Angela is the founder of Tribali Foods, makers of organic frozen burger patties of assorted creative flavors. The story of her entrepreneurial journey will inspire you to persevere through adversity and stay focused and resilient in pursuit of your dreams.

Several years ago, Angela found herself a divorced mother of three young children, compelled to immediately switch from stay at home mom to breadwinner. She also was coming off a 35-year stint as a vegetarian and endurance athlete and experiencing what she described as a “hard drive crash.” In search of improved health and vitality, she cooked up a steak, took her first bite of meat in decades and loved it (condolences to those vegetarians who say the return to meat and are grossed out). This meal was the catalyst for Angela to transform her diet and dive deep into the primal/paleo scene, and also set the stage for her eventual entrepreneurial adventure.  

She started buying quality meats at Whole Foods, getting a meat grinder off Amazon, and experimenting at home with assorted exotic burger patties. After all, her family is in the restaurant business and she spent decades working at her father’s hamburger stands in Southern California. Soon, her friends were begging for more and the butchers at Whole Foods were wondering what she was doing with all of her purchases! This led to a meeting with national Whole Foods buyers, who loved her samples and concept, and told her that if she could go start a business and get a product to market, they would place a big order. How’s that for marching orders?! 

Angela immersed herself into this project, has enjoyed great initial success, and is eager to continue growing. However, we all know how difficult it is to maintain balance in modern life, and Angela has had some awakenings and recalibrations along the way that are valuable to reflect upon. She conveys that with the company’s destiny riding on her shoulders, she has to be in top physical and mental form, well rested and refreshed at all times. Witness her participation in pitch contests, where she endures a Shark Tank-like interrogation to attract potential investors. For this reason, she has established winning patterns and routines, such as making time for a daily walk, along with regular outings with her kids away from the frenzy of the office. She is committed to taking care of herself from the inside-out, and hearing about how she is making it work will inspire you to do the same. Angela’s journey will remind you that while the road to success isn’t easy, there is no doubt that it is always worth taking a leap of faith to pursue your passions…and hey, while you’re hard at work, super busy chasing your dreams, why not order a couple of Tribali burgers to keep in your freezer, so you can ensure that you are keeping yourself nourished, energized, and healthy! 

TIMESTAMPS:

Angela Mavridis was a vegetarian until she started her successful business. [05:25]

Where did the name Tribali come from? [09:39]

She did not have any digestive issues when she switched after 35 of vegetarianism. [11:05]

After her making patties in her own kitchen, she was discovered by Whole Foods. [14:33]

Being a single mother, she has learned about balance. [22:56]

We are strongly influenced by the behaviors of people around us. [29:34]

Angela compares her life in Greece with her life in U.S. Big Difference! [31:33]

Angela had a good awakening when she discovered how much she was spending her time in her business rather than with family. [38:08}

Brad and Angela point out the importance of meditation. [41:40]

LINKS:

• Tribali Foods
• Framingham Study

QUOTES:

• “There are no ordinary moments in life.” (Dan Millman)

LISTEN:

Get Over Yourself Podcast

Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author an athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high stress modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balance that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go.

Okay, Here comes an interesting podcast with Angela, Mavridas, founder of Tribali Foods. Check these guys out if you want. A quick and easy Burger Patty, that’s super healthy, organic, delicious with incredible spices and flavors. This is her business. This girl has plunged in full bore and trying to create something beautiful, merging her disparate passions of her lifelong family, business of fast food hamburgers in the Pasadena, California area, and then her awakening to health, her passion for primal Paleo living and going forward in life and trying something scary and new and trying to launch a business. I think our story is going to captivate you. I was just chit chatting with her when I met her at Paleo Fx in Austin, Texas. The gathering of all the pay than I own enthusiasts from around the world. And I thought, you know what? That’s a pretty interesting story. We should do a podcast sometime.

So we did. So here’s a woman kind of hitting a bottom point, going through a painful divorce. She’ s got three young kids. All of a sudden she’s a single mom, compelled to be the breadwinner. After going through a stage of life, of being a stay at home mom and looking after kids. Wow, what the heck are you going to do? And in her case it was pick herself up and go for it. And the cool backstory is that she was vegetarian for 35 years, worked well for her. She was athletic, she was healthy, she was fit. And then she started feeling lousy and wanting to open her eyes to something else. Luckily, she had the family business is going on where the brothers operate a wonderful barbecue joint in Pasadena and the burgers surrounding her whole life. She was flipping burgers for 40 years in dad’s restaurant while being a vegetarian for most of that time.

So finally she had her first bite of a steak in 35 years and she’ll talk about that on the show. And then it led to some fun experimentation. All of a sudden she’s had a meeting with national Whole Foods buyers and they said, you know what, bring this to market and we’ll order some. So all of a sudden she was chartered with starting and building a business. And we are accustomed to hearing wonderful success stories left and right. And the business grew was 727% in the first three quarters of this year. Uh, but with their success came some reflection and having to reevaluate her priorities because she dove so deeply into building the business that she realized that other areas of her life had come out of balance. So that’s what this podcast is about. Lots of themes and interesting concepts and causes for reflection with Angela doing her thing, trying her best with a nice blend of leading a balanced lifestyle, but also on leasing that competitive spirit into the marketplace.

Enjoy the show with Angela Mavridas. Angela Mavridas, Thank you for having me in your stylish office here after a fabulous lunch at one of the family restaurants and we, we hit it hard, delicious, sweet potato fries. You had the salmon salad. Let’s give a shout out. What’s the name of the barbecue? What was it?

