Ep27 Connor Secor—30 Million Whiplash Events, TBI, and the Brain Supplement Built for What His Military Service Caused

Scott Groves  0:00  
What's the name mean? What's thumos mean?

Connor Secor  0:01  
Thumos is it's actually the third part of the soul in Greek mythology, so it means the fire and the spirit for life. Yeah, we want you to get that through your own brain health, putting your brain in the right environment to thrive every day, prebiotics, brain support, nutrients, and really to fuel your passion for whatever you got going on and fuel your passion for life.

Scott Groves  0:22  
What welcome to Henderson HQ. This is the podcast where you get all the stories behind the businesses that make our community tick. Don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, it's Scott Rose with the Henderson HQ podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter and check out the website at www dot Henderson hq.com I'm here with my buddy Connor, who I've known for a couple, for a couple years from Jiu Jitsu, and he's got this product. If you are watching, him and his co-founder came up with Thumos. We're going to talk about what this is. It's basically brain and gut health, so we'll talk about why that's all important. Connor has, like, this great background in the military, so we'll get into that, and how badly it rattled his brain, and why he came up with this product, and yeah, they're just building this awesome supplement company out of out of Henderson here, and I want to hear all about it. So, why don't we start with you, man? Your military service, why you decided to be a Swift boat operator, and yeah, tell us all the fun stuff.

Connor Secor  1:17  
Let's go. Yeah, so I'm Connor Secor, I'm a seven year naval special warfare boat operator. I served most of my time, or really all my time, in San Diego, in Coronado. Why I really wanted to be a SWIC, I was 18, looking for change in my life, and I knew I had, I had holes in my life and in my skill set, you know, when it came to engineering, and I wanted to learn how to shoot guns and things of that nature, so Swick was right up there, you know. You're basically an engineer on the water, knowing how to work on diesel engines and navigation, everything like that.

Scott Groves  1:50  
So, for people that didn't serve or don't know, the Swick boats, these are the ones that, like every Navy SEAL video ever, where they're coming up on the beach, or they're going through Jungle River, or whatever, these are the super cool black boats, huge motors, 50 cal mountain on the front. This is like this is like the tank in the water, right?

Connor Secor  2:07  
Yep, yeah. It was basically all kicked it off from Active Valor, that scene when they rip around the corner and they go and save those dudes that just drove their truck in the water, basically.

Scott Groves  2:17  
And can you tell us a little bit about that boat, and like what they, what you can say, because I know it's part of the special warfare, yeah, operations. Can you tell us a little bit about the boat, and like, what, what kind of missions you would have been deployed on, theoretically?

Connor Secor  2:31  
So, like I said, it was, it was that scene that got us all in there, and that's called the Sakar, that's their main riverine boat for just kind of brown water riverine operations, but yeah, that's got eight guns, it already always covers in like a 360 degree coverage, but yeah, that thing rips around, that's like a Coca Cola can on, on you know, but yeah, it just rips around real fast, and yeah, that's their main platform for all rivering operations, but what I served on was a Combatant Craft Assault, and that's basically a 41 foot boat. It's 25,000 pounds, rips over 5060 knots. So, yeah, that was our main boat on the on the West Coast.

Scott Groves  3:12  
And so, what would that boat normally be used for? It would be like inserting special forces type people. Would it be to, you know, chase down some Somali pirates? Like, what would that, what would that boat's like mission be in the water, in the ocean?

Connor Secor  3:24  
It's basically insertion and extraction in today's age, but yeah, capabilities are are wide, direct action, special reconnaissance missions, but yeah, it's mostly insertion extraction,

Scott Groves  3:38  
and obviously you guys are delivering probably Navy Seals, special forces, things of that nature. How many people are actually crewing the boat?

Scott Groves  3:45  
Five,

Scott Groves  3:45  
five. So, is it like, what's the most fun job on the gun, on the engine, on the on the steering? Like, what's, what's the best job on the boat?

Connor Secor  3:52  
So, I'm selfish, I wanted the best job, and I'm biased, so I was the throttle man. Okay, so basically I'm sitting next to the driver, and we're talking constantly, but yeah, I control the gas, and he controls basically the horizontal ride of the boat, and then next to him is the navigator.

Scott Groves  4:08  
Okay. And then, how many people on the weapon systems?

Connor Secor  4:11  
We got two at each time.

Scott Groves  4:13  
Nice. Tell me a little bit about, like, what that training looked like, and what it's like being on the ocean, going, you know, 50, 6070, miles an hour.

Connor Secor  4:22  
Yeah, so it starts out boot camp, you know. You start with 8090, guys past that, you go to NSW Prep, where it's basically eight weeks, where you swim, run, lift, you're with all Olympic coaches, people get phased out in there too. Usually go to San Diego with around 60 people, you start basic orientation. Mine was in December, so it's cold, pretty cold. And then, and then you get winter break. I think we had, like, a.. I think you have, like, a six day winter break, or seven day, where you get to go back home, and people get to see their moms and grandmas, and then. And that's when really people start quitting, is when they come back, but yeah, that was in December, into January, and then you basically go to your first phase, BCS, we went there with 29 people, that's around seven to eight weeks, and that's the one where really everyone's weeded out, but yeah, we do evolution, swim, run, run boat, run hauser line, that's basically a big Mark Five mooring line that they tie together and roll in the sand and dump it in the water, but that can end up being like more than 500 pounds, basically

Scott Groves  5:34  
like super physically demanding, right?

Scott Groves  5:36  
Yep,

Scott Groves  5:36  
see, I would have thought of like if, if somebody was looking for that journey, they would have gone combat Navy SEAL, something like that, but like this sounds pretty intense. What, why are they trying to weed people out that end up getting on one of these boat crews?

Connor Secor  5:50  
I think it's because you really get into a fist fight with the ocean. I mean, it's brutal, like there's a lot of times where you take big hits on the boat, you're dazed, then you kind of got to stay in there and make sure people are, you know, the whole operation runs through you, so you're got to be on time, on target, but it's just, it's brutal impacts, to be honest, and it's brutal long hours, you know, you drop another unit off, and that's the end of their day, but your, your day and night only just got started, so you got heavy weapons to take care of engines to fix things to put away, and yeah, just a long grueling day, really.

