 This is Start a Storefront. It's no secret that America's food supply has been compromised. 52% of produce is wasted. For food to survive the current supply chain, it has to be processed and then sprayed down with chemicals. Not everyone has a green thumb, and if you live in a city, it can be hard to find the space to have your own personal garden. From farm stand to table, lettuce grow makes growing your own groceries easy. They ship out your starter plants, and then you just drop them into the farm stand. This system is self-watering and self-fertilizing. You just have to come back for the harvest. Grow indoors, outdoors, in year-round. Let us grow makes growing your own produce easy. In this episode, we spoke with Jacob Peshinick, the co-founder of Let Us Grow. We talked about why you would have been more successful running a crispy cream franchise, his 10-year vision for Let Us Grow, and why it's better to be an outsider. Welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to Jacob from Let Us Grow. Thanks for joining. For people who don't know, what is lettuce grow? Let Us Grow, we make it super fun and easy for everyone to grow their own food at home, regardless of their time, the experience, space. We were talking about this a lot of fair, but you were a producer before, and so what made you want to launch into something so different? Were you a vegetarian? Is this world something you're passionate about, or it feels like a left at a high level from being in the Hollywood movie producing space, and now all of a sudden wanting to, one, do startup, but then also do this, like, kind of become your own farmer type concept? Yeah. Well, I learned I was going to be a dad, and I just started to look at the food that we were eating. And so, you know, on set, you'd have craft services, and you'd look at chemicals and everything, and then just, you know, said, let's just eat, you know, fresh produce. And just saw how just organic produce was so expensive and inaccessible to most people. And I wondered why. And that led me down this journey to eventually start a farm in Texas with two friends. A real farm. A real farm. How many acres? It was an Agua Ponix farm, and we grew, the whole farm was three acres, and then we had two big greenhouses. We produced about 20,000 heads of lettuce a month. Yeah, were you selling them? Yeah, we were selling to farmers market and selling to restaurants. And then we were looking to scale up to do grocery store and then really build out the farm and replicate it in multiple towns. And it was 100% organic, zero waste. And when we went to scale it up, I realized the real issue with farming wasn't so much the growing method. It was more getting it from the farm to the people because to go through the grocery, you had to put in your beautiful head of lettuce in a plastic clamshell, put that in a box, put that in a refrigerated truck that would go to a distribution center. That would then another truck to go to the store. And that's the expensive part, I would imagine. Yeah, and half of the produce goes bad before anyone eats it. So when you look at that 50% waste, one, it's horrible for the environment, but it's bad for the consumer. But if you took out that waste, you would cut the price of fresh food in half. And I started to realize it's absolutely insane to go to a grocery store to buy fresh food. We're so used to it, and that's why you go to the grocery store twice a week is to get fresh food. But none of the food at the grocery store is fresh. It's seven to 10 days old. Even a lot of the vertical, the new vertical farming, where they grow closer to metropolitan areas. The lettuce is almost engineered to be in that clamshell for 17 days. But we know that for lettuces, I think about 30% of the nutrients degrade within three days. And for spinach, it's 50% in 24 hours. So we're not getting the nutrients that we need. It's late. Yeah. So for a lot of reasons, I was like, this is just crazy. Someone's got to do something about this. That's such a fascinating analysis of the problem. It is. I never would have thought about it that way. Yeah, it's all distribution. We're essentially putting lettuce on a distribution system that's designed around Doritos, right? It's designed around self-stabilized food that can store for a long time that you can transit all over the country, all over the world. And it's remarkably efficient for that. But it's not where we should be putting our fresh produce. That should be all localized. Okay. So now you have identified the problem. So you're like, okay, let's get this in the consumer's hands. And now the question is like, how do you do that, right? So what is the vessel to do that? How do you make it fun? Because I think there's been a lot of people that have tried this concept of like, become your own gardener. And usually it means you have to have land, maybe a little garden outside, and that's where you do it. And so how did you land upon the approach of like, we're going to build this tower thing that looks beautiful, right? It's eye-catching. And we believe the consumer will trust