Speakers

Greg McKeown Nate Checketts


Transcript

Greg McKeown  

Nate Checketts, the founder of the brilliant Rhone company.  Apparel creator, my COVID pants, I can provide no higher praise that when you look like you’re wearing a suit, you know, above the fold, I’m wearing Rhone beneath. This is the most comfortable clothing ever. And, and that’s saying something because I’m already that way inclined to care about the feel of the clothes that I’m in as much as the look. With that genuine personal endorsement, welcome to the show.

Nate Checketts     

That is about as high praise as anyone can give. The pants I’ve been wearing are Rhone during COVID. And, you know, frankly, it’s been it’s, it’s been consistent, I’ve had a lot of friends. And you know, we’ve had customers reach out who have said, you know, the only thing I’ve worn during COVID has been Rhone. So we’re, we’re definitely thrilled to hear it. And you know, I think most people care about comfort, and I certainly am, you know, overly sensitive to it. So I’m glad to hear it’s resonating with you.

Greg McKeown     

We were once under a mandatory evacuation from our home due to the fires. And so we had whatever, you know, an hour or two at most to get out and to be gone. And we have our emergency supplies, we have our 72-hour packs, we had actually just long enough that we could pack our own things as well, and we were gone. As we were going through the 72-hour packs of clothes. For me all the clothes I had packed fit. But I learned in a way I think you can only learn if you actually experience something like that, that it’s not whether they fit. In a moment when things are uncomfortable and uncertain, what you want is something that is completely comfortable and normal. It was one way of learning the same lesson, which is that comfort has an increased value in uncomfortable times.

Nate Checketts     

Yeah, I mean that there is there is nothing like necessity as they say, you know, as the as the mother of invention, it’s the mother of need. And these last eight months have really taught us you know, kind of what we care most about it, I’ve always told our product team that, you know, we should aim to have clothing that is so good that when everything in your closet is clean, it’s the first thing you want to wear and that you’re genuinely upset when it’s dirty. And when it’s not clean, you know that you’re kind of maybe scrambling through the laundry or that it’s the reason to do the laundry is that you know, that particular shirt or pants or short is, is not clean. And so that’s kind of the standard that we hold ourselves to. And I’ve seen it across a number of different customers. But one that stands out to me is we have a lot of people in the, you know, US military special forces that wear our product and the reason why is they say it’s highly durable, you know, it’s functional, and it’s versatile. And you know, at last it’s going to be you know, it’s going to last and so that’s about the highest praise we can we can get is it you know it’s first out of the closet and we have special forces and you put it into a 72 hour kit, I’m going to have to add that to our repertoire.

Greg McKeown   

You want it to be the priority item of clothing in the closet.

Nate Checketts   

Exactly, yeah.

Greg McKeown  

You said something interesting already, just an aside, but was like I’m already overly sensitive to that myself. And I wonder if you can tell me more about what you mean about that. But also, what I think is in that comment is perhaps some of the origin story of Rhone.

Nate Checketts     

Yeah, well, you know, it’s, it’s interesting, Greg, I believe you may have children I have three boys. And I love my kids. They are my everything. And I’m so fortunate to have amazing children. But one of the things that they consistently have, which they unfortunately get from their father is they have a high degree of sensitivity to their clothing, meaning you know the socks have to have to fit just so that, you know, the comfort quality of, of the pants, you  know, we attend, you know, Sunday church services we haven’t but you know, in the past we have, and they could not change out a kind of those clothes into more comfortable clothes faster than anyone. And you learn a lot about yourself through having children. And that’s one of the things that I have learned is just oh my gosh, that you know, these poor kids, they get it from they get it from their old man. I was always that way, you know, I was always, you know, highly sensitive, and our product team still teases me about this, because, you know, I will point out the smallest seem the smallest, you know, kind of discomfort with anything that we make. Because I guess I have a natural sensitivity to it. And there’s probably a diagnosis in there somewhere. But part of part of what drove us to build Rhone was that we saw these kind of two big clusters in the activewear segment, you had all of the brands that we had grown up with, you know, that had mass distribution through, you know, typically wholesale channels. You know that made everything you know that they had to markup and then markup again, to sell, which meant that they were making things out of the absolute cheapest fabric possible to achieve a certain margin profile and achieve a certain price profile. And then you have all of this innovation coming in the women’s space. In fact, we saw 200 female focused brands, none of which exceeded more than 15% of their revenue to men. But they were at a price premium to these other brands. But they had more direct channel distribution, meaning they were selling primarily direct to their customers, either through their own retail stores, or through their own website.  So this meant that they didn’t necessarily have to mark it up twice to reach a certain targeted margin. And they were more expensive, which meant that they were putting in some cases, four times as much cost into the same type of garment that these big brands were that they were selling. Well, the quality is just going to improve when you do that. And when we looked on the men’s side of the equation, there was not a single male focused brand, that had kind of taken a direct distribution strategy using premium fabrication, interesting technology and innovation. And we thought this is less than 15% of these other brands times, we could go and do it and spend 100% of our time, effort and focus and figure out how to make product that is completely dialed into the way men live work and sweat today, because it’s changed. It’s changed somewhat dramatically. And you know, that’s really how we got started.

