Seminary Student to Hot Sauce Empire: Charlie Backer's Journey Through Jail and Sobriety

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] Here's his perspective. He's wanted for attempted murder. Him and I are getting ready to leave the

Charlie Backer [00:00:03] Jail at seven 30,

Vance Crowe [00:00:04] And I'm like,

Charlie Backer [00:00:05] Ha. So yeah. So my wife picked me up, got home, slept most of the day, and this is when I started realizing that I had a problem with alcohol. This is the Van Scroll podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:20] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. This week on the podcast is a man named Charlie Backer. Charlie is unlike anybody else that I know he is, has a fascinating story and is an entrepreneur. He actually owns his own hot sauce company here in St. Louis, Missouri. But Charlie is no ordinary man. In addition to being an incredibly clever marketer and a really hard worker, he started off as a guy that was headed towards the seminary. And I don't wanna give anything away in this story because the whole time, even though I thought I knew Charlie, the more we dug into his story, the more I realized that this is a very complex and fascinating man. I had a blast talking with Charlie. You will hear us talk about what it takes to do marketing, how he thinks about social media. He is exceptional at it. And, and then we get into talking about things like health and nutrition and exercise and what it's done for both of our lives. This was a lot of fun of an interview, and I really think that anybody that is out there trying to track down their dream, trying to make something different happen in their lives than what's going on right now, could learn an awful lot from Mr. Charlie Backer. So I hope you buckle in and enjoy the program. Charlie Backer, welcome. Welcome to the podcast.

Charlie Backer [00:01:42] I'm excited to be here.

Vance Crowe [00:01:43] I, it was funny, I had not realized until I watched your Facebook Live or your Facebook stories, that it's been five years since we saw each other last.

Charlie Backer [00:01:53] Yeah, I think so. I think so. It's before you went to Monsanto, I think it was before that I remember having coffee and you were telling me what you were doing. Yeah, that's a long time ago.

Vance Crowe [00:02:04] So to start off, let's give a little bit of background on who you are and what you're doing. You are Charlie Backer, but probably known much wider as Hot Charlie.

Charlie Backer [00:02:15] Yeah, as Hot Charlie. So I own a St. Louis created and bottled hot sauce, and now a seasoning company. We also have a line of popcorn,

Vance Crowe [00:02:22] And it's interesting, many people that say I own a X, Y, Z company, they got it because their parents did it or because they fell into it or they became the CEO. This is the, you're the first person I'm talking to, that from Zero started something and it's now up and running.

Charlie Backer [00:02:39] Yeah, it's been, it was two years, about two weeks ago. That's from when I

Vance Crowe [00:02:43] Launched. And so tell the story about how you went from being a guy that was, had a regular job to now owning a, a hot sauce company that's distributed around the United States.

Charlie Backer [00:02:56] Yeah, so it started

Vance Crowe [00:02:58] As,

Charlie Backer [00:02:58] As a kid, my brother and I used to have competitions chugging bottles of Tabasco. And so I've always enjoyed spicy things growing up. And it was about eight or nine years ago, I was getting ready for a Super Bowl party, and I wanted something with a ton of heat, but flavor. There's a, a, a, a good amount of hot sauces out there, but some of 'em, you go to the hotter end, it's just like a colonoscopy prep. And I didn't want that. So I just went to my local bergs and I bought a bunch of random stuff and realized like at this point in my life, I could barely make mac and cheese without burning it. So I was not a cook. So I just started playing around with stuff in the kitchen and made it for a Super Bowl party. People liked it. And so for the next eight years, I was just doing that a couple times a year. Like I was just known as, oh, Charlie makes, makes hot sauce, and my friend.

Vance Crowe [00:03:40] And when you say people liked it, you mean like, Hey Charlie, th thanks for bringing the wings, or, or was it like an actual reaction?

Charlie Backer [00:03:46] Yeah, people were like, wow, this is different. And so a couple years ago, some people tried my hot sauce and they're like, they wanted a bottle for the weekend, so I made an extra batch and they were blowing up my phone all weekend, like, dude, you need to sell this. I'm like, that is so stupid. Like I'm, at this point I was consulting for like HR and payroll. I'm like, I'm not gonna make a hot sauce. Well, they pushed me. And so from there I created a Facebook page and I sold like five bottles the first week. And then soon enough I went up to 50 bottles a week, which is really cool. But then you realize legally you can't do that from home in St. Louis County. So that was a big one. But also I've got a wife and kids and, and two dogs and a hamster. So the interesting thing with that is I'm dealing with so many hot peppers at home that yeah, bath time. At one point I didn't realize you could use gloves for about two weeks into the process. So I was just dealing with like habaneros and very spicy peppers. And I remember giving my daughter a bath one night and her screaming, I'm like, well, shit, I I, I, I can't do this anymore. Oh

Vance Crowe [00:04:45] No.

Charlie Backer [00:04:45] So well, it burns and like if you don't wash your hands before you go to the bathroom, it, it was a lot of bad stuff from making it from home. But people really liked it. And I got to a point where I'm like, I don't know what to do. So I started talking to different manufacturers in the area and a lot of them just didn't really care. I was such a small fish and they, they could do like some of these bigger, larger, whether it be like a regional or national brands. So it took me a few months to find a, a bottle that could be my size. And I worked with him for a couple months. We worked through the FDA to replicate my sauce with something that could be shelf stable. So to

Vance Crowe [00:05:17] Get

Charlie Backer [00:05:17] Over

Vance Crowe [00:05:17] 50 people, you now have to start worrying about is the FDA

Charlie Backer [00:05:22] Accept this? Right, are they gonna kill me? Correct. I mean they, that's what you worry about, like is what is in the bottle. Is it gonna make somebody sick? And it was interesting in some of the pushback that I got initially, 'cause Hot Charlie's the thing that makes it unique, it's, it's focused on the flavor of the pepper and not really the heat. So you get hit with a ton of, of flavor. But in that, one of my secret ingredients, it's not really secret, is I use real garlic. I don't use powdered garlic. So because I use real garlic, it has to be a, like a hot bottled sauce. So it's heated like 190 degrees right before it's bottled. So because of that, it, it makes it an acidic hot sauce. And this, this is all, all like a, a lot of like scientific stuff on it. Yeah, no,

Vance Crowe [00:05:59] No, this is good.

Charlie Backer [00:05:59] But because it's an acidified sauce, there's different requirements for the FDA. So worked with my bottler through all that stuff that took a couple months. And then August, 2017, I had the first bottles going off the line and I'm sitting there like I had a, at this point I was, I

Vance Crowe [00:06:15] Remember did you have a Kickstarter? How did you sell it online? Because I remember going to

Charlie Backer [00:06:18] Website or having Shopify order shop

Vance Crowe [00:06:19] That's right. Had that's right in

Charlie Backer [00:06:20] The beginning. And I remember seeing a thousand bottles leave the line and I, I was like, what the hell did I just do? And 'cause I had no experience in retail, no experience with like, I, I didn't know chefs Butchers actually scared me. I dunno if you've ever like gone to like a gun shop. Like sometimes you go to a gun shop, you're just looking at something, it's intimidating with some of these, these gun shop salesmen. And I'm like, just scared. So I viewed the same thing with like chefs and butchers. So I'm like, why the hell did I get into hot sauce? And so I mailed my first bottle to John Pertz, born on Fox two. And if you know John Pertz born every Tuesday, it's Bow Tie Tuesday. So he wears a bow tie. So I mailed him a letter and I said, this is the first bow tie friendly hot sauce. And he's like, no way. So he gets me on TV with him.

Vance Crowe [00:07:02] That's clever.

Charlie Backer [00:07:03] Yeah, it was, it was great. He got me on TV that got me my first couple retailers. My first retailer is a place called Oakville Butcher Block, so a butcher. So realized I'm afraid of these people. They were my first retailer. And from there it really just, it took off.

Vance Crowe [00:07:17] And when you say it took off, that means that you're still bottling at your house, but you're meeting

Charlie Backer [00:07:22] FDA

Vance Crowe [00:07:22] Requirements

Charlie Backer [00:07:23] Or No, no, at, at that point I was, I wasn't bottling anything from home. Okay. I have a, I was had a bot at the time that I was using on in St. Peter's, meaning

Vance Crowe [00:07:30] That they have like a kitchen and you come in and say, I want it in these ratios. And they say, this is what it's gonna be required or this is how we buy all the different ingredients. How does that

Charlie Backer [00:07:38] Work? Well, what they do is typically when you work with a manufacturer, you're gonna give them your samples, you're gonna give them your ingredients, and they're gonna try to replicate it closest to that. But depending upon certain sizes of manufacturers on where they source from in the United States or throughout the world, there can be some variations on flavor, on color. So worked through all those things, decided on a bottle, got the label and all that stuff designed. And then he just more or less, I would say, okay, I need an order of, you know, 75 gallons. And he would just create the batch, bottle the batch and

Vance Crowe [00:08:09] Be like 75 gallons

Charlie Backer [00:08:10] Of

Vance Crowe [00:08:10] Hot sauce. So how are you learning this? Is there, is there a YouTube channel that says this is how you learn how to,

Charlie Backer [00:08:17] You know, there were so many times where I was like, it'd be cool. Like I, I googled how to start a hot sauce company, but they're all just total BS fluff pieces. I had to learn. Like, I feel like my entrepreneurial journey has just been learning how to fly a plane as I'm trying to figure out how to build it at the same time of not crashing. So, because even like if you look at my label, so my label has a guy on a bow tie, people are like, wow, that's, it's a beautiful label. It stands out on the shelf. You know, how what did you pay for that? I paid $35. I used Fiverr. Have you ever used Fiverr? Oh

Vance Crowe [00:08:49] Yeah, yeah.

Charlie Backer [00:08:49] Okay. Use them. My graphic designer may have been from North Korea, but she did a wonderful

Vance Crowe [00:08:54] Job.

Charlie Backer [00:08:54] So I more or less, I texted her a picture of me in the elevator on my way to work with my bow tie on. And she just made that an animated version or a cartoon version.

Vance Crowe [00:09:04] And so you're basically MacGyvering everything together in your business. Everything you're trying to figure this out, even

Charlie Backer [00:09:09] The name, like, I didn't know what to call it. And it was a few months before I launched and I was going to bed and Kelly, my wife was like, well, why don't you call it Hot Charlie's you, you like Hot Sauce and your name's Charlie. I'm like, all right, well we're just gonna go with this. And this is one of those stories of it's too late to stop. Like if, if you push like something down a hill, you can't stop. It's already going. Like I, so that was in say, April or March of 2017. So months before I launched the product. So leading up to the product launch, I created a website, I designed the labels, you know, created my business business cards, a lot of my marketing stuff. And then the week before I'm supposed to go on Fox two, I Google Hot Charlie's and hoping that, you know, my website pops up and it was actually Urban Dictionary that pops up.

Vance Crowe [00:09:55] Oh no.

Charlie Backer [00:09:55] So if, you know Urban Dictionary, if, if your listeners do, it's just a, a website that people take normal words or phrases and it's just very, it's just they

Vance Crowe [00:10:03] Talk about what the slang actually means,

Charlie Backer [00:10:05] What the slang actually means. And yeah, that was one of those moments. I'm a week before, I'm like, like what in the hell? So what is it,

Vance Crowe [00:10:12] What does it say on Hot, hot? Charlie's, you don't have to say it if you don't want

Charlie Backer [00:10:16] To. Oh, I can say it. So apparently a loved one, if you defecate in a tube sock and hit your loved one over the face with it, that's getting a hot Charlie.

Vance Crowe [00:10:24] Oh my God.

Charlie Backer [00:10:25] So I think one of these Christmases or holiday season, I'm gonna come out with Hot Charlie like stockings and it's just gonna be like a tube sock with my logo on it. Very few people are gonna get it and most of it's just gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna put this on my mantle. But it was, at this point it was too late to change anything. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:10:41] The, the train has already left this

Charlie Backer [00:10:42] Station. Yeah, so I, it took me about six months to get the first page of Google all about my stuff, not Urban dictionary.

Vance Crowe [00:10:49] And as you're making 75 gallons of hot sauce, what sort of investment do you have to make in order to, to pull this off? Are you digging into your savings to, to make this work?