us enough to purchase this thing and become a farmer, but in like a very LA way or like a city, like in their apartment. So how many iterations do you go through before you're like, this is it? Like, is it positive? A lot of thinking. Yeah. And so there was another, you know, element to seeing all the waste. That was just being on the farm. And we were growing mostly hydroponically, but we also had some, you know, growing in the ground, more conventional farming, all organic though. And I remember pulling the first turnip out of the ground for harvesting and, you know, wipe the dirt off my jeans and took a bite. And it was the most amazing taste and feeling. And it was just like, wow, we grew this and living off the land. And it just felt, it was like magical. You get a connection that you'd never had before to your food. Yeah. And it was like something missing just from myself. You know, it's like, it made me realize like, it's in our DNA to grow. We've been growing, you know, for hundreds of thousands of years. It's in our DNA only for the last 100 or 150 years we stopped. So we have this like skill and this connection, right? We're designed to do it. And it was like a reconnect with that. And I was like, I want everyone to have this experience. And if everyone has it, then this food problem that we have, right? Of the chemicals in our food, of these long distances, it's going to change because consumers will get re-engaged. They're going to be like, they're going to care. They're going to, you know, have that spark be reconnected to the earth. So the combination of those two things is really, you know, what ultimately came into to be, let us grow. And so the idea was like, how do we empower consumers? How do we make it super, super easy for everyone to grow? Because, you know, the biggest, the biggest thing I hear every day, you know, I probably hear five to 10 times a day is I don't have a green thumb. I kill plants, you know, I can't get in fear of failure. Say that every day. Who says that? Who are you thinking that with? Yeah, but I guess it's like in our DNA, right? To care for there. So it's also scared, you know, it's also like a very, it evokes a lot of like panic, anxiety and fear to think, I'm going to kill a plant. So we really had to, you know, figure out, OK, how do we make this like super easy on ramp, right? That anyone, right, can do this and at the same time be thinking of the whole sit like a systems level architecture, right? How does it work? Like in a broad way for, you know, the environment and just to be effective. So that's where the concept came of growing baby plants instead of full mature plants. So we grow baby plants at the farm and by only growing babies, that means we can grow a hundred times more per square foot. Increase the volume. So it means we can put a farm like right where we are right now. Yeah. You know, easily that would serve all of LA. Yeah. And then we just send these baby plants much shorter distances to our consumers. Doesn't require all the resources, right, to do that. And by doing that, the hardest thing about growing, I would say, is like knowing what to grow, when to grow it, how to germinate the seed, how far down to push the seed. How much water to add, is it growing, is it not, did I do something? It's like, it's too much friction, but we've already, we do that part, which is the hardest part. And we get the plant to be like two to three weeks old. Once it's there, it's looking great. Yeah. It can last in a box and go to, you know, we can send it to our, our grower. And they get it in two days, put it in our unit and it does the rest of the work. So it then gives the customer, right, this growing experience, gets all, all the benefits without the, you know, bending down, building a raised bed and like all this stress. So that was really like the design. And then we really had to come up with a unit, right? That was beautiful. And the first one that I made, the design was really, would, you know, was using off the shelf parts and was easy to ship. And, but when we put one together, it was so ugly. It was like, this is not, this people are going to work in their house and do this. Yeah. So that really flipped the switch for me because I never had a consumer focused business before. Did you hire like an architectural designer? Or like someone I brought on a industrial designer. Okay. This guy, Pip Tomkin, who's a great friend now. And I mean, I'm so happy I brought him on. Totally. Yeah. I said, Hey, can you take this thing and make it look better? And he was like, do you want to see some other concepts? I'm like, how many other concepts could there be? And then he showed me like 30 different concepts. So, and they're stackable too, right? Yeah. So these are more intelligent. These are modular. Right. So it's really nice that you could start with like 12 plants and then you could decide to go up to 36. And we have about 25, 30% of our customers at a couple levels within like the first three months. So it's like, they see, oh, this isn't, this isn't tough. And they get the hang of it. And