Thom King is an entrepreneur, author and self-described ‘bio-hacker.’ He has made it his life’s work to study food science and use his knowledge to help people. Thom is the founder and CEO of Steviva Brands Inc., one of the largest importers, manufacturers, and distributors of natural sweeteners.
Listen to this informative Publish. Promote. Profit. episode with Thom King about biohacking your life.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
How biohacking increases both physical and mental performance.
How there are plants that exist in nature that are sweet but are not sugar.
Why diets don’t work and instead people need to change their lifestyles.
How a goal setting practice can help create better outcomes for people.
Why writing a book can lead to more sales and ultimately more revenue.
Connect with Tom:
Links Mentioned:
steviva.com
Guest Contact Info:
Twitter
@steviva
Instagram
@stevivabrands
Facebook
facebook.com/steviva
Rob Kosberg:
Hey,and welcome everybody. Rob Kosberg here. Excited to be back with a great guest today, Thom King. Thom is the founder of Icon Foods. They’re one of the largest distributors of food products, natural sweeteners. He’s a self described biohacker and the best-selling author of Guy Gone Keto. Thom, you’ve made it your life’s work to study food science and get people to eat healthier, avoiding sugar which is terrible for you. Too bad it tastes so good and that it’s so addictive. And, of course, maintaining a diet and exercise to defeat metabolic disease. So excited to have you on, excited to talk to you today, my friend!
Thom King:
Thanks, Rob. I totally appreciate that. And thank you for an amazing introduction. That was awesome!
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah, my pleasure. I would like to understand a little bit of the history and motivation that created this biohacker, if you will, that made you who you are. What’s the foundation, what’s the underlying motivation that brought Icon Foods to the world?
Thom King:
My biohacking thing is just a matter of curiosity and seeing how I can continually increase my performance. And I don’t mean athletic performance, as much as I do my mental performance and my focus and stuff like that. And I dabble quite a bit in using different modalities for longevity. So that’s my biohacking thing, but it bleeds into the food ingredients side of things because I am a food scientist, so I do create a lot of formulas. It’s what I do on a weekly basis. I would say that my interest in food really peaked when I ran into this gentleman in 1994 back in Phoenix, Arizona, and he’d just come back from Paraguay and had a jar full of this green paste. And I mean, I’m up for anything! His name was Jim Made. He hands me this jar of green paste and says, “Try this.” And I tasted it, and it was about 25 times sweeter than sugar, kind of herby, bitter flavor to it, but it was really, really sweet. And immediately I was like, “What is this? Is this some sort of sugar or some kind of unrefined sugar?” And he said, “No, it’s the Stevia leaf.” And at that point, I had never heard of Stevia, never! And I’m like, “Oh, it’s got sugar in it?” And he’s like, “No, it has zero calories, zero carbohydrates.” And at that point, that was like me taking the red pill, I just went down the rabbit hole, “I need to understand what this is all about!”
And that was the beginning of my quest, understanding that there are things that exist in nature that are sweet, that we can use to sweeten foods that aren’t sugar. And then, after that, it was just this massive quest to be able to figure out how to scale or how to create an extraction process. Like a clean water extraction process, to be able to get those sweet constituents out of the leaves. And to be able to create a usable combination of compounds that makes it usable for consumers and manufacturers.
Rob Kosberg:
Love it. So this is going back 25 years now. That’s certainly pre keto and paleo. That’s maybe Atkins diet days, which may have been a precursor to keto and paleo. What was it that motivated you to even look into it in the first place? Was there diabetes in the family, or what’s the motivation to be a food scientist in your case?
Thom King:
I was a horrible sugar addict. And what’s interesting is people will laugh and go like, “Oh yeah, you were a sugar addict,” but I was a sugar addict, I was addicted to sugar, it felt like I couldn’t get enough sugar. I would take a can of Pepsi and dump a bag of M&M’s and into it, so that it was a little sweeter. So I had this terrible sweet tooth, which led to some intermittent metabolic issues. I would start getting fat, and then I would go on some sort of a crash diet and lose it.
And that’s when I would say all things collided at that point because I had this yo-yo thing, discovered Atkins, and I’m like, “Oh, Atkins will put me into keto, I’ll be able to lose the weight.” But it was a diet. Diets don’t work.