Charlie Backer [00:10:59] I was really not, I was really never a good saver. Are you

Vance Crowe [00:11:02] Putting it on credit cards?

Charlie Backer [00:11:03] Yeah, I was choosing credit cards in the beginning and yeah, just a couple thousand dollars. Okay. Thousands of dollars. Not like, I mean, maybe $5,000 total, but a lot

Vance Crowe [00:11:12] Of sweat equity.

Charlie Backer [00:11:13] A lot. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:11:15] So I have to

Charlie Backer [00:11:17] Say,

Vance Crowe [00:11:17] I, I have this feeling of like welling up of joy. I'm so excited that one of my friends took an idea and brought it all the way up to, to whatever level of success you're at is way beyond what most people ever get to on running their own business. But I remember when we met, both you and I, were kind of searching around for how are we gonna make our way in the world, right? What are your skills? So if you look back to six or seven years ago, we were introduced by our mutual friend Travis Liebig, one of, I think one of my favorite people in the whole world. Where were you at seven years ago? What, what was going on in your life? Do you remember?

Charlie Backer [00:11:58] It was 2000 and,

Vance Crowe [00:12:00] I mean, or, or whenever, around that time,

Charlie Backer [00:12:01] 2011, I was still working for my family business at the time. We had like a rental construction company down in ARD and I was trying to figure out where God was calling me, what I wanted to do. 'cause I was doing like a 30 day challenge of trying to create a company. I was really big in the challenge. That was a challenge part of my life. Like 30 days to start a company, 60 days to get the best shape of your life. And I would just push myself to do these crazy things. So I was working for my family business, just leading like the finance and the HR and a lot of the sales.

Vance Crowe [00:12:27] What do you think was drawing you to the 30 day challenges or 60 day challenges?

Charlie Backer [00:12:33] I'd do better if I have like a goal in mind. Like I wanna get a six pack. I've, I've never reached that goal, but I wanna get in better shape. I wanna start a company. I think it's just to push myself and to say I can do it.

Vance Crowe [00:12:45] So there's a big thing I think that happens in your 20, or at least I can say my twenties or thirties, early thirties, where I knew that I didn't have staying power, that to develop the habits, to continue to do something over a long period of time. I never really had it, but I could generate enough enthusiasm to get myself to do something really difficult for a span of time.

Charlie Backer [00:13:08] Oh, absolutely.

Vance Crowe [00:13:09] And I remember watching your things being like that. It looks like Charlie and I have the same thing. Great. There's high aspirations. I'm

Charlie Backer [00:13:15] Short a short burst. Like I can do some crazy things like, you know, go on a crazy diet or, or work out intensely. But beyond that, it's like I just fizzle.

Vance Crowe [00:13:24] So then you had to make a giant transition to be able to go from 30 days doing this all the way out to two years ago, starting your own company. What happens as these 30 day challenges are going on and you're working with your family business?

Charlie Backer [00:13:39] Yeah, well, it just, I got an opportunity to leave my family business at a point that the recession was sort of hitting and the business was was going down. So I got an opportunity to leave that. And from there, I I, I, I worked at a place, didn't really enjoy it, worked for them, like, just temporarily. And after that, went and got a job working for a company called Oasis, which has since been bought out by now, but it's like a professional, professional employee organization. So what they do is, it's like HR consulting insurance, but they group companies together. So there was a long process in there, a lot of highs and lows. My mom died in, in the middle of it. And I just really didn't know where God wanted me to be in life. And I just wanted some stability. I think sometimes when you work for a family business or you how you even work for your own business, there's no stability there.

Vance Crowe [00:14:27] Th that's the second time you've mentioned, you know, God's plan for you. That is somewhat rare. In fact, I think you're the first person to ever come on. Maybe one other person has talked about their relationship with God. What do you mean by that?

Charlie Backer [00:14:39] Well, I don't know if you know about, you probably know about, about my history. I studied to be a Catholic priest for seven years.

Vance Crowe [00:14:45] I had heard that.

Charlie Backer [00:14:45] Okay. Yeah. So it's not just a rumor. So my faith is the foundation and it's really made me wonder over the past couple years, or specifically the last 18 months on the struggles that I've faced, and somehow I've overcome them and somehow the terrible things that could happen didn't happen. I mean, definitely struggles suck, pain sucks. Waking up with no money sucks. But I think it's my faith that I believe God has a plan and everything will work itself out.

Vance Crowe [00:15:15] And what, so tell the story about you were studying to become a priest. Why, why, why this route? Rather than why are you not a, why don't you have a white collar on right now?

Charlie Backer [00:15:23] Well, I was the last generation of what was called a high school seminarian. So in high school I actually moved up to Hannibal, Missouri and I lived there at a boarding school and I was taught by Franciscan brothers and in diocesan priests. And so went there for all of high school and then for college I went to Kendrick Glennon seminary.

Vance Crowe [00:15:40] Was that your choice or was your family like Charlie, get outta here. No, no, no. My

Charlie Backer [00:15:43] Mom, I remember when one of the priests was like, oh, Charlie should check out St. Thomas. And my mom was like, it'll be a cold day in hell before my son moves. My little baby moves away. 'cause like it's a boarding school. I only came home every three months. Internet wasn't that big. We couldn't use phones, but once, once or twice a month. So it was all letters and it really changed things. So going through high school, you know, you, you struggle with homesickness and you miss out on some quote unquote regular high school things like dating, going to a prom, homecoming. And so I took high school, then I went to the college level of the seminary in St. Louis. And I did that for three years. And it was just one of those things that as I looked back, it's like, okay, I've been here for seven years. I, I feel called like I would like to date. I've never experienced dating. I mean maybe dated in like sixth or seventh grade, but that was just holding somebody's hand when you're going on a roller skate. And so I decided to take a break to see if God was calling me to get married or to be single or maybe become like a monk. So I dated around for a couple years, finished my master's in hr. And then miraculously just one day I, I met my wife who I had no, no interconnections with. Like, it was, it was a fun day. I was at my townhouse and at this point I was running probably my first company. I had a recruiting company. I was running outta my house and she just knocked on the door one day. It was like, Hey, can you take our picture? And it was like, my neighbors had her over to girl's night out. And I remember as she left, I'm like, well where's that cute girl later on the night? And like, I didn't know anything about her. Like I just was instantly drawn to her. And it was funny, a couple weeks later we actually went to church together and as I'm walking down the aisle getting ready to go to the puke, I could just feel God, he is like, Charlie, you're gonna marry this girl.

Charlie Backer [00:17:21] I'm like, I can't tell her that right now. Like, I just met her two weeks ago. But yeah, as life would have it, we dated for a couple years and, and have now been married about nine years. Nine or so.

Vance Crowe [00:17:30] And is she the same temperament as you as like, jump in with both feet, run for 30 days and then do something else? No, no.

Charlie Backer [00:17:37] I, Kelly is very, she's a very innocent and happy and organized and loving person, sweet person. But I'm the balls to the wall person. Like I can't, I, and I think like, as, as we will get into like my own sobriety, like that's why I don't do well with alcohol. It's like I don't have a switch. If I have one drink, I want another drink or I want a whole bottle. So it's like a balls to the wall are nothing. And so I think a lot of areas in my life, even like business or whatever I do, it's like I'm gonna go as fast as I possibly can to achieve whatever. Yeah. Kelly's the more calm one. She keeps me calm.

Vance Crowe [00:18:11] And And you both go to church now? Yes. You raise your kids going to church.

Charlie Backer [00:18:15] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:18:16] Are there very many people your age? Our age going to church right now?

Charlie Backer [00:18:20] I mean we go to early church, so it's like seven 30 in the morning on Sundays. I mean, there's a decent amount. I think it was probably more years ago, but there's still, I mean I think the church is still thriving and we, we've got a, a bunch of kids in the schools and that do the athletics and stuff like that.

Vance Crowe [00:18:35] Yeah, St. Louis is an interesting place because there's definitely a Catholic network around. Yeah. Where there's, where there's individual churches and people belong to their

Charlie Backer [00:18:44] Parishes

Vance Crowe [00:18:45] And then those parishes interact with one another.

Charlie Backer [00:18:48] It

Vance Crowe [00:18:48] Was not like where I grew up, I grew up Catholic as well. But it was you that was the only Catholic church in town and then there were a whole bunch of other churches. Yeah. And it was, you know, Catholics and you didn't know any other Catholics. They either went

Charlie Backer [00:19:02] To your church or Yeah, I, it's a blessing in St. Louis. 'cause there are so many Catholic churches and we have a beautiful cathedral and it's just, it's, it's big. It's a, it's a big Catholic town.

Vance Crowe [00:19:10] And when you decided that you weren't gonna become a priest, did that, was that a difficult choice or was it like, ah, I'm getting married, I found a woman? Or was it, I'm leaving something behind? You're,

Charlie Backer [00:19:20] I mean, it's one of those things that I had been doing it for so long and every single day I loved it. Like waking up, it's five o'clock in the morning, going to chapel and praying and mass and volunteer work in the studies. I loved it. Once I realized that that's not what God wanted me to, to do or to be, I'm like, I, I can't be here anymore. So it was within, within like a two week timeframe, I made that decision. It was very difficult. I was filled with a weird sense of joy. 'cause I, I could start experiencing things that I've never, I mean, allowing myself to do like date or stay out beyond a curfew or, you know, do have some, a little bit more freedom. But yeah, it was, it was really scary. 'cause at, at that point, figuring when you're 21 years old, I had been raised in that setting, so most of my friends were in that setting. So it's like I wasn't just leaving a vocation or leaving a school, I was leaving your whole tribe.

Vance Crowe [00:20:18] Everything. Like

Charlie Backer [00:20:19] I was by myself. It was me moving back home, which I hadn't realized I hadn't lived at home full time since I was 13 at that point.

Vance Crowe [00:20:25] So you were almost coming home as a stranger.

Charlie Backer [00:20:28] So,

Vance Crowe [00:20:29] And not really having, I mean, you had a home, you had parents and family, but

Charlie Backer [00:20:32] Right. I, i still the bedroom but like, like friends to hang out with and

Vance Crowe [00:20:35] And you didn't have that longevity of people that you went to high school with that you're still seeing and Right.

Charlie Backer [00:20:40] So it was interesting. I mean there are definitely still a couple guys that were in the seminary at one point or another with me and had left. And so I was able to hang out with them. But really it's almost like back in the world as a brand new person, like I have to meet, make a lot of new friends. I have to reinvent myself. I'm not Charlie the seminarian, I'm just Charlie, the regular guy. I'm got a job selling appliances at, at Best Buy and finished my philosophy and theology degree at SLU and just kept chugging.

Vance Crowe [00:21:07] So I didn't, I guess I didn't realize you went to s sl. So be both of us have that Jesuit education and the background in philosophy. Do you still read or think about, like is that something that you do today?

Charlie Backer [00:21:20] Philosophy, yes. I I I never understood why I needed that degree because it doesn't, it's not like you get an amazing job once you graduate with a philosophy degree.

Vance Crowe [00:21:30] But now looking

Charlie Backer [00:21:31] Back like 15 years later or whatever it is, the logic that it puts in your mind how to you can think about things differently and much more logically is, is definitely a game changer. Especially in business or even in, in in life. Just regular conversations with people.

Vance Crowe [00:21:46] Yeah, I mean I I was having a good conversation with my buddy Rob Long about this just last night and we were talking about how philosophy ends up being like giving yourself a calculator where you don't have to do all the rote work

Charlie Backer [00:21:59] To

Vance Crowe [00:21:59] Think through, Hey I'm, I'm running into this problem, how should I handle it? You don't have to have all of the experiences to be able to, to choose the correct answer out of that. Right. So it's like a bunch of the labor gets done for you. And when you find scholars, like the other day I was talking with somebody about their conf, so there is a thing called the, the Corn Growers Association.

Charlie Backer [00:22:22] Okay.

Vance Crowe [00:22:22] So the Corn Growers Association, if you grow corn and you go to drop your corn off at an elevator to sell it, a certain really small percentage, we'll say one penny out of every dollar that you make goes to the checkoff program. And then that checkoff program lobbies on behalf of your industry and, and goes to the government and says, Hey, things aren't going well for corn growers right now. You should help us, you know, get the payments. 'cause the tariffs are, you know, all of those things. So, so you, they're a representative organization, a lobbying group for you and a marketing group. Well, he was saying, I am conflicted about what we're doing there because I don't really want our lobbying dollars to be propping up farmers for ourselves because I don't think that's good for our economy. Okay. And yet all of my friends are around and I don't wanna vote against things that are there in their best interest. Right.

