Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Episode 54: Leila Janah, CEO & Founder Samasource & LXMI

Transcript

Episode 54: Leila Janah, CEO & Founder Samasource & LXMI · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: You are listening to episode fifty four of Hurdle, a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: podcast that talks to everyone from top CEOs to entrepreneurs
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and athletes about how they got through tough times hurdles
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: of sorts by leaning into wellness. My name's Emily A Body,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and today I'm chatting with Lyla Johanna. She is the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: mastermind behind Luxmi and Samosaurus, and we'll get into what
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: those are in just a little bit. Before we do.
• 0:26
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  Speaker 1: to Athletic Green dot com. Slash Hurdle again. That's athleticgreens
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: dot com slash hurdle to get yours today. All right, now,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: let's talk about Lila. Here's the thing. I feel like
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I never take a break. I'm constantly on the go.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: But this woman, she is the definition of a boss babe,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: a total powerhouse. And that also means that she's under
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of stress all the time. In twenty seventeen,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: she logged nearly five hundred thousand miles and forty four
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: days in the air. She was at a conference in
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Helsinki when she felt a pain in her abdomen and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: was rushed to the er. Doctors told her that if
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: she had not had emergency surgery right then and there,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: she could have died, and as a result, she had
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: an infection which hospitalized her for two weeks. To recover,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: she leaned into her relationship and love for kitesurfing, and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: also just doing more checking in with herself. Since Leila
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: and I had our conversation a couple months back, she
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: actually announced that she's got a rare form of cancer.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: It's called epithelioid sarcoma. I hope I said that right
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: these things can happen to anyone you know, Leila lives
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: a really healthy life. Aside from kitesurfing, She's super active,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: she loves yoga, she's constantly outside and you know, building
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a better body and her outlook on this is just remarkable.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: For lack of a better word to demonstrate that, I
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: want to read straight from her Instagram post where she
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: shared this news. It's something really special, she says. I
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: decided to share it publicly because I have learned, in
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the course of building my companies that the consistent support
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of friends and community is a powerful tool in the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: face of many seemingly impossible obstacles. I've been forced to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: take a break from kite surfing, free diving and the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: immersive experiences in nature that bring me so much joy.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Being held back by surgery and recovering at home feels
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: like a prison sentence. But then I remember that every
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: healthy moment is a gift, and that I've had more
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: than my fair share of these to date. No one
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: is immune to illness, she continues on to write, Susan
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Sontag said it best. Illness is the night side of life,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a more wondrous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: citizenship in the Kingdom of the well and Kingdom of
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: sooner or later, each of us is obliged, at least
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: other place. So here's to gaining another passport and another
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: life experience. Wow, what an outlook to have, Lilah. I'm
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: thinking of you. I'm so honored and overjoyed that we
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: had the opportunity to have this conversation. And this is
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: just another Hurdle moment. I'm sure your passions for wellness
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and the karma that you put into the world through
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the work that you do, there's so much good coming
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: your way and I believe it. You guys, you can
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: send Lilah your well wishes on Instagram or handle is
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Lilah Johnna. That's l E I l A j A
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: n H. And as always, make sure to tag at
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Hurdle Podcast on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as you're listening
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: this week. With that, let's get to hurdling. I'm sitting
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: here today with Lyla Johanna. She is the CEO of
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Sama Source and looks me. We'll get into what those
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: are in a second, but Hi, How are.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: You so good to be here in this beautiful studio.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I'm so happy to have you here. You know, we're
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: going to learn a lot about you today, including all
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the crazy places you've visited and about the companies that
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: you've started. But I think what's important to note right
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: off that is that you and I have something in
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: common in that you were also a journalist at one
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: point in your life.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I was. I was a travel writer.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So I have to ask you as someone myself. I'm
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: doing a ton of traveling this month. Where is one
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: of your favorite places that you've been?
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: There are so many competing destinations, but I would say
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: my favorite place currently is the northeast of Brazil, where
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: I went kite surfing. We'll talk about that what happened
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: right after that, but it's just a magical place. It's
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: really remote. To get to some of the spots where
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: we kite surf, you have to drive in a dune
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: buggy for hours on the sand, and it's like my
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: idea of heaven.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, a dune buggy. I don't even know
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: what a dune buggy looks like.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I guess like a quad bike something like that. It's
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: like like a little buggy that can get over the
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: sand dunes efficiently. Well, it sounds awesome, it's super awesome.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And your cell phone doesn't work in half the spots,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: which is such a blessing.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: When I travel internationally, I actually never activate an international
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: cell phone plant.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: I'm so jealous of your life right now.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not a CEO of two huge companies, but it's
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: kind of the biggest joy that I get. Traveling is
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: completely disconnecting from everything that's going on here.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: That's why a kite surf, because if I'm looking at
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: my phone while I'm attempting to kite surf, I'm most
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: certainly going to get like dragged across a beach or
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: just embarrassed by the wind wave combo, So I choose
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: sports that forced me to turn off. But sadly, I
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: have to keep my phone and when I travel.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: All right, So let's rewind a little bit. I want
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: to hear about where you're from, So why don't we
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: start there?
