Several years ago, I interviewed Adam Lowry, co-founder of Method and Ripple Foods and board member of HEX Performance, in an interview originally published in Thrive Global. Here is an excerpt from our interview:

Adam: How did you get here? What failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Adam: A lot of people think that the Method story was all up and to the right, an overnight success story.  The truth is we had our fair share of struggles. In 2007-08, we overextended our business into too many product categories at once, and we found ourselves unable to support all the businesses we were in.  We made the difficult decision that we had to shrink the business and retrench from a base we could support. That meant laying off about a quarter of our team. That included a lot of close friends and even a groomsman in my own wedding.  That was a gut-wrenching experience, and it taught me the value of smart and prudent growth. The demands of a start-up are that you must always be pursuing growth, but there is such thing as reckless growth. I don’t know that I always get it right these days, but I am always conscious of whether the growth we’re taking on is growth we can support, now and into the future.

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Adam: Volumes have been written about this topic, so it’s hard to boil it down to one thing.  For me, self-awareness, empathy, and listening are critical qualities for any leader to possess.  They are foundational skills for being able to inspire, align, coach, motivate, and correct; the things a leader needs to do.  They are also teachable – you can learn to be a better listener, to more naturally put yourself in others’ shoes, and to be a student of the ways you are perceived by others.  For some that is an internal examination, for others, it helps to have a coach to help you work through it. However you do it, though, the key is committing to getting better and working on it.  That’s something anyone can do, regardless of your seniority or role within a company.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders? 

Adam: Jump in.  And by that, I mean, give it a go!  I find that too often, people are paralyzed by the fear of failure or lack of certainty that something is a good idea.  Ultimately, there is only one way to find out – to do it. If you are a person that is focused on learning, and always improving on what you did yesterday, then uncertainty or failure are not things to be feared, they are things to be embraced, because they make you better.  The best entrepreneurs and leaders are those that come up with original ideas and unique solutions. That’s impossible to do without risk. So embrace it.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Adam: “Do something remarkable”.  My dad used to say that. He and my mom started a business together in 1981, and it was his way of saying that if what you’re doing has been done before, why are you doing it? If it’s not different and unique, it’s probably not worth doing. It’s what I think about in creating new products and what attracted me to HEX, a brand that is reinventing the way we clean activewear, with clean and proprietary technology – not perfumes and harsh chemicals.  

Adam: What is one thing anyone can do to pay it forward?

Adam: I think how you pay it forward should be an individual choice, and hopefully it’s not just one thing! Hopefully paying it forward is a mindset, something that you think about in all aspects of your life, asking ‘How does what I’m doing affect the world around me and the people living in it’?  The ways you choose to pay it forward should be something that gives you satisfaction and meaning and connection because if it does those things, you’ll want to keep doing it.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one-on-one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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