The only thing that works is a lifestyle change, and I was never really ready to make that lifestyle change until I was in Vegas and I just hit a wall. I went out to dinner with a client, and they were buying, I had cake and wine and steak, and I got back up to my room and looked in the mirror and thought, “You’re not being your best self.” And I felt like a huge imposter because I worked in the industry, but I wasn’t healthy, and I was eating like crap. And that was my motivating factor. The pain of my behavior had exceeded the pleasure that I was deriving from it.
Rob Kosberg:
Interesting. Yeah, I mean, it’s not like that was external. All that was internal. And there was an obvious disconnect between how you saw yourself internally and how you were acting internally. I mean, it sounds like that was a radical change in your life from that point on.
Thom King:
It was. I mean, I would say that that was a period of bottoming out because I needed to make a change, and I’ve always been this person who likes to write things down. I always journal. I mean, it’s the first thing that I do when I get up in the morning. And so, at that point, I’m like, “I need a major lifestyle change.” That is when I started collecting data and just literally journaling my journey, if you will, of adopting a ketogenic lifestyle and getting my crap together. And after a year, I literally had a book that I could take to a publisher.
Rob Kosberg:
Nice. Congratulations on that! It’s no small feat to write a book. I don’t need to tell you that. It’s very challenging and harrowing, and you even change throughout the process a little bit, I imagine. What are some stories that you’ve heard back about how the book has impacted people, the difference that it’s made in people’s lives?
Thom King:
I go to a lot of trade shows, and I mean, one of the trade shows that I go to is called the Metabolic Health Summit. And a lot of people, consumers, and professionals involved in metabolic health and keto go to this show. And I have had people come up to me at these events that I go to and literally wrap their arms around me. I mean, this is pre COVID, of course!
Rob Kosberg:
Of course. It’s an event, so it had to be pre COVID.
Thom King:
Yeah. Wrap their arms around me and say, “Oh my God, you completely changed my life!”
I mean, I keep hearing people say, “I’ve lost 60 pounds, 100 pounds and I feel great about myself.” The first time that happened, it was so weird because I was autographing books, which was also very strange to me because it’s like, “You want me to autograph this? You want me to write in this book? This is just me right here signing. I’m not famous or anything. But yeah, that was one thing, but the first time that somebody said, “I got your book on Amazon, and it completely changed my life, and I brought it here for you to autograph.”
Rob Kosberg:
Oh, that’s cool.
Thom King:
It was moving. It was so moving. I mean, we hugged, and I mean, I teared up. It’s like, wow, this thing that I wrote actually impacted a person’s life. And since then, and I think the book’s been out for four years now, I get it a lot. I get people telling me that the book helped them make a lifestyle change, and they feel better about things. And there’s no feeling better than that.
Rob Kosberg:
Congratulations. That’s a beautiful feeling, you’re right! There is no shortage of keto books. Idon’t need to tell you that. I’m sure you even thought about that when you began your project. What’s different about yours, of course, is that you’re different, but what is it that about your book that you feel impacts people and that makes it stand out?
Thom King:
What’s interesting is I didn’t actually think, “hey, there’s a bunch of keto books that are out, and this is just going to be another keto book.” I didn’t really think about this. This was a passion project, and I thought I needed to memorialize what I’m experiencing right now. I need to memorialize what a lifestyle change is. And I’m in this group of authors and stuff like that, that write keto books, and I’m friends with them, and I would say the thing that was different about my book is most of the keto books are just books of recipes, here’s a bunch of recipes. And mine strips it down to be honest with yourself, and this is the way that you make a lifestyle change. Mine happened to be moving from a diet high in carbs and sugar into a lifestyle of eating a lot of fat, cutting carbs down to the absolute minimum, cutting proteins down, and having zero sugar.
So it was that discipline of being able to do that because you can show people this is how you’re supposed to eat, and it might work for a week, but I think mine’s different in the respect that this is how you create a lifestyle change. This is how you hold your feet to the fire. This is how you break a bad habit. People have habits because they derive pleasure from them. If you can find a way to associate massive amounts of pain to this habit that you want to break, it exceeds the pleasure that you get from it. And it takes time, but if you can create that mindset of, “Hey, I’m going to eat this donut, and it’s going to give me an instant rush of sugar and carbohydrates, it’s going to give me that pleasure,” but then what do you associate with that?