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Sure? So, my parents are Indian and Belgian. My grandmother
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: has this crazy story she hitchhiked around the world as
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: a young Belgian woman in her twenties from Paris literally
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: around the world, through India, through big parts of Asia,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: through the US, and ended up back in Paris. And
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: she did it on five dollars and wrote this amazing
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: story about it. And that's how she met my grandfather
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: in Calcutta and India in the early fifties. So then
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: my mom was born in India but had this really
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: interesting background. My father's from the south of India and
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: they came here in the late seventies, and I was
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: born in Upstate New York.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: In Upstate New York, a little less exotic.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: A little buffalo was definitely less exotic than Kalkatta. I
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: actually grew up though, in southern California, where being like
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: a brown girl was totally normal because we have a
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: lot of diversity there. So I was, I think lucky
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: to grow up in a beautiful, sunny environment that wasn't
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: that different from where my parents are from.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, so, what was it
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: like to grow up in California.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: I have this belief that there's this sense of optimism
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: in California, possibly because the weather is like fantastic all
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: of the time in southern California, but also it just
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: feels like a land of opportunity, like it was one
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: of the last parts of the country to get settled
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: and always had this frontier mentality of like exciting things
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: that can happen. We're close to Asia where economic growth
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: rates are really high, so I love California with all
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: my heart. I think it's also a state that celebrates diversity.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: It's the fifth largest economy in the world, so it's
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: kind of its own place.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I love that the things that you point out have
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: a lot to do, like with business growth, spoken like
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a true entrepreneur. When you were younger, did you think
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: that you would be as much of an entrepreneur as
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you are now.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I never dreamed of being an entrepreneur. I wanted to
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: spend my life working on big social and environmental problems.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: So I should say that the main reason I love
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: California before all the business stuff, is that I grew up.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: My parents had no money when we grew up, so
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: our only vacations were camping, and lucky for me, we
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: grew up camping in the most beautiful national parks I think,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: in the country, in my home state, and that was
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: like free vacation basically, So you know, a big part
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: of my motivation to start my businesses was preserving the
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: environment and working on social justice causes. But I got
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: more and more frustrated with the traditional aid mentality and
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: the way we currently deal with global and domestic poverty,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: which is too focused on handouts, too dependent on the
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: whims of very wealthy people as donors, and not based
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: enough on equitable capitalism. And I really wanted to build
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: you know, from the first time I really spent time
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: in Africa, when I was like seventeen, I really wanted
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to build businesses that would give
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: work to low income people and treat them fairly and
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: in a dignified way as well paid workers.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: How did you end up in Africa at seventeen?
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: That was such a random story. So my parents at
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: this really unusual background, but we did not have an
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: idyllic childhood. There was a lot of fighting at home.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: My brother and I both ended up finding ways to
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: escape that. My escape was I graduated high school early
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: and I found a scholarship that let me use the
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: money to go to Africa do community service work before
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I started college, which was honestly, it sounds like I
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: was this like saintly young person, but actually I just
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: wanted to get the heck out of home, and this
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: was a really good way to do it.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Gotcha, and you went to Harvard I did.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I got super lucky again, Like we literally had so
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: little money on stuff like that, and my parents didn't
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: have a college fund or anything. I worked in high
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: school to be able to pay for stuff, and I
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: went there because it offered me the best financial aid package.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: And I afforded to go to school because I had
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: these scholarships. I worked hard and prepared for my SATs.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I was a pretty nerdy kid, but I had never
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: in my wildest dreams did I expect that I'd go
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: to an Ivy League school. I went to like public
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: school all my life and was really lucky to get
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: into the like magnet programs in high school that let
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: me go there.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: So at Harvard, what are you studying?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: So I when I got there, I knew I wanted
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: to work. After this time in Africa, I'd seen so
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: much avoidable tragedy, Like I'd seen a kid in my
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: village in Ghana die because her parents could not afford
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: a medication that costs five dollars and I only found
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: out about it after the fact. But she died of
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: malaria and they couldn't get malarial treatment. And it blew
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: my mind that at that time, in the year two thousand,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: there was such disparity in the world that enabled this
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: kind of like horrible suffering if you happened to be
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: born in a place that was poor. And I wanted
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: to understand why that was the case and what could
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: be done to fix it. So I created a special
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: major around international development with a focus on Africa, and
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: I was really interested in global poverty because it seemed
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: to me that that's where some of the greatest injustices
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: were happening, like people dying because they were forced to
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: live on a dollar a day, and not just like
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of people, but over a billion people.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of overwhelming, and when you hear stats
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: like that for the first time, it's understandably leaves you
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: kind of speechless and admirable that you learned about these
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: injustices and these unfortunate conditions, and that you decided that
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: you wanted to do something about it yourself, because it
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: sounds like such an overwhelming undertaking.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: In all honesty, When I was in high school and
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: growing up, I wanted to be a biologist. I wanted
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: to work with animals. I loved the ocean. I remember
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: watching like Jack Cisto documentaries when I was a kid
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: and loved spending time on that. And after I went
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: to Ghana and saw firsthand, like what life is like
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: for billions of people who have no money, it was
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: it became something that haunted me. I couldn't not do this.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell me a little bit about post college,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: because it's not like the second you graduated college you
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: started your first company. And then we'll get into a
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: little bit about what sama source is all about.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: So I did this weird major. I was already a
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: weirdo at Harvard because I had gone my school and
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: then found a way to finance the strip to Africa,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: and a lot of people who'd done similar things had
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: very wealthy parents and trust funds and the ability that
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: like work for no money. I always had to hustle
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: to make ends meet and to go back to Africa
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: and do more of the work I wanted to do.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I got grants, I figured out ways to work it
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: into my research, but by the time I graduated, I
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: was really angry. I had seen so many aid programs
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: and like, well meaning mostly white people going to Africa
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: to try to save people and try to make things better,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: only to make them worse. And the thing that struck
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: me most is that so few of these very well
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: meaning Western attempts to fight poverty actually valued the talent
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: and capabilities of people in Africa. It was very much
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: like a oh, you poor person, take this hand out,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: and you know, let's build a school for you, or
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: let's donate you know, some old clothes to you. And
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: if we really want to value people as equals, we
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: owe them more than that. We have to think about
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: how we can create economic opportunity so they can enjoy
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: the same freedom that we have to you know, in
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: a market economy, use cash to purchase the things they
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: want to purchase. So at the end of this whole thing,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I was like, I need to figure out a way
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: to work for an ethical company what is now called
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: a social enterprise that actively moves people out of poverty
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: and addresses this problem of poverty, but through a sustainable
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: business model that actually treats people as equals and isn't paternalistic.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: And I was really inspired by what I'd read about
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: the microfinance movement and a bunch of these new social
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: enterprise models. But I couldn't find any way to do
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: that and pay my college tuition bills. So I went
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: to work for a consulting company Okay, and I was
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: really lucky. It was an offshoot of Mackenzie. It was
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: one of these firms. It was like a boutique strategy
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: firm here in New York. And with that I was
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: able to like quickly pay back some of my loans
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: and in two years I quit. I knew I didn't
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: want to be a career consult but I learned a
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: bunch of business skills that were super helpful. I learned
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: how to make an Excel spreadsheet and read a P
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: and L statement, and I learned the fundamentals of business.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: It was like a mini business school.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: It's just so crazy to hear you talk about the
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: things that drive you because it's a so well articulated
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and obviously this is something that you're super passionate about.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: But at the time, I mean, please correct me if
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but your passions and what lights you on
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: fire is probably a little bit different than the people
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: that you're surrounding yourself with.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's different. I mean, I don't know. I again,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: if you watch that kind of avoidable suffering, if you're
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: in close proximity to it. My parents grew up in
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: a developing country, so my mom would tell me stories.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Calcutta is a really poor city in India. It's got
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: some amazing talent and amazing art, but a lot of
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: people living in extreme poverty. And my mom told me
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: a story about once, like throwing down the scrap of
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: bread for the street dog, and a child ran after
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: it on this street, like an emaciated child living on
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: the street. When you see that kind of stuff day
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: after day for a prolonged period, it just haunts you.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Like I again, I in some ways wish I could
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: go off and do biology and as soon as we
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: address this problem with global poverty, that's next on my agenda.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: But it's just it's like become an emergency. And I
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: feel the same way about about climate action and preserving
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: the environment, like if we don't do something now, like
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: future generations will look at us and be like what
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: were you thinking?
