Hey friends, Chase here

Jeff Boyd is on the show today, and this conversation is about building the kind of life and business that does not always look like the predominant story on the internet.

Jeff is the founder and chairman of MTE, More Than Energy, which he describes in this episode as "an energy that loves you back." Before that, he spent 15 years as the President and co-owner of Luggage Free, where he expanded global operations to more than 100 countries before selling the company in 2019.

What I loved about this conversation is that it is not the usual story about chasing the next app, raising venture capital, or building something because the internet told you that is what entrepreneurship is supposed to look like.

This is a conversation about physical products, unsexy businesses, competition, fatherhood, leadership, and what it means to keep choosing hard things on purpose.

Jeff says it plainly right at the top:

"That's why I tell my team all the time. They just look at me and I'm like, if it were easy, everybody be doing it. We got to do what nobody else is willing to do, and then you're going to be happy we did it. And I tell them that I'm like, oh yeah, this is hard. And I'm excited about it. Because now that's an opportunity for us because we'll outwork anybody."

That idea is at the center of this episode. We talk about the grind of building something real, why curiosity matters more than credentials, what sports teach us about business, why leadership is not about personality type, and how the best things in life often come down to loving the process instead of obsessing over the outcome.

Why This Conversation Matters Right Now

Most of the entrepreneurs and creators we see online are building in public, building digitally, or building something that looks like the current version of what the internet rewards. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is not the only path.

In this episode, I say:

"A lot of folks I know in the audience feel a pressure to make their businesses walk and talk and look like the creators and the entrepreneurs that see out there in the world, which is one of the reasons I want to start celebrating some people who are building really successful lives, careers."

That is why I wanted to have Jeff on the show. He built and sold a shipping business. Now he is building a physical product in the health and wellness space. He is not chasing the obvious thing. He is not trying to make his work look like everyone else's.

Jeff's path is a reminder that there is a whole world of entrepreneurship outside the digital-first story. There are products, services, local businesses, physical goods, retail shelves, manufacturing problems, customer conversations, teams, families, and real-life constraints.

And sometimes, that is where the opportunity is.

What We Explore in This Episode

Jeff's early business story and how he became employee one at a shipping company before helping grow it around the world.
The "answer is yes" mindset that helped Luggage Free expand into all 50 states and more than 100 countries.
Why physical products are different and what changes when you are building with atoms instead of bits.
The origin of MTE and why Jeff wanted to build "an energy that loves you back."
What it means to enjoy the grind when the work is hard, relentless, and full of problems you do not know how to solve yet.
Fatherhood, presence, and time and why Jeff says he is "so all in now" with his family.
Competition, sport, and business and why Jeff still trains and competes as a long jumper.
Leadership and authenticity and why Jeff says people do what you do, not what you say you do.
Second and third career arcs and what Jeff has learned about zooming out, building teams, and letting people play the right roles.

The Core Idea: If It Were Easy, Everybody Would Be Doing It

One of the strongest threads in this conversation is Jeff's relationship with hard things. He is not pretending the grind is glamorous. He says straight up that building physical products, selling through retail, and getting people to care is hard.

But he also sees that difficulty as part of the opportunity.

"You know I some of this stuff I think the harder it is, the better for me. For sure. You want, you want to bear. People are going to be like, oh, I don't have the guts to do this. That's right. Yeah. And then the ones that do, that's a that's another level, right? That's another fence they cleared. But then it's like, okay, well now you did that. But are you ready to grind now because it's a grind."

That is the mindset that shows up again and again in the episode. The point is not that everything should be hard for the sake of being hard. The point is that difficulty can reveal where other people quit.

That is true in sport. It is true in business. It is true in building a family, a product, a brand, a company, or a body of work.

The Answer Is Yes

Jeff's first major business story starts with Luggage Free. At the beginning, the company was taking orders by hand and trying to get the phone to ring. Then the first real call came in.

"Anyway, so we're trying to get the phone to ring so we can handwrite our orders. And the first call, the guy, you know, we're all. It was kind of like a movie. We're all like, you know, hushed around him, waiting, you know, hearing him, he's like, oh, I'm sorry, we don't serve. North Carolina hangs up. And we were like, oh, dude, Gary, of course you serve anybody."

That moment became a kind of operating philosophy:

"And I was like, from now on, the answer is yes. Like whatever anybody says answered yes. And with that really that charge? Yeah. We were quickly in all 50 states and we grew to 109 countries throughout the world. And it was always in response to a call."

There is something powerful in that. Not because saying yes is always the right answer, but because early in a business, the market often tells you where to go before your strategy deck does.

Someone calls. Someone asks. Someone has a need. Someone gives you a clue.

The question is whether you are willing to follow it.

Building Something You Can Hold

After selling Luggage Free in 2019, Jeff had time and space. He was not rushing into the next thing. He was riding his bike, playing tennis, spending time with his family, and looking for what might call him next.

What called him was not another service business. It was a physical product.

"And so in 19 sold it 2019, 2019 were operating all over the world, offices all over and sold it and was kind of free to at that point, I was like, all right, I want to like what I loved about it was the challenge and the fun and the competition. Right. You're building, you're competing."

He continues:

"But I what I yearn for was a product and something that was tangible I could actually hold right and do a different scent or a different flavor or different size or different color, whatever."

That desire eventually became MTE. Jeff had been trying to solve his own energy problem, stacking supplements, chasing better mood, better energy, and better performance, until he realized the pieces were not working together.

"And I realized I was like, Frankenstein. I mean, like, we were talking about it last night, like piling all these supplements together to try and make yourself feel better, even even like ten supplements, which doesn't sound that bad. Shit. Crazy. Yeah. We'll be like a suitcase full when you're traveling, you know?"

MTE came from that search.

"So we built it's an energy that loves you back. Right. Like an energy drink that loves you back. Yeah. Right. So you get prebiotics and caffeine free blend. That's better than caffeine. Yeah. So now you're getting energy that feels great that you can trust. Sure. And no jitters, no crash, no impact on sleep."

Curiosity, Thrill, and Figuring It Out

One of my favorite parts of this conversation is when Jeff talks about starting something in a category where he did not have obvious experience. He had not built beverage brands before. He was not a chemist. He was stepping into a new world.

His answer was not fear. It was curiosity.

"Yeah. Like, I like hair on fire. Like, let's go figure this out."

Then he gets to the larger point:

"I like it's curiosity and thrill. And that's what it boils down to. Right. Like, I think you you like that's what entrepreneurship is. It's solving problems and and finding solutions to things. Even if you've done it 20 times, they're going to be solutions that need to be had in the evolving world and landscape in which we operate."

That is entrepreneurship in a sentence. You do not get to know everything before you begin. You do not get a guarantee that the answer is obvious. You get a problem, a question, a changing landscape, and the chance to learn fast enough to keep moving.

Jeff says:

"But that's why I love it. I think if, if we boil it down, I love the curiosity that that is necessary to just because you're like, I don't know the answer to that. Instead of that overwhelming me or said of panicking, I'm going to go learn because I'm sure there's more than one answer. We'll figure out. Maybe we'll triangulate, figure it out. Yeah, get to a solution. And and then we'll know for next time. And then we'll be able to iterate and make it better. And on it go. Like I love that process."

You Have to Love the Process

The conversation moves from business into fatherhood, sport, and the shape of a life. Again and again, we come back to process.

Jeff says it directly:

"Yeah. You have to love the process, right? And I think that's true o...