Connecting the Dots...with a hat guy (Josh from Misogi Athletica)
Jun 09, 2024Episode 7
Adam Leishman
In week seven of "Connecting the Dots," Adam shares his excitement about a personal best in the Brisbane Half Marathon and then dives into a fascinating conversation with Josh from Misogi Athletica. Discover how a passion for wellness and mental health led to the creation of durable, performance-enhancing running hats. Explore the synergy between mental health support and physical activity, and learn about Misogi's commitment to the R U OK? foundation.
In week seven of "Connecting the Dots," Adam shares his excitement about a personal best in the Brisbane Half Marathon and then dives into a fascinating conversation with Josh from Misogi Athletica. Discover how a passion for wellness and mental health led to the creation of durable, performance-enhancing running hats. Explore the synergy between mental health support and physical activity, and learn about Misogi's commitment to the R U OK? foundation.
Seven weeks. It's been seven weeks since I started my new project this year, which is Connect the Dots, where I talk about what's going on in the dot of my week, and then I talk to somebody about what's going on in the dots of their life. And it's a pretty standout week, both in my dot and who I talk to this week. it starts with a week of, I did the Brisbane Half Marathon, I did a PB, Very happy with that. Still stuck in the one hour, 36 minute range. But a PB, right? Even if it is only 16 seconds. Another big milestone this week is Ron. My dad was in a plane crash 20 years ago. 20 years ago on Tuesday, just gone. So that's been a long time. He's had 27 bits of metal in, well, he used to have 27 bits of metal in his body. He's got a Bit less now because I took out his hip a little while ago and put in a whole new hip and he's slowly becoming the bionic man. I went off to one of the new restaurants in town that opened about seven months ago called Establishment 203. That, that's a, that was a great night. Thank you Andrew Powell and Jared Blay for inviting me along that night. And the other big thing that happened this week is my company that I founded, turns nine. Nine. I've got a company that's nine, so that's pretty cool. Other than that, we're going to go chat to somebody that I The universe brought them into my dots, because about three months ago I was handed a cap to try out by our president BZ in the Run Club, and I fell in love with it. So I reached out to the guys that make the hat, and turns out they're local, and we're about to go meet one of them. So let's go talk to somebody about their dots and their hats. This is Josh and he is responsible for the things that go on my head when I'm running. Josh, how are you going? Very well, thank you. Thanks for having me, Adam. I want to, before we get into the hat stuff, tell me a bit about you. What do you do? What's your day job? my Monday to Friday job is I work in schools looking after the wellbeing programs.
Speaker 4:
I'm currently working at a school over the western suburbs of Brisbane called the Gap State High School. and I look after the wellbeing programs and the wellbeing framework, over there for the students. So, that's what I do Monday to Friday.
Speaker 3:
So that makes your side project make a lot more sense then.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, that's,
Speaker 3:
yeah, part of the, part of
Speaker 4:
the background. Now, am I going to say it right? Is it Masogi? Close. And that's part of the reason why we've gone for this name is because it's pronounced Masogi. But if you think Nike, Nike, Adidas, Adidas, Asics, Asics, you know, it's a great thing to have a conversation about. But the pronunciation is Masogi.
Speaker 3:
Masogi. Alright. I will probably get that wrong half the time. Interesting name, I'm guessing it's Japanese?
Speaker 4:
Correct, yeah, so if you remember the Ice Bucket Challenge from a few years ago, that stemmed from the Masogi Ritual. and what the Masogi Ritual is, is it's a one off challenge that you do to make the rest of your life better. So that might be a yearly thing, it might be a monthly thing, but it's supposed to make the rest of your life easier. and I related that to running during, COVID times. So that's how sort of the name itself came about.
Speaker 3:
Right. And so it's the name of your, what's the proper full name of your brand?
Speaker 4:
Misogi Athletica. Okay. And what do you do? We create bespoke headwear, premium, affordable running hats. and we customize these and individualize these for communities, athletes, run clubs, and even the construction industry. Okay.
Speaker 3:
I came across your brand because somebody handed me one of your hats and they know that I go through hats and they're always falling apart and yours is bulletproof.
Adam:
It's brilliant. And, I've been wearing it for, Three months now and it's gone through the wash a hundred times and it's just great. Why and how are your hats so damn good? Well, I'm glad to hear that. It's still lasting yeah, look when we first started looking into hats one of the things that we did for about 18 months, two years, is look at the science behind it and what you'll find is lots of the running hats on the market and the big brand, they advertise fully polyester.
Josh:
Wow. but when we actually get into the nitty gritty of what polyester material is, sometimes there's a ratio of polyester and another ingredient in there which might make the, those fabrics for runners and things like that fall apart. for example, our hats are 100 percent polyester, so those fall apart. Fibers and fabrics will allow moisture and heat to transfer right through. that's why they're so light and hopefully bulletproof like you're finding. Yeah, definitely my go to hat now. I bought you a couple so this is our little bag that they come in if you order them, and I'd like to give you a couple for today, because I know you're running every day, so. Awesome. Thank you very much. Have you got a black one and a white one? I've got a black one and a white one. Okay, fantastic. So I've got you another black one, and then for those days you're feeling a bit funkier. Excellent. I've thrown a pink one in there for you too, so. Fantastic. They are fantastic.
Adam:
Pleasure. So tell me about what's next for you guys. You got any future products or you, we're going to take this little adventure. We really want to nail hats.
Josh:
That's our main core business is hats. Lachlan, my co founder, he's living in London at the moment. So we've we'd like to go into gloves. Probably not the best product for Brisbane where we're based right now, but looking over to Europe and London, we'd like to extend that hat, headwear down into running gloves as well. I think gloves is a great idea, I dug mine out this week. It's got nice and cold. So maybe for a few months in Brisbane, that's really beneficial. Yeah, interesting. I certainly think the early runners, the, you know, early in the day, pre sun, it's, it gets quite cold in Queensland. Absolutely. And even the southern states of Australia, you see people, at the moment, winter time, jumping up at those run clubs at five o'clock. It does get chilly. So that's probably the next thing, but continue to refine our hats and improve those. That, that's going to be the core business for Misogi moving forward. What motivated you to get into this business and hats? What, tell me about that. So during COVID like many people Lachlan and I were struggling with our own mental health. And we started to run as a non negotiable activity for the day to continue that discipline and routine that you, some people, you know, we lost during that time period. And we were wearing just big name brand hats and we were running at hot times in the middle of Brisbane and we started to discover that some of these hats were really quite hot and they were falling apart. So we started to investigate what that was and that's how we started to look at the engineering behind running caps and how it could benefit everyone. From what I understand, that's not the only thing you're doing to support RUOK. Those with mental health. Tell me about that. Yeah. So on top of encouraging people to get outside with running and physical activity and exercise we really wanted to put back into those foundations and organizations that are supporting us and other companies. We make a quarterly donation to the R U OK organization foundation to really give back in that way and not only in a physical way, but in a practical way as well. Yeah, that's awesome. I feel very privileged to have first, not only have found your hat a couple of months ago and been wearing it, but to now have met you and connected with you, I feel very privileged for the, what you're doing.
Speaker 3:
Thank you very much for having me today. Lovely to meet you. Thanks, Josh.