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Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
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Today, I m joined by one of my best friends, Flamingo Estate founder Richard Christensen.
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Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
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On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we re here.
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Pulling the Thread is about big questions.
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Why we do what we do, how we can understand our own experiences within a larger spiritual and historical context, the ways in which we might begin to understand ourselves and each other better, and what s required to heal ourselves and our world.
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I ll be joined in conversation by luminaries and wise elders, those who have laid tracks in their work and lives to help us bring meaning and understanding to a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming.
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My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant tiny seeds of awareness so that we might all collectively learn and grow.
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I m grateful for seasons.
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I m so happy that there can be a winter, and there can be a spring, and there can be a summer.
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That it can t always be summer, it can t always be bright and happy.
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My book is a bit about that.
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In winter, the stone fruit loses its leaves and it falls down.
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It saves its energy for spring.
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It s okay to sleep.
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I feel like when life served me a winter and I dropped my leaves for a bit, I came back stronger in spring.
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I m just grateful for that idea of that constant change, not just in the world, but in ourselves, and how exciting that has been.
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And that s given me a whole new fresh perspective.
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I keep saying a lot, I want to ripen like a peach.
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I m okay for my skin to get wrinkled and my flesh to get soft.
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I really just want to get really sweet and juicy on the inside and enjoy that process.
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I met Richard Christensen more than a decade ago, though we didn t become very close friends until recently, when strange fates brought us together.
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We have spent the past three and a half years birthing new versions of ourselves.
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We kept each other close company as I wrote my book and launched this podcast, while Richard left the world of advertising to launch a beautiful brand called Flamingo Estate.
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You ve likely seen Flamingo Estate in magazines or on Instagram.
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It s Richard s home and garden, and also the inspiration point for a range of products like, oh, I don t know, honey made from the bees in LeBron James  backyard, to terrazzo bars of soap, to the best olive oil I ve ever tasted.
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I ve never met anyone like Richard, to be honest, who has both a fantastical imagination and an incredible design aesthetic, with his feet firmly planted in the soil.
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Richard grew up on a farm in Australia.
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He s from a whole family of farmers.
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And being in the garden is his first home.
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He has a deep and unabiding reverence for the natural world.
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Jane Goodall is one of his close friends and mentors, after all, which is part of the reason why it s the foundation of his brand.
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He calls nature the last great luxury house.
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And he sees no reason why a gorgeous tomato shouldn t get the same photographic consideration as a handbag.
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We had a wide-ranging conversation about creativity, abundance, pleasure, and fantasy for this special Friendsgiving episode.
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Let s turn to it now.
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Well, it s fun to have you on the spot.
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I feel like I could honestly do this interview for you and anticipate almost all of the things that you re going to say.
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But I know you re going to surprise me and delight me because that s how you roll.
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We have spent so much time on the road together, and I love you with my full heart.
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And so I feel as though you have all these answers.
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Talk to yourself.
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I don t know.
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I ll just talk to myself.
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We ll make this a solo episode.
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So I remember when I first met you, but unfortunately, you don t remember when you first met me.
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No, I remember meeting you, but oh, that first one.
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No, no, no.
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Big memory of you.
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OK, so I ll give context.
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Those are like such a fool.
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How did I not embrace the moment then?
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And we lost a decade.
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I know.
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More than that, we lost 15 years.
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What did we lose?
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Something like that.
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Anyway.
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Let s see, I was still living in New York.
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And so for people listening, I was writing a story for Marie Claire Australia about Australians in the wild in Manhattan.
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This wasn t the thesis, but as it turned out, you all share an unabiding passion for Kylie Minogue.
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I learned a lot about Kylie Minogue while writing that story.
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And Richard was one of the people who was profiled.
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And I knew about Richard because we share a good friend in common, Gigi Guerra, shout out to Gigi.
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And she had always gone to Richard s famous, were they Halloween parties or holiday parties?
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Yeah, holiday parties.
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They got crazy.
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Kylie Minogue performed at one of them.
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Yeah.
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So I never scored an invite, but I knew of Richard and then I wrote this story about him.
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But to be fair, we spent maybe 30 minutes on the phone, 45 minutes, and then I went to the shoot.
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You were the object of my interest, but I wouldn t expect you to remember me.
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And then 10 years later, we met again.
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Was it more than that?
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I think so.
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But anyway, keep going.
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It s a long time.
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Yeah.
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A long time ago.
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I think New Yorkers are like dog years too.
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You know, it was a long time, like a long time.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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But my first week at Goop, Richard came to present.
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And I just remember sitting on the carpet with him.
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And he was sitting on his feet because he was wearing mismatched socks with a hole in the toe.
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But I didn t know that at the time.
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Well, you blew the punchline for those of you who don t know, I had a creative agency and we were asked to design the website and flew all the way to Los Angeles.
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Didn t really know Los Angeles, was so excited to get there and then arrived to your, your colleague s house and I had to take my shoes off at the door.
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And I was like, Oh my God, of all days to have a hole in my sock.
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And yeah, sat on my legs until my legs went numb.
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Yeah.
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I remember that.
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Yeah.
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When I first went to that house, I had just had a baby.
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I was not feeling hot.
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Anyone who has had a baby will understand.
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I was still nursing my child.
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And the only thing that I had confidence in in my outfit were my shoes.
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And then I had to leave them at the door.
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So I understood your pain, Richard.
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So we sat there together, though we didn t really talk.
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No.
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And that was, I mean, that was more than 10 years ago.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And then flash forward to the very beginning of COVID.
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and Richard and I end up on a phone call together and I have no idea why.
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We end up having a two-hour conversation about Terry Tempest Williams and regenerative agriculture and Robin Wall Kimmerer and... We had such a nice conversation.