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, So tell me about Samasaurce.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: So Samasaurce came out of the first experience that I
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: had in Gana noticing that I was. I was a
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: teacher during those six months volunteering before college, and the
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: thing that struck me was that the kids I was
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: teaching were extremely poor, and not because their parents were
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: sitting around eating coconuts. So their parents were working, often
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: like their moms were working three jobs to make ends meet,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: to literally make a dollar fifty or two dollars a day.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: They would have a business selling things by the side
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: of the road. They would be maybe making handicrafts, they
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: would be farming, these types of informal activities, and it
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: struck me that if only the children of these parents
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: had job opportunities, the whole situation would be different. Right,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: And many of the students that I was teaching were
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: actually really right and could name us senators. They were
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: current on global news, They spoke beautiful English, They could
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: read and write. I was teaching out a blind schools,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: so many of them were using tools to write and braille.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: But I was amazed because the myth that we have
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: about extreme poverty is that no one's literate, so therefore
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: they can't do a job that might pay more. So
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: it turned out that there are millions of young people
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: who are coming out of high schools and developing countries
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: who are more than capable of doing various types of work.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: And at the same time that I saw this happening,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: I noticed that there was this amazing trend in remote work.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I read Tom Friedman's book The World Is Flat. I
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: started learning about this whole new industry that had popped
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: up around business process outsourcing of like you know, accounting
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: and those types of jobs, and I thought, well, if
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: there's a way we could somehow make this kind of
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: digital work accessible to really low income people, that would
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: solve this problem of poverty really directly, and it would
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: do it in a way that's market driven. There's lots
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: of demand for this kind of work, so that seemed
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: like it would solve a problem. I wrote up a
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: business plan while I was still employed by my consulting firm,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: and I launched this company in Kenya and the US
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight. And my original business plan
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: was I'm going to find work that tech companies. I
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: had some friends in San Francisco, so I relocated there.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: That tech companies could outsource but to very low income
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: people through a model that was really really different from
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: traditional outsourcing. And one that would guarantee a living wage
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: for people that we would recruit and train. And it
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: was all so the mission to not just hire you know,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: college graduates in Kenya, but really to go after people
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: who didn't have any formal job opportunities. So since then,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: we started with them with fifty people working through different
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: partners that I found that had access to computer labs
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: in the capital city, Nairobi and Kenya, and we have
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: now grown to become the premier provider of training data.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: So we do a lot of image annotation and other
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: kinds of work for the artificial intelligence industry. We have
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: over two thousand full time people now working for us
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: in Kenya and Uganda.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And do the agencies that are over in Kenya and Uganda.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: They come to you with candidates to do this type
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of work.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we employ these people directly. We do a
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: lot of training because the people that we're recruiting are
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: coming from really low income backgrounds, mostly from big informal
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: communities or slums. So they might be really smart, they
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: might have finished secondary school, they might speak beautiful English,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: but they haven't had a lot of experience doing any
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: kind of digital work. So there's a training process. There's
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: tons of nonprofit organizations who are really trying to place
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: people in jobs because they too have realized that the
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: solution to poverty is to give work, not to keep
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: people trapped in handouts. So we are flooded with applicants.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I wish we could hire ten times more people because
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: there's that supply.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: So the question then becomes, what would enable you to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: hire that many more people?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we're We just changed our structure. So
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: I set up the company as a nonprofit as a
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: five oh one C three, and we grew the business
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: inside of the nonprofit, which is a really interesting model
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: because it means that you're able to focus on the
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: social mission while also having a sustainable stream of revenue,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: so you're not dependent on again the whims of rich
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: people to write you donations. But you reach a certain
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: scale as we have, where you really need to invest
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: to be able to build more and scale up, and
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: that investment usually comes before you start doing the work right,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: So you need investment capital, and that's really hard for
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: nonprofits to attain at our scale. So we decided to
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: set up a hybrid where the nonprofit basically owns the
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: business and we've allowed investors to buy equity in the
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: business with the nonprofit owning the majority of the company,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: which is a really unusual structure in the venture capital world,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: but I think a really cool one that proves that
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: you don't have to do capitalism the traditional way.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: And throw me a timeline here, So when did this start?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And then when have you made this pivot in your
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: business structure?
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: We literally are just making the pivot right now because
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: so we're just closing on our first investment in this structure,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: which we're not kind of widely announcing because I don't
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I don't really think investment milestones.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: This is about this is about to blow up, that's
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: the hope.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: And we're doing it also because a lot of competitors,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: like very for profit companies have entered our space that
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: don't have a social mission and are you know, trying
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: to pay people on the cheap and not paying living
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: wages in the crowdsourcing industry to do this kind of work,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: and we want to highlight that you can do it ethically,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: there's another way, and you can do it through a
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: social enterprise model.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what year did it start?
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Sama source started in two thousand and eight, and then
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: we just finalized this like you know, new structure in January,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: and then I should mention we have a domestic program
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: called Sama School, which came out of Sama Source. We
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: got tons of inquiries, you know, over the years of wow,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: I've seen what you're doing in Kenya and Uganda, could
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: that ever work in the US. And we were like,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: let's try it. So we launched a program called Sama School,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: which is slightly different. It's also focused on creating employment
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: for low income people, but we do that through the
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: gig and freelance economy here in the US. That's where
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: like the massive growth is happening in our economy. It's
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: in non traditional gig based work. And so we think
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: that by equipping low income people with the skills to
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: compete well in the gig economy, they're better off and
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: they're going to earn They're more likely to earn living wages.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: How do the people here find you?
