Basically, I learned that the company finances had been mismanaged—by others who were in charge of day-to-day operations. Some people will say, ‘Hey, you were the President of GN for the last year— weren’t you also in charge of operations?’ But my role in the company, the job I performed by giving 100% effort toward the goal of growing Gifted, was making worldwide public appearances in support of GN, promoting GN products on multiple platforms—spreading the word wherever and whenever I could—and winning Mr. Olympia.
While I was out doing that job, there were others tasked with carrying out day-to-day financial operations, but they let me down. They let GN down. Sure, there were growing pains early on—for example, there was a manufacturer who falsely claimed they had FDA approval, and then we had to change manufacturers, which meant GN absorbed a huge loss. But finally, when there were signs of internal wrongdoing, conduct I couldn’t condone, it started to seem like there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