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Also, I remembered the invite coming through on my calendar and I thought,
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Why on earth does she want to speak to me?
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Because of course, in this time, your star had risen so much.
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I knew who you were.
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And I was like, why does she want to have a phone call?
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And so had this amazing phone call together.
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Billie, didn t we?
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It was a great phone call.
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Well, so we have this amazing phone call.
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Then we start emailing.
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Then we end up like traveling together during COVID and going to retreats.
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And becoming incredibly tight, incredibly close friends as Richard is launching Flamingo, which we ll turn to next.
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And then we re at dinner with some friends and they say, how did you two meet?
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And I say, oh, well, I actually met Richard a million years ago, but then he asked me to get on this phone call.
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I don t know why.
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Like, Richard, why did you want to talk to me?
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And after he was like, no, you asked me.
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Point is, we have no idea how we ended up on a phone call together.
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It was Jesus.
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We had no agenda.
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It was Jesus.
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Honestly though, as soon as you know this, I ve said this before.
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Thank God I met you.
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And thank God whoever put us on that call together, you changed my life.
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I mean that so, so hard.
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So like with my full heart, I am so happy we met each other.
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Oh, thank God.
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I can t imagine not having you on speed dial.
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I mean, we ve had some some adventures in the last few years.
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And I remember on that phone call, because it must have been I want to say it was April or May of 2020.
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Yeah, maybe April.
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It was very soon.
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And I feel like you had just sent out
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COVID had just happened because we were still in the office, you know, a few weeks in the office closed.
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And so it was very early COVID, right at the beginning.
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And had you sent out a box, the CSA box, had Flamingo, like, had that happened?
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Gosh, I don t know.
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I don t know.
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I don t think it had.
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If it hadn t happened, it was happening that next week.
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It was right then it all started.
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And I remember that, you know, the thing about us meeting each other and that call particularly was, you know, I d spent 20 years in friendships that were fully transactional.
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You know, I was the head of a creative agency.
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I was meeting people only through work, for work.
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You know, I ve moved to Los Angeles and I don t know, you know this already, I don t think I really had
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any real friends there wasn t transactional in a way you know I knew so many people but I don t know whether I ever had anyone on speed dial like you just said and so that was a big thing big thing that was a big thing you told
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Yeah, and it s never too late to make new amazing friends.
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So many of my closest friends now are COVID relationships.
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It s interesting, actually.
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I mean, I still have many old friends who I love, but so many new friends.
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Well, I mean, I think we all remember it was such a nice time.
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For those of us who are in that sort of role where you re always out, or you are always out fishing for work, or you re doing something, obviously it was a tough time for so many people.
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But it was also a really easy excuse to edit.
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Yeah.
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And I felt like I was drowning in that before then.
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Oh my God.
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So out of alignment and so unhealthy and so just like work, work, work, work, work.
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And on the treadmill and didn t know how to get off it.
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And just all of that.
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Yeah.
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Well, OK, so let s talk about that, because our friendship sort of started simultaneous to you building a whole new life for yourself and a business, right?
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So interesting.
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I ve never worked in advertising like you, but I ve certainly marketed to women, right?
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And in the beginning of my career, the first decade, that s what we did was
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Lucky was a little different because it was really made for us, for our friends, and by extension I think that s why it was such an incredible success.
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But marketing, advertising, is so dislocated.
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I know that s your favorite word.
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Dislocated.
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So can you talk to me about that, being one of the creative visionaries that helped brands
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big brands, like brands we love, create an image.
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And talk about what that did to you.
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Well, you know, I grew up on a farm in rural Australia.
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And I think the magazine world to a little boy growing up in a big farm in the middle of nowhere was
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this doorway into dreaming, into imagination, into this other amazing world.
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I never went to art school or anything like that.
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I think I learned about the world and I learned about the way brands made people feel.
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through flipping through the pages of magazines when they d arrived for my mom, she d get like World of Interiors and Vogue and all this stuff that was so foreign to us because we lived on this dusty, dirty farm.
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And so when that stuff arrived, I would inhale it.
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I just loved it.
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And it was more this longing for like escapism, sort of like, you know, Alice down the rabbit hole.
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It was so exciting.
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That idea was exciting to me.
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And so I think then
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You know, as time progressed and I started my agency and we were working for, and still are, even though I m not there, brands I dreamed about, Hermes and Cartier and all these luxury brands, which is so far away from where I was.
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as a kid and it was such a thrill.
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And I think that Walt Disney quality of the industry, which I think is slightly different now with, you know, the very short attention span people have for TikTok and Instagram and all that sort of stuff, but it s heightened that extended storytelling on television or in other places.
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It was so exciting and exciting for someone who had never trained in it.
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You know, I always had a bit of imposter syndrome, which is why I think I worked so hard and
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You know, I had a lot of fun and, you know, we ll obviously probably go into this but on every metric was doing well we were, you know, at the height of that time I think we had almost 100 employees we were working with people I loved.
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I was so tired.
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I was.
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always pitching, I was always the quarterback, I was always out there.
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And so the 16 years of that in New York, I was always, always fishing, always looking for another thing.
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We re always just trying to figure out where to go next.
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And that, I think by the time COVID had hit, I was
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just exhausted.
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To be honest, I m really lonely and surrounded by people, but very deeply lonely.
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You know, I think there was a lesson there for me.
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It was a lesson certainly coming up when COVID happened, but it was amazing.
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I mean, also like you, I really understood the power of image, the power of the optics, really understood it.
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Like really, really, really would be given a terrible pair of jeans and told, be told to make them.
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amazing, you know, amazing, the best fitting jeans in America, you know, there was this inherent kind of jazz hands, you know, attitude to everything.
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And it was wonderful.