Scott Groves  6:26  
So, out of your 90 people that you started with, how many actually made it to like get onto a boat crew on one of these switch boats?

Connor Secor  6:33  
So you usually have a second chance and get rolled back into your certain phases, but from the original that I started with four graduated

Scott Groves  6:43  
four out of 90,

Connor Secor  6:44  
yeah, four, and we had one rollback, so we ended up with five, but my original class that I, that I started with four people,

Scott Groves  6:52  
holy cow, and was that more because it was physically demanding, mentally demanding, both of both, or like, why do people, I always wonder, like, if this is kind of your dream to do this thing, I always wonder why people quit. So, what was what was the thing that made people quit? Was it the cold? Was it the physical? Was it they couldn't figure out how to put together a diesel engine or service a gun? Like, what? What was the thing that got people?

Connor Secor  7:13  
I think people are just not used to failing. I think once you fail something and the instructors are on you and they smell blood in the water, it's just hard to be in the cooker and kind of handle the heat a little bit, but if you're used to, you know, being in the mud and and failing and being able to kind of get through that, I think you'll be okay. But yeah, it's really used to failure.

Scott Groves  7:35  
So was the training like this stereotypical out of a movie, getting yelled at, getting smoked? Like, it was, it was, it pretty intense, like what we see in the films.

Connor Secor  7:42  
Yeah, it was pretty much everything I thought it was gonna be, right? But honestly, wrestling, going through the J Rob intensive camps, and wrestling, it was like, honestly, it wasn't anything really different from a summer wrestling camp or things of that nature. So I was, I was pretty used to it when I, when I got in there, and yeah, it wasn't too bad,

Scott Groves  8:02  
so I've always been interested in this, like obviously they want to weed people out with the physical and the mental stress, but then at some point you have to learn how to service this multi million dollar piece of machinery, so How long was like the physicality versus like okay now we have a little bit of respect for you, we actually teach you how to, you know, I don't know, throttle a million dollar engine and hope you don't burn it out. Like, how long? How long was the physical side of the training? Then, how long was the kind of, I guess, technical side of the training?

Connor Secor  8:28  
I guess I didn't really get into the other part of the training pipeline, but yeah, after that first phase, you kind of earn your stripes a little bit. You went through the hardest physical phase, and then you go into basic crewmen training, where it's basically small arms and heavy weapons training, and with a little bit of introduction to like diesel engines and things of that nature, but you have to pass all the test gates, disassemble, reassemble, make sure your marksmanship is on point, and then the third phase is where you really get into the boat training operating how to drive, how to shoot on the water, and kind of putting it, putting it all together.

Scott Groves  9:07  
So I was a mediocre shot in the army, and that's like in the prone position, no surrounding problems, no change in the terrain, and I was mediocre at best. I've gotten a little bit better since I got out because I could shoot more rounds on my own dime, but what is it like handling a firearm on the ocean? Because in the best of days on the ocean, you're probably getting a two to three foot drop. On a horrible day, you're probably just getting beat around by seven eight foot waves. What is it like to shoot a gun on the water?

Connor Secor  9:37  
You just got to be super heads up. You can never have tunnel vision, and you just got to make sure you have a really good crew letting you know what's happening, because I mean, we've had really dangerous scenarios, you know, a boat, an engine goes down, and maybe, maybe it's starting to hover in front of the fire line, or you know, you got your Zodiac that's picking up packs, you know, from an extraction. Standpoint, and maybe they don't have everything that they need, and they're getting in front of the firing line, or there's a big wave coming. It's just very dynamic, especially when people are clogging the radio with like air assets and just the ground force and everything. You just cannot have tunnel vision. It's one foot in, one foot out, like all the time.

Scott Groves  10:19  
When you say that one foot in, one foot out. You mean like one foot paying attention to the ocean, one to the gun, or like, what? What are you? What are all the things you're trying to survey when you're saying, like, not have tunnel vision? Like, what are, if you're firing a weapon from a moving boat with other friendly forces around, what are like all the things that you're kind of taught to keep an eye on?

Connor Secor  10:37  
I mean, you got basically, we train to mark the people that are on the ground, you know, don't shoot past this point, you know, target past this point, lasered with like infrared kind of lasers, but yeah, like I was saying, usually extraction, you got like Zodiacs kind of coming in at some point, within you got three other boats that are lining up, shooting that you're lining up on a firing line, you got air assets that are coming in and out, kind of clogging the net, so it's just really this big dynamic scheme of people involved.

Scott Groves  11:10  
Yeah, a moving dynamic fire line with the ground shifting below you sounds horrendous, like just like, like too much to keep in, in my mind.

Connor Secor  11:19  
Yeah, then you got, you know, you're dehydrated, you got all the carbon and toxin exposure and the psi overload, so yeah, you just got to keep your mind in the right environment, you know.

Scott Groves  11:29  
So I didn't know anything about this, but you and I were talking about, obviously, which is the genesis of this product, Thumos. You were telling me how many Swick operators get out with TBI and brain injury and concussions and et cetera et cetera, and I was like, it didn't make sense to me at first, because I'm like, well, no offense, bro, but you weren't like a Navy SEAL, you weren't like on the ground getting blown up next to a Humvee, and then you let me know, it's like, no, no, you're taking like a seven foot, eight foot wave with something this big, your head's getting slammed constantly against something, so can you talk about kind of all the experiences you had that led to a little bit of a brain fog.

Connor Secor  12:04  
Yeah, so I mean, like how you said it, other ground units, they they're constantly kind of training on the range or on the ground, but anything we do involves that damn boat, so we're constantly going out, and whatever the condition is for that day, is it? Is what it is, you know. We have like small craft advisories and things of that nature, but like when it comes down to it, when you have to do something real time, it's usually going to be in a bad environment. So we try to train to that standard, and it's constantly, constantly just checking it out, you know, seeing how it is out there. So,

Scott Groves  12:40  
and what led to like the concussions and the brain injuries,

Connor Secor  12:45  
it just constant whiplash, constant whiplash. I mean, the boat, 25,000 pounds, 50 to 60 knots,

Scott Groves  12:53  
Dave asked us, 56 knots, is that about 5060 miles, is like a knot, like close to

Connor Secor  12:57  
like one to 1.2 so it could be like 65 miles per hour, 70 miles per hour.