Charlie Backer [00:23:11] And

Vance Crowe [00:23:11] So I was able to say, well, have you ever heard of raws veiled theory

Charlie Backer [00:23:16] Where

Vance Crowe [00:23:17] I learned about this at at Marquette where they talk about you should, if you're ever going to make a decision where you don't know how you should lay out the rules, what you should do is lay out the rules and imagine that you have a veil over your eyes on if you were to be reincarnated, which side of this will you come out on? Will you be on the side of being a person living in the city, not making, not getting payments from the government for not growing corn or, or will you be a farmer? So that way you would create a world where no matter how it ended up, you would feel good about it because if you came back as somebody else,

Charlie Backer [00:23:52] You'd

Vance Crowe [00:23:52] Still be happy with those rules.

Charlie Backer [00:23:54] Interesting.

Vance Crowe [00:23:54] And that's the kind of thing you learn in philosophy, that there's all these tricks that you Right. Because he was like, oh, I'd never really thought about that. And it allows you to keep yourself honest when you'd really like to set up the situation. So it just benefits you. Oh,

Charlie Backer [00:24:06] Very much so. And I think like just the idea of what ethics is and, and learning all those things. But yeah, philosophy I think is a wonderful foundation for business or for law or I think just general life. It just gives you that way to think about things differently.

Vance Crowe [00:24:20] Yeah. The, you were mentioning about Catholicism and really just Christianity and, and mentioned like sacrifice and suffering. Those are deep concepts that when you grow up with Christianity, you don't really understand that there are a whole bunch of concepts that are being handed to you that you really don't. You, you don't, you don't even know that there would be a different way to think about it. Like

Charlie Backer [00:24:44] Right, like, I'm gonna offer it up or you know, just sacrifice it right now. Right.

Vance Crowe [00:24:48] As

Charlie Backer [00:24:48] A little kid you don't get that.

Vance Crowe [00:24:49] That's right. But you, you hear these things and you have this model of there is a way to give up the present pleasure in the present for good things that you want in the future. That being a, a sacrifice. And I've been reading Greek mythology recently.

Charlie Backer [00:25:04] Okay.

Vance Crowe [00:25:04] And one of the interesting things that they have in Greek mythology is a whole lot of violence. Yeah.

Charlie Backer [00:25:11] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:25:12] Like, there was definitely an emphasis in, in this culture before you have Christianity, before you really have Judaism spreading out, you have this sense that every once in a while the collective group doesn't know how to deal with why are all these bad things happening. So they blame an innocent person and they scapegoat them and then they send that scapegoat out into the world. And that is the sacrifice. But what you miss when you're just reading them mythology is they kill that person. Yeah.

Charlie Backer [00:25:38] They

Vance Crowe [00:25:38] Drown them, they stone them to death, they do something terrible to that person

Charlie Backer [00:25:42] Probably wasn't their best day.

Vance Crowe [00:25:43] Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, and that, that was the way that human beings dealt with, you know, the, the, all of the things that they couldn't understand so that they could handle sacrifice. But that Judaism and then later Christianity gave a different way to think about the wait, the sa the ritual sacrifice has all been done, right?

Charlie Backer [00:26:03] You

Vance Crowe [00:26:03] Don't have to kill an innocent person anymore, we can do it in this other way. And you think about Christianity in today's day and age, you don't even have to be a believer in God to still be able to pull value out of the concept of sacrifice.

Charlie Backer [00:26:17] Oh, absolutely. I mean you can view it even like the simplest terms, like going to the gym, you know, you know you're gonna get hurt the first couple times you work out because your body is stretching. But in your mind you're able to justify that that sacrifice is gonna be worth it in the end. And I think that's a a lot with, with religion and faith in general, that yeah, as you were saying, you sacrifice today for what you can potentially achieve tomorrow or down the road.

Vance Crowe [00:26:40] You mentioned going to the gym, gym, you have gotten in shape and in fact you still are in shape. You're looking really good, man. That's

Charlie Backer [00:26:47] The entrepreneurship diet that you just refuse to eat sometimes. Well, yeah, I mean I'm working out now, which is good, but there are so many times on that journey where like, I just wouldn't eat

Vance Crowe [00:26:58] And, and not eating has been your, your strategy to keep the pounds off. It's

Charlie Backer [00:27:03] Not even like a, it's not even a strategy there. Like I just wake up, I'm like, I'm not hungry. Lunch rolls around. It's so easy as an entrepreneur to wake up, live off of coffee and go meeting to meeting, to meeting, to meeting, to meeting. And then eventually when you get home later in the evening and you know, the wife's making pizza for the family. Like, well I'm gonna to eat pizza. And they just go right back to bed. And I was just in this cycle where that was my life. Like waking up, living off of coffee, eating dinner, going to bed.

Vance Crowe [00:27:28] What are these meetings like? Because you're going in and selling your yourself, right? Yeah,

Charlie Backer [00:27:33] I, I sell myself in every single meeting. And that's the thing like I really enjoy about Hot Charlie's is like, you, you, you know, like movie Tommy Boy, I talked about Tommy Boy's dad could sell a ketchup lollipop to a lady in white gloves. And I'm sure I butchered that, but I can't do that. Like unless I believe in what I'm selling, I can't do it. Like unless I believe there's value there. That's just something I can't do. So with regards to Hot Charlie's like I have to be on it. I am an extremely genuine, people are gonna love me for who I am or hate me for who I am. And it's just, I'm just gonna be myself. And so far that's worked out well for Hot Charlie's

Vance Crowe [00:28:08] How do you get these meetings with people to say, I mean, well maybe first of all, talk about the transition. Who was the first big order of Hot Charlie's or who was the first order of Charlie's?

Charlie Backer [00:28:19] Well, we'll back it up a little bit. So August, 2017, I, I launched my original sauce. October I launched a ghost pepper sauce and realized whenever you launch a new product that's $3,000 ish, depending upon how many you get. So this was an interesting thing. And then I'll segue into, into the bigger accounts. So as I released the ghost pepper sauce at that point, like my tongue, I had lost sensitivity to heat and I didn't realize that. So there's a place in the city by slew called Southern, they have delicious fried chicken. So I had a job at the time. So went there with all my coworkers and I got, it's called Clucking Hot and they use Ghost Pepper. I'm like, I've been living off of Ghost Pepper the last like 90 days, I can eat this. So I was able to eat it fine. One of my coworkers grabbed one bite, instantly ran to the bathroom.

Vance Crowe [00:29:04] Oh wait, you mean literally you had lost your, I I thought that you, well

Charlie Backer [00:29:06] It's just one of those things that you get desensitized. Like as you eat a bunch of spicy stuff, your, your level of sensitivity isn't there. So like Ghost Pepper wasn't hot, but if I was to have a Carolina Reaper that would hurt. So I ate the meal and I'm like, well my coworker got sick, maybe I'm gonna regret this. And the next morning I was supposed to be on Fox two at nine o'clock in the morning to go live that I released this ghost pepper sauce. I woke up at three o'clock in the morning sick, throwing up ghost pepper. And anybody that's thrown up it, it's not fun if you

Vance Crowe [00:29:38] Had a night of drinking or food

Charlie Backer [00:29:39] Poisoning, but ghost pepper, it burns. And so that whole morning I'm just like praying as I'm on my way to Fox Two, I'm like, please don't let me throw up. Please don't let me throw up. And as I got there, like I had the realization like what's the worst thing that happens? I throw up live on air. I'm like, that would go viral. People would be like, holy crap, that's the hot sauce I had to throw up on tv.

Vance Crowe [00:30:00] Man. That's an optimist way to look at that.

Charlie Backer [00:30:02] Yeah. That's the only way I could do it without casting out. And so I did that and I ended 2017 at about four stores. It was four great stores. So the best for local stores. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:30:12] Or and then you just walk in and say, can I talk to the manager? Would you, do they buy it up front? Yeah. Or do you buy shelf space or how does that work?

Charlie Backer [00:30:20] No, so when you deal with like the small mom and pops, you just go in and you say, Hey, this is my products, will you try it? Do you like it? And the first four gave me that chance. Wow. Which was great.

Vance Crowe [00:30:30] That had to be big day for you. It it

Charlie Backer [00:30:32] Was huge. And so ended that year great. Four, four months hot. Charlie's was probably making enough money each month to pay for like a half a round of groceries. And then comes January and I got a call from my company that they were eliminating my position and my division was more or less being bought out by a larger company.

Vance Crowe [00:30:53] I didn't know that. Yeah.

Charlie Backer [00:30:54] So

Vance Crowe [00:30:55] You lost your job. Yeah,

Charlie Backer [00:30:57] In January, 2018. So I went home, well I was already at home 'cause I was working from home at the time and I'm like, my wife doesn't get off till like six o'clock. I'm like, what the hell am I gonna say to her? Like, and like I was wondering is this God's like dare to be great moment and I'm supposed to go balls the wall with hot Charlies. I'm like, I can barely, you know, make 70 bucks a month. And my wife was teaching, you know, preschool at the time. So it was like we were not bringing enough money without my salary to pay the bills. And so told Kelly and more or less, for the longest time I was applying, I probably applied to over 200 jobs.

Vance Crowe [00:31:31] How did that conversation go that night?

Charlie Backer [00:31:34] Like, Hey, I lost my job or my, my position got eliminated. It's not gonna be bad. We have some money saved up. And she's like, okay. She's like, whatcha gonna do? I'm like, well I'm gonna apply to jobs and at the same time I'm gonna try to grow hot Charlie's and realize, okay, so hot sauces, barbecue sauces, seasonings. It's seasonal in the Midwest. So barbecue season, all those things move fast. Winter months not so fast. So like trying to sell hot sauce in January, February wasn't the best.

Vance Crowe [00:32:02] Oh, big during right now, right? Yeah. Like just football season probably getting up there. Okay. Yeah.

Charlie Backer [00:32:06] So that's huge. So I was really like depressed and some cool things happened. I got, I got a random phone call in early February from Channel five and Dana Dean is like, Hey Charlie, I wanted to come out and do a special on Hot Charlie. So it was cool she came out to the house, she interviewed me and Kelly on how we make the hot sauce or how I used to make the hot sauce. And that gave me like a little, little pick me up. And then it was like another month and I was just laying on the couch. Like I was seriously depressed. And you ever seen the movie Billy Madison?

Vance Crowe [00:32:36] Oh yeah, of

Charlie Backer [00:32:37] Course. Okay. So he's in Miss Lippes class in first grade reading about the dog that lost his wife. You get out there and you find that fucking dog you find. So I woke up one of these mornings, I'm like, I've got a mortgage, I've got two, you know, two kids, a wife, a hamster, two dogs, like I have to do this shit. So I went out there and I hustled and I hate the word hustle, I think it's a douche word, but it was one of those things that like, that's all I could do. So I went out and in the next month I picked up like 20 accounts just loading Kelly's car up. 'cause I had, I had a, a small niece Nissan at the time. She had a a, a bigger Honda. And I would load it up and I would just go out and sell and like, I didn't care. Like I just, I needed money. You're just, just looking up on Apple Maps, where's the closest store?

Vance Crowe [00:33:15] And I'm gonna go to

Charlie Backer [00:33:16] That store. I would, I would do some research like creep on some social medias and stuff and figure out good places to try to go into. But I didn't, the knowledge I have now is a lot different than what I had then. Then it was just like, I'm gonna go everywhere. And so it was just a lot of struggle. And in the meantime, so that January, so a couple months prior I had created my hot sauce dust with my bottler and that's a dry version of my original sauce. And I approved it in January. And so I got a text in in like March and he's like, Hey Charlie, he is like, your batch is ready. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, well I got your, you know, hundreds of bottles. I'm like, well shit, I haven't even designed my label yet. And I had no money 'cause I was broke. And so I figured how broke, I mean I had at that point, I wasn't broke in my mind, I was broke, but I still had some money. I still had a couple thousand dollars. And so I made, I, I launched that and that was a critical a, a a a crazy success. Like that was flying more than my sauces were. And so over the next couple months, like here we're, we're gonna get into like the, the biggest account early on I was driving, it was May, 2018. Woke up and this is when, you know, you wake up to the Poorness and I had a negative bank account and I'm like, well I have to pay for groceries this weekend and Kelly doesn't get paid for another, another two weeks. Like what the hell am I gonna do? And so I loaded up her, her car, filled with hot sauce and, and seasoning and had a half a tank of gas. And I remember driving to the city and I got an email from somebody and he said, Hey Charlie. He's like, I've been following you on Instagram the last, you know, several weeks.