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No, and I mean, obviously, we vaguely talk about this, but I very much relate growing up in Montana, reading W, reading Interview, just feeling like I had some sort of external access to the world.
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Then I felt a little bit like it s kind of like visiting Oz, where it s more fun, in a way, to be on the other side of the fantasy creation and just to experience it as fantasy rather than fabricating the fantasy.
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But it s interesting to think about both of us starting out on a slightly different related path kind of simultaneously.
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And you were present for my transition as well.
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But from what you ve done too is this like taking the best of the fantasy or creating what I would say with Flamingo Estate, inspiring an image of what s abundant and beautiful and possible and then grounding it
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literally in the earth.
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So talk to us about the creation of Flamingo, which really started with some CSA boxes, which I was very lucky to receive.
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It was just after I called.
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A couple of things happened in a very short couple of weeks.
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I also had a bookshop here in Los Angeles, where I d moved.
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Also, Flamingo State s my home.
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We should get that out the way.
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I live here.
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I m here right now.
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And, you know, this amazing garden that was, I think, the antidote to like everything I was feeling about New York and I just couldn t wait to get my hands back in the soil and do something here.
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Anyway, I was in my bookstore and someone told me about COVID.
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And I kind of brushed it off.
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But within a week, the office in New York had closed.
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We started closing the other offices.
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People were working from home.
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In my heart, I could feel the weight of payroll of that many people was just going to buck all the business.
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And I had spent more time in the office
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in New York than anywhere else in the world.
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I d spent every night there till 10 o clock.
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I was there every weekend.
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It was my whole life was that room.
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And I defined, completely defined myself by my job, by everything I did there.
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I was consumed by it and, you know, and enjoying it, that part of it.
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And
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wanted to make my parents proud and wanted to earn, you know, earn my own living and all that sort of stuff and build something.
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So the idea of that falling apart was my greatest, deepest fear.
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After working that hard for so long to have it crumble in a couple of weeks, which is what happened, was
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Just like crazy.
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And then, you know, at the same time, met a farmer who had a small regenerative farm.
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Her vegetables were going to restaurants, and the restaurants, as you remember, were all closed.
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And I said, let s sell your boxes of vegetables in the car park of the office of the bookstore.
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And, you know, I think she thought we could sell a dozen boxes.
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That first Friday, we sold about 300, and 600 the next Friday, and 1,500 the next Friday.
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And, you know, within six months we had 50 trucks and one phone became to became five became 10 became 130 phones and.
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just one farmer after another.
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And my team at that time, you know, they were also a little bit of free fall, but we had been trained for the better part of 20 years to work on luxury goods.
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So thinking about, let s think about olive oil, like we would have fragrances.
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Think about, you know, tomatoes or vegetables, like we would have bag or a watch.
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And my friends were not working as well because they were not traveling.
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Most of them were photographers.
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I asked them to come over to the house and shoot some of the stuff here.
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It s just such an unlikely story.
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It s such a crazy story that, you know, a year went by and all of a sudden we re like, oh my God, we have not just a business, but we have this thriving business that has lots of different layers.
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Because part of it was also my own curiosity.
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I was here at home.
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I was taking hot showers and long baths.
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I was cooking meals.
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I was doing stuff I had never done for so long.
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I wasn t on planes, I wasn t running, I wasn t in my inbox.
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I was really just like loving it.
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It s a bit of a Julia and Julia story with like that all happening and me also, you know, and then there s the farm aspect.
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meeting all these amazing people who were doing great stuff and just met the most amazing farmers, these incredible farmers all around the world now.
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know a 10th generation tea farmer in Japan and a Manuka honey farmer my dad found to harvest honey on the side of a volcano in New Zealand and you know farms all over the world it s been amazing.
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I think the other shift that you know about well this wonderful guy Martin walked into the house he s an olive farmer and he said I think I have the best olives in
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all of America, they re the perfect altitude and they re the best soil.
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And he said, they re great.
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And I said, I don t need more olive oil.
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And we already have a bunch of olive farms.
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And he said, or I said, one of us said, well, why don t we make soap?
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And so that became, you know, all of a sudden we re in the beauty industry.
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And now, you know, that s
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90% of what we do and we re around the world with that stuff.
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It was an interesting thing because I didn t know how to make shampoo.
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I didn t know how to make hand soap.
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And I think when most people start a business, they re like, this is what I want to make.
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And they go find out how to do it.
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And I think for us, it was the complete upside down.
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We had these people come to us and say, we ve got all this stuff we re growing.
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What can you make from it?
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And so it was really completely upside down.
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And I think that first year and a bit,
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I think we made 150 products, which is unheard of when you think of that in terms of just like, you know, a regular business.
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That was so much fun and is still so much fun and totally, you know, obviously totally different.
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But I think the thing is back to that thing about storytelling and that sort of stuff.
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I grew up in a farm.
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I know the challenges of farming.
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I know the problems with margins.
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I know all that stuff.
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I don t think I d seen anyone come at it through the lens of luxury to say, Mother Nature s the last great luxury house.
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We re going to treat it that way.
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And to put those marketing, branding, design philosophies on top of farming that didn t feel earnest, that didn t feel like greenwashing, I think was part of the magic and things that didn t make sense.
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You know about all the honey we do, like the LeBron James honey and all that sort of stuff, this idea of putting culture into horticulture.
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SPEAKER_02
bringing people from culture in.
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And maybe it doesn t make sense, which is why it sort of makes sense.
2
SPEAKER_02
And what a dream, just so much.
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And you know, you and I have been around the world together now talking about this stuff.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I could not have imagined.
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SPEAKER_02
Life sometimes needs to fall apart magnificently to come back together again.
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SPEAKER_02
And I think that s what professionally happened personally.