Guss’s .

Guss’s Barbecue They brought the melted butter to me for my sweet potato fries. And my, uh, the, uh, pulled pork. No, what did I have?

Oh, brisket.

Brisket .Yeah. Fabulous meal. Good. And we met at Paleo FX hanging around the primal booth and I thought we talked a little bit. I said, you know, when this will be a good podcast to talk about this amazing journey you’ve been on, have a transformation, female empowerment, taking it on. All right, thank you. Got a business going that’s uh, been a fabulous success out of the gate. I know it’s a lot of hard work and you’ve got a long way to go, but tell us about what’s, let’s just jump right into, um, the, the frozen patties of a healthy organic nature. Very, uh, unique and stylish. Tell me all about it.

Tribali foods. Yes. It came about, um, for a need for something to do. I was mentioning during our lunch, obviously post divorce, looking at three little kids, how am I going to get them to college and what is their future’s going to be like. So I thought I’ve got to create something and do something. And I drew on my background, both in the restaurant business because dad owns and operates hamburger fast food drive throughs in Pasadena and my health journey. And I mentioned to you, I was a vegetarian for 35 years growing up in a Greek meat eating family that owns restaurants. So I was sort of the black sheep or the outcast of why am I not eating meat? Um, but that health journey drove me to where I am today to realize that good high quality animal meats, um, seasoned with various flavors from around the world can be both good for you, good for the animal, good for your health. And I started eating meat again. Uh, and that’s kind of helped it all came about.

That’s funny. You’re blending like here’s the fast food on one side and the traditional American uh, stuff. And then here you are deep in the Paleo world and looking at the, the, the objections to the feed lot animals and the benefits of grass fed and organic and all that. So you kind of pulled each side and I guess, uh, planted your stake. What’s Trabali?

So Tribali is the company I developed to bring these to the world and it’s all about high quality animal proteins. So today we are grass fed and finished beef free range chicken organic. Um, we’re doing turkey or we’ll do wild caught seafood. We’ll do pastured pork. So it’s always the highest quality animal proteins and in different forms we’ve got patties. We’ve got sliders coming out the summer. Uh, we’ve been asked to make some meatballs, so any kind of form and various flavors and spices and, um, perhaps what we’re delivering to the world in the freezer.

And what does Tribali designate ?

The way I look at it, the name is, I’m part of just joining the tribe. It’s sort of a journey. And I feel like every time you change something in your life, you need a teaching. You need a teacher and you need a tribe of people that are likeminded. Um, and that’s what this is. It’s a tribe of people that are conscious both about the environment, the animal, and the health of yourself. So join the tribe.

So you’re in the vegetarian tribe for 35 years time and what, uh, caused you to open your eyes and try something new?

Um, you know, it was like the hard drive just crashed, I think 35 years of doing things in a certain way served me and they served me well. Um, during all the athleticism I did, I was a cyclist, I was a cross fitter, I was a marathon runner and I was always concerned with how much protein I’m getting because I didn’t want to, you know, I’m doing so much work in the gym. I wanted to make sure I’m building some muscle. So it was always protein powders and supplements and bars and you know, any kind of protein I can get in. Um, and I think that just did a number of my digestion after here of IBS and bloating. And I had gone to doctors and they couldn’t, they couldn’t really figure it out. Like, what’s wrong with you? Um, so I thought, I can’t be so dogmatic into my diet. It’s working. And it was working in my teens and my twenties and my thirties, but once I’m in my forties I’m like, you know, it’s just not working anymore.

Hmm.

So I’ve always gone back to food because I believe that it starts with food. Everything, your mental state, your physical state, your emotional state. Let’s start with what we know we can control. And that is our food. So I had already done a pretty much paleo and clean diet. So what else can I do? Let’s incorporate a little bit of high quality meat. And I started with, I sat down by myself, made a grass fed and finished filet one day, first one, I’m 35 years and it was delicious. And I thought, what have I been missing? So,

Cause sometimes you hear that people come back and they, they have not made those digestive enzymes and so long that I have a reaction then like, see, I’m not made to eat meat, but it’s really just the, uh, the lack of experience for years and years is, is making it tough to digest. But you, you had a different, right.

I’ve heard that the digestive enzymes, I didn’t have that issue and I incorporated it slowly and methodically and you know how we say, you know, eat the rainbow. Now I’m sort of eating the rainbow of meats. I have a little bit of lamb, a little bit of pork, some fish and chicken, some oysters, sardines. I mean, just a little bit of everything. Um, so I feel better. I feel like things are getting a little bit more balanced. Um,

how long have you been on this for years. Hey, Leo style eating with welcoming the healthy animal products?

Four years.

And how long did it take, to start feeling a change from the first steak?

I would say about six months. Um, it took six months.

It took six months.

So it was a lot of hormonal wonkiness going on and that could have been the stage of life I was at. Um, but I needed something to balance everything out. So I think, you know, it took about six months to, to feel better. But I initially, I know I felt, I mean my iron went up big time, um, I wasn’t an anemic anymore and I, I also psychologically, I just felt satisfied. I spent 35 years hungry, literally like I just couldn’t get enough. It was always like salads and Tofu and you know, I’d go to the back incollege, I’d go to the freezer section and buy those patties cause I’m just, I don’t know, maybe I’m just partial to patties cause that’s how I grew up in the burger business. But you know those patties that are made out of mushrooms are keen while we’ve got all the burgers. Veggie burgers. Yeah. And I kind of lived off of those when I was a pretty good, quick and easy. Well they’re good until you turn over the ingredients. Right.

