Tayson: So here's the big question, how do we lighten our gear and build our confidence so that we can start living a life full of Outdoor Adventures and memories without having unlimited amounts of time, money and previous experience. That's the big question and we are here to help you find the answers. This is the little trolley podcast power, bi Outdoor Vitals.
Tayson: Hey, what's up? Obi tribe and live? Ultralight listeners. Welcome back to another episode of the
Tayson: Live Ultralight podcast. I'm your host Tayson Whittaker. And today, I am flying solo. It is the middle of the holiday season, between Christmas and New Year's. Everyone's busy. Everyone's got different
Tayson: schedules but I wanted to still jump on here and share some thoughts and just cover a few
Tayson: things. And today the topic at hand is giving back, many of you guys, the follow
Tayson: us probably don't even realize that we give 1% of our Revenue back to a charitable, cause
Tayson: every single year. and, You hear
Tayson: different numbers are now. So I did want to just just
Tayson: But you know, there's different companies that will that will do like 10% of profits or,
Tayson: you know, 1% of Revenue or different things. And I just wanted to state that. The reason we do 1% of Revenue
Tayson: is it's actually much harder than 10% of profits on the years, where we
Tayson: have bad years or cash outlays just don't work out the same. We're still on the hook to donate,
Tayson: whereas other companies, get a little bit of a pass and then when they have goodyears, maybe they pay the same or
Tayson: slightly more, just at all the pens. But we do 1% of Revenue because I swear,
Tayson: we always choose the hardest ways, possible. I just getting this year's been phenomenal, and we have a
Tayson: ton to be thankful here for here over at Outdoor Vitals.
Tayson: And that's thanks to you guys. You guys really stepped up. You guys probably went Outdoors a lot more this year, thanks to the pandemic,
Tayson: but you also chose us and trusted us with helping, you get outdoors, more comfortably, and more
Tayson: confidently. And Helping you Live Ultralight. So today, just kind of want to tackle
Tayson: what we do with our Revenue. Or excuse me, art.
Tayson: 1% up Revenue donation and also talk a little bit about what that's done. Why we do it. And
Tayson: if there's anything else on the horizon. So for starters, we have now
Tayson: Donated enough or backed essentially over 10 water projects with
Tayson: Charity water. So if I wanted to charity: water is Charity. Water is a non-profit organization that builds?
Tayson: Well, does biosense filters and different? Rehab projects, even that's actually what we
Tayson: just funded this year. Was at least one of them was a was a rehab project on an older. Well, But they are a company that is going and making these things happen. And the reason
Tayson: I personally choose charity: water is because their payroll and things of that nature are actually paid for from separate backers. So the money that I personally donate, the company personally, donates all
Tayson: goes directly to Those countries and those water projects, so there's
Tayson: no payroll, there's no marketing, there's no, whatever. All that is paid for by different boat donors. So we actually
Tayson: get to see our money goes straight into those countries. That's always something you need to be aware of. I think anytime you're choosing a charity, that's part of why we choose Cherry water.
Tayson: The other part that I really love about charity: water is the GPS tag. Everything we can see
Tayson: the water projects that they're being billed. We get updates, they send us updates and eventually, we will start to visit the places that we have done water projects
Tayson: in. It's definitely very fulfilling to sit back here
Tayson: and realize hopefully what the kind of impact that we've had. Now each Water Project impacts a different number of people
Tayson: Our impact has definitely been into the thousands and thousands of people that we've been able to supply clean water.
Tayson: For you're probably wondering like, well, why do we donate first off? Why do we, why do we bother
Tayson: donating And also you know, why water. So the why water part is actually really good question. I Before I get to that, I guess. Oh no, I'll stick with that. You guys are getting all sorts of things, but the white water part is because I actually spent a couple years in developing
Tayson: countries. I have High in Malaysia and Singapore. We've
Tayson: been obviously spent some time in
Tayson: China and Vietnam travel through a few different places but it's It.
Tayson: When I was specifically in Malaysia, well, in all of them really, you really have to be so conscious of
Tayson: the water you drink, because
Tayson: very, very easily. You can drink the
Tayson: wine water wrong water, get sick. And oftentimes, when I was in Malaysia, I had this experience
Tayson: multiple times where someone got sick and went to the hospital or got sick and passed away. And a lot of times these people
Tayson: had no idea, no idea what happened to these individuals.
Tayson: I have no idea how they got sick. I've no idea what they got sick with. And a lot of times I was sitting there thinking Probably the water like you guys don't have the best filtration systems, you know, the best care practices and it's so easy for random different diseases and different things to come
Tayson: from water from polluted water and just all of the existent, all of the
Tayson: downline per se from not having clean water. and I personally feel my own
Tayson: values and us here at upper vitals that everyone deserves to have, you know, Food, Water Shelter
Tayson: and Clothing. That's actually what the IRS States. We need to supply our own children with, right?