the other really nice thing about the whole thing is it's very like reliable and predictable. Whereas like conventional growing, you plan all this stuff. You wait eight weeks. Hopefully, you know, you remember to water all the time, but it's kind of like nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, oh, a ton of stuff. And then you better eat it or give it away, you know, to your neighbors. Whereas we time everything so that you can have a harvest. Let's say, depending on the size, you might have one harvest a week or all the way up to five or six harvests a week, right? So you can plan your meals around it, which is the whole reason we started it in the first place was to eat, you know, not just to grow for that. How are you, how are you planning that? Are you putting plants in at different stages of their life cycle into the pods? Or are you just choosing the plants that will mature at different rates? Yeah, so it's a combination. So yeah, there's certain plants that grow faster and then there's certain plants and then there's certain plants that will grow longer at the farm before we ship that. So when you, when you come on board, you like, you fill out a survey, how big your family is, where, where you are, what you like to eat. And then we'll craft a bundle and it's really designed. So that you'll have harvests, you know, probably started in about two and a half, three weeks. And then you'll have just nonstop harvest from that. And then we send you emails or alerts to say it's time to refill, you know, and we'll recommend what refills that you should have so you can keep that cadence when you're thinking about coming to market. So you've done a lot of the hard part. The analysis is there. I'm loving the way you kind of dissect the problem and analyze that. But now it's a function of like, okay, we have the design. Now we have to go to market and make a margin. And so how is it that you land on your pricing? You want everyone to be attainable, right? Yeah. And so like, how do you start your pricing? But you also don't want, I would imagine someone to just buy one, right? You want someone to buy like a little farm, maybe that's three, four, five, six, I don't know. How do you, like, how did you view that just from your customer journey and getting people to experiment with you is kind of the way I think about it. Yeah. Well, sustainability was key, you know, all around. So it's sustainability for the environment. Sustainability for the customer. Sustainability for us, right? So that we'd stay in business. I really just put my consumer hat on for pretty much all the decisions that we made, even if they weren't like the most economical for us at the time. So like we have to give the customer, right? The best experience and the investment, you know, is significant. So we looked at wanting to make sure that the customer would get ROI, you know, return on their investment. Right now it's within 10 months. That's based on the price of the farm stand and then the refills, the plants. So basically what they would spend at the store, they're getting that return. Exactly. So all of our seedlings are $2.50. So a $2.50 seedling, that could grow $50 of tomatoes in the summer or $30 of cucumbers or dependent or $15 of basil or $3 of lettuce. So it just depends what you're growing. And that's good. I buy, so I started a garden during the pandemic. So two years ago and I've been buying, you know, plants seasonally ever since and like $2.50, that's pretty good. Even like, if you're buying it at a wholesale nursery or whatever it is, like I can think of spending $5, $6 on say a tomato plant. So $2.50, you can buy a single tomato head of the store for that or you can buy a plant. And that tomato might go bad. Exactly. Yeah. Might not get to it. So this is like, yeah, this is for organic, no chemicals, all the taste because you pick it right before you eat it. And so people always think, wow, is this genetically engineered? No, that's just the way food is supposed to taste. Yeah. So the interesting thing is there's a lot of, I think, thinking about the ROI, the cost, are we going to do it? How many meals are we going to eat off of it before the purchase? Post-purchase, it's all experience. People just love the experience so much. I mean, they are eating, they're getting the taste or all that. But when we survey our growers, it's like, what do you, you know, what do you like the most? It's knowing where my food comes from in the pride of growing my own. And so that's the thing. That's the priceless, you know. Do you lose customers at a certain point? Like, where is there the drop off where the customer doesn't do this one thing and then it leads to a not so good experience? Like, what did you have to navigate of the hard part? Well, when we let everyone grow for 90 days, like for a whole season, and then they can return the product if they don't like it. And we've our return rates always been, you know, one percent or less. So I think that's, you know, talks a lot to the experience, the overall experience there. But then the unit can go outdoor or indoor