Greg McKeown     

So, there’s two stories there. The first was your high empathy, for your own boys. I do have children myself, you’re right about that four children, three girls and a boy. You had a personal discovery, where you realized, you probably already realized that you cared about the feel of fabric and the sensitivity of touch, but listening to them, you realize no, it’s they’re not just complaining. It’s not they’re not just whining, it’s different.  

Nate Checketts     

You know, talking about another lesson that you learn from your children, my oldest son, who I mentioned is 11 you know, is quite dyslexic. And, you know, when we understood that, and, you know, kind of his challenges with reading and processing certain information, I started spending a lot of time reading about it. And one of the first books that was recommended to me was called the dyslexic advantage. And, you know, it’s such an interesting title, right, because generally, when you think about anything like dyslexia, you think about it as a disability or, you know, an ability hindrance of some kind. And the author does a really great job. And it gives this fantastic example, where he explains, if you were to look up the top 50 homerun hitters of all time in Major League Baseball, you know, you would find those same names, the exact same names on the top 100 strikeout list. And the reason why is because in order to hit the ball that far, you need to be swinging for the fences. And when you start swinging for the fences, it becomes really difficult to get singles and doubles. And, you know, focus on getting on base, so to speak. And, you know, oftentimes when we talk about things like dyslexia, or sensitivities you don’t focus as much time and effort and energy, or we certainly don’t, you know, with things like dyslexia to talk about the fact that if you’re dyslexic, you’re 10 times more likely to be an entrepreneur, or an architect or to be successful, and, you know, all these different career paths where dyslexia is actually a distinct advantage versus not being dyslexic.

Greg McKeown     

There’s a story that reminds me of where parents are really concerned about their daughter, and the teacher is as well look, they just will not sit still. You know, they’re just so difficult in class, they take them to a therapist of some kind for an evaluation. And after they’ve watched the child in a normal home environment, behaving and so on, after a while, they say, okay, and they go and talk to the parents and they just say, look, you your daughter doesn’t have a problem. She’s a dancer. Yeah, and I find that story really touching because so much of the modern education system, which is pretty much to say the education system is factory-based system. You have to learn in rows. You are to face one way. You are to learn and regurgitate information, right? I mean, this is fine if what you’re trying to do is prepare people to work in administrative jobs as part of the empire, which is exactly what it was built to do. I mean, that’s, that’s what you want. You want people that can work in, you know, that can work as middle managers, following orders, doing the work accurately based upon your hierarchical leader and so on. Like it’s there as a place for that. But what about everybody else?

Nate Checketts   

Yeah, well, and it may even be that it was a system that was built to educate, you know, a majority of people 80% of people may learn better in a system like that, but it just certainly does not mean that it is right for every one or that it’s the, you know, the right fit. And I think we’ve seen, you know, a lot of growth, maybe even, arguably, an explosion in new and different teaching methodologies. You know, you’re, you’re talking about the kind of Montessori programs and, and others that are meant to be kind of more hands-on active learning experiences, unstructured. And, and I think it’s great, because, you know, truthfully, it, this is not a, we know that each of us is unique, right? We know that from our fingerprints down to our personalities. And so it certainly would, would lead us to believe that the way we learn is unique. And understanding the way you learn, I think is so critical to finding any level of success because you know, that ultimately dictates your path. And just because you might not learn the way that 80% of the population doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful. In fact, you might be successful, specifically, because you do not learn the way the rest of the world learns.