Charlie Backer [00:34:49] He's like, I see you busting your ass every day. Reminds me a lot of what we did in our, and when we be our open our company, he's like, I wanna put your products in all of our stores. Whoa. And they had 27 locations and that, like, I pulled over and I remember I was on Cherokee Street. I pulled over and I started crying 'cause like, who, who the hell am I gonna call? My wife's working, all my friends are working. I didn't have entrepr, you know, I didn't have the friends that I have now that are entrepreneurs that they can, they can pick up a phone at two in the afternoon. And I just cried because I'm like, it's working out. And then I went and met with him, super nice guy. And he's like, also, we went the same order next week. He's like, I know what it's like to be in your situation. And so from there that sort of just gave me the momentum to keep going after bigger accounts, more accounts and just, it didn't allow me to give up.

Vance Crowe [00:35:37] And so what, what then, so that's the first level or maybe the second level. You, you're out there selling, then you get on this step. What's the next step up from that? When, when do you start feeling safer?

Charlie Backer [00:35:49] I don't know if I've ever felt safe. Like, I don't know, like I did a podcast like a year ago and again, I was only in 80 stores at the time. And I remember talking to him about entrepreneurship. I was like, I think if you were to describe entrepreneurship, it's like a disease. 'cause you don't think of things the way normal people do.

Vance Crowe [00:36:09] You

Charlie Backer [00:36:09] Don't think it's normal to have like no money and to still believe that what you're doing has value. And so that was it every single day getting out there and trying to find that fucking dog and getting these rare wins. Like I I I was

Vance Crowe [00:36:25] And were there people that would tell you? No.

Charlie Backer [00:36:26] Oh yeah. I mean you get that like hot Charlie's, so the secret to hot sauce, okay, so this is for all your listeners that wanna come out with hot sauces. The way you can make the most amount of money is by putting a ton of water and vinegar in your sauces. 'cause that's, that's viewed as free. So Hot Charlies has has is is thick. So it's not a cheap sauce, it's a premium, it's a gourmet sauce. Well it's typically retails at 1350 a bottle at stores. So yeah, like trying to go into stores that are used to selling like, like Tabasco's one of my favorite ones. But selling these tiny Tabasco bottles for like four or five bucks. Like, well, why are we gonna sell yours for 1350? So it's like, it's not just getting people to buy your product, but it's getting them to believe that they're gonna make their money back.

Vance Crowe [00:37:05] Oh, because they have to put the the investment up front. Correct. You genuinely are selling yourself there. Oh

Charlie Backer [00:37:11] Yeah. You're like, they have to believe in me. So it, it, it it's, yeah. And it was interesting. So I was at a, my wife and I were watching Deadpool two at the movie theater and my phone blew up and everybody was like, you have to go to your Facebook right now. Like,

Vance Crowe [00:37:23] What the hell

Charlie Backer [00:37:24] Happened? And I think it was our, it was our anniversary a couple of years ago. And it turns out Mike Johnson, one of the creators of Sugar Fire Smokehouse, they had won Memphis in May. They got first place in seafood. And

Vance Crowe [00:37:34] For anybody that's not from St. Louis Sugar Fire is like the barbecue place. You could go there at lunchtime on a Tuesday and there is a 45 minute wait sometimes. Amazing mean people love it. I mean amazing

Charlie Backer [00:37:45] Food. I think they've got like 13 or 14 locations nationally. And now they're just a great company. And he tagged me on Facebook and saying that they won Memphis. And man, I'm like, oh, you know, good for you. And then he is like, he posted the recipe and it had hot Charlies listed. I'm like, oh my gosh. Oh

Vance Crowe [00:38:00] Yeah.

Charlie Backer [00:38:01] So it, like, I freaked out and it was, it was cool. But again, just one of those little moments that when you're down that things just sort of help push you along.

Vance Crowe [00:38:11] You know, one of the things that I observed that you have the, I don't know, gusto or, or courage, I don't know what it is or, or maybe just naivety. I, I, I don't know. But I remember watching you on, on whether it was Instagram or Twitter. I remember seeing your videos and being like, he's putting himself out there and if he doesn't succeed, everyone will watch him fail. That is ballsy.

Charlie Backer [00:38:36] I'm gonna go with the naivety. It's just, I I I had this whole realization. So, we'll, we'll, we'll back up a little bit. So when I launched Hot Charlie's January of 2017, my friends were pushing me to start it. March of 2017, I got sober. So I quit drinking alcohol. So when you stop drinking alcohol, whether you're an alcoholic or like the way I was, I just abused alcohol. I, I self-medicated. And so when I took the alcohol away, I realized that I was using it to self-medicate for my own struggles with like, anxiety and depression. So then like, it was like a whole 12 months of facing these socially awkward moments without alcohol and learning how to cope. Well after about doing that for about a year, and then I, you start becoming an IIII was an entrepreneur and I realized I'm putting myself out there. Then I'm like, why do I have these shields up? Like, I'm not always a happy person. I'm not always the most positive person. I, I mean mostly I am, but there's these things,

Vance Crowe [00:39:38] You gotta be the most

Charlie Backer [00:39:39] Positive person. But there's all these things. And I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna put all my, my shields down. 'cause I was thinking like that they were shields protecting me, but really what they turned out to be is they were just masks that we, they were hiding my inner self. Like I was just uber protective of myself. And so I'm like, fuck it, I'm just gonna be myself. And when I made that decision, like haters came outta the woodwork, mean things started being said to me like, I was so weak and vulnerable when

Vance Crowe [00:40:04] People said mean things to you.

Charlie Backer [00:40:06] Oh, I mean, I

Vance Crowe [00:40:07] Never saw any

Charlie Backer [00:40:08] Of this. Oh, you wouldn't, I mean, nobody would say, I mean nobody talks about the mean things that, you know, haters and, and toxic people out there. But yeah, I, I got hit for like six weeks and that's why like, you know, you do the Christian thing like, well maybe that's just the devil trying to attack me. 'cause like, it was just one thing after another that threw me into another Depressed, I was depressed for about 30 days and it made me stronger. So I think that's sort of thing that I realized like, being genuine is the most powerful thing that I can do in this world. That's the greatest gift that anybody can give to.

Vance Crowe [00:40:36] It's truly all you have

Charlie Backer [00:40:37] Is right. Is being themselves. So I'm like, I could be fake. I could get a regular job and nobody's gonna give a shit about what I do. Or I can do something that I believe in every day creating products that I can stand by that I know people are gonna love and put my heart and soul into that. And like, if, if again, if, if it fails, I, I did my best. I I, so when

Vance Crowe [00:40:59] You put out an episode or two of sober Charlie's, I got on there and, and listened and I stopped what I was doing. I was making dinner and I sat down in my dining room and I just listened to it because it was the first time I had ever heard a person that I really knew that, that I had, you know, spent time with before that was like, this thing had a hold of me. I was doing, I was coming home and being mean to my wife. I was waking up feeling hung over as shit, right? And it made me like take a really hard look at like, do I have this problem? Do I have other problems that are like this problem? And I sat there thinking, damn Charlie, you you are,

Charlie Backer [00:41:44] You are

Vance Crowe [00:41:45] Like the

Charlie Backer [00:41:46] The gutsiest

Vance Crowe [00:41:46] Person that I know. Because while I think like doing a podcast, you can be pretty genuine. You talk about the books you're reading and the things you're working on. But I had never heard somebody be that candid.

Charlie Backer [00:41:58] It was just one of those things that I, I really believed in my heart that, I mean, it, it took me about a year to open up about my sobriety. Like the first year I was just like, and that could also, were

Vance Crowe [00:42:08] You afraid you'd backslide?

Charlie Backer [00:42:09] No, I've never really been afraid of that. I just was afraid, like I didn't want the focus to be about me. It's, it's not about me. Like, I just realized that alk it's the same thing like a celiac eating gluten. They're not gonna do it 'cause they're gonna shit everywhere. I'm not gonna drink because I, I ended up in handcuffs once and I didn't like that feeling.

Vance Crowe [00:42:27] What happened? I didn't hear that.

Charlie Backer [00:42:29] You don't listen to the damn podcast dance. I,

Vance Crowe [00:42:31] I

Charlie Backer [00:42:31] Have listened to it.

Vance Crowe [00:42:32] I listened to the one when you were talking about fighting with your wife and I was

Charlie Backer [00:42:35] Oh and, and it's like I was just getting stupid arguments with Kelly and Yeah. Yeah. So launched, I started creating the hot sauce for my friends in January, 2017, March, 2017. It was a struggle day, like a lot of anxiety, stress at, you know, Kelly was having some, a health scare. And I just started drinking with some of my coworkers at the time and I kept drinking and then she got the good news that she was, it was all clear, she was healthy. And I just kept drinking and then come to the evening and I, I, this is again, I could look back like I was self-medicating. I was avoiding reality 'cause I didn't wanna deal with the struggle and I was just drinking and yeah, drove home and I talked to my wife on the phone about two blocks away from my house. And within that time I ran into a utility pool, crashed my Jeep, flipped over probably a couple times, walked away pretty much unscathed and knocked the power out for multiple blocks around the area. And so much so that I got off the phone with Kelly and her and the kids were in the bedroom and the power went out and she's like, that was Charlie. And so she gets in her car, she couldn't, we didn't have power, so she had a force open the garage drove up, I was in the ambulance. And that sort of led to a whirlwind of an adventure that evening. Went to the hospital and when you, when you get accused of like a DWI, you'll have a friendly police officer that goes to the hospital with you.

Charlie Backer [00:44:06] Really nice guy. And so after I got checked out, I was fine. It was like one o'clock in the morning and he's like, well, I gotta take you to jail. You gotta get processed. And you know, me being the smart ass, I'm like, well, will you at least let me play with the sirens? Because I had never been in a police

Vance Crowe [00:44:19] Car at

Charlie Backer [00:44:20] The time. And no, they won't let you play with the lights and

Vance Crowe [00:44:22] Sirens.

Charlie Backer [00:44:23] So I went to the jail and as I'm getting ready to get checked out by the nurses and I go in the nurse's office and I'm like, I'm like, I know you. He's like, he's like, yeah, you're, you're Kevin's best friend. Like my best friend from seminary, it was his uncle that was the nurse. And so I spent the next six hours at the county jail and it was interesting. It sucked. It was terrible. It was, you don't wanna be in jail. Like, it wasn't even a jail, it was a whatever the holding cell food's, terrible bathroom doors don't lock smells. And I was getting ready to leave and I was sitting next to an African American gentleman and he was asked me why I was there. And I, so I had, I was dressed up for work, so I had like a button up covered in blood for me. And he's like, what happened? I explained, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:45:12] You're covered in blood.

Charlie Backer [00:45:13] I, yeah, I mean, I looked like I got in a fight, but it was really just, I got in a fight with my steering wheel, which if you ever get in a wreck, Jeep Wranglers phenomenal cars. So I'm sitting there and I explained to the guy like, why I'm there? And he's like, you know, dude, he said, shit happens. He's like, you didn't get, you didn't get hurt that bad. You didn't kill anybody. And he's like, you, you know, God gave you the rest of your life. He's like, yeah, I'm sitting here. I'm wanted for attempted murder. He's like, but I believe that I got, you know, got stuff figured out too. So like, here's his perspective. He's wanted for attempted murder. Him and I are getting ready to leave the jail at seven 30. And I'm like, so yeah. So my wife picked me up, got home, slept most of the day, and this is when I started realizing that I had a problem with alcohol. Not, like, not the accident, the accident. I'm like, I could, I could blame that on, oh, it was stress. Eight hours from getting outta jail. I'm like, I can go for some wine. And thankfully my wife had thrown away all the wine and I had to fly outta town that weekend for a promotion. I just got. So I was, I was outta town, I was still drinking semi-regular. And it just, over the next three weeks, it just clicked. And I remember being at a wedding with my wife. It was a Sunday evening, and I had, you know, two drinks, like a two vodka tonics. I remember this. I remember sitting there and I didn't say anything. And I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, this is gonna be the last time I ever drank for the rest of my life. And I woke up and I went and saw, you know, a psychologist I was dealing with, and I went to an AA meeting and I've never drank again. And the, the thing is with sharing that story is the hope that somebody out there that might be struggling with alcohol or might be struggling with drugs can realize that even like, and when, even when you're sitting in jail believing that your life is over, you have a choice to make it better.