Oh! There are bad Ingredients in there? I made a few of those in my time just for fun. They tasted good.

A little melteextran, a little closer, a little cheese.

Is there a healthy veggie burger out there? Maybe Tribali should throw that in the mix.

I’m not looking at the Veggie Burgers, but I did feel satiated, satisfied and I’m at full. Do you think that’s common with the vegetarian?

Seen that they’re walking around hungry, maybe not even aware of it and thinking that’s normal. Like yeah, we just have to discipline ourselves. I don’t know,

maybe. I mean there was that need to feel like I needed to eat every three to four hours. Um, and maybe combining a little bit skewing my diet now a little bit more Keto. Um, I feel like I could go a lot longer, you know, a nice piece of three to four ounce animal protein with some vegetables and some healthy fat. I mean, that’s all I need it, there’s endless combinations and I feel that’s what keeps me thriving right now.

So this coincided this time when you switched over to starting to eat meat coincided with the idea to start a business?

It did, it sort of all married itself. I thought, well, what can I do? Um, and the Whole Foods up here, you know, neighborhood knew my father’s business and they had been eating the burgers for my dad’s restaurant for years. So I was making these meat patties in my kitchen. I bought a refurbished grinder off of Amazon. I literally had a white lab coat, like a mad scientist and I was grinding various meats and then just chopping herbs and spices and vegetables and a little garlic puree or tomato paste. And making these patties that I’d stick in the freezer and on Ziploc bags, you know, the Moroccan lamb or the Greek pork or the southwest salmon or just various combinations and friends and family started coming by and saying, you know what? Do you have any of those patties that are so good? My kids loved them, but we want some more. So I thought these are, these are moving out on my fridge faster than I can make them. And I went up to Whole Foods and when I was buying some of my meat from the counter guy said, you know, I’m, they’re like, what are you doing with all this means? I go, I’m grinding it at home and making these wonderful patties that I eating I said, you know, would you guys be interested in just trying them out? And they’re like, okay, this isn’t some lonely housewife that doesn’t know what she’s doing there from the burger world. She’s been flipping burgers first. Yeah, she’s been flipping burgers at her dad’s restaurant for over 40 years. So I brought them the patties and within a week they said, we’re hooking you up with corporate that you’ve got something.

But at that time I didn’t have a name, I didn’t have a logo, I didn’t have a brand I and have all these things I needed. But I presented a Whole Foods and they said, we like it. We like the story, we like the concept, we like the idea and we liked the clean element, right? I’m sourcing high quality, it’s organic and ingredients on the back are clean. What we call, you know, no and no binders, no, no irritating ingredients, no fillers, no agents that you know, buying the meat. I mean, cause a lot of burger patties have all sorts of stuff in them. So I was all about just being Paleo or Whole 30 because that’s the way I like to eat. And then there’s more people like me out there. So, so within like a week, they said, take your time, come back to us when you’re ready, have a business.

Wow!

And that took me 10 months to circle back and I went to the drawing board. I said, all right, I got to build a brand. How do you build the company? How do you start something that, that’ll have some legs? Um, and I hope I did it the right way. You know, I took my time and I thought, all right, there is a story here. And ironically, even my brothers, when we met with one of our like power meetings to, you know, think this through the restaurant business, that’s where we ate. Yeah. Brothers are long time restaurant business. Yeah. And they said, do you see the irony in your story? I’m like, no. What are you talking about? They’re like, you didn’t eat meat for 35 years. Your father has the hamburger business and now you’re eating meat and you’re producing a hamburger. Like, oh, I guess it did come full circle. So, you know, ironically, but these days, in order to build a brand and be somebody you have to have a real story of, and most of them come from a health journey. You’ve gone through something that you personally A quest for healthier eating or personal journey. Um, and that’s kind of where the story comes out from your, from your, you know, health crisis or journey or, um, how you solved your issue.

Yeah. It’s so, it’s so critical that I think there’s possibly some fake stories out there. Fake brands where you look on the back and they make up a whole thing like on the, on the wine label or something, you know?

Yeah.

Stamping the grapes with their bare feet for centuries and here it is. And you’re like, oh yeah. That was made in a big old plant with, you know, yeah. Commodity products. So you’ve got the real story here. I hope so. I mean, I definitely do. Oh, so that was, must have been scary to jump into this. You had that hope and that little glimmer of potential having met with Whole Foods. Um, but what about the rest of it?

Weah. I remember getting in the car after we met with Whole Foods. I’m like, well, I think that meeting went well. I took my brother’s with me. I’m like to have to come. All of a sudden I’m meeting at corporate the next day. They gave us an order. The very next day I’m on my computer, it said, all right, we’ll take a pallet of each, let us know when you’re ready. And that’s, you know, that’s when I went to work for

Go take that to the bank and saying look, look.

Well yeah, I mean I did it or my dad or somebody, anybody that would give me money. But I, when I got that order, I said to them, I did, I did. I just start a company, what am I doing right now? Like yeah, you’ve got to start a company. So go incorporate, go get your URL, go get your name, go, you know, register everything, go trademarks. So there was a lot to do, right? It’s like I grabbed every book I could on business one oh one, but how do you start a company and how do you a food business in a food startup? And surprisingly, I mean we were talking about how, what sort of competition is out there. The big companies don’t have the R and D to do this kind of stuff. So they look at people like us, like the did have a health journey and came up with a product to meet a need that I had that surprisingly more people have in this world too. Um, and so we can innovate a little bit faster and get going a little bit faster. And, and that’s just kind of how it started.