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: So they also find us through local nonprofit partners. We're
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: partnered with the City of New York and the City
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: of San Francisco workforce programs. We partner with CUNEI here
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: in New York, with the community Colleges out in California,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: and we're looking to expand the program nationwide. But it's
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: think of it as like a domestic version of Zama Source,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: again targeting that same goal of giving work.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Well, obviously, it's no surprise that one company just isn't
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: enough with how ambitious you are. So when along the
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: way do you get this idea for lux me, which
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I'll let you explain what that is instead of me
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: summarizing it up for the audience.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: So I have to say, I think a lot of
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: entrepreneurs that I know have this shared sickness that I do,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: which is, if a problem really gets under your skin,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: it's like you keep kind of like needing to scratch it.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: It's so the idea for Luxmi was a long time coming.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: I had been going back and forth to Africa for
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: you know, since I was seventeen. Each time i'd go,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I'd always discover amazing local handicrafts, local products that were
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: sold in local markets that never had any export, you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: any export potential, or maybe they were amazing products that
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: could easily be exported and sold on a global market,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: but no one knew how to market their stuff outside
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: of whatever region. Of course, now we have like Etsy
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: and all these amazing market places for handicrafts, but I
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: still think there's so much opportunity to help local people,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: especially women who are the ones who are doing a
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: lot of this work, get jobs by being part of
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: supply chains for handicrafts, for skincare, for that kind of thing.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: So I was in Northern Uganda, I came across this
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: miracle ingredient called nilotica, and I had.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: How does one do that?
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: So, if you're like me, I love I hate shopping
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: in malls, like just makes my blood boil to like
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: not be around trees and nature. I love being in
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: like outdoor market places in places like northern Uganda, where
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: you get to talk to the people who are selling
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: you stuff. Usually the people who are selling you stuff
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: are the same ones who made whatever you're buying. You
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: get to know the story. It's just like going to
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: a farmer's market. Here in the US. It's like a
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: much more enjoyable way to buy stuff. Yeah, and it
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: feels much more humane. So I love going to those markets,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: and I always talk to the makers of stuff. I
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: love getting inspired by some of the really creative ideas.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: My favorite piece of jewelry. These like bottle cap earrings
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I bought in Kenya. That's somebody made by hammering out
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: bottle caps of beer and like welding them together and
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: beating them. They're just gorgeous and they're so cool, and like,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: you know, I love that hustle and creativity. So I
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: go to these local markets all the time, and I'm
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: always like, Wow, I wish I could find a way
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: to help these people earn more money for what they're selling,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: because if this were sold in the US or you know,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: at some duty free shop, you could literally, you know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: the person who's making it could make ten times more.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: So I came across this skincare ingredient called Naylodka. It
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: was just sold in a tub in the local market
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: in Northern Uganda, and it's this like rich buttery cream
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: that I imagined was something that had been concocted by
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: some local lab but it turned out to be one ingredient.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: It's just a local form of shade butter that only
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: grows there in Northern Uganda. It's chemically different from the
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: shay that's in ninety nine percent of skincare products in
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: America that comes from West Africa has a really different texture.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: So I was like, Wow, this stuff is amazing. How
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: is it that I've never heard of it before? Why
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: is it only here in northern Uganda? Why can't I
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: find it more broadly? And I started doing more research
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: into natural skincare and cosmetics, and I was appalled by
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: what I learned. I learned that, like so many of
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: the very popular products that are sold at drug stores
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: and beauty counters in this country are with known carcinogens,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: with all kinds of toxic ingredients that are banned in
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Europe and Japan and other developed countries. And not only
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: are they like actively bad for you by containing these
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: toxic ingredients, but they also don't do any good for
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: the world. So you might be dropping, as I used
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: to two hundred dollars on a skin cream at duty
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: free that was like the only luxury item I would
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: splurge on, only to find that like it contains mineral
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: oil basically or some derivative, right, some kind of petrochemical
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: based like raw ingredient that's the ninety five percent of
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: the formula, and then it's got like red number seven
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: and dimethicone and all these ingredients that you absolutely don't
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: need to be rubbing all over your.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Skin, and no one regulates those things.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: We have like really outdated legislation, But like so many
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: industries in the US, there's really strong corporate lobbies that
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: obviously don't want Congress to pass sensible regulation because it'll
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: diminish their profit margins. And so that whole mod is
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: just so sickening and so broken. Not only are we
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: poisoning ourselves, but we're also dropping all this money in
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: a model that doesn't help anyone get less poor except
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: maybe people who are already really rich who own the
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: majority of these companies. So I was just like, why
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: can't we create a fair trade model in the luxury space.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Why do the like Good for the World brands have
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: to be very crunching and granola orient Why can't we
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: have like a Chanelle like brand that stands for social impact?