Charlie Backer [00:46:57] Like we, we can, all we can, all we can do is bounce back

Vance Crowe [00:47:01] When you thought about the Sahara Desert or maybe you didn't perceive it that way of being like, I'm never going to drink again. Was that a big mountain in front of you, or was it, was it obvious it was, was it going to be easy or was it going to be hard? It was,

Charlie Backer [00:47:15] It was twofold. Like, I had tried so many times in the past to quit drinking. Like I would make it 30 days, I'd make it nine months, but it never really clicked. And with this, like, I could say like, I'm never gonna drink again. But the reality was I just took it one day at a time, and all of a sudden one day turned into a week and then six months, and then like, you know, now it's been two and a half years. And I'm very, very grateful for that.

Vance Crowe [00:47:39] Yeah. I, I picked up the terrible habit of smoking cigarettes in high school, and then I smoked in college and then on and off afterwards. And, and when I finally quit, I came to the realization that I wasn't quitting smoking forever. I just wasn't smoking the next cigarette.

Charlie Backer [00:47:56] Right. And that's a great way to look at it, because

Vance Crowe [00:47:58] It's the only thing you can do, right? You can't quit. Well, may somebody else may have a have a different thing, but for me it was like, I can't quit forever. That's too hard, but I can quit the next one. And every single time that comes up, that's just one little decision that I

Charlie Backer [00:48:13] Have to make one little decision. And that's the same way, like, I apply it sometimes to the gym. Like, I may not work out every single day of my life, but I'm just gonna work out this one time. And you take it from there. And it's interesting you're bringing that up. I was meeting with a psychologist last, a psychologist friend of mine last week, and we're talking about addiction. And he said, in my experience, the only way to solve addiction is through consequence. Like typically people, like if you're struggling with heroin, they get arrested or they get, what's the stuff called Narcan. They get Narcan. Like those can be those wake up calls, you know, alcohol, you're going to, you get arrested. And I don't know really what I think about that. 'cause I, I wanna, I wanna think that I'm stronger than that, but like I look back at my own history of drinking, like, well, I got in a car accident, got arrested, had to deal with the courts and all that fun stuff. And that's sort of, you know, imp emboldened my choice to quit drinking.

Vance Crowe [00:49:05] It's an interesting thing when you get into the, what's going on behind the scenes in your mind, because, so I, I recently in the last, I don't know, eight months or so, took up the practice of meditation,

Charlie Backer [00:49:17] Which

Vance Crowe [00:49:17] I always thought was like mumbo jumbo. Yeah. But really, it, it is just take a little bit of time to be contemplating who is the thinker of the thoughts.

Charlie Backer [00:49:26] Right?

Vance Crowe [00:49:27] Right. Because,

Charlie Backer [00:49:28] And to realize that not your thoughts don't necessarily come from truth

Vance Crowe [00:49:33] It. And, and that's exactly right.

Charlie Backer [00:49:35] Just thoughts.

Vance Crowe [00:49:36] They're, they're just there. Right, right. They just, it's, it's almost as though you are a human being that is being operated by some voice in the back of your head, which doesn't always give you all of the information. And the funniest thing about something like alcohol or smoking cigarettes or, or doing hardcore drugs, is that no one would choose to be that wildly out of control.

Charlie Backer [00:49:58] Right?

Vance Crowe [00:49:59] Right. Like, you might choose the, the euphoric sensation you get as you're having the first couple of drinks and everybody's having fun, but nobody would choose to be out of control of wi like, you know, those people, maybe you've been that or I've been that for sure at a bar where you bought another drink and a rational person would be like, you, that will not increase your fund anymore than it is right now, and you're gonna pay for it tomorrow. Right. Then why is the thinker of the thoughts making that decision? Right.

Charlie Backer [00:50:27] And that's like one thing, like when I was drinking, I would always wake up most, not all the time, but most mornings, like regretting like, well, what did I say last night? Did I, was I a fool of myself? It is so nice waking up and I'm like, ah, if I said anything stupid last night, at least I remember it now. And it get, it's empowering. And it's been interesting since becoming more vocal, vocal with like sobriety or mental health, the amount of people that reach out to me that are struggling or that just open up a conversation like, Hey, you know, I was drinking last night and I was just, you know, thinking of you. And just like, it just opens up their mind to thinking, okay, do I need to cut back? Do I need to stop this? And like, that's it. Because like so many people think that they have to drink to have fun, and that's the farthest from the truth. Like that's what it's like. I always respe, I always respected my wife, like, we could watch a blues game. She could open up a beer at the beginning of the game, and at the end of the game it's, it's still there and I can open a bottle of wine. And by like the third period I'm like, oh, do I have another bottle of wine? Is this gonna last me before bedtime? But like, that's where it's like you people are, everybody's wired differently.

Vance Crowe [00:51:28] Yeah, that's definitely right. There are some people that when they start having that first drink, they get so much of a good feeling, they're so much happier than other people that even if you're not drunk, you're feeling that like, happy, Hey, I, I know things are headed in this direction. Whereas there's other people, they, they just don't, they don't get that. Right. So one of the things that happens when people quit drinking is it changes their friend groups. Did that happen to you?

Charlie Backer [00:52:00] I think when you, when you say that early on, I believe that like, oh, it would be like a quick thing. Like you, you quit drinking on a Monday by Friday, you lose all your friends. It, it doesn't happen like that. So if you're, if you're concerned about quitting drinking, it doesn't happen that fast. But it does, it does happen. But like, it, it was so many different things were going on at the same time. I quit drinking. And so here's like the cliche thing, I gave up the sauce to make the sauce so that energy in time I was putting towards drinking, I shifted that towards hot Charlie's. And so I don't know if it was necessarily the drinking that's pushed certain people away or the entrepreneurship that just took my time away. But like, I just went a different path and like the people like that I would hang out with a couple years ago. Yeah. They're still my friends, the people that I would drink with primarily to go out to bars and hang out with 'em, only drinking. Yeah. I don't see them anymore, but for the most part, my friends are still there. The,

Vance Crowe [00:52:55] The social aspect of it with, so I go to a lot of conventions or you know, where it's for the people that are coming there, it's their one time away from the farm, right. Or from the laboratory or whatever. So they're having drinks. And it used to be when I made the rule, when I travel, I, I almost never have any drinks. And it's just because I need to be sharp the next day. I wanna make sure if somebody's paying for me to be there, that I am as present as I can be. But I remember when I first started thinking, well, it's gonna be harder to talk to other people.

Charlie Backer [00:53:24] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:53:25] But what you don't realize is if you just wait till they've all had two drinks, then you've still got your wits about you and they're a lot more loose.

Charlie Backer [00:53:34] I was so scared about that in the beginning. Like, I was scared about a lot of things. Like, if I quit drinking, will people still hang out with me? If, if I quit drinking, will I still be a sociable and confident parties? And yeah, like I think in the beginning you're, you're more so hit with anxiety, like social anxiety, like where you overthink it too much. But like now I can say I am just as confident, if not more and more present to people's conversations than I ever was when I was drinking. So it's almost like these lies that our mind tell us, well, if you don't drink, you know, you're not gonna be able to do this. Like, no, you're, you're a liar and you just do your own thing.

Vance Crowe [00:54:09] One of the the things that has happened that as far as I can tell is that you put a lot of your time and energy into really creative marketing. Like yeah.

Charlie Backer [00:54:18] You,

Vance Crowe [00:54:19] You are, you're not just running around selling for some reason. I mean, you are all over my social and I'm always happy to see it because it's like, oh, hey, Charlie's

Charlie Backer [00:54:27] Working,

Vance Crowe [00:54:28] He's doing something. Talk about what your, what your inspiration is. Why did you come up with the idea to send the bow tie hot? Charlie's like, where, where does this come from? I

Charlie Backer [00:54:38] Didn't know what else to do. I think like, like realize my path of entrepreneurship is not like the typical person, like typical person, they're gonna create a business plan, they're gonna have money set aside, everything's gonna work mostly 80 per 60 to 80% of the plan. Me, I'm like, fuck it, I'm gonna jump in the water. I don't know how to swim and somehow I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep afloat. And what I've realized over time is I'm more comfortable struggling in the pool than I would be if I get out and find a regular job. So like the marketing with like John sbo, I'm like, well, what would I want to hear if I was to get something randomly in the mail? Like, ah, he, he knows me. He knows I wear bow ties and honestly, with a lot of the things that I've done, it's just, I put myself into it and it was cool. Like another big win. A few months after I launched this, this, this girl I didn't know at the time was tagging me on Facebook or my company. She's like, oh, I found my secret ingredient for the World Food Championship and I didn't even know what the World Food Championship is, but it's a, it's a world food championship that people compete in like steak or chili. Well, she used my chili in her winning dish. Like she actually won, I remember screaming at my house, I was on my recliner watching it with, and Kelly's like, what are you screaming about? Like, she won. And so it's like you just, I don't know. I, I'm a firm believer if you give more out there eventually things come back. And I just try to be the most genuine version of myself and treat people with respect. And if I can do that, like, so when I was in the seminary, we had spiritual directors, so like priests that would guide us on the spiritual path.

Charlie Backer [00:56:10] And mine eventually became a bishop. And I remember talking to him, I'm like, well, how, how do you sleep at night?

Vance Crowe [00:56:17] And

Charlie Backer [00:56:17] He's like, well, he's like, before I put my head on the pillow, I say, God, you know, did I give you my all? If I can say yes, he's like, you should be able to sleep soundly. And so that's sort of been my focus. Like even like another part of that prayer I say now is, you know, God, you've gotten me this far, please don't let me fail. And I just, every single day I know I'm gonna mess up. I know I'm imperfect. I know there's things I could have done or should have done, but if I keep dwelling on the things that I could have done, I will never do the crazy things that I do every day. 'cause like, but like I operate the best in fear. Like when I had money, I mean, I have money right now, but it's like there was times in the past couple months where like, I have a decent amount of the bank account and I notice myself getting comfortable and I'm like, am I missing anxiety right now? Like, almost like you get addicted to that feeling, well like, you know, bank account went low last month, so what did I do? It's like I went out there and, and I found that fucking dog and you sell and it's just, just being yourself like that, I dunno, at, at the end of the day, like that's all that I'm trying to do is just be the best version of myself.

Vance Crowe [00:57:19] So you had a big win or as far as I could tell, it looked like a huge win. There are pallets of your Yeah. Of your product going out. Tell the story about what, I mean, are you able to talk about that? Yeah,

Charlie Backer [00:57:30] I can talk about, yeah. So it was back in June and I had enough money to last me till July, end of July. Like,

Vance Crowe [00:57:40] Wow, man, I didn't know that this was going on with you.

Charlie Backer [00:57:43] This is the life. Yeah, this is, so anybody out there, if you're watching, you wanna be a hot sauce salesman? This is it. It sucks. Yeah. So I was, I was going to Walmart, we're going grocery shopping and I was walking in and I was talking to my wife, I'm like, Kelly, I wanna go national. I was like, I think it's great with what I'm doing right now, but the way I can really cover us financially and grow my brand is if I grow nationally. And Kelly's like, okay, yeah, sure. You know, whatever, she's supportive. But she hears me talk so much. And so she

Vance Crowe [00:58:13] Sounds like a saint actually.

