like we're trying to create community. any one of these young men that come in and leave us better and go become a part of community somewhere else and are like fostering any of the things that we've helped like teach them in other places like that's a win.

Jake Muise1:22:16

We're a tiny island ecosystem. Like any part of it that's getting progressively better is a good thing.