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: And so I had the idea. It kind of like
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: grew on me over time. I kept thinking, no, I
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: shouldn't bring this up to my board because it'll kill
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: me yet another crazy idea, And finally I just like
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: couldn't help it, and I started talking about it, and
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: one of my board members was like, Oh, this is
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: actually an interesting idea. Maybe you should do it, but
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: launch it as a separate company. So I did. I
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: started Luxmi. Our first full year of operations was twenty seventeen.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: We launched as as far as I know, the first
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: fair trade brand sold nationwide at Sephora. But we've since
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: learned a lot about how to partner with a bigger retailer.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: We did it too fast, too soon, but we've been
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: tripled last year. We've grown a lot, and now we're
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: really trying to build out our product line with other
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: rare botanical ingredients that have the same model. So it's
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: a give work model. We source from fair trade suppliers
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: that give work to local women, all super clean formulas
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: and based on rare plants where there's also a conservation angle.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: This is like very timely for you to come in
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: here and talk to me, if only if this is
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: for my personal gain. I feel like I in my
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: early thirties and finally taking the time to learn how
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: to take care of my skin. And it's like a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: type of health that I feel like as someone who's
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: immersed in fitness and wellness and writing about it constantly.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not being talked to or talking enough and I'm
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: trying to learn so much. So I'm so happy that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in here with me because I feel like
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: there's so much I can learn from you and so
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: much that hurdles audience can learn from you. So I'm
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: going to save some of those takeaways for a little
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: further down the line. And I actually would love to
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: dial in to a little bit about your personal health, because,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: as you've mentioned, you're giving back and all the best
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: ways that you know how. And in the middle of
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: December twenty seventeen, you're speaking in Helsinki in Finland at
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: a tech conference when you start to experience some health
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: issues of your own. So why don't we dive into
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: that a little bit.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think my biggest challenge is entrepreneurs I
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: get so excited by what I'm working on that I
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: could work twenty four seven, Like I like wake up,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: I dream, I go to sleep thinking about these businesses
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: and what we can do, and that you need rest,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: like your body needs rest and your brain needs rest.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: And what basically happened to me is in Helsink. Yeah,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I was giving a speech. Afterwards I was at this
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: like speaker dinner and I felt this like wrenching pain
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: in my abdomen and I've broken stuff and like I'm
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: always injured from sports that I do, but this was
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: like a different kind of pain where you know that
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: something's definitely wrong, like in an internal organ. And it
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: got so bad I had to excuse myself and go
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: to the bathroom. I was like writhing on the floor
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: of the bathroom and pain, and finally I get into
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: an emergency room in Helsinki, and they often misdiagnose women
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: with this condition. I had what's called an ovary intrsion.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: That's when you're overtwisted around itself. That sounds awful, terrible,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: but they misdiagnosed me as having kidney stones. I've since
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: read like several very similar reports of women going into
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: an er with pain and their abdomen and like the
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: technicians misdiagnose them. And if you wait too long, your
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: ovary dies the tissue and your ovary doesn't get enough
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: blood and it just dies out. So you have like
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: twelve hours. So my ovary died. I left ovary while
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: I was in this er, and then they did a
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: surgery to remove that. And the surgery went septic. Believe
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: it or not, but it went septic, And probably this
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: whole thing happened to begin with because I was just
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: mistreating my body. I have this belief that I'm kind
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: of invincible. I can travel NonStop, I don't need so
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: much sleep, blah blah blah, and that's just totally wrong.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: It like will catch up with you, and it will
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: catch up with you at a really inopportune time, like
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: when you're in Helsinki in December.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, so a that must have been frightening. Are
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you traveling with any family? Are you traveling alone?
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Alone? And it was also I think there's some sort
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: of like mind body connection element here. My friends joked,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: they were like, oh, your ovary is literally committing suicide
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: because I had just ended an engagement. Oh my god,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: days before. I mean, the symbolism of my overary hanging
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: itself was so appropriate at that time.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Can I ask you if you want to, can you
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: still have kids?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Yes? So I can still have kids. So what's amazing
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: about the body is like you have a lot of
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: redundancy built in. You have two of lots of things,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: So your second ovary will totally compensate for the first, Wow,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: so you get your period again. It's totally fine, you
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: can still have kids. I happen to have frozen my
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: eggs four years ago as well, Wow, which was like
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: in retrospect, Oh my god, if you're listening, please freeze
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: your eggs. Like, save the money that you need, figure
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: out a way to afford it. It's like, I think
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: it's life changing for women.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I sat down recently with Alex Williamson, she's the chief
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: brand officer at Bumble, and we were talking a lot
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: about all the pressures that are put on women as
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: they get older, with everyone asking you if you're going
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to freeze your eggs, and I think, I mean if
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you have the opportunity and you have the money, like
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you're saying, plan for it and save for it. That's
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: one thing. The craziest thing to me about freezing your
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: eggs is that you have to pay to keep them frozen.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like three hundred bucks a year.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Oh I thought that it was.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: It's not so crazy. The crazy thing I think is
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: that we don't educate women about their fertility. Like you're
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: basically told from as soon as you are capable of
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: having a baby. They're like whatever, you do, don't get pregnant. Right,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: here are all the ways to avoid getting pregnant. And
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: then if you talk to your doctor about freezing your
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: eggs before thirty five, what I heard. What my doctor
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: told me was like, well, you're so young, you don't
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: need to freeze your eggs until literally the moment when
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: you're too old. And then they're like, oh my god,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: it's an emergency. You better freeze your eggs yesterday because
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: you're like advanced maternal age. So I think we need
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: to tell women about this early on and just so
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: they know so they have the option. I have a
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: friend who had cancer and, like you know, unfortunately, ended
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: up not being able to get any eggs frozen unexpectedly
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: in her early thirties. So to me, it's like, it's
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: like telling someone who's healthy that they shouldn't get health insurance. Yeah,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: it's like freeze them while you can, while it's easy.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Is it hurt? I don't know. I'm again I do ki,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: So I get.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Like we're going to talk about that time. Yeah.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: So no, it's like really small needles you inject yourself,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: you know, for a period of time, your eggs get bigger,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: they harvest them. It's like a pretty simple procedure, and
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: it's actually easier the younger you are because you require
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: less of the hormones and your body bounces back more easily.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: I know many women who've done it, you know, post
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: thirty five, who had had to go through like three
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: or four cycles to get enough eggs. I was lucky
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: enough to only go through one.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I have a girlfriend now that's going through IVF and
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: it's just like hell for them, And it's just it's
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: so difficult when in this case, for you, you're preparing
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: for what you don't know, Like you're preparing for what
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: could be or what could be. Not like you harvested
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the eggs, you're probably going to use them someday. But
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, who knows, Like some people do it and
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: they don't absolutely.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: It's just a backup plan, yeah, and who knows. Like
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: maybe it'll turn out for whatever reason that I don't
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: have a child. It's not in my plan whatever it
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: may be, but at least I will hopefully have to
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: suffer less if I do decide I want to have
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: a kid later in life. And to me, it's like
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: an insurance option.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Got it, Okay, So you lose an ovary and how's
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: your recovery process from all of this?