Scott Groves  13:02  
Okay,

Connor Secor  13:02  
but I mean, you got your kit on, you know, guns, ammo, all your gear, so the spinal compression with the g force combined, it just, yeah, it's tough.

Scott Groves  13:12  
And like, what happens with all that gear on when you hit a wave? Because I'm thinking you guys are probably going over some pretty severe chops. Like, do you bend your knees and just brace for it? Like, are you in some type of, like, NASCAR five point harness seat belt? Like, no.

Connor Secor  13:27  
So the CCM that has shock absorbent seats, honestly, I don't. I worry about those guys too when it comes to lower back injuries, but no. In the, in the CCA, we were standing up the whole time.

Scott Groves  13:41  
What's the CCA?

Connor Secor  13:42  
That's the open cockpit, 41 foot.

Scott Groves  13:44  
Oh, it's like an open cockpit, like, like a normal ski boat. You're just standing up at the wheel, and,

Connor Secor  13:49  
oh, and all crazy. Yeah, basically, you got three really wide buff dudes that fill out all the space as your seat belt, and yeah, that's about it. You're standing up, and you got safety bars basically holding you in, but yeah, it's open cockpit, and as much as scary as that is, it's how I prefer it, to be honest, because you get, you start going fast in like an enclosed cabin, and it gets real hot and seasick, it's game over.

Scott Groves  14:15  
All right, so then when you talk about the whiplash, I'm trying to, I'm trying to conceptualize this, like when I've skied, uh, water skied a couple times in like choppy water, it's like I don't know, every seven to eight seconds, and this is on a lake, right, like a choppy lake, every seven to eight to 10 seconds you're feeling something, right? Oh,

Connor Secor  14:34  
it's every second,

Scott Groves  14:35  
it's every second,

Connor Secor  14:36  
yeah. So just around every fourth wave is fourth or fifth wave is the biggest in the set, so you're looking out for that as the throttle men. You know, I'm usually chopping through all the small stuff, and then I'm setting myself up, basically configure yourself to be able to cut back and plow through it if it's good outside, but no, it's usually, I mean, every every millisecond you're getting something.

Scott Groves  14:57  
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Connor Secor  15:54  
Yeah, it's they've done studies on us, and basically a rough amount of 30 million whiplash events, 30 million, yeah, flash events, 30 million, holy, through, through three deployment cycles. So I've done two deployments in a DFP. What does that mean? Deploy for purpose. So basically, in our T-git phase, you can basically get called upon to go overseas and go do stuff. So we were deployed during that whole time, and yeah, just around 30 million whiplash events, like I said. G force is super high. When a pilot takes a hard turn, they usually take about eight to 10. They've our shock gages have registered about 60 gs of force

Scott Groves  16:39  
from that deep turn in the water,

Connor Secor  16:40  
not even a deep turn, like a launching off a wave and landing. Yeah, 60 gs.

Scott Groves  16:47  
Wait, you can launch like a 25,000 pound boat off a wave.

Connor Secor  16:50  
Oh yeah, the scariest you'll ever be is with your boys mid air, and you just hear the propellers, like in the like mid air. But as the throttle man, you have to go, you have to get on that and throttle up and be able to catch

Scott Groves  17:01  
it, catch what the next wave.

Connor Secor  17:03  
No, just you got to catch the landing.

Scott Groves  17:06  
This sounds horrible. Like, why did you volunteer for this?

Connor Secor  17:08  
I mean, you get swindled, man. You watch Active Valor, you know, you don't see any, any wake, anything. You know that ripped around the corner. Um, you're learning how to work on engines on fast boats with big guns, and then you get to the schoolhouse, you know, the training basically area, and all the instructors are from 22 that's the boat unit over there, and they're like, "Oh, don't go 22 go to the coastal teams, yada yada yada, and then it's either Virginia or San Diego, and you're already like, "You know, I'm from the Midwest, like I love San Diego. At this point I'm like, dude, I'm not going to Virginia, and I'm not going to Stennis, Mississippi either. So you get swindled into that, and it's a good life over there, but it's still, it's still the ocean, you know.

Scott Groves  17:50  
Yeah, and when you, when you guys go out on, whether it's a training exercise or a mission, like, how long are you out there in the water, right? Because, like, if you're in the water, there's no, there's, there's no, just like taking a bathroom break or grabbing lunch or whatnot, like, what, what's maybe like your longest hours on the boat without just reprieve or docking or pulling back up into a larger boat? Like, how long have you been out there before?

Connor Secor  18:14  
Like, 1820, hours,

Scott Groves  18:15  
18 hours on the ocean.

Connor Secor  18:17  
Yeah, you get pretty close with the guys that you're in, you know. Yeah, that's why me and my co-founder, when we started this thing, we're like, dude, we've been through worse, you know, like, we could do this, you know, I've deployed with him, all my deployments have been with my co-founder, so yeah, awesome, but yeah, 18 and 20 hours, not only with traumatic brain injury and everything else, but you're severely dehydrated and out of whack, and you know, circadian rhythm is out of whack, so yeah,

Scott Groves  18:43  
yeah, I took a boat in Belize from the coast out to the Blue Hole, which I don't know, somebody can look it up, I think it's like 1718 miles, not that far, and we get out for this scuba diving trip, and of course the boat that I booked on is this gorgeous huge, you know, had a jacuzzi in the back and a galley and everything, and we show up, and they put us on this little tiny, like it was like a fishing boat, like, like one outboard motor. I mean, it looked more like a canoe than a boat, and I'm like, okay, this is this is weird, but I guess we're gonna get on this, and then go to the main boat, and we're just out there, smacks. And I looked at the guy, I was like, hey man, so I think I might be on the wrong boat. I booked another boat. They're like, yeah, that one sunk last week, and I was like, Jesus, man, if the big boat sunk, the small boat, what chance do we have? Right, like, I'm glad I'm glad I got an inflatable vest on, like maybe the Coast Guard, the Belizean Coast Guard will pick me up. But I tell this story just because I think it was about an hour ride out there, then we dove, and getting back on the boat, I was dreading the hour drive back. I felt like my kidneys had rattled loose, like my neck was hurting, my back was hurting. It was luckily the Blue Hole's amazing, so it was an amazing dive. But I, what I remember more about that trip than the dive, which is a shame, is how bad I felt like getting back to the place where we're having the wedding, because, like, everything was just my feelings were. Battled loose, and we're on the water, maybe a total of five hours, maybe. So I can't imagine 1820, hours, and something like that.