when you add lights. And so we have growers all over the country, all 50 states. And so let's say if you're in Massachusetts and you're growing outdoors, you put the unit indoors or you put in the garage for the winter. You know, so some people, let's say, you know, they don't take it back out. You know, some people will order, you know, a bunch of seedlings put in the unit and it just grows and grows and grows and they're like, wow, this is amazing. And they should really go out and harvest because the roots start to get, you know, bigger and it just gets a little bit harder to maintain. That becomes a project. And then they stop growing for a while until they can go in through that. So if you follow our protocol, it's really like five minutes a week. If you do that every week, you won't ever really need more time than that. But if you sort of drop off, you know, then you could need an hour or two hours just to get, you know, clean everything and you get started. And that that could be a point of drop off. But generally, like we have a very low churn and, you know, very low drop off, right? I think it's like once you have this experience of growing your food, you don't want to ever go back. You might upgrade to one of our customers. Like a couple of weeks ago sent in a note that they had never grown before. They got two farm stands and now they're selling their house in L.A. buying a farm and they're going to go to be a farmer. Wow. Based off of the experience. A lettuce grower farmer or like no, just regular farmer. It was just the experience where as I try to say, we're actually, you know, saving you from quitting your job to go to be a farmer. You get that. You get the experience. When you first started moving into this farming and then ultimately starting like this e-commerce business, do people think you were crazy in your world? Like all your friends in Hollywood where you like, they're like, what are you doing when you're becoming a farmer? Well, my friends in Hollywood, I don't know because I think they're crazy. But that's true. That's true. But I was in before Hollywood. I actually had a couple of software companies and I built trading platforms. And so got it. I was in the entrepreneurial. You were crazy going to Hollywood. Yes. And they're like, oh, you're back. You're back. Yeah. And I had done well with the businesses before Hollywood. That's what helped me get to be able to produce. To move into film. But I went to fund the business and I went to VCs and I've had good exits in the past. And I thought this is the best idea I've ever had. And those people thought I was crazy. And I thought they were crazy, you know, but I talked to a lot of VCs and they just say, what's wrong with going to Whole Foods? And they just didn't, you know, they didn't see it. They didn't get it. And that was a big, I don't know if it's a wake-up call or how to describe it, but that was, I was just not expecting that. And it was something I worked on for, you know, many months. Like were you like, oh, I'm from the future and now I know for sure that I am? I mean, that's the mindset that I had to get through all of it. But yeah, I ended up being a grind. Yeah. You know, I ended up, you know, personally funding. Sure. You know, in the early, in the early days. You retain some company, yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, COVID started and those same VCs called me up and said, hey, do you have one of those units? You know, so people. Now everyone's getting into it. Yeah. It's kind of like a little, you know, it's like the health scare. You know, we're sure like when you're, you don't have the best lifestyle. Yeah. You maybe, you know, you eat too much, you drink too much, you smoke and you're like, I know I shouldn't do this, but then you have a heart attack. And then, you know, you're like, okay, I'm really. This is what matters. And I'm going to change my ways. And I think COVID was a little bit of like a shock and made people really think where their value systems, you know, are and what's important, the health of their family and things like that. And then it just kind of turned things. You experienced massive growth during COVID. Yeah. Yeah. What's the average age of your customer? Is it a new, like in your situation where you had kids and so it turned the light bulb on? Is it, is it that? Is it like new parents or is it just the average age? It's like, I would say like late millennial new parents, but there's such a range. There's even like college kids getting more like which is just shocking. And then we have, um, like baby boomers, you know, that have had grown before that are into it, but don't their body, you know, can't deal with the stresses, right? We're bending over and doing all that. And so it's just like super, you know, broad range and it's everything from, you know, new moms to like more tech, like biohackers to cancer, you know, anyone's got health issues and really just can't have chemicals in their food and things like that. What's the biggest question you get today from VCs? Is it around, like, I know you just