Hayden Slater, co-founder of cold-pressed juice chain Pressed Juicery, is a self-professed former junk-food junkie. But he started juicing after taking a college yoga class and later traveled to Southeast Asia where he dove into a 30-day juice cleanse. Since then, he’s lost around 60 pounds. He helps oversee the Santa Monica juice chain’s creative team and lifestyle website. With more than more than 400 employees across more than two-dozen stores, with more set to open soon, he’s busy. Slater recently spoke with the Business Journal about carving out quality time in his hectic schedule and his love of volunteering in spite of his heavy workload.
Question: Describe your morning routine.
Answer: It changes every day. I’m up between 5 and 5:30 a.m. I take a quick walk down to the beach with my dog. I do boxing twice a week or a spin class – I’ll do SoulCycle once or twice a week – or go to the gym. I get a coffee from Blue Bottle Coffee and head straight to the office. I’m there at around 8 or 8:30 a.m.
What does a typical workday involve for you?
A lot of meetings and a lot of marketing. I travel a good amount. It’s hard to say, running around visiting stores or staying in the office, opening new stores, working with creatives. We’re getting ready to launch vending machines.
How do you maintain work/life balance?
I work a lot, pretty much Monday through Friday at the office. I’ve got to find balance and incorporate other things. On Mondays, I attend a Marianne Williamson lecture at the Saban Theatre. I take a ceramic class once or twice a week and go hiking or sailing once or twice a week. On Saturdays, I volunteer at Cedars-Sinai in the ER. It was something I just really wanted to try. I told them I remain really calm in crisis. Pretty quickly, it became the one day of the week I look forward to the most. It put everything in perspective. You realize how fortunate you are, absolutely.
What’s something few people know about you?
I’m extremely adventurous and spontaneous. I have this motto: I’m just about willing to try anything twice.