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: So it was like terrible. So I lost the ovary.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: I'm like in you know, Helsinki in the middle of December,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: there's like two hours of daylight. And then I'm just like, Okay,
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: well I can sit here and mope around, or I
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: can continue working in Europe because I couldn't. The doctor
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: didn't want me to take a big transcontinental flight. You
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: can risk like clotting. Yeah, so they say, like stay
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: for like a week or two recuperate. But I don't
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: wanted to sit around the hotel room. So I kept working.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: I had like meetings that I had to go to
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: an Amsterdam, and so I took local flights around Europe.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: And of course that was like a terrible idea. I
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: was getting sicker and sicker. I had a fever, which
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I thought was the flu. Finally, two weeks after the surgery,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: I'm still having fevers and I go back and to
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: get checked out. I get like a blood test and
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: they're like, oh my god, your infection levels, so Hi,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: you're not going anywhere, and they committed me to the hospital.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: By this time, I was in Germany and I spent
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Christmas and New Year's in a Munich hospital alone in
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. So I was really lucky. I had a
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: person show up for me who's now my fiance, who's amazing,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: and took off time from work, and it just it's
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: funny how the world works. I like ended one thing
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: and then this all of a sudden kind of happened,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: and my best friends came out and visited, which was
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: really awesome.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: That's really special. Okay, So then the recovery, after the recovery.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so after this happened, I started being much more conscious.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: I mean I was conscious of what I was putting
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: on my body with skincare because of luxmi, but I
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: was still ignoring what I put in my body, and
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: I was not I was into meditation and yoga, but
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: I wasn't taking it super seriously. Yeah, after this, I
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: realized the cost of doing that could be my life. Like,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: the sepsis was so bad that my infection levels were
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: like through the roof, and they were trying out different
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: antibiotic cocktails and they were like really scared at one point,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: and it dawned on me that you know, you have
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: only a certain amount of time on this planet, and
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: who knows when your card's going to get called, So
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: it's worth investing as much as you can in your health.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: So afterwards I became mostly vegan. I'm now fully plant based.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: I became fully vegan as a January first.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: What was the change for you? Like, why did you
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: make the full swap?
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: I've always felt like factory farming is like something that
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: we will one day look at as like a huge
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: moral tragedy that we allowed to happen, like billions of
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: animals that are just systematically abused. So as part of it,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: like climate change, like it's really clear that one of
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: the best things we can do immediately is just eat
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: less meat. And I just feel better, Like so much
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: health evidence, overwhelming evidence shows that a plant based diet
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: is just better for you. So to me, there's just
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: like no reason why you shouldn't. It does suck to
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: miss a good steak tartar or like a stinky French cheese,
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: but I feel like you can be like ninety nine
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: percent plant based and have those things on very special occasions,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: and the world would be so much better for it
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: if we all had that philosophy.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Got it Okay? So you're eating more plant based. You
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: mentioned mindfulness and meditation. How has that practice changed since
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: your hurdle moment.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: I started learning about vipasana meditation. It's a Buddhist kind
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: of meditation that involves like doing these body scans several
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: years ago, and I started doing that meditation whenever I can.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: I used to just like sit and do it a
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: few times if I could afford it in a day.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Now I do it if I'm on the train, whenever
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: I'm conscious of having a moment. I started doing more yoga.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: I use the yoga app, which is awesome. It means
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: literally I led a class based on yoga glow in
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: northern Uganda for our Sama Source office there, which has
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: like two hundred people, two hundred employees, So we like
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: stood out on the lawn and did this in the
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: middle of Uganda, which people thought was kind of amusing.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: We've used mindfulness training and our offices, and I think
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: it's a really powerful free tool. I wish they taught
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: it in schools in America.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, have you taught classes
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: before or was this a sporadic adventure into this type
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: of thing.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just totally spontaneous, and we're always trying to like,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of these like new age
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: health and wellnessings happening in California, and the business practices
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: and the places we work are often really different from that.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: So I try to bring a little bit of that
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: into the work we do. And I really want our
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: employees at Sama Source to feel like they're working for
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: a top notch innovative company, not just you know, like
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: they're doing digital work like drones.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Like taking a break from today's podcast to give my sponsor,
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  Speaker 1: get back to you. Would you say that this is
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: kind of pivoted how you view activity and just you know,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: being in your body.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So the craziest thing about all this is that
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: I got the torsion because I had a ten centimeter
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: was like a three inch cyst in my ovary, which
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: is like a pretty If I was looking at that,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: it's like a golf ball. Yeah, you think that you
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: would notice that, right, Like it's hard to hide that,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: but it somehow like squeeze its way in there. And
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: so I was kite surfing like with this like golf ball,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: I guess, hanging out in my abdomin and I didn't
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: even notice that. I wasn't even aware. And in retrospect,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: I think maybe had I been more conscious of my body,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: had I been doing these body scans, like noticing the
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: sensations in different parts of my body, I'd be more
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: attuned to that yeah, so it's definitely something I think
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: about more. I have to say though, that sports are
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: like my salvation. It's like my church is to be
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: out on the ocean.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: How did you start kiding? Because it's definitely not something
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that you just pick up one day.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: No, it's so random and it sounds so like tech
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: bro I hate to sometimes talk about it because it's
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: like it's an expensive sport to get into. Yeah, and
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: it requires a commitment financially and like a huge commitment
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: of your ego at first, because you just get like
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: completely just like you're butt handed to you every day
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: when you learn. So there's this conference that started with
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: a female professional kite surfer and a guy, an investor
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: in Silicon Valley, and they hosted these informal events and
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: I went and I saw for the first time a
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: woman kite surfing. I'd seen a couple guys doing it
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: in the Bay Area, but this, you know, young blonde,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: beautiful girl was like this pro kider teaching us, and
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, if Susy can do it, then
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: like maybe I can. So I started taking lessons and
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: then just fell in love. It's like a really addictive sport.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: It's the combination of like paragliding, which I I also
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: got a license to do that a couple of years ago.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: But it's like a wind sport plus a water sport
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: and you get to like explore using no electricity, just
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: the power of the wind, all these beautiful places in
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: the world. So it's just like my total happy place.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Can you give me some insight into the process of
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: how one kite serves?
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a kite that looks kind of like
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: a mini parachute, Yeah, with an inflated edge that's flying.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: It's usually a pretty big kite. My kite is like
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: the one I mostly use is a seven meter back
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: in San Francisco. So it's like a pretty big chunk
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: of material that's like a sail and then you're attached
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: to that with a harness and you're holding a bar
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: that controls the lines. And then on your feet there's
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: a board. When you start, the board has like straps,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: it's kind of like a snowboard. And then as you progress,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: you can I know, kite on a strapless surfboard, so
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: it's just like a surfboard. It's a board that goes
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: through the water, so you have to coordinate the kite
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: pulling you. That's your propulsion with like your feet on
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: a board and that's.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: And do you need help to get launched to do
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: this or can you do this all on your own?