Charlie Backer [00:58:14] Oh, she is. You meet her, you're be like, ah. And so I went into Walmart, okay, this is how I view just God. I left Walmart, I got a call from the state cap, Missouri State Capitol, department of Agriculture. Hey Charlie, what are you doing next Wednesday? I'm like, I don't know why, what's up? Like, well, we've got home goods, they're coming in town and we've selected you. They said they wanted to meet with you. I'm like, okay. So 30 minutes, I don't think God has,

Vance Crowe [00:58:38] How does the Missouri Department of Agriculture know who, who you are? I just

Charlie Backer [00:58:41] Do network. Like it's just a weird thing. Like I just network with people. And so Missouri has this wonderful program, it's called Bio Missouri that encourages and supports like small businesses. Like we get together once a year. If there's opportunities internationally or internationally, they'll coordinate that. So yeah, they reached out to me, went to the meeting the next week and a lot of people were telling me just to view it as like practice. Like, this is your one time to practice in front of a billion dollar company. And my mind, I'm like, this is my one way to cover my bills and to pay for my, my groceries and school supplies and all, you know, dog food. And so I went in the meeting, I was just myself and we were just being smart asses and talking about all sorts of stuff. And I left the meeting with the biggest order I've ever received as of last week, it rolled out to pretty much 800 stores throughout the country. Wow. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:59:32] Wow. At that point, if they're buying one bottle a piece at 800 stores, that's a lot of bottles.

Charlie Backer [00:59:37] So figure Yeah. Pallets. And yeah, it was great. But it's one of those things, and I maybe other entrepreneurs I think that they can relate with me on this is I can't get excited anymore. Like, I can't get excited, like, like, okay, so may of this past year I released a national popcorn and that was another weird, I'm giving this to God. Like, there's so many things on my journey that I'm like, I don't know, I, I can't logically explain it. So the popcorn came about, they were introduced to me through some mutual connections and we worked for nine months on research and development for this popcorn. I had a shift my manufacturing up to Wisconsin. So I have a manufacturer that I use up there, all this stuff. So when that released in May, or maybe it was April, like it was cool, but like in my mind I'm like, well, I still gotta pay the groceries next week, or what about the groceries next month? And like, so like that's where like my mind is still trapped right now. And I'm sure this is just a phase of entrepreneurship that I'm in. And once like some of these larger accounts come on or they reorder, then that sort of goes away because as the, the stress and anxiety of finances go down, I've noticed my enthusiasm and passion and like focus towards business have just blown up. So it's almost like, yeah, like, so it's cool. Like as businesses get more successful, like I think that's where you understand like momentum comes in like, wow, that person's really blowing up. I mean, they don't see the suck and the struggle and the negative bank accounts that the person's experienced. They just see, oh well holy shit, they're, you know, they're in 800 stores. But it's like, it's been all that struggle that allowed me to be myself in that meeting.

Charlie Backer [01:01:11] 'cause I had nothing else to lose.

Vance Crowe [01:01:13] What habits did you have to develop in order to be able to get to where you're at now?

Charlie Backer [01:01:20] I would, I don't know if one of 'em could, I want to like sell myself short and just say I'm really, really ignorant that I don't know how to, have you ever seen like Earnest goes to camp and, or even Bart isn't like scratches on the chalkboard and get smacked in the back of the head. I can't stop. Like, I believe too much in it. And I've, I've applied to jobs like 200 jobs even a couple months ago. Nothing's worked out. And I'm like, I'm just doing that as a sign. Like, God, you know, I, I gave you myself, I'm applying to these jobs. They, they'd be kind of cool, but they've never worked out. And somehow something's come in at the right time, every single time.

Vance Crowe [01:01:59] So what's next for Hot Charlie's? What are, what are you doing to, to keep going, to keep that enthusiasms?

Charlie Backer [01:02:05] Just a lot of crying. The next things for Hot Charlies is I'll be releasing three new seasonings in the next couple months and that'll be really cool. My goal is to grow more nationally. There's

Vance Crowe [01:02:20] How, how do you do that? You get in front of more home goods.

Charlie Backer [01:02:22] Yeah. You,

Vance Crowe [01:02:23] Yeah.

Charlie Backer [01:02:24] Home goods is like an anomaly. Most companies aren't that quick. And I mean, they, they are su I mean home goods people, they're super nice, like the nicest people I've met at the largest level. And typically the way you get in other, other stores if you have a product is you work with a broker. You can definitely go store to store and sell it like the, your smaller mom and pops or maybe locations that maybe own like 60. But to get to the ones that over own, over like a hundred or the major chains, you typically have to work with a broker or somebody that introduces you.

Vance Crowe [01:02:55] And do you think you'll go with a broker, you'll think you'll start getting introduced? Or are you gonna keep going the journey? It'll

Charlie Backer [01:02:59] Be everything. It'll be everything. I will work with a broker, I will do my own thing because at the end of the day, if I don't, if I don't support my family, I mean nobody else, my, my wife will. But it's like we need to work together. We have to be a team.

Vance Crowe [01:03:12] I have a really interesting podcast the other day, my friend Chris Oliver was being interviewed and the guy said to him, what is the thing that you wish you were better at?

Charlie Backer [01:03:24] Well, in the beginning I would've said, I wish I was better at patience. When you just start a business and then you struggle financially, you want everything now. But I can look at everything that's taken time. It has been so much better down the road, like where I can look back and say, okay, because I struggled with that. It made me do this here because I adjusted this ingredient for this product. It's, it's allowing me to get into this, this area. In the beginning it would definitely been patience. I'm not the most detail oriented person. That's where it's great having Kelly 'cause she's so organized and detailed. Like when it comes to like fulfilling packages, when we were doing that at home, like she was so, everything looked great. I'm just not that organized. It'd be cool if I could be more organized because I think my thoughts would be a little bit more organized. But then it's like, I know with, with each gift that you have, then something else is gonna suffer. And like I can say like, I truly love being extremely charismatic and excited and like Jojo the Indian circus boy, like from Tommy Boy. And I don't know, I mean every day is an adventure and it's been one hell of a roller coaster. But yeah, it's been really cool.

Vance Crowe [01:04:34] What are you got some tattoos. Who? Yeah, so,

Charlie Backer [01:04:38] So this one is gra that's Latin for Grateful. So I got that at my one year of sobriety. And then this one says, so ship by May, which is like take oh Lord and receive. I got that at my two years of sobriety. I've got a couple other ones on me, but it's all Catholic. Mostly Catholic symbols.

Vance Crowe [01:04:59] And, and the marking, the days of sobriety, is that still something you do in your head? Do you, do you count out how many days it's

Charlie Backer [01:05:07] Been? I did in the beginning. 'cause I was really excited. Probably like the same way when you quit smoking, you remember, oh, it's been a day or 30 days.

Vance Crowe [01:05:12] Yeah. Now I couldn't even tell you how long it's been. Right? Like

Charlie Backer [01:05:14] I have an app that tracks like when I put my sober date in there, I don't really pay attention to it as much anymore. Once I hit the, the, the one year mark, that was huge. Once I hit two years, it was like, okay, it's not that big of a deal. I just don't drink like you. 'cause you think it's such a big deal to be sober in the beginning. Like, holy shit, I, I'm like the weirdo at the party now, but after a couple years you're like, yeah, I just don't drink it. It doesn't, I mean, but also we get older, our surroundings, were not around the bar scene as much, so it changes.

Vance Crowe [01:05:44] So right before we started, you were telling me about some articles that are coming out about you. You are in the news. I mean, as far as I can tell all the time. How, how does that happen?

Charlie Backer [01:05:55] Just be yourself, like email people mail stuff to people. Like St. Louis Magazine is supposed to be coming out with an article, knock on wood in the next it it should be out right now. And they've been cool. Like, I met, I, I remember right when I was launching Hot Charlie's and I was going on sales calls. I just tweeted at the guy who's the, the editor. And I ended up going to his office, introduced myself, gave him some of my products. And it's just sort of gone from there. But like, you know, over time you sort of develop these relationships with certain media people and you know, who, if you email a press release to who's gonna push it out? Fox Two has been phenomenal with regards to whenever I wanna come on for a segment. If, if, if the story is right and if they have timing, they'll usually try to squeeze me in. And it's just fun. Like I, I, I wish I could give an example, like a real reason on how I did this. But like, I didn't do the traditional way, like the traditional way business hires a PR firm, they write the press release, they email it to their email list, they, they help you. And I'm like, I can't afford that. So I'm like, I'm gonna email these anchors or I'm gonna follow 'em on Twitter or I'm gonna tweet at them. Social media has been phenomenal for that, even with a lot of my retailers. What I've noticed is, especially on the, the smaller level, if you can get conne, if you can message them between like seven and nine o'clock at night on Facebook, like their business page, it's typically the owner that's gonna like the decision maker that's gonna respond.

Vance Crowe [01:07:15] Oh, that's really interesting.

Charlie Backer [01:07:17] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:07:17] Because they're at home. They're

Charlie Backer [01:07:19] Probably, they're at home. They're like just chilling, playing on Facebook and like, who's this? You know, that's been a, a, a, a great one.

Vance Crowe [01:07:24] Oh, brilliant idea. Yeah. And tell me a little bit about what you've learned about social media. You're on Facebook stories, like what's your philosophy behind what you put there and what are you talking about? How many people are watching?

Charlie Backer [01:07:39] So yeah, so like hot Charlie's like, on another level, I don't really like social media, but on, on this level, the marketing is huge. Like Instagram, that's where it's at. In my mind, that's where it's at because it doesn't cost money. So with Instagram I've maybe got like 1500 followers or maybe a thousand, something like that. Wow. But it's cool because on my general feed, it's just typically like marketing stuff. Like places that are like Strange Donuts is doing the special this weekend

Vance Crowe [01:08:07] Strange Donut is the, the St. Louis Donut shop. It's like the cool, the cool

Charlie Backer [01:08:13] Hip donut place. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:08:14] Yeah. That's, that's great.

Charlie Backer [01:08:15] So they're doing a special this weekend. So like that's what's on there today. Or like if High Point or certain restaurants do certain specials or if I get into a new location, like that's, it's like the highlight reel is what you're gonna find on my, on my feed. But if you watch the Instagram stories and that transfers directly over to Facebook stories is, that's like the behind the scenes. That's where it's like people, I will, depending upon how I'm feeling, I will share some of the stuff that I can, like the behind the scenes stuff, me driving to place for what I'm working on. But like, it's, it's, it's hard. It was a lot easier in the beginning to say, oh, I dropped off stuff here. I dropped stuff off there. But like now there's so much, like I focus so much of my time on research and development, like coming out with new products. Well, I don't, I don't ever share what the new product is until like a week before I release it. So that could be like two months down the road. Like I can say like, you know, I got three products for you to try after the show, but like, they may not hit the market till October. What,

Vance Crowe [01:09:07] What is r and d like for making a New Spice?

Charlie Backer [01:09:11] It's fun. It is so fun. Like, you, you think in your mind like, what would be a cool spice to be out there? And then you start playing with it and you know, where I've gotten to at my level, you know, I have relationships with these manufacturers and I have relationships with food scientists and I'm able to explain like the flavor profile that I want. Then they create that and then I make tweaks to it. Like, do I want it more granulated? Do I want it more finer? Do I want, you know, color, you know? 'cause I use turmeric to make mine orange. Like this, this new season I'm coming out with in a month and a half, it's like I removed the turmeric so it's more of a lighter color and it looks really cool and it's just, it just playing with stuff. But like, then also realizing like two years ago, like I was afraid of cooks. I sucked at mac and cheese and I'm, I'm a lot better now on mac and cheese. And it's fun. Like the seasoning side is fun. There, there

Vance Crowe [01:09:57] Are some really interesting schools out there that have, that teach students how to do this. So I've gotten a chance to go to a lot of land grant universities. They'll have like a food science program. Yeah. And then you get to go into those laboratories where they have a wall and a kitchen on one side, then they open it up and slide it through. Have you, have you been

Charlie Backer [01:10:17] I've never been, I've never seen the Wizard of Oz. I've only been beyond the gate. Oh. We'll have to

Vance Crowe [01:10:21] Find a university to send to send you to, but

Charlie Backer [01:10:24] It's cool. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:10:24] Like,

Charlie Backer [01:10:25] And especially how these people's tongues work, like how they're so sensitive and I can tell them a flavor profile and if I, if when I try it, if I taste a hint of something, they can reduce something. Like they know. Like, it's just like it baffles me. Like it like what an awesome gift to be able to do that.