So this was, it took, it took nine months to get, uh, get ready to do the first production run?

to get to bring it back to Whole Foods. They said once you’ve produced it in a USDA co-packing meat facility that’s Whole Foods approved, you know, you gotta meet all these, yeah.

Can you say that slower so I can write it down? A Co packing facility. You’re like, what the heck’s that? Right?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. They, I mean, yeah, I’m like, okay, USDA, it’s going to be approved to do that. So they gave me a list all across the u s I’d called so many companies, but I really wanted someone close to me so that I could oversee production. I don’t want to be flying to Kansas over two weeks. Right. So I needed someone close. I needed this, I needed that. And, and that was a challenge because you know, any big facility is not stopping the production line to give you a trial with your little project that you hope is going to work. So you kind of have to sell them on your idea, but it’s like the chicken and the egg, you know, then you say, well, Whole Foods gave me a green light, so I actually do have an order. Would you give a test and trial to see if we can produce here? So there was a few that weren’t a right match. It wasn’t a good marriage. So finally we landed on one, um, and that we produced a sample and you know, samples are still 300 pounds of meat. So I’m left with a lot of patties. Um, and that’s when you go back to Whole Foods and okay, here’s what I’ve got. Um, and then we were off and running.

We’ll see a sample in a, in a sample box, like sample box.

It looked like that.

They’re not really gonnato sell it. They’re just going to look at it, touch, feel it, and then place an order and official order for however many pallets or whatever they,

yeah. And they rolled this out to the SOPAC region, which is

four states. That was good start.

It was a great start. And that, you know, that was September, almost, almost a year. Wow. So we’re what, 11 months on the shelves? Yeah. And since then, you know, we’ve launched into Target ,super Targets across the u s natural grocers, um, going into a few other big guys. So yeah.

Um, so the next stage is to continue growing and looking for financing.

That is the stage of growing a brand. And if

they know all about that or maybe not, you’re learning something else new.

I am. I am. This is all a learning experience actually. You know what? It’s fun. I’m enjoying it because, um, I think you always should be learning in life. I mean, if you’re not learning, you’re just staying stagnant. And so like we were saying, it’s good to set goals both physically, financially, but also with this company. Like, I do have a goal to grow a bag to uh, extend the product line to get it across the U.S. Who has money. Really, I want to make this affordable to as many people as possible. So, um, we do need a little bit of, you know, Do re me to help us propel it further. So we will be looking for funding. We will be looking to bring on some partners in some strategic partnerships that can open some doors for us. So that’s kind of the where we’re out right now.

And meanwhile you’re plugging along and daily life and raising these kids and trying to manage it all. I think it’s a big juggling act for many people.

It is, especially as a single mom, it definitely is. And I’ll tell you, um, it took a lot out of me. There’s nothing, I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder in my life these past few years in my entire life, but I’ve learned a lot. Um, and the biggest thing I’ve learned, Brad, is the balance. If you don’t have balance, um, and things start skewing far too much in one direction, you start suffering in another direction. And I do, I felt like my health took a toll on my, um, happiness in, in like the social world. I think I just got so into this to get it up off the ground that I, I kind of say I crawled into a hole. and um, that’s not a good place be.

I think you need to do balance. And I know it takes hard work. Um, and I, I feel like I put in the hard work, but it’s good to come up and breathe and balance everything else out because I think life, you know, with everything you need movement, you need connections. You need, no matter how healthy and clean your diet is, if you’re not getting good sleep and if you don’t have the social connections and if you’re not seeing the sunlight and getting out in nature, I don’t care how good your eating, it’s like that balance. You’re still on. The level of stress kept getting higher and higher and I wasn’t understanding why. I’m like, why? And I’m just, you know, I’m starting a company, I’m doing this, but I let everything else fall by the wayside. And so when that balance gets off skew, your health suffers. And you know, I’ve noticed that and I, I almost had to go through that to realize what I need to do for me to make it all balance out again.

Yeah. I guess arguably, if you’re out of balance and you’re starting this business, maybe you’ll be lacking insights, inspiration patience, uh, perspective, things like that that were whereby your business might struggle if you put too much into it. I mean, that’s a nice argument to make. I’m not a, I think there’s a lot of people that are overworking and being successful in business and getting acquired and making millions of dollars in, but, but then what, you know, they’re unhealthy, right out of balance. Maybe they burn through some relationships or even some developed some health conditions. We see that every day. So you know, to what, to what end like what are, you’re right, I see some goals here on the whiteboard with, you know, you’re growing the line and adding the sliders, but um, it, it seems like, uh, an I did to keep the other goals in mind too.

Right, right. And I, and I almost feel like I learned it the hard way. It’s like people can tell you and I’ve listened to podcasts and I’ve listened to you talk and so many other people, people can tell you, but I think until you go through it yourself and kind of have that experience on your own, um, it’s, it’s hard to know what does that balance mean for me. And a lot of it means, you know, interpersonal relationships and um, I love being social. I’m an extrovert. I love being with people. So when I put all that aside just to do Tribali, Tribali, Tribali, it’s great. But the view is the same. Whether you’re 10 feet up the ladder or five feet. It’s really the same view. Just making it to the top and leaving everything else, you know, burning bridges and leaving everything else.