closed it in a round, but is it around like what does the future look like? How do you create? So traditional questions in e-commerce might be, what does your product line look like? So, so lights would be an example of how you've differentiated or created another value prop. Do you think about, is there innovation for more, right? And so you have the tower now, you've added lights. What else is there any, is there even a need for anything else? I don't know. Yeah. Is it just more homes, more penetration? Definitely. The way I see it is 10 years, maybe 15 years. This should be like a refrigerator or a pantry in everyone's house. There's no reason. Does any culture do this now? Like any, any. Well, we all used to do it. Right, we all used to grow. And now this is just, you know, we, you know, 50% of people live in cities. They don't have the space. Or if you don't live in a city, let's say you're renting your house. You don't know how long you're going to be there. You're not going to invest in the garden. So this is like a portable, you know, portable garden, right? And it's not for everything, right? You can't grow trees on it or bushes, but for any, you know, for herbs, leafy greens, and most of your fruiting veggies, it works and it's way more efficient than the conventional way. So it should be. How do you market this? Is it influencer mark? I mean, I don't even know how you get something like what feels so agriculture green, like I just, you know, brown, eco, but make it fun. How do you, is that, was that massively challenging right now? Yeah, for sure. But it's really just share it with as many people as possible. Social media has been really good to us. I think, well, really the product, I got lucky with the product. It just works so well. In what sense? It works so well. It just, it works. You know, there's so much time putting into design, but there's still, you know, you could still design a product and spend a lot in it. Just not, there's issues with it, right? But I think the product works incredibly well. And I'm so lucky that we have a great customer care team. So people generally have a really good experience and they want to share that. So they share that in our Facebook community group. They share that and that encourages other people, right? To come and see it. It is a very experiential product. And so we were a little bit handcuffed during COVID that people couldn't go and see it somewhere. People couldn't go and see it at someone else's house. It was all online. Now that this is over, close to over, at least things are opened up. I think people will again be able to experience, right? And I think like social media, digital channels will be less critical, you know, for marketing the product and it's more experiential. Are there any other things that you're, you're like really trying to get into like, what is the limit for this? And so when I think about what, what, what other things you could branch into that are not so veggie focused, but maybe there's other things people can grow, that maybe coffee comes to mind, but it's hard copy. There's a real process afterwards. That's the right climate. Totally. But is there anything else that you're, you like dream project? You'd love to tackle this one thing that every consumer has every day. And today it's challenging, but, you know, given, given your skill set around being able to solve these issues in a, in like a seedling way that, you know, that you get excited about, is there anything like that? Well, you know, food is so, we all eat food, right? So even just the, what we're doing now is just a massive opportunity. We've grown over 200 different types of seedlings. And we're always experimenting with new ones, right? So it's like different and every, everything's edible, but we have like different edible flowers, but we're, you know, it could be different herbs now and different things that are like, like hot at the moment. You know, we're like, you have a special, I forget the name of the kale, but it's, you know, depending on the climate, the color changes. It's got like a little purple stripe or little blue stripe. And we have like yellow and purple beans. So we're always experimenting, you know, with different things. Can you do Boston Bibb lettuce? Yeah, yeah, yeah, favorite lettuce. This is a selfish question for me. So I've done tech. We have a podcast, I do real estate development for working on a television show. And you're because you've done so many different things. What, what is the similarity that you've learned is, is the skill set that is sort of helping you, that you're able to tap into to be successful in all these different things. And so for me, I always say, it's like, at the end of the day, you're dealing with humans and that's a real thing, right? And so the humans don't change no matter where you are. And the second thing that I really tap into is just the understanding of, of what it takes to pull something off, right? It's a tremendous amount of work. It does usually take some sort of risk, probably pretty large and also capital. Right. And so if you have