Greg McKeown     

Yes, I think it’s key in trying to work out your highest point of contribution, that it’s, it’s precisely the things that make you different, that can become what is most valuable.

Nate Checketts    

So, you know, I was fortunate to grow up, as I mentioned, with just an amazing father, who worked in professional sports. And he, you know, he worked with the Utah Jazz, and then he worked with the New York Knicks. And my older brother, who was four and a half years older than me, was, and, you know, is certainly older now, but a fantastic basketball player, total natural on the court, when he touched the basketball, you know, it just everything went in. And I remember, I so wanted to be like that. And I wasn’t, I just it didn’t come naturally to me. And, you know, I would spend hours on the basketball court outside in the lights. And I remember, you know, kind of maybe thinking or feeling like, gosh, I don’t even know that I like this. But it didn’t cross my mind to kind of not keep pursuing it, because I felt a natural amount of pressure, you know, just from friends or people who knew what my dad did or knew how Spencer played to, you know, to pursue the sport, to be good at it. And I remember we went to pick Spence up one summer at five-star basketball camp, which, you know, in the, in the northeast, and maybe it’s, you know, outside of that is the absolute best basketball camp you can attend. You have to be invited to play. And so we went to go pick him up and I was in an empty gym with a basketball, just kind of shooting, waiting for Spence and I remember my dad came up to me and he said something to the extent of son, I hope you don’t feel pressured to play the sport. You know, you there are plenty of other sports that you might enjoy a lot more. And I remember I was like, absolutely dejected, like, he can he can tell even he can tell I’m really not very good. And, you know, I spent, I spent some feeling sorry for myself. And, and, you know, kind of bringing it up with him? And he’s like, No, I think you just might be more suited for other sports. And so, I decided to shift my focus. And I found I found a place playing football. And, you know, I ended up having a nice little high school football career, and you know, was very satisfied and very fulfilled doing that. But it wasn’t until I kind of freed myself from this burden of feeling like I had to play, I had to play this sport, you know, for all of these reasons. And so I, you know, I kind of remember that I’m really trying to be sensitive with that with my own kids are like, what are the things that they might be feeling pressure on that, you know, I don’t even know that I’m, you know, contributing to.

Greg McKeown     

I love that story, and, and the gentleness and strengthen in your father in that moment, to be able to give you permission to not take the path that your older sibling did. And, and it really speaks, I think, to a leadership orientation that says, look, you don’t have to try and do everything that everyone else is doing. You know, now, what you need to do is figure out your personal, unique, highest point of contribution, you know, that you do the right things at the right time for the right reasons.  

Nate Checketts     

Yeah, it’s so freeing. It is like that is the most freeing concept to understand that, you know, you are unique, you in and spending time with yourself with your thoughts. This is this is a concept that we you know, and I love that you explore this so much, because I think it is so critical. Right now, we have become hyper consumers of everything. And we rarely spend time with just our own thoughts. It just doesn’t happen enough. And when you think about being a consumer of content, or a creator of content, ask yourself put it on a graph, how much time are you spending in creation mode? You know, creating could be sitting with your own thoughts and kind of exploring your own thoughts, it could certainly be taking, you know, pen or pencil and paper, it could be, you know, kind of writing or expressing, and how much time are you spending consuming content and the vast majority of us, the vast majority, we are spending 90 to 95% of our of our time consuming. And what that means is we’re not giving any time to exploration. And that means that we will not know ourselves well enough to be able to make good decisions for us because had I not been given kind of that freedom and encouraged and almost over the head of kind of exploring the other sports that I might have some success, I might have continued to struggle with, you know, a very mediocre basketball skill set that probably would not have given me the same sense of satisfaction had I switched. And it’s a small example. But there’s just you know, that that obviously leads to more things. And I just think it’s really important that we challenge, you know, how much time are we creating? And how much time are we consuming? About 12 years ago, I created this book template, and now every time I read a book, I tell myself, I actually consume most of my content through audio, I have to stop before I read my next book, and I have to fill this, like mini book report out, so that I can both retain it and figure out what I’m going to change or learn from it do differently as a result.