Connor Secor  20:07  
Yeah, you get, you get really accustomed to it over time, but it is pretty funny, like having other units come aboard, and then, like, if you're with them for a couple days on something, and you have, like, a hard underway, they'll, like, fall asleep for, like, 14 hours, and they'll wake up and then just look like they got hit by a truck, and we're like, "Hey, how you doing, man? And they'll be like, "Dude, that thing is rough. Yeah, you get used to it, but you never get too used to

Scott Groves  20:29  
it. That's nuts. So, okay, so you get out of the Navy. Did you get out because you had to get out? Was there a medical issue, or you just decided I'd serve my time, I'm happy? Or like, what was the.. what was the exit from the military like?

Connor Secor  20:40  
I mean, both, you know, my body took its toll, did my contract, did my time, and due diligence, and it was just time, just too many brain injuries. I had around six or seven concussions my last deployment cycle, and that's only two years, so that's not even counting all the smaller underways where you know you feel like you had a hard sparring session, and things of that nature, that was like seven big events, you know.

Scott Groves  21:06  
And is the military at least smart enough that if they know you got a concussion, do they sit you out for a few days like the NFL would, or is it like, no, you just, there's a mission to be done, get back on the boat.

Connor Secor  21:16  
Both, I guess it depends, you know. I had my first real bad traumatic brain injury in 2019 and at that time they didn't really have a good concussion protocol, but it was leaning towards there, and now they're way more vigilant of the problem, and and they take the steps forward, you know.

Scott Groves  21:33  
What I think I've had a concussion, but what is that feeling like when you get whacked, you know, on the deck of a boat or something, or you just get whiplash so bad, like, what is it? What is it? Sensation where you're like, "Oh yeah, that's a concussion, or do you not even really know until it's

Scott Groves  21:46  
no, I was past,

Connor Secor  21:47  
you know? Yeah, since that's the first time I've ever had a concussion, I know it's just a complete disconnect. You know, you really feel like you're out of rhythm, your body and mind aren't really in sync, you got brain fog, you're depressed, sensitivity to light, you know, if it's that bad or you're nauseous, but yeah, it's just.. it's really a whole body thing,

Scott Groves  22:06  
all right. So, you get out in the military, and then you know, kind of bounced around, did some things for a couple years, and then how does the idea for Thumos come about between you and your fellow Swift boater?

Connor Secor  22:17  
Oh, not even a couple years, this was like right away, so to rewind just a little bit, me and my co-founder at the time, Brock, we did a business transition program for special operations called Honor Foundation, where it was a 12 week program where they basically got us ready for the business world, where we did our resume interviews, we went through different companies to see what kind of sector we would, you know, prefer to transition into, and my co-founder at the time was studying for the GMAT, studying to go to business school, aiming for an Ivy League school, and he was going to go consulting, and since the first time we stepped into Deloitte, he was like, "Dude, I'm not doing this, you know, he thought that was like his calling to go to that sector, but I mean, he just saw everyone there, and he was like, "Dude, we got to do something else. So, I mean, it was the same thing with me. I was going to still do my MBA, I was going to go into operations and the defense tech and things of that nature. Realized that wasn't for me, and we just wanted to get into the supplement space and the beverage space in particular, and we knew we had, we had a great idea, and to elaborate more on it.

Scott Groves  23:28  
Yeah, so tell me, tell me about the genesis of the idea, right? Because the branding here says daily brain and gut support helps focus memory, cellular support, cognitive function, etc. etc. etc. etc. but I know what you guys are really trying to do, and you're working on all the science of this, and I think you've done some of the science of this, is like you really want to help people like yourself that you know through their military service have some brain damage, had enough concussions to where they're probably should have been medically retired, and this can actually help. So, tell us, tell us about, like, from ideation, like, hey, we think we're onto something here, to like, kind of where we are today.

Connor Secor  24:04  
Well, my passion starts from it way earlier on in life. I used to have epilepsy before, as a child, so I had my first epileptic seizure when I was five. I was on,

Scott Groves  24:13  
hey, let you do this job as an epileptic,

Connor Secor  24:16  
I mean, you get a waiver and you know, you send it, you're in the army, you know how it goes, but no, I was, I was five when I had my first epileptic seizure. I was on Keppra and Carbatrol, like heavy doses, like as a little kid, just like passing out in class, and yeah, that lasted for years, but I thankfully, through God, I grew out of that and was healed from that, and yeah, when I was 18, I finally got the waiver, the waiver to go, and shortly after me starting training and getting a special boat, team 12, I had a traumatic brain injury, and

Scott Groves  24:54  
can you talk about that?

Connor Secor  24:55  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I was basically, I was a.. I don't want to say. A cocky new guy, but like, you're you know, you get into cocky

Scott Groves  25:02  
new guys, fine,

Connor Secor  25:03  
you get into a unit and you know you constantly feel like you got to hold your own. So I got thrown right in there, like three weeks into being at the team, I went to basic ground skills, we're doing like ground mobility and all this stuff, but we were basically in combatives, and I was just having my rounds, and you know, 10 seconds left, and I wasn't really paying attention, and my boat captain at the time gave me a real bad concussion, so that lingered for basically months after that. I mean, you get out of Sears school and selection, and your hormones are all out of whack, and you know, you're still recovering from basically a year and a half of training and everything else that's led up to that point, but yeah, I was in like post concussion syndrome for like six months, basically getting this concussion, like I told you, TBI protocol wasn't really a thing, I was like really back to training like two days afterwards in Stennis, Mississippi, where it's 100 plus degrees, and just was not feeling right, so got right back to training, got right back on the boats, learning everything, but yeah, I was finished my workup with them, was relieved from that debt, and then Covid hit, so thankfully I got some real good time off training and the job for, you know, six months to nine months, and I got back into another detachment, and I was all healed up, and that one went well. We deployed to Greece, kind of came back, didn't really have a too bad of a time when it comes to concussions or brain injury in there, but my second deployment is really where it started to pick up, we were off the coast of San Diego, and this is really where it was just like a snowball of TBI, and we'll get more to the product in a little bit, but basically we were off the coast of San Diego, doing some dead reckoning, basically like timing yourself to how far you can travel and how to navigate and in darkness and things of that nature, but the boat is so vulnerable to going down or something breaking. So we had a trim tab break on our boat, and we were like flying out of the water, like in this storm.