2
SPEAKER_02
And here we are, you know.
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SPEAKER_01
No, it does.
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I mean, it s sort of the Takuna Lama that the minute it feels close or you re at some sort of pinnacle, it has to crumble to dust.
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SPEAKER_01
Otherwise, what s the fun in that, ironically?
2
SPEAKER_00
I m Rachel Martin.
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SPEAKER_00
After hosting Morning Edition for years, I know that the news can wear you down.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we made a new podcast called Wildcard, where a special deck of cards and a whole bunch of fascinating guests help us sort out what makes life meaningful.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s part game show, part existential deep dive, and it is seriously fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
Join me on Wildcard, wherever you get your podcasts, only from NPR.
2
SPEAKER_01
One thing about you and watching this happened, which is it s so wild.
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SPEAKER_01
I thought I was sort of a creative, productive person and able to really move things into the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve always been credited with that.
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SPEAKER_01
But you shame me on a different level.
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We ll be at dinner.
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SPEAKER_01
We ll have a conversation.
2
SPEAKER_01
You ll be like, oh, what if like that?
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SPEAKER_01
And then the next week, what do you know?
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SPEAKER_01
It s a product.
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SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s almost that fast.
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SPEAKER_01
And one of the things I appreciate about you, and I heard it when you were talking about the CSA boxes, it s always yes.
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Like, you have this ability, I think, to understand energy and follow it.
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SPEAKER_01
And you re always in a yes place.
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Yes and, like, let s do it.
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What does that feel like in your body?
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And where do you think it comes from?
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Because I ve never met anyone as creatively productive as you.
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Oh, that s so kind of you.
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You know, I think some of it comes from my mom.
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We ve not talked about mom s stories.
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I think my mom s a big warrior.
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She worries a lot, you know, she s filled with anxiety.
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And honestly, I think some of it for me was just, what is the worst thing that could happen if this doesn t work out?
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You know, like, what is the worst thing?
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And really leaning into that.
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And I think there s also, I ve always thought, you know, if you want something done, give it to a busy person.
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There is,
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power in momentum.
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SPEAKER_02
And so that constant movement for me was also self-generating.
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SPEAKER_02
I just want to run fast.
2
SPEAKER_02
We re very lucky that the brand took off in the way it did and just kept doubling and doubling.
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I believe you have a finite window for that moment to crest.
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SPEAKER_02
Every brand, every product has a natural life cycle.
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I want to breathe as much into it as I can.
2
SPEAKER_02
while we re doing that, while we re on the climb.
2
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And so I drive the team absolutely crazy.
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SPEAKER_02
I know that because I am so impatient for newness and new stuff and new things.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I, I am so frustrated with the way things traditionally get made and especially in the beauty industry.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I m just trying to crack the code in a different way.
2
SPEAKER_02
And yeah, why not?
2
SPEAKER_02
There s no time to waste.
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SPEAKER_02
We got to just like strike while the iron s hot.
2
SPEAKER_02
I really, I really, you know, believe that with my full heart and it drives everyone crazy here.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, the other thing, too, about you is that you wear a uniform, generally, of Patagonian t-shirts.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know who makes your pants.
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SPEAKER_01
But you have a very specific, very simple, practical uniform.
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SPEAKER_01
I mean, you are a farmer through and through.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I relate.
2
SPEAKER_01
I feel like I go for Navy.
2
SPEAKER_01
You go for khaki and olive green.
2
SPEAKER_01
But there s always extra with you in the way that you enter.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve never seen anyone entertain with you like you.
2
SPEAKER_01
So for context, Richard had a book party for me, which he promised would be simple and streamlined.
2
SPEAKER_01
But there were synchronized swimmers.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you edge towards abundance, pleasure, indulgence, which is so interesting because you re kind of an aesthetic person in some ways.
2
SPEAKER_01
But can you talk about that?
2
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I love hospitality.
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I love the idea of making people feel warm and happy and excited.
2
SPEAKER_02
Like you, I had been to thousands of work events where you sat in a room and you small talk with a bad bar.
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So, you know, when I renovated this house and the property, it s lots of little rooms.
2
SPEAKER_02
Cause I think the best, the best times you entertain people, when you take them through a journey, you take them from one place to another and you keep moving.
2
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And I had just really had,
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witnessed so many bad examples of that, that I knew when I finally built a home, it was gonna be purpose built for that kind of thing.
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Not in a ostentatious way, but just in a way of like a little bit of fantasy.
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And I grew up in a farm, my parents never entertained, we never ever had people over.
2
SPEAKER_02
My mom had a dining set of fancy dishes and crystal that were to be used only for a special occasion.
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And at one point, they had to sell their farm and the farming sector did really badly.
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They kind of lost all that stuff.
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We never had a special occasion.
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So I ve always had this like there s no casual anything.
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If you ve got something, you have to use it.
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There s no paper plates.
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SPEAKER_02
There s no plastic cups.
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We re always going to use the good stuff because life is too short.
2
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And so there s a bit of that, I think.
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And then I think just also honestly, and it s part of Flamingo as well, the brand, I think
2
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Pleasure is a radical act.
2
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This idea of drink the wine, eat the food, have the hot bath, smell the thing, feel the thing, taste the thing.
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Pleasure to me, or success to me, is having all of your senses engaged.
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Everything fully firing.
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It tastes good, it smells good, it feels good.
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And so I want, I m going to bring everyone in on that journey.
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Really with my whole heart, I think this idea of
2
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Hospitality is much more important than just like a fancy restaurant.
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I think when we re all stuck behind our screens, we re all so disengaged from nature.
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SPEAKER_02
We ve severed that connection between us and pleasure and us and feeling and us and food.