these three things and some patients and the right team, you'll be fine. But what are the things that you've learned on your journey? Yeah, that you just made it easy because I mean, I would agree. I would agree with all that. I mean, I think for me, what's, you know, because I've looked back, you know, Krispy Kreme isn't as big as it was. You know, years ago, but I remember some other last thing I thought we'd be talking about. Yeah, some businesses I had before, I'm like, wow, I would have maybe been more successful just getting a whole Krispy Kreme franchise, you know, because it's just, you know, a lot of work. But I like, I think what attracts me is seeing, is more seeing like a system level problem, like a really big problem. Like, like I think, you know, our food distribution system. And seeing all the chaos and all the moving parts, because like food is such a complex, right? Problem and, and just sort of, you know, cutting through that, really simplifying the problem and focusing on that. But that's probably like the commonality, you know, in film and I got in, I just saw the way that independent films were financed, which just didn't make, it was just kind of chaotic. It was the first one I did. I was like, could we do it this way? And I was like, sure, why not? And the second was like, could we do it this way? And I kind of learned how to structure them. And, and before that, I was built a weather derivatives trading platform. And I saw the way that the traders were conducting the business, and it was just coming up with a completely different way that people thought in all the places, I think people thought I was nuts. And they'd say, well, if it should be this way, why isn't it that way? Why didn't someone else do it? And I'd say, well, I'm doing it. And you have to have a lot of passion. You have to almost like believe that it's like a foregone conclusion that your way is the way, right? And just people don't get it yet and just plow through, just keep, keep going. So I think it's just like belief and only for me, like only having plan A, like never having a plan B ever, you know, it's just like, if I believe in it, it's so hard to even get something done that you fully believe in. If you put any ounce of energy into not believing it, or to thinking, planning something else, you're not going to put everything into that. Yeah, when I first got into real estate development, so I was, I moved to LA from San Francisco and I'm driving around and I see all these for lease signs. And it's like Jay Luke's for lease for lease all over LA. And I was like, this seems really dumb, right? So if I bought an asset, so if I'm an owner who has a building and I have a for lease sign up and whether I have investors or not, I'm definitely not making any money right now. And then when the tenant signs up, they have to do their own build out. And so what are the odds of them knowing how to do anything in construction? Zero. I'm just going to make it simple, make it binary. Okay. And then at some point I'm trusting that they'll start paying me rent and that they're going to be operating. And then that this business is going to survive. And I was like, this seems really dumb if I put all of these inputs into a pro forma. And so I said, what if instead of building, instead of acquire building, put for lease sign up to acquire tenant, we just acquire the tenant first, then we buy the building with them, then we do the construction design with them. And then I have a known pro forma. And my only risks here are time, right? Time in the sense of construction might go a little longer. If we don't have any political allies, you could get a little difficult. But other than that, the pro forma is the same. And I was like, I'm going to go do that. And that's literally the thesis makes perfect. And everyone I talked to like makes perfect sense. And I'm like, but why? So yes. You just got someone's got to do it. Yeah. And it's that weird thing where that's how I looked at it. And I think sometimes being an outsider, you have that like fresh perspective that it's like, I think better to be an outsider because you're not constrained by, by anything. And you can just look at it, you know, beginner's mind and why isn't it this way. And then make it. I think it's an asset to be. I think so too. To shift. And that's why I shift every five to seven years in something completely different. Same. I've learned that's also the skill set is like really being an outsider and just reminding yourself to go be an outsider again. Go take another look at a different problem. Having confidence is key too. Yeah. You have to be dominant for a crazy enough. You know nothing again. Like I leave an industry where I'm like an expert to enter one where you're novice. I know nothing. And it's just sometimes it's embarrassing, you know, and it's hard to ask the questions and it's just hard to put yourself out there. But you got to have the confidence that you can pull it off. Let's let's play. Let's play future. So in the future, right? So I look at it like this. So you might, I'm not saying