It’s, it’s could be lonely. So you’ve got to make sure that everything else is in check. So yeah, they, like they say, you know, when a plane is going down, you got to take care of yourself first before you can take care of any anybody else. So that’s kinda how I feel. Like I’m good at self care is huge right now and emails can wait if I’m going to meditate or if I’ve got to do a walk in the morning and get, see the sun first thing in the morning. Living in southern California, we’re lucky to be able to do that. And I put some practices in line on my daily routine that weren’t there two years ago because I was grinding. It was pedal to the metal and I thought, no, got it. The emails can wait, the computer can wait. Nothing’s, you know, the co-packer facility isn’t burning down, the meats will get produced. I’m taking a walk, I’m going outside, I’m spending 20 minutes on, on me time. And I think that’s important. Yeah.

Well, yeah, the emails can wait. Are you sure? Don’t you lose them if you don’t answer within an hour.?

Oh, stay there singly. They too. Can you believe? I mean what a concept, right?

You’re, you’re, you’re giving me this look like you’re staring me down. Like, oh my gosh, this girl’s talking to me right now. The emails can wait. Yeah. And I think they can wait while you’re focused on a peak performance cognitive tasks at your computer. Yeah. And that part I struggle with because the, you feel like you’re making people wait if you don’t answer the email right away. And perhaps that’s true at times, but less than that. Yeah. I mean, you do the best you can, but that 20 minute walk could be, um, you know, it could be the trans transformative idea for the company.

And you know, who pointed this out to me, believe it or not, my kids, there were times where they would look at me and go, you are always on your phone or your computer. Even when we’re talking to you and we have an issue, put it. I mean, my kids put it down and look us in the eye and pay attention to what we’re saying. I’m like, oh my gosh, you guys are right. This is so not good mommy hood. I got up, put it down, I got to shut it off. I’m not taking it to dinner. What’s going to happen? Right? So I think that’s important when, when the kids start noticing and secure, always on that moment, I’m doing it for you guys, but not at the price of not giving them what they need, which is mommy time. And so in the middle of the day, it was summer now, right? They just started school Monday, summertime in the middle of day, I’m like, we’re shutting down Tribali for two hours. You guys want to go for some ice cream and let’s go to the park and ride the bikes around. I mean, they need me, I need them. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s gotta be part of that balance. So yeah,’

that perception. Um, this little drawing that my son made, he was maybe a year and a half old or something. I don’t know the exact age when they can start spelling and yeah, it said n Oh, and then a backwards f phone. F, O, n e n e had a dial pad and then a band signed with the bar through. I don’t know where he found that out, but, um, he handed it to me cause I was on the phone for too long. Uh, you know, it was, he was trying to get my attention. I, I’m hoping it was just a one off episode, but, um, he just, he saw me camping on the phone when he wanted something and so he handed me the note just like they do in business setting today where the hand you don’t like your next appointment’s in the lobby. Okay. I’ve got to wrap up this call. Oh yeah. But I saved that thing. It’s under glass on my desk. So I see it everyday when I’m looking down there and, Yep.

And there are so observant. I mean, they see it, you know, and so I want to set a good example. It’s like, yeah, yeah,

yeah. Uh, Elijah Goldstein, I just talked to him about mindfulness, a podcast and he said that were strongly influenced by the behaviors of people around us. Um, the Framingham study, the longest and largest study of health and impact of, you know, daily life on health, residents of Framingham, Massachusetts have been measured since 1948 on all these different factors. And they identified clusters of obesity, clusters of happiness, clusters of loneliness. In other words, the people in this social circle are obese because of their lifestyle practices are influencing each other. Same with happiness. So if you surround yourself with positive, happy, uplifting people rather than the negative downers where you go out and meet for drinks with these particular girls or guys and you come back and you feel drained and, and negative cause everyone’s complaining the whole time. Um, it has a profound impact on the body measured by science and hormones and blood levels and lifespan risk factors, all that stuff.

So if you’re setting that example, I think that’s the biggest thing is, um, you know, the example we set for our kids no matter what, no matter what you say with your mouth, it’s like a factor of 10 x of what you do and how, yeah, yeah,

absolutely.

You asked me how my kids eat or they eat primal Paleo. Everyone asked that and I’m like, okay, a, they know all about it because their dad likes to Blab and uh, has no problem telling stories and talking about, so that sugar that you ingest is sticky in nature. You feel your fingers sticky. Yeah. Well guess what, when it goes into your body, it’s sticky in, it attaches to important cells that are involved with your vision, your kidney function, your heart, your arteries. Yeah. So they know the story and they know the impact of their decisions. Yeah. And Man, culture, it’s a tough battle because, um, especially youth, all of these things are immersed in their daily life. The, the screen time, the digital distraction, and then all the crappy food.

Right? Right. So, I don’t know if I shared this with you, but I grew up spending my summers in Greece, so I was born there. I moved here when I was six years old, but I also went back subsequently every summer. And I had a group of friends there. And of course my group of friends here, right. I’d go to school here in nine months out of the year and then we’d be shipped off to Greece every summer, every summer until I was, so probably college till I went to college. I even did that. Even my first two years of college. I remember because I was in a sorority and they have like of a week, I’m like a star, I’m going to be in Greece, so I’ll be back.