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SPEAKER_02
You know, there s a war on food.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s a Zempik.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s a war on love.
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AI is going to take over all the artists.
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SPEAKER_02
There s all this stuff, you know.
2
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Can we just all have a great meal and a really, really fun time and escape all of that for a minute?
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So I think whenever we ve done something,
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your book party included.
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It would have been much bigger.
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It would have had many more synchronized moments.
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I mean, it s very inspiring because, I mean, we ve had this conversation, but when you go to Richard s house, which is so beautiful, you can see it all over Instagram.
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It s unlike anything I ve ever seen.
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And it s small, similar to my house.
2
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It s not like grand.
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Yeah.
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It s small, but amazing.
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One bedroom.
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Yeah.
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And Richard, obviously he makes candles, but still it s like there s a tabletop lit, like there s an exuberance and abundance to everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
Whereas I m the sort of person, or I was the sort of person until I met Richard, who has a drawer full of candles, and then some that are out that capture dust because I m so stingy about burning candles.
3
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And so I had to sort of see that in myself by watching how easy this is for you to have a celebratory moment.
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And for whatever reason, I don t think I m alone.
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It s very hard for me to quote, unquote, indulge.
3
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Yeah, we talked about this to my mom as well.
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My mom s super, very frugal.
3
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My dad too.
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And I m not really, you know, I don t, you know this, I don t have a car.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m in some ways, I m, you know, wear the same thing every day.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t buy clothes.
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SPEAKER_01
There s some things I m not fussed about, but the stuff that s about the feeling, about the taste and the smells and that stuff, I would double down on because I also think
3
SPEAKER_01
I lost my business.
3
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My parents had lost theirs.
3
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I felt this greatest, greatest fear came true.
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So now what, what I said earlier, what is the worst thing that can happen if we light all the candles and we have a great time and wait people to make them, which is what we do.
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This might feel like an odd question because in some ways, I don t know, I feel like everything you do is so beautiful.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I know for me, when I left, I went from Condé Nast to Time Out New York for a year and a half where I had to produce 14 pages a week, which is nothing now that we have digital, but it really pushed me out of perfection.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I had to just like write and get it out on the page.
3
SPEAKER_00
How do you battle perfection and just get things going and produce at the rate at which you produce at an incredibly high quality, I will add, but do you have an internal struggle?
3
SPEAKER_01
Don t you think sometimes that the perfection is the enemy of good in that sense that you I ve seen that in other people where that hyper focusing on just getting it 100% right or spending all the additional time on it gets in the way of getting it done.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s a good excuse.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, you know, I m so lucky Harvey my partner is
3
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you know, a design obsessed person.
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SPEAKER_01
So the branding and the graphics stuff, he does an amazing job.
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SPEAKER_01
I think we both function really highly there.
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SPEAKER_01
And we have a great, obviously great team now, but that doesn t doesn t keep me up.
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I think we just have such exacting high standards from the get go.
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I think no one comes to the table here
3
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if they re not 100% in.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think everyone sees the beauty in doing something like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think the alternative is you go and work in a company where it takes two years to launch a product.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so, you know, I think there s, again, I think there s fun in that momentum.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you think about the future of Flamingo, I mean, I know where your heart is.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s clear, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, your heart is in the ground.
3
SPEAKER_00
Your heart is with growers and ingredients and, you know, far-flung locales and like the stories of these products.
3
SPEAKER_00
But how do you think about that in the context of building a business?
3
SPEAKER_00
Are there things that you make where you re like, oh, I wish this could be the whole thing?
3
SPEAKER_00
And or is there anything where you re like, I don t really want to make this?
3
SPEAKER_00
Or do you feel like you can always bridge the gap?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think the challenge with any business like this, the business grew so quickly.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ve been with me as I ve been trying to raise capital and working capital, and I d never asked anyone for money before.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think we went through 160 presentations.
3
SPEAKER_00
So fun.
3
SPEAKER_01
Good time.
3
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So I think people often say, oh, is it going to get complex as you scale?
3
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And we are going to scale.
3
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We re going to build a huge brand.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I know that with my full heart, but they d say like, oh,
3
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you know, are you going to have enough farmers?
3
SPEAKER_01
There s enough people.
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SPEAKER_01
We only source from farmers.
3
SPEAKER_01
We don t use middlemen.
3
SPEAKER_01
So they re like, you know, are there enough people on the ground that can fill all your bottles?
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s not the challenge.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s so many great people growing stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s so many good people working.
3
SPEAKER_01
The challenges, you know, comes when you need to take institutional money or you need to take investment from someone.
3
SPEAKER_01
It becomes a discussion around margins, around
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you make this cheaper?
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SPEAKER_01
Can you make this more efficient?
3
SPEAKER_01
And they re obviously valid, really valid questions for a finance person to ask.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I think I have come to really feel as though the ability to scale a brand that really, really, really stands behind its sourcing and treats people well and treats people fairly and does all the right stuff is really, really hard if you ve taken investment from someone.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I remember, I think I had shared with you that we were in a meeting with someone and some of our products have a 70% margin.
3
SPEAKER_01
And someone said, we couldn t work with you unless it s at least 85% or 90%.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you re like, well, then that s the question of how much is enough?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because if you re trying to get to an 85%, 90% margin on a product,
3
SPEAKER_01
You can t buy from farmers, you can t buy directly from them.