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: You can self launch depending on the situation. It's definitely
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: caused me to get like dragged around a fetus. Yeah,
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: so it's best to have someone launch you, but you
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: can self launch.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Wow, what a sport man.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: It's exhilarating. This year, I actually am trying to figure
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: out with a girlfriend of mine who actually is so
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: a woman taught me to kite after I went to
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: that conference, who is a former pro and she and
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: I are trying to set a record in Africa doing
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: a crossing of a major body of water.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: This is just like standard goals, Like this is just
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: you know, when I wake up on a Tuesday, I'm like,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm going to do next week? Large
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: body of water Africa. I'm coming.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Well, hey, I don't know who's done like New York
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: to New Jersey. So there's like plenty of kiting opportunities
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: right here on the East Coast.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I love it. Okay, So after and this your whole
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: incident had happened in twenty seventeen, so not that long ago,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: like a year ago. Do you still feel any repercussions
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: of this in your day to day aside from obviously
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the shift in your mental and how you treat your
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: body and the body scanning and what you eat.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: It was it was brutal. There's like my abdomen is
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: like a checkerboard of scars right now. So there was
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: that and like just it like the surgery is like
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: punctured all of the all of my like abs, so
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: I couldn't kaite, I couldn't do any of the sports
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: I love for like months. Then this I've heard this
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: happens to women after they give birth. I lost so
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: much hair because I had lost so much blood and
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: it's a big shock to the body, so my hair
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: was falling out in chunks. Then I had this whole
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: hormonal reaction, so I started breaking out like a sixteen
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: year old, which hadn't happened to me since I was sixteen.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: It was just like this like parade of like just
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: like more and more like horrible health stuff. And then
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: I actually have to go back into surgery this week
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: for something minor that's a complication but they told me
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: there's just always going to be complications if you remove
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: like a an organ. So wow, it kind of sucks.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: But I'm very, very lucky to have been in a
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: really nice medical facility in Germany. Had I been in
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: like northern Uganda, had I had the resources that like
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: more than two billion people have on the planet, I
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: would have died.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's outageous.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: It's totally outrageous, and it just if anything, it like
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: makes me even more passionate about the work we do.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Well. It makes me think also, I mean I'm sitting
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: here thinking about how your self image also like may
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: have been altered from this process. Like now you look
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: down and you see all these scars in your stomach,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: does that mess with your psyche a little bit?
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: It did? Like I am, I think I've always had
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: this belief that, like, oh, I can power through anything.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: I'm like this like entrepreneur who's managed to defy the
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: odds and build this business, like in a male dominated
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: industry in a country that was really difficult, you know
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: for us to get financing to work in and all
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: these obstacles, Right, so you tend to start thinking, well,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: if I can power through it, I can get through anything,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: but you can't power through an infection, right, Well, maybe
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: you can your body, but like it's it's a whole
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: different ballgame, and there's certain things that you physically just
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: cannot overcome. So I think it humbled me and made
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: me realize my own limitations.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, so this is empowering. It's giving me all
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: these you've got this vibes. But now you're back in
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the swing of things. You're working tirelessly on both of
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: these companies. Firstly, how do you divide up your time?
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: No one is happy with how I divide my time.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: I've read lots about entrepreneurs who have multiple companies, and
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: I've met some entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley who do it,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: and basically it's a it's not recommended. It means you
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: have no life, Like I short change my time with friends.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: I have a really understanding fiance, thankfully, but I have
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: very few, like family obligations. I can't imagine doing this
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: with children and being any kind of good mother, So
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: I just want to ish that caveat. I don't recommend it.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's for everyone, and it's really really
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: hard and everyone's always disappointed that you're not spending enough
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: time Right now, I basically work, you know, two work
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: weeks in one, so I'm literally at the office for
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: pretty crazy hours. Or if I'm working from the road,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: I'm also working pretty crazy hours. I don't know how
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: sustainable that is. But now some a Source is ten
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: years old and we have a really established management team,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: We're hiring more people and so I can get a
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: lot done in forty hours. With LUXMI, it's younger and
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: more recruiting, and I hope that I can eventually find
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: someone to replace me as the CEO. I am a
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: big shareholder and lux me and I will always be
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: contributing the vision. But I think as a business mature,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: you bring in the right leadership.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Right, So, how are you taking care of yourself aside
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: from kitesurfing? Then if you're spending what seems to be
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: I would need to do the quick math. But I mean,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: you're spending like eighty hours a week working, that's insane.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Like Wendy a sleep man, it is insane.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: I do sleep. I basically like don't socialize, and I
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: like my I also have really understanding friends who if
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I pop back up after like six months of not
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: talking to them. They're really they really get it. But
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: again it's not for everyone. It really means like you
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: don't really have a social life. I work out, I eat,
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: I sleep.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Do you feel personally fulfilled?