Tayson: So if our own government is saying that's our job to supply those things, I think that we as a people should be willing to reach out and help other people that might not have the same things that we have.
Tayson: My favorite ways, I feel like that I've heard it put would be from from our very own Dave here in the office, which
Tayson: you found a few podcasts, but he always talks about how we've won the lottery just by being born into
Tayson: the United States. And, you know, I've
Tayson: a lot of times I think we get so focused on our own surroundings. Oh, so-and-so has this
Tayson: or growing up? It was all, you know, the neighbor's always had this and
Tayson: Best friend has this and you always were left in a place of wanting more or
Tayson: poor me or these type of things, and I can't deny, I use those for fuel a lot in my life to
Tayson: work. Bigger goals and accomplish things and those aren't bad, but even in the United
Tayson: States we just have so much opportunity. We have so much benefit from living here. We
Tayson: do have a lot of programs that do help a lot of people in our own country and a lot of people get kind of blinders up a lot of times to anyone else, but the more you start to
Tayson: travel, you start to learn two things. One, The World Is Lost smaller than you think.
Tayson: Before this extremely small, really? I mean, a small plane ride or whatever. Like, it can take you to
Tayson: a completely different world and that has always been interesting
Tayson: and mind boggling to me. The other thing is, you know, we're we're kind of All in This Together per se,
Tayson: you know, not only does has the world up in smaller with with Transportation but with
Tayson: it getting smaller to me, I feel like a lot of barriers and walls and and differences are being slowly. Taking down to the point where I feel so much more like we're all in this together and whether you were born here or born, there doesn't Matter nearly as much. And so, to me taking care of our own can mean taking care of someone under different country, you know, people, people often ask us, I don't want to get on too much of
Tayson: a tangent. You know, why do you produce
Tayson: overseas? Why do you produce in different countries and do these different things? And to me, it's,
Tayson: it's not so much because I'm trying to take jobs away from here jobs. You know, it's more. So I love to see the funds that we put into these countries and the economic multipliers on them and how much more of an impact it can have by putting these jobs into some of these poor countries such as Vietnam, you know, Vietnam. We've put a lot more resources into Vietnam production and
Tayson: pulled with our pants, our wool. I've got more products from both of those companies coming out where we're switching a few things so
Tayson: fun to see the growth in Vietnam and I love Vietnam. I sure reminded me a lot of Malaysia. The time that I've got to spend there and the people and how happy they are, and there's all sorts of things there, right? But
Tayson: the multiplier effect of us putting a dollar into that country is going to be substantially bigger than our own in our own country.
Tayson: In fact, when I was spending some time with one of, you know, basically our
Tayson: the guy that we work with the most that's pretty pants from Tori. They are actively starting a
Tayson: Factory in Ethiopia. Well it's often, I mean it's been up and running for years. But he's talking to me about a lot of the
Tayson: headaches and things that come along with it, but something that we connected on and I'm thinking was maybe
Tayson: even surprised when I asked I said, you know, what's the economic multiplier of the money that's going into Ethiopia and he said it was 16, so for every dollar that say a company like us
Tayson: puts into that country, it's going to Travel 16 more times down the line, benefiting people
Tayson: every single time that it changes hands and goes down that line. So if you were to compare to the United States,
Tayson: I don't know this number, I'll tell my head. It might be a one-to-one, it may be, it's a one to two, I don't know, essentially a dollar spent the United States
Tayson: goes two places. You know, two times down the line versus 16 times down the line, just a massive difference impact and that's one of the things that I love about some of the production things that we do besides just the tremendous quality and Facilities that these guys put together
Tayson: and and the culture of selling that they now have But I love to see the
Tayson: impact that some of our money spent in these countries can can develop. But again, I feel like
Tayson: the world is just such a small place that I do feel like
Tayson: To me. It doesn't matter where you're born to me and us here at after vitals. We don't care so much whether
Tayson: You're born in Malaysia or Indonesia or the Philippines, or India, or China, or wherever it is that you were born. You should have the same rights as someone who's born across the pond, right? And so I love to see and I love to to be a part of a program that gives back. I do think that any self-sustaining person. Anyone who's specially has a person or
Tayson: company, I should say any company that has the kind of opportunities that we have. Any person has the kind of opportunities we have anyone that That lives in a world of abundance, like we do to me. I feel like you, you have a right.