You guys are invited.

Yeah. So, um, so I had my group of friends there and it was amazing the food that we would eat, how we would play the outdoor time. So different than the life here. Yeah. You know, and it’s just

so they were behind us by how a number of years where it was even better than here at the time? Is that what you’re saying, like your, your experience here as a teenager or whatever?

Right, right. It was so much better there because, because there was just outdoor play, we were in the sun, in the water, the food was always fresh. There was no fast food, there was no drive to Mediterranean Diet, Mediterranean diet, which really, I sort of joke, I started Paleo cause kind of, that’s how I grew up. Mediterranean food, Paleo to confusion and then back again, right. I spent my teens confused like what do I eat? How do I eat fat free? This, um, you know, meat is bad for you. It’s going to cause cancer. That’s what I thought. Okay, let me embark on the vegetarian diet. It sounds like the best diet for health and all the scares of the fat, you know, saturated fat and cholesterol and what have you. And now I circled back to eating the exact same way that I was eating growing up in Greece. I mean Mediterranean, Paleo, raw food diet. Um,

most likely really high quality animals back then in Greece.

Oh yeah. Right. Even now. Even now. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you get some lamb. Yeah, big difference. And you can feel it. I remember just thriving. I felt like I grew taller. I leaned out three summers there. My digestion was fine. I didn’t have acne, you know, all the things that teenagers go through. And then I would come here and I was a little bit more sedentary. I was a little bit, even though we cooked healthy at home, dad owned a fast food hamburger drive too. So it was burgers, fries and burgers, fries and a shake off more often than not. So I felt like, you know, acne and all the issues. And then I’d go to Greece three months it would clear up. I’d come back, I’d have issues again, I’d go there. So I’m like, there’s something about

Angela’s spa therapy. Go today parting on June 4th, right after school gets out.

Yeah, seriously. So it’s something about the lifestyle, the food. Um,

is it slower pace there too?

Yeah. You take a nap every day in the summertime for two hours and it’s wonderful. I mean, we’d stay out late. Right? It’s that European lifestyle dinner was at 11:00 PM you go to sleep at one.

Kids are loving that teenage. Yeah, let’s go to Greece, man.

Oh, I remember being at the discos, you know, late at night till like 1:00 AM and I was a teenager. And the whole concept of drinking too, right? There’s, there’s no drinking age limit and in Europe, so there was never an abuse of it. Whether I was 16 or 18 or 21 or 22 having a little glass of wine at the dinner table was just common practice.

Just where it was no big deal. Like, Nah, no thanks. I’m good tonight. Yeah,

Exactly. Where it’s like, you know, here there was that mentality I got with my friends. It’s like, let’s get as much alcohol. Let’s get wasted. I’m like, why? What’s the point? You can have alcohol anytime you want. You know, in Europe, that’s all concert.

Interesting.

A little different midtown. My brain would have to switch to, oh right. You’ve got to be 21

all right. We gotta be sneaky. Sneaky here. Yeah, hide it. You’re just walking out of the house with a bottle of wine, your parents are thinking nothing of it. Like, Oh, where are you going? Go and go see my friends. Yeah. Go sell some wine in the parking lot of San Marino High or something like gosh, yeah, yeah. Wow. So that influence, uh, remains today. Do you try and get your kids back there or at least having those cultural values?

Did we do, I think it’s important. Um, I actually booked my trip for next summer, so I am taking them in. The last time I took them was about four years ago. But it’s, I think being exposed to a different way of life, a different culture, different foods, um, just opened your horizons on the world and life so much. And I was lucky enough to grow up with those sort of dual citizenship, dual life duel community. Um, and I think it just, it incorporates so much more worldview into your life, um, to understand how other lives in it. It doesn’t have to be Greece, it could be any country, right. Just that, that you get exposure to how the rest of the world lives. Cause I think we’re just so used to, you know,

well we were here listening to commentators tell us this is the greatest country in the world and this is so wonderful and it’s the freedom and all these attributes where might be time to second guess some of that programming and realize that maybe the quality of life that in many ways is superior if you want to measure it on a stress scale. I mean, we know where the most affluent in so many ways, but

um, wow. Well there’s two zones. I mean, you know, we’ve, we’ve looked at those and then one of the wisdoms is actually in Greece too, on the island of a Gardenia where live to a hundred and you know, centenarians. Is that right?

Yeah. The blue zones is identifying pockets of centenarians. There’s a book about it going look it up if you’re not familiar with that term. But that’s right. In Korea, they’re, yeah, they’re going triple digits. It’s, you know, the light. Say they sleep every afternoon, they get a lot of sun. They walk around, they have a little box. So simple

me, they a balanced, healthy life and they have community and psych. Everybody is involved in everybody’s life. There’s a village, there’s, you know, so maybe it’s, maybe we should move back.

We have a Facebook community. Does that count?

Doesn’t, oh,

because you said community. I’m not familiar with that term. It’s all I see it is on my social media now. Today’s kid is like define community. Oh, that’s an internet gathering of many people from, Oh, there’s another community, a physical community. Oh yeah. Well I just get on my freeway on ramp and I go and I don’t know anybody. Yeah. What’s community? That’s, wow. So when you were in this initial startup phase, working the crazy hours and letting things, um, you know, it was fall by the wayside, um, did you, did you feel it, did you feel a sense of frustration? Did you have like a voice on your shoulder saying, Hey Angela, why don’t you settle down a little bit? Or,

yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a good awakening. It was, um, it was really from my, a social aspect too. Like I almost started isolating myself a little bit too. Like I was just so into what I’m doing that I don’t have time for anything else. And you asked me about dating or what have you. I’m like, well, there was a time where I just didn’t have time. I just, just not on the books, but again, Folks, come up for air.