Greg McKeown     

I sometimes think myself that I haven’t read a book unless I’ve reread it.

Nate Checketts     

So good.

Greg McKeown     

Now, you said to use a book template, and I want to know exactly what’s on the template.

Nate Checketts     

It starts with the three main takeaways, you know, here are my three main takeaways and then I list on the side page numbers, you know, so that I can kind of point back to the things that really stood out to me. And in some cases, those might be uniquely tailored to my experience or what I was looking for, because we tend to find out of content, you know what we’re looking to get out of contents, and in some cases there, there may be some confirmation bias there. And then I also put a space for three quotes, you know, kind of three individual passages that really stood out to me that were kind of really, really powerful. And they might be related and most often are related and kind of pertaining to the three core concepts. And then below is kind of just an open box, you know, kind of write up of, you know, kind of a paragraph of, you know, here’s what I’m going to do differently as a result of, you know, kind of reading this, or here’s how I plan to change or adjust.

Greg McKeown  

What was the last book that you filled the template out for?

Nate Checketts     

I read this book that my team gave me, which has been proven to be quite prophetic for the time that we’re, we’re in called leadership in turbulent times. And it’s, you know, it’s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, I believe, is her name. And she is a historian, and she basically takes four presidents, and, you know, talks about their leadership during difficult times that they’ve gone through, and, you know, this has been one of the most difficult times to navigate.

Greg McKeown   

What were your three takeaways from the book?  

Nate Checketts     

Leadership in a crisis is always more difficult than it appears for, you know, kind of the greater public, and that’s okay. One of the things that I, I was concerned with, during the early stages of this pandemic, is feeling like I was supposed to have all of the answers, you know, I’m the CEO of this brand. And I’m supposed to know, how I’m going to handle the fact that the country is closed. And, and that was a scary thought, because I had honestly, no idea. I didn’t know any more than the person next to me whether or not we were going to be closed for two weeks, or two months or two years. And so, it’s okay to not have all the answers, even if your team kind of believe and expect you to. And then I think the second main takeaway, for me, that really stood out is, is that people need to know that you care about them, more than, you know, kind of having the answers to the pressing question. That there is a level of empathy with your core team that is really critical in and building up, you know, building up those relationships in these moments of strain. And then and then the last piece for me was kind of leaning on your, your, your cue lieutenants, and surrounding yourself with really talented people.

Greg McKeown     

How did that translate into actions in this turbulent time?

Nate Checketts     

It’s been in some ways a guidebook, but, you know, I think, I think what I have really emphasized and focus my energy on as we’ve been remote in our team has been remote really since like most since March, is making sure that I spend unstructured time with my direct reports and caring about them and getting to know you know, kind of details that maybe I wouldn’t be able to know  in an office environment, and you know, before when we would do our touch bases or weekly touch bases, we would always of course say how’s the weekend. What do you know, what did you go through but we are making Ensure that we have unstructured time to just catch up just to speak, because the moments of the in between, you know, the kind of being in between the hallways or the you know, the watercooler talk is gone. But we still need that time, we’ve, we’ve arranged for lunches, where people get randomly paired on our, on our team. And, and we provide kind of a door dash gift card for them once a month to meet and spend 30 minutes in an unstructured time with another person on the team just to get to know them better. And then I’ve, I’ve tried to, to write gratitude notes to every single person on the team. You know, no matter if they’re a customer service person, or, you know, kind of my co-founder, I make sure I write to all of them. So, sorry about that Greg, you may be hearing some background noise, the kids are home.

Greg McKeown     

I love that as much as anything in this interview. That’s like, that is like real family life.

Nate Checketts     

The kids are at home.  

Greg McKeown     

It’s COVID. I mean, seriously, before COVID you had to pretend that there was no personal family life? You’re on calls, you’re in meetings. It’s like pretend that this doesn’t exist. And then all of a sudden, everyone’s like, Oh, well, actually, yeah, you know, do have a family.