Do you associate shame? Do you associate early death?
I mean, it’s just about being able to take all of those negative feelings that being overweight or not feeling good enough or whatever it is. Taking all of that negativity and pushing it right onto that habit that you want to vanquish.
Rob Kosberg:
I love that. Well, I told you before, you were kind enough to send me a copy of your book, so I started going through it, I did notice that. I’ve read various keto books and manuals, and my wife knows how to make Chaffles and we do our thing, if you know what I mean.
Thom King:
Sure.
Rob Kosberg:
But I do think that there are fundamental elements you need and that it is a lifestyle change and if there isn’t a fundamental change, then it’s just too hard not to go back to that kind of addictive lifestyle. It’s just too easy. I mean, it’s easy to eat carbohydrates because they’re plentiful, they’re cheap, easy to come by, not to mention tasty. And it’s too difficult in one sense without some type of underlying motivation to make that kind of change.
So obviously, for those that are reading this, Guy Going Keto, is a great book that I think addresses some of the fundamental things that may be why you haven’t made the change that you want to make. Tell me, everybody has their magic and methodologies about things, is there something that you would say not I’m looking for five steps, but if you have five steps, I’ll take that, but would you say there’s like a process that people go through to make these fundamental changes?
Thom King:
Yes, I do. And it’s something that I practice, and it’s this sort of goal-setting practice that I do. I mean, it’s how I create outcomes in my life. And then part of it is connected to this whole keto lifestyle thing. But to make a change or adopt keto or accomplish anything in your life is about setting an intention. You want to describe, and if you don’t do this in writing, it’s worthless. You need to write it down, write down your intention, write down the outcome that you want to achieve and then create an action plan. And it’s a quantifiable action plan, like dates, what you’re going to do, and work your plan and let go of expectations because expectations always lead to disappointment. And once you get disappointment, you feel like you’re a failure, and then you will lose your intention, you will lose your outcome, and the thing you built will start to fall apart.
So the action plan is the foundation of what you want to create, letting go of your attachment to expectation, put your focus 100% on the action plan. And then once a week, you just examine the data, you look at it, and ask yourself, am I making progress here? You do your data collection. Suppose it’s weight loss that is your desired outcome. In that case, you look at your BMI, and you look at your weight, take your measurements, take your blood pressure, whatever pieces of data you’re collecting that are associated with that particular outcome, and examine the data.
If you’re starting to see progress, then keep doing what you’re doing. If you do not see progress, then pivot, change your action plan! And then, if it just doesn’t work, change your outcome.
If your outcome is to lose 100 pounds and your action plan isn’t working, and you’ve tweaked your action plan, maybe the outcome you’re looking for is to lose 20. Take steps. But that is something that is tattooed into my psyche. If I want to accomplish anything in this world, I write it down and use that method, and I let go of expectation because that will always lead to disappointment.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I journal, and I write a good deal, and it often surprises me when I write down intentions, goals, something that I’m focused on, I won’t say new year’s resolutions, but I do always do them around new year’s. And then, of course, I go back at various times of the year, and I review those things. And the second part about developing the action plan, I don’t always do on all of these things, but shockingly, it’s amazing how many of these things I accomplished, even without developing an action plan, because I do think there is a power in the subconscious, and I do think that there’s a power to writing down. I don’t think it’s “The Secret” personally. I don’t think that there’s something mystical happening. But I think when you communicate that through writing and the intention, what it is that you want, I think it’s not perfect, it’s not full-proof. Still, it always surprises me how many things that I focused on, I know I’m going to accomplish. But then, even ones that I didn’t focus on, I also accomplish.
Unfortunately, weight loss is not one of those things, I always need to focus on that because I do love the sugar and the carbs. I’m like, “I really want a Chaffle BLT. I’m dying for something that tastes like bread.”
Thom King:
Yeah. That’s interesting. And I’ve also found the same thing, I’ve been writing my goals down for decades, and I’ve been in the same situation where I didn’t put together an action plan, but just the effort of writing down the intention and the outcome puts momentum into it. And they do mystically if you will, manifest sometimes, and you’re just like, “Well, how the hell did that happen?” And I’ve thought about that a lot, too, because I’m not one of these woo-woo people.