3
SPEAKER_01
The farmers are the people who are going to get picked.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can t do it that way, which is why I think you see big beauty, big, you know, that industry, which we can have a whole other discussion about, about the half-truths in that industry that drive me crazy because
3
SPEAKER_01
You have those brands who are getting a pat on the back from one essential oil, or maybe they re using some kind of recycled plastic, which is still plastic.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the half-truths and the greenwashing that s going on now just makes me so angry.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now that I know how to make shampoo, and I know how to make body wash, and I know how to make that stuff, now that I know it, the accolades that people are asking for, the pats on the back, make me really annoyed.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so anyway, that s a different discussion.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I think to keep this going, it requires my full energy just to police that way we make things, the way we treat people, the way they treat the soil, the way they treat things.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that is going to require us maybe making things that cost more than other people, which may be from a customer point of view, also cost more, and helping people see the value of that, actually, you know,
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I can sort of go to two ways on this.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I think customers, consumers, you know, thinking of when you and I were sort of coming of age, marketing or advertising or whatever, there was no transparency, nobody like could probably even define supply chain, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
There was no real consciousness or awareness about it, because it wasn t talked about, and it wasn t marketed.
3
SPEAKER_00
And
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, as we move into this era of transparency, and there are obviously limits to the amount that any of us want to read about what we re consuming, but there is a lot of curiosity.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that there is an interest or desire to know that there s an accounting, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
And that that s why the jar of strawberries are so luxurious, which I think as a consumer who s able to, there s something about supporting that, you know?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think most people don t.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think we never lead with that messaging.
3
SPEAKER_01
We never talk about sustainability.
3
SPEAKER_01
We never talk about environmental impact or give back.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s always the head and it s the second or third or fourth message.
3
SPEAKER_01
We never lead with it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s not just
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not on a when, the metrics show that every time we talk about it, when we lead with that message, people switch off.
3
SPEAKER_01
We have enough to feel guilty.
3
SPEAKER_01
We don t need to feel guilty about our soap.
3
SPEAKER_01
We have enough in the world bothering us.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so you joke about the house and the parties, all that stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
Part of that magic making is like, let s build a luxury brand around
3
SPEAKER_01
aesthetics that is a little bit of dog whistle marketing.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s very intentional that we can get people to love it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then, oh, actually, wow, look at all the stuff they re doing under the hood.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s amazing.
3
SPEAKER_01
But the other thing I was going to say on that, which I think is interesting, is that there s more products than any of us ever need right now.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of stuff out there.
3
SPEAKER_01
The wellness, beauty industry, it s so full, it s packed.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think it s because there was an easy supply of capital.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think the making of those products, if you re going to do it the standard way through a contract manufacturer, became much easier to do, much more turnkey, which is why I think you see this proliferation of celebrity brands that you whack a logo on and instead of it s made, you know, that mechanism got easier.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think the other big shift that not a lot of people talk about is that my old industry
3
SPEAKER_01
The advertising industry really changed.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, it became so democratized.
3
SPEAKER_01
TikTok and Instagram gave the ability for everybody to have a brand.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so with that significant spend, but it also made the airtime you have much shorter.
3
SPEAKER_01
You have four or five seconds to get that across.
3
SPEAKER_01
And in a way that is detrimental because it doesn t give
3
SPEAKER_01
Brands who are doing really well, the airtime to speak about how they re working or giving back or all that sort of stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I think that collision of capital, social media, contract manufacturing has given us more crap than we ll ever need to be able to ever use.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think also makes it a bit harder for people to stick their head up above the crowd.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, as you know, I ve been served ads on Instagram because I have, I guess, a high enough following that are your logo here on beauty products.
3
SPEAKER_00
So watch out, everyone.
3
SPEAKER_00
Pulling the thread face cream.
3
SPEAKER_00
But no, it is alarming because I certainly have no business making skin care.
3
SPEAKER_00
And yet, we re sort of at that point in the culture where the barrier to entry is so low
4
SPEAKER_01
But as you know, your bar soap.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s the best real fans.
4
SPEAKER_01
The Toronto bar soap, the black bar soap.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s so beautiful.
4
SPEAKER_01
Smells so good.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I know, I know.
4
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for the plug.
4
SPEAKER_00
But you know, that oil comes from a farm, this island off the coast of Japan, and it s a UNESCO heritage site, and money from that goes back to the island, and it s illegal to do any logging there, so they make the oil from fallen trees, and some of these cypress trees are 5,000 years old, and like, it s amazing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Amazing.
4
SPEAKER_00
It is amazing.
4
SPEAKER_00
My mother is like, oh my God, Richard, why are you selling soap that s $30 a bar?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, you re so greedy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, Mom, if you just knew how much time and how many hands went into that, you would know that you should really rejoice in taking that hot bath.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s really good.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
I just saw, I m sure you saw, that Pharrell has a million dollar bag today.
4
SPEAKER_00
Did you see that, Louis Vuitton has a million dollar handbag?
4
SPEAKER_00
And it got some fun press this morning, I saw it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I sat with him for a minute, cause I said, you know, we get so much shit for being too expensive as a brand.
4
SPEAKER_00
We do.
4
SPEAKER_00
So like, how dare you charge $75 for a box of vegetables?
4
SPEAKER_00
You people are greedy.
4
SPEAKER_00
What are you doing?
4
SPEAKER_00
How dare you spend, you know, we get so much stuff like that around price, price sensitivity around, especially around food, but a little bit around the other products.
4
SPEAKER_00
And there isn t that outrage about the mock-up for a million-dollar handbag.
4
SPEAKER_00
There isn t this outrage.
4
SPEAKER_00
But if we were to sell strawberries that are $30 because they are, you know, packed into a jar and it s an amazing farm and they use water well, like all the sort of stuff that you know about the strawberries that people complain endlessly about the cost.
4
SPEAKER_00
we probably make a dollar on those strawberries per jar.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I hope there is a understanding around supermarket prices for food.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, again, it s a question of how low is low.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the lower it goes, the more those people working on the ground get.