you do, but you might have enemies in the space where they're like, oh, but if we, if you are successful, Whole Foods dies, or if you're successful, the farming industry dies, to which I go. Interesting opportunity here. Maybe, maybe you go into Whole Foods in 10 years and there is a huge lettuce grow. And then the consumer is cutting it themselves. And at some point this has made Whole Foods life a little bit better, I would imagine, or at least a value prop is better. And maybe it's not Whole Foods. Maybe it's a lettuce grow grocery store. Well, how do you think about aligning yourself as you scale with companies that might start to really view you as a threat? The way I look at it is, you know, we're going to be lucky if people grow 10 to 20% of their food at home. Those people, it's just like, you know, in the 70s homebrew kits for beer were legalized. Yeah. Did bars go away? Right. You know, did beer, it actually, beer proliferated because it used to just be like three beers and it was all like yellow fizzy water, right? No taste. And now we have like, I don't know, a couple thousand two micro breweries, right? Because people went and tinkered with beer, right? They use different malts and different, I haven't made beer, so I don't know all the different things, but they, you know, they gained an appreciation, right? For the ingredients and the methods. And that gained an appreciation for going to the, you know, there was a demand for better beer. And so I think something similar will happen here is that consumers are going to grow their own food without chemicals. You're going to have this great taste, right? And they're going to go shopping and they're going to say, where did your lettuce come from, right? Or where did this, how far did it take to get here? What was, what were the growing methods? And when people start asking the question, then the answers are going to matter. Right now, nobody even asks a question. And that's why I can't tell you how many times I'll go into a restaurant like a nice, you know, top tier restaurant and I ask where did this come from? And they do not know, you know, they'll have to come back, come back, write it on the little thing and, and, and say, yeah, Whole Foods, I was just kidding. But if more and more people ask, then people will know and if they don't like the answers, they're going to, they're going to go change the answers, right? They're going to go change your supply. So I think that's going to ultimately change the entire food system by getting consumers engaged because nobody wants the chemical food that came from 1500 miles. No one wants it and that will stop. Or can people buy your product? You can buy it online, lettucegrow.com. That was recently on Costco, but you can also get it at Goop. And you just turned 50. So tell me how, how are you reflecting upon this time in your life? I mean, my main, the main thing is I'm just filled with gratitude. You know, I have two beautiful kids, five and six. It's like, I'm so, you know, grateful for that, for them and that experience. And I think more than any, you know, I do a lot of challenging things, but probably most of my growth comes from just being a dad. Yeah, I celebrated my 50th in Maui with a bunch of close, not a bunch, but like, you know, eight really close friends and it was just like, That's awesome. Wow, that's just amazing to have that. So a lot of times, like especially living in LA, I could feel, you know, a little isolated, like driving around everywhere. So, you know, it's not very spontaneous. It's hard to meet and it can feel, feel that way, but just taking time to actually realize like all the good things, you know, all the great things that are there. And I think if just focusing on that, I try to focus on that every single morning, you know, to start the day. Do you have a ritual where you'll like write it down or is it just more of a mental practice? A mental practice, but I'd like to start a writing down practice, but my kids get up. I'm sure you have it. Five, 30. They're on your face in the morning. Yeah. Right. Mental time's over. It gets a little hard to do that sometimes. That's awesome. Well, look, thanks for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Appreciate the story. I'm a fan. We got to buy some. Yeah. I got one for the podcast studio. Oh, easy. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. We'll just have it right there so it's on display. Instead of a fig tree, we're gonna have it let us grow. Just like get hungry during the interview? Yeah. Pull off. Thanks, Jacob. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Hey, you. Yeah, you listening. Thank you so much for making it to the end of the episode. If you just can't get enough, check out our subscription on Apple Podcasts. For only $4.99 a month, you can listen to the full-length, uncut, unedited podcast episodes. We're giving out life-changing advice for less than the price of your morning coffee. What a deal. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, and we cannot wait to see you next week for another great episode. Cheers.