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I do, And I think it's because for me, so
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: much of my fulfillment is driven by working on something
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: that to me matters and makes a dent in the world.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: There are other people who are much more fulfilled by
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: like making music, or spending time with their friends or
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: being amazing parents. Like I think there's absolutely so much
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: nobility in those pursuits as well. It's just that for me,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: like I get excited about this, this is like what
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: I dream of. To me, I'm doing the thing that
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: I you know, I would pay someone else to do
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: my talk.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Wow, it's inspiring to sit down with someone who feels
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: so passionate about what they get to do during during
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: there longer than nine to five.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: I also realize I'm super lucky, like so few people
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I think get to experience that alignment, and so I'm
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: just trying to take advantage of this luck while I
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: have it. Who knows if ill me so lucky in
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: ten years, And I will also say that it's just
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: really emotionally taxing. Yeah, I have really high ups and downs,
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: like I kite surf and do more extreme sports just
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: because if I didn't, I would lose my mind.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel it. Do you what would you equate
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: that feeling that you get kite surfing with.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: It's like some kind of meditation, because again, you have
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: to be like really focused on the present. I think
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: the most precious gifts gift that meditation gives you is
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: that so much of your life as a human is
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: spent in the past or in the future. You're not
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: like looking right in front of you. You're not thinking
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: about the sensations that the air is, you know, creating
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: on your face. You're not like noticing the way that
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: the light is hitting the rose petals in your kitchen window.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: And those little present moments can give us so much
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: joy and can also completely distress the body. Like there's
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: all these studies that show that if you can concentrate
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: on something that's happening in the present moment, all of
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: your brain chemistry changes, right, and a lot of chronic
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: stress and the diseases that come from that are because
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: we're like in these cycles of like oh my god,
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: I need to like get the Instagram post up and
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: then oh my god, I need to make sure it
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: has enough likes, and I need to do this. And
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: you're just not focusing on what's right in front of you, right,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: So kitinge gives me that feeling of like noticing the
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: environment around me, which is just the most for me.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: It's like that and sex are like the most joyous
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: experiences where you're actually focused on the present.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear that. Okay, So we're winding down here
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: before I ask you kind of my final two questions.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I've just got to know for personal benefit, if what's
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: the biggest mistake that people are making with their skin
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: aside from like these drug store buys? Like what else?
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: What's a mistake? And what should I be doing differently
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: right the second.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: If you think so, a lot of people think that
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: if they're oily, they need to use a powerful, quote
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: unquote cleanser that makes your skin feel squeaky clean, especially
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: one that SuDS right and look soapy. Those are so
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: bad for you. A lot of the traditional cleansers just
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: dry out your skin and strip it of its natural oils,
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: and then your skin responds by overproducing those oils, which
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: then causes you to break out, which causes you to
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: use more cleansers. So like people need to stop doing that.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: A lot of that sudsy feel that we're used to
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: from shampoos and from cleansers and from soaps and those
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: sorts of things are actually made with chemicals or factants
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: that are really not great for you. So you don't
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: need SuDS to achieve cleanliness. You can use any kind
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: of oil. So we have a product called pure nailatic Amoult,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: which is like a bomb. It's just our single ingredient
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: in ilotica which you can use is as a bomb
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: or oil cleanser. You could even use olive oil or
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: coconut oil. Just rub it on your face with makeup
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: on and wipe it off with a warm wash cloth,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: and like you're going to eliminate a bunch of skin problems.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: I love. I love a grocery store bought otherwise used
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: for cooking skincare solution.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: And like more people should be using this stuff that's
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: in like the organic aisle at the supermarket for skincare.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: I really feel like a lot of skin concerns could
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: be eliminated by just stopping the abuse of like this
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: onslaught of chemicals. We're just like literally, you know, drowning
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: ourselves in every day.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: All right, So you're hammering down the skincare advice. If
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: you looked back right now on your career as a
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: whole so far, and there's obviously so much more for
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: you you to do, what would you say has been
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: one of the best pieces of advice that you've been
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: given as an entrepreneur.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: It's so funny because people will be like, oh, spend
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of time planning or finding you know, product
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: market fit or all these like crazy hacks. And I
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: honestly think the only thing that separates the women from
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: the girls when it comes to entrepreneurship and building something
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: is not quitting. This is the most trying career path
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: you can choose. It is, like I can't tell you
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: just even this week, we had like so many like
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: red level threats to both businesses and these you know,
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Sumsort has been around for ten years. We employed two
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: thousand people. It's a sizable company. Now, you would think
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: that things would calm down when you get bigger, and
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: they don't. The same problems you had when you were
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: small still exists. They're just bigger problems. So you have
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: to develop a super thick skin and be willing to
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: push through and find solutions when a lot of people
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: might otherwise quit because it seems impossis And the people
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: that I admire most as entrepreneurs are not those who
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: had these overnight successes where they like threw together some
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: direct to consumer company, raised a bunch of money and
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: then like scaled it to two hundred million dollars overnight.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: The people I respect the most are like Yvon Schnard
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: who started Patagonia, which is now like fifty years old.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: I want to say, yeah, and they've gone through so
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: much and they didn't take outside financing, and they grew
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: slowly and honorably in a way that honors the environment,
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: honors their customers, and treats people and their supply chain
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: really well. That's the kind of business I want to build,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: And the greatest skill I need to develop is just continued,
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: not quitting.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: You have the opportunity right now to offer the Llilah
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: who's going through this hurdle moment in Helsinki in the
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: hospital completely beside herself, one piece of advice looking back
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: on that now, what piece of advice do you offer her?
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: Notice who shows up when you're not your prettiest and
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: you're not your best self? And those people, I was
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: so grateful that I've had my best friend who's basically
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: my brother, has been my best friend since I was seventeen.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: He like dropped everything to be there. Like the people
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: who showed up for me in that moment, it was
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: a really trying time for me, and it made me
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: a grateful and be it. It made me really see
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: who my true friends are. And I think as you
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: grow a business, you network with a lot of people,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: you might start getting lots of fancy friends, right, you
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: might start mingling with people who have a really high profile.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: And it was amazing to see that Like a lot
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: of the people who showed up for me were not
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: the fanciest people in my life, but the people who
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: mean the most to me and who've been there in
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: my most trying times. And it reshaped for me my
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: definition of friendship and family.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much for coming to hang out with
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: me today. I appreciate it. Please take a moment to
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: leave a quick review by clicking the link with the
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: description to this episode. We all face multiple hurdles in life.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: I want to hear about yours. Reach out to me
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: at Emily at Hurdle dot us, connect with the podcast
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at Hurdle Podcast Lyla. Where can
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: they find you? Where can they find All of the
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: businesses give me the rundown.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Luxmi is lxmi, lux me dot com and at luxmiofficial
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: on social Sama Source, sam Sama Source dot org and
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Sama School dot org. And then you can find me
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: at Lyla Jana pretty much everywhere.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: I've got to know real quick before I close this
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: close this any inside us to where the names came from.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so Luxmi is named after Lukshmi, who's the Hindu
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: goddess of beauty and prosperity. She's like Indian aphrodite, and
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: Sama means equal in Sanskrit.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: I love it perfect.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: And my name actually Jana means pet.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: It's perfect because you're impacting a lot of people on
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: your journey.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: That's the hope.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: I am at Emily, a body another hurdle conquered. Catch
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: you guys next time.