4
SPEAKER_01
Get screwed.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, and it s complicated.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we ve spent a lot of time talking about this, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Like the essential, the most essential, life-affirming, life-giving products, there s this expectation that it should all be cheap.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think that here s where we get confused.
4
SPEAKER_01
It needs to be accessible.
4
SPEAKER_01
We live in a country full of food deserts.
4
SPEAKER_01
It needs to be acceptable and available
4
SPEAKER_01
to people who need this food for their families.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we need to prioritize it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know, it s like it needs to be subsidized.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s tricky, because I think we conflate two things, which is we need families to have access to really high quality, fresh, whole foods.
4
SPEAKER_01
So how do we use food as a prescription in this country?
4
SPEAKER_01
How do we subsidize it in a way that gets food to the people who need it?
4
SPEAKER_01
And then how do we simultaneously support and celebrate all these local growers who are taking care of the planet as part of that process?
4
SPEAKER_01
And they can t be mutually exclusive.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it has to happen on both sides.
4
SPEAKER_00
The other thing I ve been thinking about, you know, I ve been writing this book, the other thing I ve been thinking about with the book is when I was a kid, my mom and dad were just like, you know, be a lawyer and be a doctor.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I would hope for both of your sons and for my other friends with kids, that it s really time for us to say, be a farmer.
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be a gardener, be a carpenter, go and do something with the earth, do something with your hands, put your hands in the soil.
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To me, this generational trap of
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be a doctor and a lawyer, you know, when I was a kid, like it s only the smart kids, the doctors and lawyers, the kids that are not doing well at school become like gardeners and farmers.
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That paradigm has to completely change because right now the world needs more farmers and it needs more gardeners and it needs more green people.
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It needs everyone with, you know, big green thumbs and middle fingers to come out and do their thing.
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And we need to encourage people to do that so much.
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OK, take us five years into the future, 10 years.
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What does Flamingo look like?
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Only three years, and I think we ve worked out what people love.
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We re obviously doing well in Australia.
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I think Japan is next, then on to Europe.
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And I think we ve sort of dialed the beauty, bath and body part of the business, the stuff that we make.
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It s great, I love it so much.
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And that part of the business gets me really excited.
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It s also, you know, the part that people have responded to well.
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I would love to do more with food here.
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I think there s a,
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real opportunity to have a national food brand that s about all the things we ve just spoken about, about regenerative agriculture and really great people making things.
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And I d love there to be a sort of capsule for that.
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I d love there to be a brand that could work with us to scale that.
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The industry is difficult to scale and I would love to
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have a flamingo wool and, you know, I don t know what, insert here, supermarket brand nationally, and to have a full line of products there.
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Right now that stuff is all available in Bits and Bobs, but I think in Australia, as you know, we have these wonderful partners at Mecca, who you and I have visited, who have a
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beautiful, brilliant brand.
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And I think to see how our products all there together in Australia on a wall, but all the Bath and Body and Candles together, it really sells the story.
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You really understand it when it s merged together and it s all there.
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And we re really punching above our weight there.
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I d like to do the same in grocery here.
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It d be a big dream of mine to do the same with food.
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And then you think about it.
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I mean, you heard me talk about this for so long when we were trying to get fundraising.
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People are like, what are you?
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Are you a food brand?
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Are you a beauty brand?
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Are you a bath brand?
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You re doing too many things.
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What are you?
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Pick a lane.
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Something s got to fall out.
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No one s really built a brand that is about just pleasure in all those rooms, in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the living room, wherever you are.
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And that s selfishly what I d love to do, that I want to be able to have my coffee in the morning, which we make, and I want to have my bath at the end of the day with my soap, which we make.
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And I think all those things can go together because we re not really
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a body brand or a beauty brand or a food brand.
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I think what we are is a, is an ingredients certification brand, if you will.
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We re just a group of a hundred and something farms feeding into a machine.
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And so I would say in 10 years, let s say we re a thousand farms doing the same thing and we just continue to grow.
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That would be, and you re doing something with all those, all that money, email the books.
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And we ve talked about Jane Goodall a lot, my friend who we work with and the people you ve introduced me to, Terry Tempest Williams and those,
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heroes of both of ours in the green world and I d love to wrap my arms around all of that content in a more dynamic, interesting way.
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I feel like that sort of happened with food, it happened with chefs, it happened with television and media, with cooking.
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I d like it to happen with the rest of it now and all those amazing people who are thought leaders in that space.
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We need to hear more of that.
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I m really, really hungry for more of that.
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It s interesting just to think about, I hadn t really thought about or made that connection between you as advertising, treating this world like the luxury product that it is, the paradigm shift of that from like the Pharrell bag, moving away from the status symbols of the past decades or centuries.
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toward venerating or revering or celebrating something that s more ephemeral, right?
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Seasonal, nourishing that interiority or community or relationship or celebration.
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Yeah, I also love this idea of, I mean, two things there.
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I love that you ve mentioned seasonal.
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I love this idea, you know, of radical inconsistency as an idea and leaning into that because the beauty industry, especially, you know, you want to go buy your hand soap or your face cream and it s always the same and you expect it to be always the same and the wholesalers expect it to be always the same.
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But if it s made directly from the ground,
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It should never be the same.
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You know, a bottle of olive oil.
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This year, the olive oil is so bright and green and tangy because it was such a good year and there was enough rain and no wind.
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And it s a great season for olive oil.
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We expect it in olive oil.
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We expect it in wine.
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We expect it in these things that there is seasonality.
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One year is better than a different year.
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So why wouldn t we expect it in our face cream and our hand soap?
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that maybe the Douglas fir from the rainforest up in British Columbia has got so much more potency because of the temperatures there this year than it did last year.
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And why wouldn t the sage smell different?
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I think everyone should know that it s always going to be good, but it should never be the same.