Tayson: You absolutely should. See how you can
Tayson: get back and how you can help. Others one, you're going to get a lot from it and two. Here all so
Tayson: you were the lucky one, you know what I mean? So hopefully that is maybe a little bit inspiring but also give you a little bit of insight onto why we do some of that. And I do think that eventually
Tayson: You know, the world's getting smaller and eventually we're all going to be in this together and the problems that the world has
Tayson: are going to be shared upon the entire world. You know, there's going to be problems that arise in our generation and the next
Tayson: Generations. They're going to be have to be solved and I don't think it's relies on one country or one group of people to
Tayson: fix those problems. Eventually as these other countries rise up and progress themselves, we're going
Tayson: to be all in this together and hopefully we can all collaborate and do lots of good.
Tayson: So that's what we're currently doing. But I did kind of want to touch or just tease out or
Tayson: think through this. I'd love comments, actually. I'm going to ask to see if there's a way we can get comments onto the live Ultra light.com home page. If you go to level tread.com or Live Ultralight podcast.com And we'll find this, but I love to hear your guys's feedback. I am quite capitalistic minded. You know, me in Elon Musk, we go way back to when we build PayPal together.
Tayson: That's kidding. But we, I am definitely someone who's more of the capitalistic mindset. I love hard work. I love taking care of other people.
Tayson: Of creating value, you know, I just love to produce, I love to produce things that create
Tayson: value for others, and in turn, create value for myself. And then I love to be able to share and help other people with the value that we create,
Tayson: and that's definitely more, capitalistic way of thinking. I love working with Charity water. I think they do great
Tayson: things, but I also feel sometimes that we could do more and we could apply more of Our Own.
Tayson: Skill sets and, you know, human resources and things to the ways that we give
Tayson: back. I read a book by Clayton Christianson, a, while back, I believe it was called the
Tayson: productivity Paradox and it talked a lot about different ways of giving and donating and helping these little countries, you know, how can we have the biggest effect on how we helped these different countries and he argued that
Tayson: by creating products for these countries specifically for these countries and creating things that they currently don't have any options for. So bringing in a brand new product, there's literally no other options for in that country is the biggest way to benefit.
Tayson: Those countries economies develop more jobs, develop more long-term growth, right? Like we can
Tayson: I don't remember what the saying is but it's something like, you know, give a man, a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach them to fish, you feed him for a lifetime and I definitely am a big believer in creating something
Tayson: more like teaching someone to fish. So in his book, he talks about how there is
Tayson: Companies that brought cell phones into Africa and the economic the massive, massive, massive impact at this cell phones had in Africa, to their economies, and to the lives there, to jobs, all sorts of things. He talked about, I lose a ramen, noodle company brought ramen noodles
Tayson: into Africa. And the amount of, I believe, it's
Tayson: billions of dollars worth of benefit that was brought into Africa. I mean, they built out
Tayson: an entire ports, trading port?
Tayson: Just to bring ramen noodles in. I could be, I mean again, go read the book yourself. I could be totally wrong if I'm wrong, you know, leave a comment on the liberal threat.com page, but it's been a minute since I read this book, but it was it really left an impact
Tayson: on me. Thinking? What could we take our resources here at Dr. Vitals. And what could we create, or what could we
Tayson: do to have a more lasting impact in these countries? So I've had it on my list for a
Tayson: while. I was really hoping to get it out and do it in 2020. We'll have to look at a different year but I really think that might be
Tayson: my best work. My best brainstorming is going to be to to travel again to third world countries and I mean, third world
Tayson: countries even more poor than than say Vietnam or Malaysia and some of these that sometimes are On The Fringe of
Tayson: things and just try again to look with different eyes. Now, And see what we might be able to create that they don't have access to right now that it's doesn't exist. And then maybe one day creating Our Own Foundation per se, where the focus of our money getting donated, our
Tayson: 1% of Revenue, gets donated into creating something like that and they could be,
Tayson: you know, have a much bigger Compound Effect. Anyways, these I'm just talking about I'm just kind of ranting at this point but if you have ideas, definitely, let me know. I am just so interested in
Tayson: better ways to continue to help
Tayson: people and and Agnostic to where the idea comes from and I'm definitely interested in this but I just wanted you guys to know that we had a big year here at Dr. Vitals. And we have had a lot of growth and we have a ton up-and-coming in 2021 and I'm going to cover that in a different podcast but like I mean we've got a ton in 2021 it's January it's not even January. And I'm already like freaking out trying to figure
Tayson: out how we're going to pull all of
Tayson: these products that we have. You know, how we're gonna launch them all and do them all Justice, because they're so unique and such amazing products. So, I've got some big shoes to fill in
Tayson: 2021 but we've been so so so so lucky and that's thanks to you guys. So then tip of the hat. So you guys, you guys are the ones that enable us to go out there and
Tayson: back multiple multiple water projects each and every year
Tayson: to go and help hundreds. And now thousands of lives with the purchases that you guys have placed.