Take a breather and inquire Tribalifoods.com. You can click right on the about page and there’s Angela frolicking in the Mediterranean on her boat. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, but that’s, you know, when that, when you walk into that mindset, I think you don’t have the energy to even think about things like social gatherings where you’re quote unquote wasting the night away when you could be at home answering emails. And it’s kind of compelling. I see, uh, people falling into that trap all the time where they get more payoff from answering text messages that their kid’s sporting event rather than watching the sporting event. Because we know in little league baseball, they’re not hitting a lot of pitches. They’re doing a lot of walks and taking massive downtime. It’s boring as heck, but, and

the second you check that phone is when your son turns to you and looks at, did you catch that, Mom? Yeah. Oh shoot, I missed it. I was watching the whole rest of the time.

Yeah, that’s right. You missed those ordinary, those ordinary moments. Dan Millman says there’s no ordinary moments in life. That’s the title of one of his books and it’s something to, something to consider.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So big picture, it’s like you definitely need to balance things and you have to find, just like we were saying, the right diet for you and how you’re going to do your macros and what kind of food you’re going to eat and what kind of template you want to follow. You also have to find the right thing that works for you. And I know that, I mean, I like people, I like being social. I like being out there. So you gotta just, and I think when you’re ready for it, you’re attracted to your track. The people that are like minded in that, that you share similar interests and passions with. So

What about the other voice that’s uh, looking at your startup operation, make or break? You got a lot of pressure on you, your till he got to put your kids through college and all these real life circumstances, uh, that we discussed at lunch. Both of us are facing the reality of life and the ticking clock.

Yeah.

And when you’re out there taking, taking a walk and breathing and looking at the, the beautiful mountains which are now visible in the summer by the way. Never were when I was growing up here. We, there was no Mount Wilson visible ever. Yeah. Incredible. Um, what about that voice? How do you quell that and stay committed to let’s say a breezy, easy morning routine when you know you’re going to get slammed as soon as you boot up the screen?

Yeah. It’s going to be there. I mean, I learned that it’s going to be there. It’s not going. I knew where Brat it’s going to be there and you know what, it’s not going to get done efficiently. Effectively if I’m not 100% and for me to be 100% I know what I need now. Just like you know we talked about in order to build muscle, you know how much protein you need to eat or in order to thrive and do the the physical demands that you want to put your body through. You know what you have to eat. I just know that if I need to produce and beyond and you know I’ve done pitch slams, I’ve got up on stage, I’ve won a couple of pitch times if I want to represent this labs, that’s when you get up and you, you represent your company and you talk about like the shark tank show like four minutes and they ask you questions.

They fire away and I’ve done two of those and in order to be on and be able to know everything about my business, I have to be well rested. I have to be well fed, I have to be well balanced. I have to be well adjusted for the day and all that. I know what it takes, like I know the recipes of what it takes to get me there. And again, trial and error, you’ve got to learn the hard way, sort of. Um, but I think without, you know, I was telling you during lunch a couple of nights of insomnia, like that just throws me for a loop. What is that? Like? I’ve never had that before in my life. What is staying up til 4:00 AM and what am I thinking about? I have no idea. It’s just mind starts racing and I think it’s that anxiety of like, I’ve got this business, I’ve got to get things done and you got to quiet the mind. You’ve got to find. So one thing I haven’t done and I’ve heard a lot about is meditation. I mean, I’ve done my own sort of practice, but I think getting a more formal, um, meditative, you know, agenda into my morning. I haven’t incorporated much. Um, I’ve done a little bit of gratitude journal writing, which is nice just to get your thoughts centered. But, um, but yeah, I’m, I’m open to doing a little meditation to just to get the mind quiet. Yeah,

She’s open. Let’s, let’s try it. Okay. Here, pick up a pen. I’m going to pick up a pen. Ready? Yeah, put in your hand. Okay. Listeners do the same pickup a pen or any object set of keys, a phone, whatever. Put it in your hand. Okay. When I say go, you’re going to throw it in the air and then we’re going to catch it. Ready? Go. Okay. You just meditated cause in that, in that moment when you caught the pen you were thinking of nothing else but can you weren’t thinking about, is this room getting hot? Cause we turned off the noisy air conditioner. You weren’t thinking about your business, you weren’t thinking about the, the buzzing texts that came 10 minutes ago and nothing. You were just trying to catch the pen so we can do it at any time. This is from Dan Millman, the example of throwing your car keys up in the air and grabbing them. And I relate to my cold plunge that I’m meditating during that time. That I’m in the cold water because the water’s so cold that I have to focus on my breath cycles and nothing else. Otherwise I’ll start to react to the cold and have that nervous system fight or flight reaction rather than remain calm because your body can handle seven minutes. I’m up to seven minutes now. When I did the podcast on cold, I was doing three minutes at 38 degrees. Now I’m in, they’re slowing my breathing down even more and I’m thinking of nothing else. So it throws me into a meditative state easily. Cause for me it’s tough to like go sit in the backyard and fold my legs. My knees don’t fall that way anyway. Um, but it’s, I think it’s the, the practitioners when they verbalize the idea that like, okay, if you, if you experience a passing thought, oh yeah, I have to finalize the pricing of the sliders before I send the proposal to hold it. If you get that thought, you acknowledge it and let it go and then go back to your breathing or whenever you’re doing. And I liked that because you can’t fail at it. And there’s so many things that were set up to fail over, accustomed to failing and measuring and judging ourselves, but in this way, it’s like if you get a whole bunch of passing thoughts, you’re, maybe that wasn’t the greatest meditation session. Maybe it lasted five minutes, but if you go back and try again the next day, it feels like you can build in those skills.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know how many times I’ve got windows open on the computer and I’m doing something in the night? My brain’s like shifts and I do that next thing before. If I finished that one and I start the next day, it’s like,