Scott Groves  27:14  
Trim tabs a little bore on the back that goes up and down that keeps the pitch of the boat.

Scott Groves  27:17  
Yep,

Scott Groves  27:17  
so if that breaks, you're literally just launching off of every wave,

Scott Groves  27:20  
yep,

Scott Groves  27:21  
that sounds good.

Connor Secor  27:22  
So, I mean, if that breaks, you get a little tighter with your drives, and you can manipulate the drive a little bit, but, like, still, if you want to get on step and, like, you know, plow through the waves fast, you know, your trim better work. But yeah, we were getting thrown around pretty hard, and I had a real nasty concussion, and then we literally came back to the same spot three weeks later, our boat broke down, like right off the coast of San Clemente. So that was like 70 miles off the coast where we were just at, and our boat went down, so we ended up towing our boat, our boat back in like the middle of darkness, in the storm, just getting thrown around, not being able to see, I like, had as the throttle man, I'm controlling the drive, and I'm still controlling one engine while we're driving back. So I got my windscreen down, I got my night vision goggles on, trying to control this ride, and we're like going in and out of the wake, because my boat captain, he's a big, like, Jack Wamenian dude, but he's still like having a hard time, like controlling the boat and everything at those speeds, but we're like in and out of the wake, and he pulled us back in a little too fast for like our positioning, and we just took a real hard side shot. I smashed my face on the side of the boat, broke my nose, got a real bad traumatic brain injury there, and it was just snowball. We went to Alaska, off the coast of Kodiak, Alaska, like 150 miles out, and that beautiful ride, and getting after it with all my buddies, came back, went to the came back to San Diego, went back to the Lucian Chain Islands of Alaska, like 60 miles outside the Arctic Circle, you can imagine how the Bering Sea is, and things of that nature up there. So,

Scott Groves  29:07  
I've seen Deadliest Cash, so I know that's not fun.

Connor Secor  29:09  
Yeah, exactly. Um, better, better than that, that environment, but yeah, you could just imagine how rough that is. So, that's just a cumulative over time, you know.

Scott Groves  29:19  
So, this whole time, you know, absolute epilepsy of the youth, and then going through this massive training where you're probably dehydrated every day, and then with these injuries, were you, were you already on the hunt for supplements that could help, or were you trying to take, I mean, just at a bare minimum, electrolytes to stay hydrated, like, like, what was your experience with the supplement industry leading up to you guys creating this?

Connor Secor  29:38  
Yeah, so with my first traumatic brain injury, right away, they were like high doses of fish oil, high dose of creatine and coq 10 and vitamin D, that was basically the protocol they had, but that was like my introduction to like the nutraceutical space and like what they could do for your health and wellness and longevity as a whole, so creatine, I mean, when I was in high school, that was. Like a muscle building supplement that wasn't anything for the brain, but once I got on 10 grams, 20 grams, when I was in post concussion syndrome, I just noticed the effects, basically right away,

Scott Groves  30:13  
the effects of

Connor Secor  30:15  
of creatine,

Scott Groves  30:16  
clearing the brain fog and stuff like that.

Connor Secor  30:17  
Yeah, basically just better cellular energy, better, better at the tasks I had throughout the day, but it just really led us down this path of, okay, this is the right, like, family tree of nutrients I should be taking, I believe in it, it's already in your body, and that was like when alpha brain was getting real popular too,

Scott Groves  30:38  
yeah,

Connor Secor  30:39  
right, so I'm like a salty consumer, like alpha brains taken off, but like creatine is saving my life. So it basically made me passionate about the nutraceuticals and what they could do for your overall health and longevity. But yeah, throughout our time, we just.. I just kept that real close, you know. I'm starting to learn more, you know. Coq 10, amazing for the brain, originally a cardiovascular medication, but what's good for the heart is what's good for the brain and improves blood flow of the brain, but they, the doctors, nutritionists, and all the people around said it's very hard to absorb in the body, and I just thought if I could get my hands on a better absorbable form, I wonder how good Coquit could be for my body. So, basically, you see in Thumos we have a nano emulsified version, so it's three to six times more absorbent than normal. What does

Scott Groves  31:26  
that mean? Nano emulsified, you're using words that I don't know.

Connor Secor  31:30  
It's basically encapsulated in like a fat lipid molecule that can pass the blood brain barrier easy and be betterly absorbed.

Scott Groves  31:39  
Nice. So tell us a little bit about, like, the formulation of this particular product, right? Because you and I both know, especially from the gym, yeah, there's a lot of - there's a lot of nutritional advice that's a little bit of bro science, you know. We know if we personally know a couple UFC fighters that have got popped because they were taking supplements that they thought were totally clean, and, oh no, that was mixed in the same vat as the steroids, the order before that, which I absolutely believe, but how do you, how do you go about even coming up with, like, the formulation for this product? Because you know you were, you're a military guy, and neither of us are molecular scientists, right? Yeah, so how did you guys come up with the formula, and then what was it like, because we talked, I don't know, probably a year and a half ago, when you were just first starting to get some tests back, and you're like, man, this is harder than I thought.