Rob Kosberg:
Neither am I, but it does happen sometimes.
Thom King:
It does happen. But I also think that people are like, “Oh yeah, if you focus on something and you do these affirmations, this thing, whatever your desired outcome is going to somehow manifest on its own without action or anything else.” I think that’s hugely irresponsible because people go back and might be like, “Oh, I didn’t wish hard enough.” I’m like, “Well, let me tell you something about wishing. You wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster.” So there’s that factor, but what I’ve always equated that pseudo-mystical manifestation too, is if you were in a boat or you got in your car, and you just got in your car and turned it on and put it in drive and pressed on the gas, I mean, you’re going to go into a tree. If you don’t have some direction, you’re going to wreck; you’re going to go off the road, you’re not going to go anywhere. And I think just the fact that you write it down gives you that direction, that your mind understands this is where we’re going.
Rob Kosberg:
Love it, love it. Good piece there. Let’s pivot for a minute. People need to get the book. There’s a lot there that I think will fundamentally help people. You wrote the book as a passion project, a lot of clients that I work with; they’re writing books, yes, out of passion, and because they want a result. I imagine that you’ve seen some amazing things happen from your book. Talk to me a little bit about how has your brand grown, how has your authority in this space grown, what has happened because of the book?
Thom King:
I would say that the time and money that I invested in writing Guy Gone Keto havecome back 100 fold.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow.
Thom King:
And I mean, it was probably one of the best investments that I could make, in myself personally, but also in my business. Because the book helped me become an influencer in the keto category and from that, I started becoming an authority in keto formulations. And I mean, I do keto formulations, but it solidified it. So when keto blew up, I mean, keto is still blowing up, and I don’t think it’s even come close to peaking yet. It made me an authority on what ingredients do you use to substitute for sugars and carbs and stuff like that. And so now, when startups or large food manufacturers are looking to get into that keto space, they come right to me. They’re like, “Hey, we’re looking to do a cookie. We’re looking to do a candy. We’re looking to do a frozen dessert. These are the things that we’re running into. We understand that you’re an expert on keto.”
They come to us for that, and when I help them with their formulations and they’re on track, they’ve got the keto macros dialed in, they end up buying ingredients from us and it’s helped me probably quadruple revenue for Icon Foods.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow. Well, I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to assume that that’s millions of dollars. 100X is no small amount. I actually use that number quite a bit myself. I mean, I think about what my books have done for me and my business, we eat our cooking, so to speak, meaning that I’m in this business, but we use books to grow our business, just like we suggest and recommend to our clients. So very, very cool, I love to hear that, and I’m happy for you. I think what you’re doing is incredibly needed. I mean, I hate to see the shape that the United States of America is in. Our children are more obese than ever, it’s an epidemic. It’s shocking, it seems like in a generation, we have gone from the poor are malnourished and underfed to many times, those that are poor in our society are the most obese and overweight. Perhaps they’re still malnourished because they’re not getting the nutrients needed. But there’s got to be a way to fix that. And I think what you’re doing with Icon Foods is clearly on the right path, so congratulations on that!
Thom King:
Thanks, Rob. I really appreciate that. Thank you.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah, that’s beautiful. Anything we’ve forgotten or left out? And of course, I’d like you to tell us where people can get the book, where they can learn more about Thom King and Icon Foods and all that.
Thom King:
Well, if you go to Guy Gone Keto, you can get the book there if you’d like. You can look at the line of condiments that I created, which are a whole different animal. I mean, I get asked about that a lot because it’s like, ‘Oh, you make ketchup?” And it’s like, “Yeah, I couldn’t have ketchup, so I made ketchup for myself.” And then it just launched into this brand, what’s been a passion project of mine. You can find the book on Amazon. I think Barnes & Noble too, it’s out there all over the place. On social media, Guy Gone Keto, you can just find me, direct message me if you guys have questions or anything like that. But got a lot more products I’m working on and stay tuned for those.
Rob Kosberg:
Love it. Love it. Thom thanks for sharing a little bit about your journey.
Thom King:
Absolutely. Thank you, Rob, I appreciate it.
Rob Kosberg:
My pleasure. Thank you, my friend, that was fun and good stuff. I look forward to finishing your book and your ketchup as well!