how do you think that man? What is like, yeah,

stop focus, be finish, move on.

Right? Like just the fields better anyway. Yeah. I mean, it feels good to have a whirlwind of productivity where you do have 12 windows open and you one of them southwest airlines booked the trip, got it dialed right down my confirmation code onto the next one. Oh, there’s Amazon. I got to reorder more supplies for my Kombucha. Oh, there’s the next one and it feels good to knock that off, but it feels good in a way where it’s like a relief rather than a sense of self satisfaction and um, positive energy. It’s just like I heaved a sigh of relief. Like, all right, the pressure’s off me now, the fight or flight pressure that represented by all these windows and nail, now maybe I can focus on enjoying my life and doing something really satisfying. Like, oh my gosh, I actually finished an article or a chapter of a book and it’s, um, I’m, I’m telling my listeners, it’s like, it’s getting harder and harder for me because, well, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t blame the outside world, but I’ll make the argument that the offerings and the constant stimulation and the support and the encouragement and the, the, the, what do they call it? A cluster, the cluster of obesity. Now we have the cluster of distractability,

right?

So anyone we talk to our, our discussion’s going to be interrupted by somebody phone. It might be might be there is when I’m talking, it might be mine when you’re talking. And we just, we just go down and cement these practices into lifestyle instead of thinking something different. And now here you are in like arguably the hardest position of all to compartmentalize and mine those uh, those balance points because you’re, you’ve got this business on your shoulders, you and will, that’s a small operation there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But you just gave me a great arguments like this thing’s gonna make or break. Success is going to make a break on your shoulders so those shoulders better be not so tense and needing, needing some, uh, breathing and relaxing.

Very true, very true. And you know, for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what this was before, but I, I get on that flight or fight and it’s a physical manifestation. I feel it physically, I feel the heart start racing. I feel despiration. I feel dizziness and it’s that cortisol kicking in and it’s, it’s a physical manifestation that I could pinpoint and go, okay, this is happening me right now. So get up, disconnect. And go do something.

Wow. Self care. Wow. Like when she was like, I’ve done it once you’re there, your brain’s not working. Well, it’s known fact. Nope. Yeah, yeah. I had, uh, there was, uh, uh, dad, uh, was a teammate of my sons and basketball and the coach was always yelling at him for to forget for forgetting the plays. And the dad’s like, this coach doesn’t understand that when my son gets yelled at, he shuts down. It’s just the way he is. His learning methods are slower or whatever. What works for him is a calm, repetitive voice so that he’s going to lock that into his brain in a calm setting. Right. But every time he gets yelled at, he takes steps further back and forget some more plays. Yeah. And I’m like, well go tell the coach man, cause this ain’t good. We need this guy. Remember the plays.

He just screwed it up again, you know? But it was a wonderful insight about a father seeing his son and seeing what works best for his son. Arguably the same for all of us. That, you know, this

know thyself.

Yeah. And this old school high pressure thing where the boss storms in and says, we’ve got to increase our numbers. You guys better work harder. Or the high school coach at San Marino with the freshman team where these guys are just getting going in the quarterback’s just Aaron his arm out and he gets yanked for throwing an interception. That drives me crazy because all that kids need all that kids need is another chance to go out there and throw three more passes. Yup. And he’s going to nail one but instead he’s going to sit on the bench and think about it as an interception all night. Ah, so you know, if you’re listening, you’re listening. We’re getting, we’re getting, we’re getting heated up. We hit certain subject points like he was sports and I get heated up. Yeah,

it is hot in here. I think we turned off the AC.

I think we, we got a good glimpse of what it’s, what life is like with Angela. Wish you continued success with Tribali foods, but also just, you know, seeing what you’ve done in, in a relatively short time and just going for it. And there’s so many people out there that are at those crossroads in life and wondering what’s going to happen. And then you have the kids in the picture, which can be, I don’t know, people you hear people blaming a rather than using those kids is motivation. Like you express like, Hey, I got these kids, they’re going to go to college one way or the other and I’m gonna, I’m gonna make it happen.

Yeah. And you know, it’s that midlife switch gears. Um, and I’ve always had a sense of confidence. Like I pretty much believe in myself if I set my mind to something and I’m just so passionate about this whole food movement and about bringing options to people for cleaning up their, their health and they’re starting with food and their diet. And if you have that passion and perseverance and persistence, I believe I made it. This is why I tell my kids, you can make it work. You just have to like put your mind to it and just not lose sight of the other things that are important in your life. So thanks for the encouraging words.

Love it. Thanks for being on the podcast, Angela. Mavridas. Good luck with Trabali foods and everything else.

Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback. It’s getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars and it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves because they need to. Thanks for doing it.

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