Connor Secor  32:23  
Yeah, I mean, so first of all, focusing on my gut health, like, saved my life. My second deployment, when I was really going through it, my nervous system was shot, and my brain was at its worst. I was basically sitting on the ship, and I had this book that I was meaning to read by Austin and David Perlmutter, called Brain Maker. I already read their brainwash. Their protocols really helped me through my mental health and brain health overall. So, I knew anything within their series could really help me out in the long run. I basically start reading about the methodology with David and Austin Perlmutter, and really their blend of like nutraceuticals with probiotics and prebiotics and things of that nature, and we just, I started taking L-glutamine, I started focusing on my gut health, and my nervous system drastically improved, my brain health drastically improved, and this is when I was already taking Co Q 10, creatine, things of that nature, and really just put ourselves around the best dietitian nutritionists and doctors and really just ask questions, so we just had this outline of what we really thought would help us in the long run when it comes to energy and longevity, and then we just took that forth to a scientist, he kind of gave us the green light, my co-founder met him while he was doing his MBA at Wharton, and really just went forth with the outline and went to a higher echelon of knowledge, and you know, they gave us the green light and said you're onto something, and here we are.

Scott Groves  33:53  
Can you talk about that a little bit, because I think a lot of people don't understand that connection between gut health and brain health, right? Like, I think most Americans know that our typical American diet is complete garbage, and it's making us fat, but I don't think people know as much about our bad health in America, is also making us dumb.

Connor Secor  34:10  
Yeah,

Scott Groves  34:11  
absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about that brain-gut health relation?

Connor Secor  34:14  
I mean, I think we're all inflamed at some point, whether it's our gut and our brain, but no, I mean, 70% of our neurotransmitters are made in our gut, a lot of these bacteria and a lot of these things that are being made in your gut microbiome are making the neurotransmitters that you need to function, so I mean, once you, once you realize that, I mean, your gut is your second brain, and that's all we're focused on, you know, when it comes to cognition, overall health,

Scott Groves  34:40  
interesting, and so you know, when I think about gut, I think about this, is going to be kind of gross, like, how's my bowel movements, and in my gassy, right? But, like, what are all the things that are going on in your gut, like, like you mentioned inflammation, what are the other things that, like, your guts controlling?

Connor Secor  34:55  
Oh, I mean, it's controlling your nervous system, it's controlling your inflammation response, your. Immunity response, I mean, really, it really predicts your perspective and your overall mental health when it comes, you know, like I said, 70% of your neurotransmitters are made in your gut. Talk a little bit more about GABA, so it's basically a neurotransmitter that's primarily focused in calming, calming you and your nervous system, and through L-glutamine, that's really why our main focus, not only does it help strengthen your gut lining, but it's a precursor for glutamate, so glutamate turns into GABA, and that's basically how your gut produces GABA, the main neural kind of calming agent in your brain.

Scott Groves  35:38  
Interesting. So, okay, I want to talk about, like, this journey with the scientist, right? So, your co-founder meets him at Wharton Business School, or meets him through, uh, through the program there. What do you tell him, right? Because I do supplements, the number of supplements that are out there are probably a dime a dozen. I would imagine somebody be like, 'Hey, we're on to something new. He's like, 'Yeah, roll my eyes, everything's been tried. What was the conversations like with the scientists to come up with like the right amount per serving, like what is the, you know, what is the what is the right mixture of this stuff in this powder, which putting into water, you gave me a bag of this. Thank you. I tried it, it's actually pretty good. It's not disgusting like some of the other things out there that I've tried. Where did you, where did you guys come up with all the ingredients, and like, what was that? How long was that back and forth with the scientists to figure out what's going to be in here and what's the dosage?

Connor Secor  36:26  
Like I said, we were just some salty consumers, right? So we saw all these proprietary blends that were under dosed and just a lot of ingredients that were underutilized, so like I said, we had an outline and we really thought we were at like a 99% mark when we even went to him, and once he just put all the clinical trials together and really went through it, we were already close to it, to be honest.

Scott Groves  36:49  
Can you talk about that process of clinical trials? Because I think what a lot of people don't understand is, like, there's FDA-approved drugs, aka the stuff you get a pharmacist, but you walk into GNC, or, you know, I mean to pick them out, but any pick on them specifically, but you walk into any supplement store, you don't really know what you're getting, you don't really know if it's been third party tested, you don't really know if it's been through any actual clinical trials to see if the shit actually works. It's kind of just like word of mouth, right? And like, what works for you might not work for me when we talk about like muscle building and stuff. So, can you talk about like the care that you've taken in the development of this product, because I know how serious you've taken that.

Connor Secor  37:23  
Yeah, absolutely. So, individually, every ingredient has been clinically studied. So, acidic, choline - it's a, it's a nutrient that's out of Japan, basically patented. But, yeah, that's for healthy brain signaling, that's going to raise acetylcholine levels in the brain, that's responsible for memory, learning, processing. There's just a lot of backing and history behind these ingredients, and really, this has been going on for years. Creatine has been studied since the 60s and 70s. It really just putting it all together through the history of clinical trials, and really, what's been the dominating factor in a lot of these nutrients. How hard has it been for you guys to source the individual materials, find the packer, like now just getting down the nuts and bolts of running a business, you know? I know your founders in San Diego, you're up here in Henderson. Where are you getting this stuff packaged? Like, how are you doing quality control and stuff? What, what has the actual business nuts and bolts to get to this package meant to you? And how long has it taken? So, finding the right one is hard, but yeah, that one is made out of Utah right now. They did an amazing job with the execution with the flavor, but yeah, we are going to stick packets soon with a co-packer out of New York. Just easy, better accessible, more premium ingredients. We're going to have more acidic, choline in our next product. We're going to watermelon lime and guava mint, but yeah, finding the right person for your dream and your product is not easy.

Scott Groves  38:44  
I'm impressed that you guys are doing US-based, because I'm sure there was a little bit of like a siren call of like cost efficiency, like, well, we could do this in Taiwan or we could do this in China, but like, why was it important for you to use US-based companies?

Connor Secor  38:56  
I mean, we're just American-based company, you know, or in general, we're just going to stick to our roots and have it packaged, made, and and shipped all out of the US.

Scott Groves  39:05  
What's the name mean? What's the most mean?

Connor Secor  39:07  
Thumos is it's actually the third part of the soul in Greek mythology, so it means the fire and the spirit

Scott Groves  39:14  
for life.