Vance Crowe [01:10:40] Yeah. And it's, it's definitely a refined art. I mean, there are students that at, at a lot of the, like I've been went to one in Madison, Wisconsin, I went to one down in Oklahoma. Like they're just, these, the students are learning. And I wish my school would've had that. You can even apply to be a taste tester and you just show up and some days you're eating tomatoes and other days you're ice cream or hot dogs or whatever.

Charlie Backer [01:11:06] Yeah. It's fun. Like the seasoning, like my record is, I can go from an idea to a product launch in 21 days, including label creation and waiting for the labels to be printed. So, well

Vance Crowe [01:11:21] That's gotta give you a tremendous advantage over the big brands. Like Yeah,

Charlie Backer [01:11:26] It, it's, it's, it's tremendously, it's fast, but it's like I can't, I can't put that much pressure on so many things at the same time. Like Home Goods wanted to come out with my seasoning and I'm like, well, I created this, this hotter sauce dust seasoning. Would you be interested in that? And like, well, yeah. So it's like I had to explain that to my manufacturer, get him to do the label, te the the sample test, get that information to my label people, get the labels to my manufacturer, get the thing scheduled and then get everything shipped out. It was scary. Like it was stressful.

Vance Crowe [01:11:58] I mean this truly is a form of a hero's journey, right. Where you went down into hell and had to face the demon of you gotta get into details. Yeah. You, you don't get to have a business, you don't get the freedom, you don't get the, the being at the top of the mountain unless you learn how to handle details. Yeah.

Charlie Backer [01:12:16] And you real, like, you read so many of these entrepreneurs stories where they talk about like, you know, you have to earn your place. And I always thought that was total bullshit. And then I look at my journey, I'm like, wow, this just sucked. So it's like when bad stuff happens, it doesn't ruin my day anymore. But like a year ago it would, it would hurt. And now I'm just like, I've made it this far. Like what's the worst thing that could possibly happen? I would have to get a job. Like I have, I have not like that. That's not the end of the world. I mean, it

Vance Crowe [01:12:42] Sounds like you're, you're doing great and you're definitely on a trajectory. What are you, what are you reading these days? What do you get your news from? What if, if people wanted to know what comes in, what's the incoming signal to Charlie?

Charlie Backer [01:12:58] My favorite book is The Alchemist.

Vance Crowe [01:13:00] Okay. Have you

Charlie Backer [01:13:01] Read that one? No.

Vance Crowe [01:13:02] Really?

Charlie Backer [01:13:02] Come on. That's a great philosophical book. Really empower, really powerful. So I've been reading that. I reread that reading another book, people Over Profits. I think that's what I'm reading right now. Profit First, where you take the profit of your business first. And it's, it's, it's interesting. I read a lot of weird stuff. Like any news, whether it be Fox News, M-S-N-B-C-C-N-N, I will read all of them just because I know they're all skewed in their own little ways. I don't really watch too much tv. I like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives right before Bed.

Vance Crowe [01:13:36] I'm I, that that is hilarious that you mentioned that because I, you know, I watch that whenever I'm on a plane and I'm flying home from somewhere. So if I'm flying to somewhere, I'm like, I'm working, I'm in the, I'm in the zone, I'm, I'm preparing. But on my way back when I'm just like, I can watch whatever I want, I'm gonna watch this. Yeah. And I know everybody gives Guy Fii a hard time. Oh,

Charlie Backer [01:13:57] He is great. Like I can watch it like right before bed. Like that's, I put that on when I'm like 10 minutes away from falling asleep. I'm like, I'm gonna fall asleep to Guy. But like having two kids in the house, like Kelly and I don't really get to watch our own shows too much. And so it's like that little bit of time right before Bed Bed, I'm like, okay, this is when,

Vance Crowe [01:14:12] Have you ever seen that comedian talk about why does everybody give Guy Fii a hard time?

Charlie Backer [01:14:16] No.

Vance Crowe [01:14:17] Oh God, it is hilarious. I'll see if I can't find a link and put it in the notes. It is like, he's like the nicest guy in the world. All he does is go around and give free publicity to all these free diners and people are giving him shit or

Charlie Backer [01:14:29] Mean it, it's

Vance Crowe [01:14:30] Terrible.

Charlie Backer [01:14:32] But yeah, so I like that. But yeah, that's, that's it. Like most of my day is just focused. Like, I go out, I meet with people, I try to create new things. Yeah. I,

Vance Crowe [01:14:41] I read a book a few months ago and then Travis actually sent it to me in a text message and I was like, dude, this is the book I was telling you about that I, I recommend I, it's called The War of Art and it is all about,

Charlie Backer [01:14:55] Is that an old book?

Vance Crowe [01:14:56] No, it's not The Art of War.

Charlie Backer [01:14:57] Aha. That's where it was. Okay.

Vance Crowe [01:14:58] It's the, it's the play of words on that. But it's really saying, if you're gonna do creative work, how do you develop the system so that you aren't just sitting around waiting for the muse to hit you

Charlie Backer [01:15:10] Of

Vance Crowe [01:15:10] Like, how am I gonna do something creative? And instead you set up your day and your situation so that you force yourself to be in a, in a situation where creativity is gonna come and you're gonna get it there. And it, I would highly, highly that

Charlie Backer [01:15:24] That's

Vance Crowe [01:15:25] Really because

Charlie Backer [01:15:25] Like the way I operate, like Hot Charlie's social media, it's like whenever I, it's like a, it's a spur of the moment. Like whatever's on my mind, that's what I will post.

Vance Crowe [01:15:33] Well and he goes into, and it made a lot of sense to me of if you are waiting for your emotions to be the right ones,

Charlie Backer [01:15:41] Then

Vance Crowe [01:15:41] You're just, you're just waiting for a storm to happen to come by and, and give you rain when in fact you should be applying some level of discipline. It's just like when you finally like, so I made the decision at the beginning of the year that I was gonna run 500 miles. And I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast or not. I, I was reading David Goggins book, okay.

Charlie Backer [01:16:00] Can't

Vance Crowe [01:16:00] Hurt Me, which, which is another great, great read. And I decided I wanna be a runner, but I don't know what it takes to be a runner. Like Yeah, I've never run enough. So what would be enough that if, if I heard somebody say they ran X number of miles, I'd be like, yeah, you're a runner. And I was like, 500 miles if I heard somebody ran hundred miles,

Charlie Backer [01:16:18] That is a crazy amount of miles. Well and it's like, I'm not being like, Vance is a runner. Like

Vance Crowe [01:16:23] Holy shit, that guy runs. No, but I mean it's really, you know, 365 days in a year. It's just like one point, you know, three miles or something like that. But

Charlie Backer [01:16:32] So how are you doing so far?

Vance Crowe [01:16:33] So I'm 415 miles in and Really? Yeah, so, so I've got about 85 miles left to go. And one of the biggest lessons that I learned in that, and I read about it in Goggins, is, but it didn't make sense until I read the War of Art, which is if you wake up in the morning and you say there is a decision to be made, whether or not I'm gonna go running,

Charlie Backer [01:16:54] You've

Vance Crowe [01:16:54] Already lost the fight.

Charlie Backer [01:16:56] Right? What

Vance Crowe [01:16:57] You really should be doing is you wake up in the morning and you go run It doesn't matter if it's raining. Yeah. It doesn't matter if it's cold, it doesn't matter if it's hot. All of those factors do not count in unless it's like life or death. I literally cannot go out there. And that made it. So it was like once I took the decision off of my plate, running was

Charlie Backer [01:17:15] Not a problem. That is really interesting. So do you know, have you heard of the name Andy ela? No. Okay, so he is the, one of the owners of First form, so Supplement superstore, they're in. So, so first form is their national brand protein, stuff like that really highly successful entrepreneur. Well he created this challenge like six months ago. It's called 75 Hard. So for 75 days straight, you work out twice a day for 45 minutes. One of those workouts has to be outside, no excuses, read 10 pages in a book, follow a diet, drink a gallon of water, and take a progress picture every day. Well, when I was doing this, I, I started doing this back in June and I really credit this a lot with me being able to do so well at the Home Goods meeting because I was, I I I think before you make all these excuses, well I can't work out 'cause it'll take away from my family. I can't work out, I'll take away from my business. I don't have the time. All these excuses,

Vance Crowe [01:18:04] You're having the argument in your mind. They're

Charlie Backer [01:18:06] All, they're all bullshit. Exactly. They're, they're all lies. As we talked about like earlier, the thoughts that go through our head, like they're not all true. And so like I just started doing that. Like my mental clarity and focus and attention, my confidence was highest than then it's been in like years. And like I think there is so much truth to that if we just take the, the decision out, like this is what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna do it. And I think there are so many positives to that.

Vance Crowe [01:18:30] Well that book, the War of Art, he names it. And it's really funny, when I encountered this book, I had been at like a dinner and I was talking to my friends like, Hey, what is, what would you name that voice in your head that says you don't have to go for a run? You know, you know, no. Like, remember your ankle hurts a little bit. Right. You know, it's, or it's too cold out. And everybody was like, I don't know. And I was like, but you have the voice, you know the voice that I'm talking about? And they're like, yeah, I know it well in that book he names it and he calls it the Voice of Resistance. And it was like a light bulb moment for me because I was like, oh, once I have a name for it, then when it pops up into my mind I can be like, oh, and this of course that's just the voice of resistance. Yeah.

Charlie Backer [01:19:11] That's really good. Because I, I can even view all the obstacles that I've ran into with Hot Charlie's. Like there's so much re there's so many, there are so many. There were so many moments looking back that I thought that if I was explaining what I was going through, somebody would be like, well it's, it's justified if Charlie wants to, you know, turn it, you know, throw in the towel. Like I could justify that to myself. But like we make you name the voice, you make that decision and then you just keep going.

Vance Crowe [01:19:36] And I think that goes back all the way to the part of the conversation we were talking about the value of a Jesuit education. The, there's that phrase in logic, the very first day of Logic class

Charlie Backer [01:19:48] I remember. Yeah. I did not like Logic by the way.

Vance Crowe [01:19:49] Oh man, I love that class.

Charlie Backer [01:19:51] I, I enjoyed the class, but once it started where you had to annotate, like, you know, did you have to do that when you Yeah. There

Vance Crowe [01:19:56] Are silly things that they do.

Charlie Backer [01:19:58] I

Vance Crowe [01:19:58] Didn't like that. But the very first day of logic class that I particularly liked was when they said he who controls the definition controls the argument.

Charlie Backer [01:20:07] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:20:07] Because then all of a sudden you start realizing that the chapters in the Bible, like in the very beginning when Adam and Eve name the animals and then they have dominion over them. Right. If you and I are having a disagreement, whoever gets to decide what the word is means or or what it is that we're arguing over, you have real power in that conversation. Yeah. 'cause you're the one that kind of controls how the rest of the logic is going to play out. And I thought just by naming resistance, just by giving it a name, I could now identify it. I could pull that voice out of all of the other voices that are going on in your head and be like, that's not the one that I need to listen to. That's the one that's to

Charlie Backer [01:20:47] Keep great. I mean being that's just the mental strength right there is

Vance Crowe [01:20:52] Huge. Yeah. And I mean that's, that's the case for Audible and podcasts are some of the greatest innovations to have happened in the last 10, 15 years is because now there's no excuse for not getting exposed to really good ideas

Charlie Backer [01:21:09] Because

Vance Crowe [01:21:09] Those books, those things that you're reading, the the pe the person that gets you to do the challenge where you're drinking all the water right. And exercising like you, if you were around those places and then you respond positively to those things, your life gets better if you make the right all the way back. If you make the right sacrifices right

Charlie Backer [01:21:26] In

Vance Crowe [01:21:26] The present, then you advance in the future and you need somebody else to tell you these are good sacrifices to make, you need to apply it to your own life. But it really helps me to figure out which sacrifices should I make. Right.

Charlie Backer [01:21:38] And I, it's always a learning experience, like what sacrifices are actually worth it, what are not. But yeah, it's always the thing like every day, one after the other trying to be better than I was the day before than you were the day before. I mean, the fact that you've ran that much, that's probably more than I've ran my entire life.

Vance Crowe [01:21:54] It's so, people had told me this so many times, but I never believed it. And the, the line that comes to mind is I have so many good ideas and they're just five miles away and all I have to do is run five miles and, and then all of a sudden my mind crack, it's actually three miles. So you run, you know, more than two and a half miles out and you're coming back

Charlie Backer [01:22:20] And

Vance Crowe [01:22:21] All of a sudden your brain's like, I can do that and I can call that person. And the thing I was worried about over there, that's all gone.