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And I love that idea.
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living so close to the seasons that you know if you re going to buy a bar of soap from us or a bottle of body wash or something it s a real living time capsule of a moment in time and I really want the quality control people to back away when it smells totally different because it should smell totally different because it s not
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It s not made in a factory.
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It s made in a farm, you know?
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And so I think there needs to be a little bit of excitement around radical inconsistency.
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I get so excited about it.
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People think I m crazy, but I love that idea.
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I sometimes worry about that with AI, you know, creatively also, if everyone s feeding out of the same inputs to create their fake things, it s all going to start looking and feeling and sounding the same.
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And so we got to champion those people who are doubling down on things being different.
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Yeah, moving to these other senses because I think the visual is so fake right now, but taste is real.
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Hearing smell is real.
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I think it s moving into helping us develop our senses, which I think have been sort of numbed out.
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Smell is only real if we re using essential oils, not fake fragrances, which is very rare.
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Yeah.
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So this is coming out right before Thanksgiving.
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What are you grateful for?
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Well, I m grateful for you.
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I was going to say, you can t say that you re grateful for me.
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Look, I m just grateful for fresh starts.
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I m grateful for seasons.
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I m so happy that there can be a winter, and there can be a spring, and there can be a summer.
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It can t always be summer.
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It can t always be bright and happy.
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My book is a bit about that.
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In winter, the stone fruit loses its leaves, and it falls down.
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It saves its energy for spring.
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It s okay to sleep.
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I feel like when life served me a winter and I dropped my leaves for a bit, I came back stronger in spring.
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I m just grateful for that idea of that constant change, not just in the world, but in ourselves and how exciting that has been.
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And that s given me a whole new fresh perspective.
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I keep saying a lot, I want to ripen like a peach.
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I m okay for my skin to get
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wrinkled in my flesh to get soft.
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I really just want to get really sweet and juicy on the inside and enjoy that process.
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So I m grateful for that.
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I m also just grateful that we re here at home and I feel like the world feels really dark right now and so overwhelming.
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And part of the solution to that is in our own lives is just focusing on the really simple things, you know, a good hot bath, a good hot meal, being really kind to people.
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And I heard you mentioned this morning, you said, I listened to you this morning on
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of your other episodes talking about this rigidity of good versus bad and if you re on this person s side you re not on this person s side and that really felt really true right now around this like real rigidity and like anger one team or the other you know and I yeah
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Really, if I haven t learned anything in this whole process, it s that there s just such magic that happens when everyone can work together.
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And this me versus them is very unhealthy for all of us.
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Yeah, I think it professes to promise us all safety and security.
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But really, it just strands us.
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Yeah, my amazing partner and I were in Mexico last week.
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And we went to a farm.
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This amazing guy who has 900 acres in the, I think I told you, 900 acres in the middle of the thickest jungle I ve ever, ever seen.
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I didn t think that kind of jungle existed.
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And together with my colleague Victoria, we drove hours into this little 20 acre lot in the middle of the farm, which is sort of this naturally cleared lot.
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And the reason it s engineered that way is because, or he chose this property was because all the jungle around it, it s too far for any bee to travel to.
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So none of the stuff that is growing will be
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visited by any bees that may have also been on any sort of chemicals or anything like that.
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So really this like really amazing Noah s Ark, this hidden gem in the middle of the jungle.
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And they re growing amazing heirloom vegetables from rare seeds and doing all sorts of interesting work.
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And one of the people on the trip was like, oh, you know, this is where we would come, you know, when the world ends.
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And I was like, no, this is what home should feel like all the time because there was such a joy and such a gratitude and like general happiness to that place.
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They re growing stuff they love, they re having fun all day doing it.
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It was amazing.
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I really wanted to bring the spirit of that back home.
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It just was so nice to see people living.
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I mean, not that we should ignore what s going on in the world and not listen to media, but it was just great to see someone taking care of their own land and having a really nice time.
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Well, and I think, I mean, speaking of regenerative aquaculture, but this planet is quite regenerative, too, when we get out of the way.
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And I think it can feel like we re so far gone.
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But I retain my optimism that we live in this, like, incredible, magical, replenishable world, and that everything is possible.
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I really believe that. 100%.
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I guess the garden teaches that to us as well, right?
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Having Richard in my life has been an unexpected joy and endlessly surprising because he really is a wizard.
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I ve never met anyone quite like him.
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He is offering
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listeners a discount on Flamingo.
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So if you re looking for gifts for the holidays, I really could recommend no brand more and everyone s always so excited to receive it.
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So pulling the thread 20 gets you 20% off at flamingoestate.com.
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Have a wonderful holiday.
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If you like today s episode, please rate and review and tell a friend.
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You can find show notes and full transcripts of the episodes at EliseLoonan.com.
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While there, please sign up for my sub stack.
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I send a short note every Wednesday about topics that are aligned with this show and a deeper dive most Sundays.
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Or follow me on Instagram at EliseLoonan.
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And finally, if you haven t already, please consider picking up a copy of my New York Times bestselling book, On Our Best Behavior, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good, available wherever you get your books.
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It s an exploration of how women have been conditioned for goodness, men for power, and all the ways we ve been programmed to police ourselves and each other according to these cultural ideas of what it is to be a good woman.
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I d also like to give a huge thank you to my sponsors who make this show possible.
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Please support them the way they support this podcast.
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This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studio.
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If you enjoyed this episode, please listen, rate, review, and follow Pulling the Thread.
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Available now for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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I want to give a shout out to Phil Svitek, Lauren LaGrasso, Mary-Kate McDonough, Ali Brockman, and the entire Kedans13 team for producing these episodes, and to Valero Duval for my key art.
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Take care of yourselves.
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I ll see you next time.