Connor Secor  39:15  
So we

Scott Groves  39:15  
would name,

Connor Secor  39:15  
yeah, we want you to get that through your own brain health and really to fuel your passion for whatever you got going on, and feel your passion for life.

Scott Groves  39:23  
So, tell me a little bit about, like, bringing this to market and doing the education. So, did you guys do any outcome studies, or did you a test group, or is it like, hey, I know this works, let's just get it in the hands of the right people? Like, what's kind of the like marketing and testing journey been thus far, because I know you guys only had the product for a few months. I got the, I got one of the first bags of pretty excited about that. But how is how has the business journey been going?

Connor Secor  39:50  
Yeah, so we already work, we already had a personal testimony with the ingredients, right? A lot of them in clinical trials were already working synergistically, so we. Knew once we put them together that the results are inevitable, so we really just handed out to all the guys that needed it, right, being in the 10th planet space, the UFC space with military backing. I mean, we just handed out to so many people that have had traumatic brain injuries and gotten so much good feedback that that was really our first test group.

Scott Groves  40:19  
What is the sales plan? Is it mostly online? Is it word of mouth? Is it Facebook ads? Is it like, are you trying to get into GNC or something like that? Like, what's the, what's the strategy for you guys for distribution? That's just distributions, the word I was looking for. Maybe I got TV. I'm

Connor Secor  40:32  
trying to get on Henderson HQ newsletter. No, no, but we're strictly DTC online. We're doing meta ads, Google ads, TikTok, you know, just really branch ourselves out and see what sticks, but yeah, mainly DTC.

Scott Groves  40:46  
What would the holy grail be of like advertising for you? Who's somebody you'd like to get this in the hands of?

Connor Secor  40:51  
I mean, whoever it helps the most, really, just the UFC space, UFC and military. I grew up with a lot of. I actually grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, Anthony Pettis, Sergio Pettis, Ray Pettis, so all those guys. I mean, the UFC fighters are close to my heart, and I know what it's like to have traumatic brain injuries and the long-lasting effects, and you know, you see all the wild things that happen with some of these UFC fighters. So I know that's fueled by traumatic brain injury. So it's really that whole group.

Scott Groves  41:22  
Yeah, I'm a big Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and there's been some like tragic stories of former Steelers that did horrendous stuff that we don't have to talk about on this podcast, but it's like, man, I wonder how much that in that was inherently like who they were and maybe what they were predispositioned to, or their environment, and how much of that was maybe like you mentioned the calming agent in your, in your formula here, like how much of that is their brain was just damaged and they maybe didn't have the physical ability to control themselves anymore.

Connor Secor  41:52  
I think it has a large part to do with it. Even Antonio Brown, he seemed like a super nice guy, but he gets knocked out and then he turns super impulsive and narcissistic, and kind of into a more sociopath behavior, even Jon Jones, you know, super nice Christian dude, but you know, you just mix, you mix trauma, aggression, maybe some hormones in there with some traumatic brain injury, and and substance abuse, it's just a recipe for disaster.

Scott Groves  42:19  
What's the next like level of testing for you, like, if you, if you had a venture capital guy come in and be like, all right, we love the product, we love your story, we love everything about here's a couple million dollars to do xyz testing. Is there, like, a gold standard for testing supplements to do, you know, a trial or an A/B test or something like that? Is there, is there anything on your radar when you guys, you know, either raise a ton of money or you sell a ton of product to, like, get the next level of, you know, the stamp of approval.

Connor Secor  42:44  
Well, I love Dr. Daniel Amen. I love what he does for brain health and spec scans, and his whole methodology and ideology behind what he does. A lot of what we do is based off of him and what he believes in. When it comes to nutraceuticals, he believes you know the end of mental illness is within nutraceuticals. So, I would love for Thumos to be taken in a control test group with Dr. Daniel Amen and spec scans and see what parts of the brain it helps it fire off, and, and how it works, you know,

Scott Groves  43:17  
man. This might be a bridge way too far. I don't expect you to comment on it, but you know, when I was a kid, there was one homeless dude in Eagle Rock, California, and everybody knew who he was. My mom would buy him lunch once in a while, nice guy, but just a raving alcoholic, right? And he had a family member in Pasadena that would have taken him in any time if he got sober, and now you drive around LA, and there is a schizophrenic, crazy drug addicted trying to self-medicate homeless person on every corner, and I just.. I can't help but wonder, like, as the quality of food has gone down, and presumably we have destroyed everybody's gut. I wonder how much of that has to do with, like, the mental health crisis in America, whether it's just your, your average teenager, who's depressed all the way to the schizophrenic that's right, that's that's living on the street. I wonder, how much of that is the catalyst for that is possibly like, I've ruined my gut health, it puts my brain in a bad spot, now I'm downhill, now I start taking drugs to self medicate, and like, I don't know, again, probably a bridge too far for me to extrapolate onto that, but I don't know, maybe we're onto something. I mean,

Connor Secor  44:23  
I think everyone is subject to their own medical curiosity, right? If we, if our meat is pumped with antibiotics and hormones, and everything that we take causes oxidative stress to our guts and our brains, and then we're not putting ourselves in the right environment to thrive when it comes to that. I mean, I think that could lead you into a snowball effect of, yeah, something bad happening. We're in the mindset that SSRIs are the way to go, you know, that's one neurotransmitter when it comes to serotonin, right? You have many more, so I mean, just the whole methodology behind it, you know, I tear my shoulder, I go get an MRI if someone is seeing. Things or hearing voices, they just symptom cluster, and then send you down a whole list of SSRIs, so there's a lot of things to fix, and in the way we handle things, I believe.

Scott Groves  45:09  
Can you talk about a little bit about your personal experience, you know, the challenges you had with depression and just the brain fog and stuff like that, and how you, you know, this has helped?

Connor Secor  45:19  
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've had depression and things that nature rings really close to my heart. Had a lot of people that I know growing up and within my family commit suicide, and I just understand, I just understand the whole pain of it. Right? I think depression is just really correlated with low energy as well. You just have not given your body and your mind the right things to to thrive, but yeah, whenever I've had a concussion, I mean, I'm definitely in a depressive state, and I think these traumatic brain injuries have long-lasting effects on you and your mental health and an overall well-being, and I think it all starts in your gut.