Tayson: We don't take that lightly, we run things very, very lean here at vitals, we don't have outside investing,
Tayson: we don't have outside investors, we don't have VCS we don't take this money and, you know, just just
Tayson: Feel like we can just throw money around. We run a very very lean ship over here. In fact,
Tayson: I'll be honest when I when I write this check every year and I send this check off and then factoring it up. I mean, it's very personal to me because that is money that we could use inside the company, it's money that I could use in my own home, right? It is, it is a significant amount of money that, you know, we see go out the door
Tayson: but it's well deserved. And we're definitely. I
Tayson: feel very, very grateful to be in a position to be able to do that. And that's definitely thanks to you guys. So
Tayson: Thank you. Thank you for supporting us here, Dr. Vitals, your money is going to do great things out there. I do challenge you guys to find a charity to find even better yet. Find ways that you personally
Tayson: can go and help other people. There's lots of great organizations out there. Go to charity, water.org and donate. Their oh,
Tayson: you are is one that I personally donate to and the all so donate to as
Tayson: a company. Now that is actually
Tayson: funds that are above and beyond the one percent that I don't need to or you are. But I Need to them in the past.
Tayson: We've even had brief conversations at times about, you know, trying to provide
Tayson: products for aftercare for the people that they save over there. But I do definitely definitely want to mention them.
Tayson: You've never heard about you are. It's operation Underground Railroad.
Tayson: And they go in and save children and and individuals from sex trafficking, which
Tayson: is a massive problem in our world today. So if you've never heard of them, absolutely go check them out.
Tayson: Tim Ballard has written a book. That's really a great book and insightful. Please go. Pick that up and read that
Tayson: but find a charity or find a way to give back. That's my challenge to you guys in
Tayson: 2021 in a world full of pandemics and crises and we're all
Tayson: living in our home level of crises. It seems one of the best things you can do to help yourself, is to help other
Tayson: people. I need to figure out ways to do this, more on a daily basis and provide more service to other
Tayson: people. But I can promise you by helping other people. You help yourself and your
Tayson: sacrifices will not go unnoticed. So thanks for tuning in to the little Troy podcast. I hope I hope this has been a great episode for you. I hope it is all. So maybe challenge you to want to get out there and travel. And explore the
Tayson: world. Part of what we're doing here is not just ultralight, backpacking, it's Ultra Lite travel. There's so much overlap there and usually people that are interested in a trip. Backpacking are interested and ultralight travel. Things I've ever done for me changing. My perspective has been to just travel, so
Tayson: when possible when it's safe again, please start traveling and just get to know the world like you haven't
Tayson: before. Thanks for tuning in, guys. Make sure you're subscribed. Make sure you rate and review. This podcast that definitely helps us out. It helps us out in the sense that maybe that's your donation for the day. By getting more people by sharing this podcast by
Tayson: writing a review, you're going to help us get found by more More individuals and that in turn will turn into additional Revenue that we can donate. So
Tayson: thanks again for tuning in and we will catch you guys on the next podcast. Hey everybody, this is Jason again and
Tayson: really quick. I wanted to invite you to join. Probably the best thing that we've ever put out which is the live Ultra Lite membership, buying and affording gear is arguably. The biggest reason that people don't get out and truly enjoy nature. You want to go but you don't trust your gear. It can't handle the expected, weather, or temperature ranges, or you simply don't have the right gear in the first place at all. That's exactly why we created the level of membership.
Tayson: It works a lot. Like, a simple savings account for your gear. You simply Auto load, 10 dollars, a store credit into your account every month, and you get instant access to year-round discounts, you get free priority, shipping and prioritize shipping. By the way early, access to New Gear that we're releasing or early access. The cells that are going on, you're gonna get limited edition gear. You're going to get expert, coaching, and access to the OV team inside our closed Facebook group,
Tayson: which is also gated not. Anyone can join this, right? And something, Very, very cool where you can now get our most vetted, our favorite gear from other brands that we're now putting on the website. But
Tayson: members are going to get it at additional discounts and instant rebates. So, for instance, if you wanted that new cation, water filter that we've been talking about a ton lately, you can get it with your membership credits and you're also gonna be able to get it with a membership
Tayson: discount and an instant store credit rebate, that's just Auto added to your account. After checkout.
Tayson: This membership has too many amazing things to cover. So what I want to recommend you do right now is stop everything. Pause this audio head over to Outer vitals.com forward slash membership to sign up and start building your credit. We're going to release some new products in there really soon at Big discounts. So go sign up today at Outdoor Vitals.com forward slash membership,
Tayson: and we will catch up inside the closed, Facebook group after that we can continue this conversation over there.