Nate Checketts     

And like, somehow, we pretended against it. I mean, the reason why, you know, that resonates with us is because all feel it. I had a I had a situation where my five-year-old I love it, because he is so bold, he just doesn’t care. I mean, he doesn’t, it doesn’t matter to him at all, if I’m on a call or a video and I will say, Hey, you know, son, I’m on a call, I’m trying to finish this up. And he does not care. He’s gonna tell me exactly what is on his mind, no matter what. And I was doing an interview with Entrepreneur Magazine, you know, that, for me was a big milestone with the managing editor of this nice, prestigious publication. And he decides to walk in mid interview and tell me all about his most recent bowel movement. And oh, man, I was I was definitely embarrassed. But not so much that I think I took it out on him at all. And the managing editor he thought it was the greatest thing ever. And I think that’s been the great thing about it is people have been so understanding that way. But yes, it is real life in The Checketts’ household, that is definitely the case.

Greg McKeown     

I love it. I really love it. If I had to describe what I think is one of the primary challenges for people today is that there’s no separation at all. I mean, post lockdown, everything, just disintegrated whatever it used to be, yes. And it was a pretty puny barrier before. And, and this, this protective barrier of what work happens there, and home happens here, had already given way, you know, for at least a decade, where as soon as you have smart devices, work follows you everywhere. Now home sometimes follows you to work through the same devices, but far, far less than the other way around. You know, prior to this last few months, you could certainly have a work meeting follow you home, but you aren’t going to bring your children into your Monday morning meeting. So it was always tilted one way. And when we talk about work life balance, I don’t even like that phrase. Because It’s like, it’s like, come on, man. What you mean is life balance, because it’s never that your work, well, I just spending too much time with my life here. I mean, what you mean is always too much work. So that was all prior to this. Well, now, there’s no separation, everything I mean, integrated to too nice of a word. I mean, it’s completely converged. And that generally, what I see has happened is that work has consumed more and more.

Nate Checketts     

Yeah, I’ve already, you know, kind of begun putting that into place in my life in various forms. You know, there’s, I decided one day a week, my phone is just a phone, that’s the only thing it can be used for is a phone. I use the time limit for the screen time, rather on, on my phone, and you can get it very personalized now. And in order to break it, you know, you need to kind of give access to certain things. And I’m crazy about it, because I, I don’t know, have you had a chance to watch the, the social dilemma?

Greg McKeown     

Yes.

Nate Checketts     

I found that movie fascinating, but not necessarily more informative. It basically told us what we already knew, but it did give us a chance to think about it. And, you know, for my wife and I it was something that we spent time discussing and thinking about and just understanding how pervasive we have allowed technology to be into our lives. And so you know, this was one of the one of the ways that we have attempted to, you know, to curb our phone habits we also have a technology box in our house as many families do that, you know, for certain parts of the day that you know, all devices must go in there.

Greg McKeown   

And is it locked the box or it’s just hey it’s a place you put them?

Nate Checketts     

It’s a place yeah. I’ve seen I have seen and I, you know, I remember in the social dilemma that, you know, it’s almost disturbing, but you understand why people do it, that, you know, there are effectively devices that you can put your, or containers rather, that you can put your devices into, that will not allow you no matter what to get into them, you know, this idea of kind of saving you from yourself. Thankfully, we have not been at that point, as of yet, where it’s, you know, become too easy to rationalize away that just the form of getting into the box was enough, but it is crazy.

Greg McKeown     

It is a shocking thing, that there are products that exist, right highly to physically keep you from your phone. Let me bring a conversation here to final question for you, which is, what matters most to you, and why?

Nate Checketts     

Well, it may, it may sound cliché, but you know, for me it is it is about my principles, I think that probably matters most to me. And my principles are, you know, rooted and centered in my faith, and my family, and in being kind. And I think that the consistency of those principles is really what gives me the greatest amount of sustained joy in my life.

Greg McKeown     

That’s a beautiful answer, now give it to me in half the words,

Nate Checketts   

My principles.

Greg McKeown   

And if you had to do it half again, you just say principles.

Nate Checketts  

Yes.

Greg McKeown  

What’s the highest principle for you?

Nate Checketts  

Faith

Greg McKeown  

Yeah. That’s a beautiful answer to a beautiful conversation I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I look forward to the conversation continuing. Thank you for being for being a guest on the What’s Essential Podcast.

Nate Checketts     

Thank you so much, Greg.


Greg McKeown

Credits:

  • Hosted by Greg McKeown
  • Produced by Greg McKeown Team
  • Executive Produced by Greg McKeown