Charlie Backer [01:22:27] That is, I mean this is just really interesting that you're talking about this. 'cause that's the exact same thing that I was experiencing when I was doing the 75 hard, like my mental awareness and all those things. Like, everything started working up there. That's interesting.

Vance Crowe [01:22:39] Well, and, and I remember the, the thoughts that I would have in my head about not exercising. I mean there was a time in my life not that long ago where actually pre January 1st, 2019 where running three miles would be enough for me to be like, I've done all the work I need to do for a week. You know, like

Charlie Backer [01:22:57] Right.

Vance Crowe [01:22:57] And now I think of it, it not having access to that if I were to get injured or not be able to do that, it would be so scary to me because I would lose access to all this huge segment of my thinking and would all just be gone. And I don't know what I ever did

Charlie Backer [01:23:15] Before that. So you're saying that you believe now you're much more creative and open than you would've been

Vance Crowe [01:23:20] A hundred times more creative and, and the ability to think through complicated things in my life, I just, I didn't even know those problems were there to be solved or I didn't have the stamina to be reading the book or facing, you know, everybody runs into problems and you know, I've got my own fair share of problems and the ability to run so that I can figure out how to get out of those problems or how to move past them. If I didn't have that, I don't know what I'd be doing. So I feel it. It's when I try and like say like, you know, you should really work out. You should go lift weights or do juujitsu or do something. I, I it's it's, it's like a, this'll be a lifeline to you. This will change your life and you just don't know it. And you, once you know it, you wanna share it with everybody.

Charlie Backer [01:24:08] Yeah. Because I remember as a kid, like all, even high school, always viewing like working out like it's a means to an end like, oh, you're gonna look better physically. But like now as you get older, like, well I have to, I have to take care of myself. But then it's like, and maybe this didn't happen when we were younger. Maybe this is just a, now that we're in our thirties thing that like, it just impacts our mind so much

Vance Crowe [01:24:27] More than

Charlie Backer [01:24:27] It ever did before. Like when I stay consistent on a diet, stay consistent on a workout plan, like my mind, like my mind, my body goes into overdrive. Like it's all excited. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:24:36] And I think the, the thing that 500 Miles gave me was the, there's an end goal today. Just go get five miles. There's a longer end goal of 500 miles, but really all you're trying to do is position yourself so that you can run forever.

Charlie Backer [01:24:52] Right.

Vance Crowe [01:24:52] As long as you can. There is no finish line. And if you think you're running to a finish line, you're, you're missing the larger picture that the journey is all that actually matters. So is

Charlie Backer [01:25:02] This like the Forrest Gump thing where you're just gonna keep running?

Vance Crowe [01:25:05] I don't. Alright. I'm done now. I mean, I I now that I've made it to the back side of it where it's like, you know, less than a hundred miles left to go, I've started bringing it up with people. One, because now I know I'm gonna finish it and I don't have to be like, oh, I thought I was gonna run 500 that I didn't, but, but now I'm, I'm open to what else. You know, what, what could you do if you had done that? Because before, starting in the beginning of January, the thought of running 500 miles to think of what you would do after 500 miles seems ludicrous. 'cause you gotta run those 501st. So now I'm, I'm open to it. I'm, I'm really interested if you or anybody that is listening has an idea of what do you do next?

Charlie Backer [01:25:41] Well how are you at swimming like with a triathlon?

Vance Crowe [01:25:45] You know, I don't, I don't have any interest in racing other people. Well it

Charlie Backer [01:25:49] Doesn't have to be a race. It can be a race against yourself.

Vance Crowe [01:25:52] That's true. I did a Spartan race and I really

Charlie Backer [01:25:54] See, I've only done the Tough Mudder. The Spartan race seems like a step up from the Tough Mudder.

Vance Crowe [01:25:57] Well I didn't know. So Travis talked me into this and

Charlie Backer [01:26:00] You didn't know what you were getting into.

Vance Crowe [01:26:01] I had no idea. And we did one in a, in the, in the St. Louis Cardinal Stadium.

Charlie Backer [01:26:07] Oh, okay.

Vance Crowe [01:26:07] And it was hell, hell, hell, we were running up and down stadium stairs with giant sandbags and it was just absolutely brutal and I'm glad I did it. Yeah.

Charlie Backer [01:26:17] But it

Vance Crowe [01:26:18] Wasn't my thing. I started doing juujitsu Brazilian juujitsu.

Charlie Backer [01:26:21] Oh nice.

Vance Crowe [01:26:22] And that has been a good challenge. You know, it's not for everybody, but it was really good for me. But I wanna do something that's because that 500 miles, the best thing in the world about running is you just need a pair of shoes.

Charlie Backer [01:26:33] That's

Vance Crowe [01:26:33] It.

Charlie Backer [01:26:34] So you, if we see Vance Crow, you just, just the naked man with shoes.

Vance Crowe [01:26:39] No, I mean I typically

Charlie Backer [01:26:40] Wear shoes. No, I told everybody I just needed shoes on today.

Vance Crowe [01:26:42] I mean, but I, I yeah, but

Charlie Backer [01:26:43] That's great that you, you're able to do that and that's like, it just helping me to shift my focus. Like I look at the times where I was the most physically active. My mind was operating at the, the highest level of creativity and focus and getting things done. And like I need to get back to that. 'cause like, when I take care of my body, it takes care of everything else.

Vance Crowe [01:27:00] That's that's absolutely right. And, and it's, it's a little bit hard to get started, but once you've gotten started before you know what you have to do. Right. That's the funniest thing is that really all you're doing is fighting against resistance. Because if you've ever gotten in shape before, you know what it takes to do it. You just have to do it in a way that you can do it forever. Right. And not just do it real fast. Which I mean brings us all the way back to the very beginning, which is why I am so incredibly impressed with what you've done Charlie. Like you went from a man that was cycling through as many different ideas as he could. And it seems like you've hit on something that allows you to be your full self. And I I feel like watching you online is watching a better version of of parts of myself. It makes me want to be more.

Charlie Backer [01:27:46] Thank

Vance Crowe [01:27:46] You. So I am, I am deeply impressed if people wanted to, you know, my brother always talks about my brother Dan always talks about, you know, you're doing something really well when people want to carry your water for you. When they want to go say, Hey, this guy was a great speaker, let's bring him here. Or Hey, this guy's got a great hot sauce. I want to get his hot sauce in as many places as I can. Or I want to go buy it. If people wanted to carry some of Charlie backer's Walker Water, what, what, what could people do that would help you in the, in the, in the business out?

Charlie Backer [01:28:19] I mean just follow me on Hot Charlie's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, more so active on Instagram. That's it. Just follow me on there. If they have connections with like, larger national retailers or distributors, those are the people that I'm focusing on right now. 'cause I've realized for the first 21 months every day I was just out door to door to door to door, which is great. It got me into a hundred plus 150 locations. But I can take that exact energy and focus it on a national account and, and grow a little bit faster in a different way where it's like it's, it's my goal right now to have as little interaction with my product as possible. But I think in the beginning I was all excited if I had 50 gallons of each hot or 50 cases of each hot sauce. But now I'm like, that's me sitting on 50 cases of hot sauce that I have to sell in X amount of time. Especially when I'm doing like the popcorn. I can say I have a pallet. Well that's, that's gonna expire in two to three months. Like you have to sell those things quicker. So yeah, if anybody has inter introduction,

Vance Crowe [01:29:16] So if you know somebody that has a grocery store, grocery

Charlie Backer [01:29:18] Store, a larger reach. If somebody's friends with like if their family runs Target, like that would be huge to get my seasonings

Vance Crowe [01:29:24] In. Yeah, that'd be great. Well the other thing that if somebody is out there, would you ever be interested in going to see like a garlic farm or some of the other, the garlic

Charlie Backer [01:29:33] Farm would be cool. A hot pepper farm would be cool. 'cause I know the Tabasco family owns, like, they have one down, I think it's Alabama or Louisiana. Like it is my goal to go there. I think some of their peppers are there. Oh. And they, they,

Vance Crowe [01:29:45] Oh you wanna go see that? I got a buddy named Avery Davidson. He knows, he knows the family well. Really?

Charlie Backer [01:29:50] Oh, of course. Yeah. Like I like that is my favorite look.

Vance Crowe [01:29:52] Typically if you watch the podcast I'll have a mug here for different farm bureaus that I've, that I've visited Louisiana Farm Bureau. I am sure that if, if we could get you down there. Yeah. Like

Charlie Backer [01:30:02] If you view like companies that I really respect in the hot sauce world, like Tabasco, like I was born on that. Like I love that stuff and yeah, like I just respect 'em like as it's a family owned business and they make delicious products. Great.

Vance Crowe [01:30:15] Well we'll see if any of the listeners out there either know a pepper farmer or a pepper farmer themselves and we'll see if we can't get you hooked up with the Tabasco people. Charlie,

Charlie Backer [01:30:23] That would be awesome.

Vance Crowe [01:30:24] Becker, thank you so, so much for stopping by. Thank you. This

Charlie Backer [01:30:26] Was an

Vance Crowe [01:30:26] Honor. This was great man. Appreciate you'll have to come back. Thank you.

Charlie Backer [01:30:29] Absolutely.

Vance Crowe [01:30:30] Well, that's it for this week's podcast. Thank you so much to Charlie Backer for stopping by. I highly recommend that if you wanna see somebody that is really good at engaging with his audience, has always got interesting, fun, exciting things, and it is not your standard company Twitter or Instagram page, I really recommend you follow Hot Charlie's. He's probably one of the only businesses that I follow on social media because I find him to be so interesting. If you're looking for something else or somebody else that will take you out of your ordinary network, I want to give a shout out to one of my biggest supporters and actually one of the people that I admire most in the world. Her name is Kristy Wabe and she lives up in Iowa and is a PhD soybean breeder. I met Kristy on perhaps one of the worst days of my life. I was giving a speech and had gotten some terrible family news and I was done doing a q and a and there was this little tiny woman sitting in the front row that raised her hand and started asking me questions about why I had invo invited Dr. Jordan Peterson to the American Farm Bureau. And I remember sitting there getting her really intense question out of this little tiny person and trying as best as I could to give her honest, direct responses, even though the company had been like, Hey, we don't super want you talking about this so much, much anymore. So I was kind of stuck in this hard position and I was feeling really bad for myself.

Vance Crowe [01:32:04] And we get all the way done with the conversation and the q and a ends, and she's waiting for me outside the door. And I think it's because she's going to say, my answers were not satisfying to her. But instead she didn't at all. She had more questions, she was curious and she just wanted to find out how this came about and what was going on and was there anything she should learn. So slowly Christie and I became friends and we have stayed in touch over the last couple of years and she has become one of the most inspirational people in my life. I always try to think, how can I ask a question that is as genuine and as as interested, and as curious as Christie asks when you interact with her. And if you wanna find somebody that is a fighter in life, somebody that is pushing themselves to be there for as long as they can, making the world a better place, you can do no better than following Kristi Wabe on Twitter. She goes by IU mini Bean, BEAN. So under I, uco Mini under Bean, you will find a PhD soybean breeder that is truly one of a kind. And the next time she swings through either on business or with her family into St. Louis, she has an open seat here and we will have an an incredible podcast interview. Until then, if you get a chance, go follow her on Twitter and let her know that you heard about her here on the Vance Crowe podcast. I assure you, we'll bring a smile to her face and if you knew her, that would be the type of person that you would really want to make smile because she is a truly great person.

Vance Crowe [01:33:38] Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope to interact with you. Make sure you send me a note on Twitter. Let me know that you're out there, what I'm doing well, what I could do better. And don't forget, on Fridays I try and release a podcast where all I'm doing is trying to help you gain the skills to become a tangibly better communicator. So I hope you tune in on Friday. And in the meantime, if you get a chance, head on over to the iTunes app store or whoever you get your podcast, maybe Google Play, leave us a review and give us a good rating 'cause that helps us grow and grow. And the podcast has been growing wildly. And that is all thanks to, to listeners that are out there helping spread the word about this podcast. I'm enjoying doing it. I hope you're getting a lot out of it and we'll see you next week.