Scott Groves  45:56  
How has it helped you, like, if you had to go from, like, you know, level one being post concussion, post TBI, depressive state, whatnot. Like, where do you feel you're hovering today?

Connor Secor  46:07  
Oh, I feel great compared a year and a half ago to when I first got out. I think a big part of the gut health focus is taking the weight off, the lowering your weight, your body weight, lowering your inflammation. I mean, taurine and coq 10 are amazing antioxidants for the brain. So, I think there's a lot of free radical kind of damage that could be floating around to be fixed, and you mix that with a premium ingredient like cytocholine that can help repair DNA synthesis in the brain. I think you're just, you know, it's a cocktail for success. You know,

Scott Groves  46:38  
where can people find the product? Where can they buy it now

Connor Secor  46:41  
at www livethumos.com We do see

Scott Groves  46:45  
all that real quick, because most people aren't going to know what thumos

Connor Secor  46:47  
is, l i v e live, and then thumos, t h u m o s.

Scott Groves  46:51  
Okay, so they can buy it there in bulk. What does this thing cost, by the way?

Connor Secor  46:54  
So, first order is 50% off at 3950 and then subscribe and save reoccurring is going to be 5999

Scott Groves  47:02  
and then how long will this bag last me? I'm guessing, I'm guessing you recommend like a scoop a day, right? Keep your doctor away. Oh, so this is like a month supply. Yep, love it. About half my bag is gone, so now I got some new bags. Awesome.

Connor Secor  47:15  
No, I hate when, when you get something at the store and it's like 22 servings, 27 servings, and they're like, dude,

Scott Groves  47:21  
oh, that's by design,

Connor Secor  47:22  
yeah. And they say subscription based, so no, everything we do is like I said, because we're salty consumers, and we just want to check the boxes of all the things that used to piss us off.

Scott Groves  47:32  
What's the next step for you? You mentioned a couple different flavors, maybe like even an enhanced formula. Is this something that you're constantly tinkering with? Are you like, hey, we've got the product, we know it works, let's just push hard on getting it to market.

Connor Secor  47:44  
Yeah, so before we focus on any other line of products, and we obviously, with our scientists, our team on board, that's dedicated to pushing these high premium products to market, we just want to master this one, we want to get into stick packs, we want to have flavors available, we want it to come to a price point that's welcome to a lot of other people, right, in today's world with inflation, things of that nature. So, just getting, getting our cogs down and getting our price point right for the consumer, and just really honing in on this in the next year or so.

Scott Groves  48:18  
Yeah, I've, I've had some conversations with Jocko when I was at his camp in Maine, and he talked about scaling, you know, their supplement company and scaling the Jocko Go energy drink specifically, and he's like, it was a real cool ride up until I don't remember exactly what it was, gonna call it a million cases or whatever, he's like, but all of a sudden when you got to put up $1.2 million for line time and aluminum, and you're not going to sell any of this product for the next 30 days, and you're hoping the orders come in, and then you're hoping you get paid your accounts receivable, you know, when, when it's your personal money, and you haven't taken on venture capital money, and you're staring down the barrel of a couple million dollar check of your money until things start coming in, it gets real scary. So, are you guys planning to like bootstrap this and scale on your own, or are you guys looking for investors? Are you looking for a bigger company to like have your product kind of nestle under theirs? Or what's what's kind of your guys' dream, thinking big?

Connor Secor  49:15  
Yeah, so Brock and I, we bootstrapped in the beginning with our own money, we raised just in our near network friends, family, he does his MBA at Wharton. He's raised a lot of good money from there. We've taken on no venture capitalist money, all in our network, but we're just about to finish our seed round and wrap that up. And then, yeah, then we're going into another seed round at another valuation, and just looking to expand and scale and get it, get two most in the right hands.

Scott Groves  49:42  
That's awesome, man. Because I know for people that don't know those venture capitals, a lot of people like, oh, write a check, go, good luck for you, but like the right venture capital partner will actually have the skills and the experience to help you scale in the space, man. So I'm, I'm excited for you.

Connor Secor  49:56  
Yeah, smart money, so that's that's what we're looking for, and people with good. Hearts and really have their head in the game when it comes to overall mission, right. So we've just gotten incredibly blessed with the people around us that have invested and they really put forth extra effort into the company, and yeah, we're just blessed, to be honest.

Scott Groves  50:14  
Cool, man. Anything I forget to ask you about Thumos?

Connor Secor  50:17  
No, not really. I mean, we'll just.. I bet I'll come on here again, and we'll talk more, but yeah, just putting your brain in the right environment to thrive every day, prebiotics, brain support, nutrients, I mean, yeah, it's just that's the mission, man.

Scott Groves  50:30  
I gotta push this on a bunch of sales people who need a little bit more brain health, because they're not as sharp as I wish they'd be, and they're not following their coaching curriculum. So I will, I'll start, I'll start pushing this in sales space as well.

Connor Secor  50:41  
I appreciate you. I've seen your seminars and read your book, so you could probably sell for us. Okay,

Scott Groves  50:45  
perfect, man. Well, I appreciate you. Do congratulations. And yeah, this is this is great. I'm sure I'll see you daily at Jiu Jitsu, and I'll keep, I'll keep people abreast of the journey of Thumos. Thanks, man.

Connor Secor  50:58  
Let's go, brother. Appreciate

Scott Groves  50:59  
you. Cool.

Connor Secor  50:59  
Yeah, this was awesome.

Scott Groves  51:02  
Hey, it's Scott Groves with the Henderson HQ podcast. I hope you got something out of that episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to the podcast. It really helps the show grow. And by the way, if you are a business owner, or you know a business owner who has an interesting product, service, or just an interesting backstory. Please, please get in touch with us. Email us at the Henderson hq@gmail.com We would love to interview you, because that's what this show is all about. It's about building community, supporting local, individually owned businesses, and just making Henderson a great place to live. And don't forget, go to Henderson hq.com and make sure you sign up for our newsletter. We send out a once a week newsletter, no spam about the most interesting local businesses, hotspots, restaurants, community events. Thanks for watching the show. Really appreciate you.