October 6, 2020 • 49 mins
Entrepreneur Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of hint inc., the San Francisco-based company which produces the leading unsweetened flavored water.
She's also the host of the Unstoppable Podcast and author of her upcoming book Undaunted, which releases October 20th.
She has been named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business. Before Hint, Kara was Vice President of Shopping and E-commerce Partnerships at AOL, where she led the growth of its startup shopping business to a $1 billion enterprise.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down as some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled learned their way into achieving great things.
(00:21):
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
today on the show, I had the pleasure of chatting
with Kara Golden. Kara is the founder and CEO of Hint,
the San Francisco based company which produces the leading unsweetened
flavored water. She's also the host of the Unstoppable podcast
and author of the upcoming book Undaunted, which releases October.
(00:41):
She's been named one of Fast Companies Most Creative People
in Business, and prior to Hint, Kara was the vice
president of shopping and e Commerce Partnership to a o L,
where she led growth of its startup shopping business to
a one billion dollar enterprise. In our conversation, Kara mentioned
that she believes that the best entrepreneurs the ones who
are willing to admit their no idea what they're doing,
and she argues that in these moments, the most important
(01:03):
thing is not necessarily making the right choice, but making
a choice to follow through, and they say, before you
change the world, you must first change yourself. So it
was no surprise to hear that Kara's curiosity with her
health and the product she consumed led her to founding
HINT and engaging with the movement to make clean water
available to all Americans. So please enjoy my conversation with
(01:24):
Kara Golden Well. Kara, thank you for coming to the podcast.
Thanks for having me. I'm always so excited to catch
up with you because I know I'm going to hear
about like a dozen deeply important things to me that
I should be spending more time on. That you somehow
while you know, raising a family of four four four,
(01:47):
I mean they're kind of out of the house now.
It's like it's crazy. I have my third that just
started college, which is insane incredible. Coming out the other
end of it, I feel like they've learned a lot
by having not only a mom, but parents that are
super busy and entrepreneurial and going up against crazy odds. Right,
(02:09):
and these are the uh, the next generation that isn't
afraid to sort of think about things, think differently, follow passions,
all of that kind of stuff. So I'm sure it's
such a journey and you learn a ton from them,
and like, it's definitely a perspective I don't get because
I don't have any you know, sixteen to twenty two
year olds that I kick it with on a regular basis.
(02:31):
So if you don't have that, it's kind of impossible
to have their perspective. You will, though, you'll see well funny,
funny enough like that go to would be you know,
pre having you know, more than one child, would be like, man,
how did you how did you start HINT with a
family of four in the house. I don't understand how
that's even possible. And then it's like, oh, it's making
(02:52):
sense out of chaos. It's just like starting a business. No,
I totally is. I remember when I was first starting HINT,
people would be like, what's like being a mom starting
a business with kids? And and I was like, you
mean starting a business with four kids under the age
of six? Like, and you know, and I joked about it,
but I said, I remember one day when I was
(03:14):
grocery shopping and the Target parking lot and I see
this I didn't have my kids with me, and I
see this mom who, like I was holding one kid's
hand and she had too. It wasn't were in like
the top part of the cart, and one was in
the car, and I was thinking, oh my god, like
that just looks crazy, and then all of a sudden,
I was like, oh my god, that's what I look
(03:34):
like probably to that, because right you just you know,
you just don't really take the time to actually think
about how nutty it is. And you know, we'll talk
about this later, but it's part of I have a
book coming out in a little bit, launching on October
twenty called Undaunted, and you know, there's there's definitely stories
(03:56):
about that and sort of things I've learned along the
way where it's really about tackling your doubts and your
doubters and and just going and doing it and learning
along the way. And you totally are an example of
this as well, where you know, you start in one
spot and you just and you learn and you tackle
(04:17):
failure and you're not afraid to say you failed at
certain things and you're going to do better and all
of those things. So I think like those are the
best entrepreneurs. Frankly, I think they're the best parents, they're
the best friends. Right, they're the best mentors all they're
they're the best leaders. And so that's really what this
book is getting people, you know, to talk about. It's
(04:38):
it's being called you know, part business. Part definitely talks
about the journey of building my company hint. But it's
also a bit autobiography. It's also a bit um self development.
You've always been able to balance, like your early team
at a O L, like pre you know, hundred people
days at a O L. And I know where you know,
(04:58):
had a really rich experience, you know, building that from
a startup to a big organization, building the family and
building hint this you know, your incredible your incredible water
company that has really you know, helped my household. And
I'm sure millions of others get off of soda and
you know, of course I want to get into that
story in particular. But but but growing up, like, is
(05:20):
this is this something that you always this is is
this how you found balance? Where you like, you know,
a high school kid doing like eight different things passionately
at the same time. What do you see that's like
the through line the thread? Yeah, well two things. Uh
so my dad had actually I think about him now
often he passed away about ten years ago. But he
(05:41):
was an entrepreneur, but not in sort of the traditional sense.
He had actually launched a product inside of a large company,
a large company called ConAgra, but the product was called
Healthy Choice. So I grew up with him, you know,
constantly tinkering. My mom had decided in her forties to
go back to work and really follow her passion around fashion.
(06:04):
Maybe most dads would like learn to cook, but my
dad instead, since he was working for a company called
Armor Food Company UM which was later acquired by Knagra,
he just decided, why don't I just go develop a
product line that I would actually want to eat? You know,
I grew up in a house where I mean, looking back,
(06:25):
of course, you never really appreciate your dad right when
you're little. You're just like, oh my god, what's he
doing now? But things like you know, storytelling around sourcing,
and I mean he was really the first packaging and
product and I've gone back to sort of you know,
double checked this as well. That really he would talk
(06:46):
about the fisherman off of St. Simon's Island who were
giving up there, you know, their breakfast with their kids
in order to catch the best shrimp in the morning,
and you know, things that nobody was do wing. I mean,
this is like the early eighties. You know, grew up
around this, didn't have an appreciation for this at all.
(07:06):
But I also was the youngest of five kids, and
I talked about this little bit in the book as well,
where you know, I always I couldn't figure out, like
why my brothers and sisters got to like have jobs
and and you know do things that including they had money,
right they could go out and go to the mall
and go shopping, and I couldn't because I didn't have
the same money, because they actually had a job. And
(07:28):
so when I was fourteen years old, I went and
got a job at a toy store and in Scottsdale,
where I grew up, And I remember coming home and
telling my dad I got a job on Sundays and
he's like, wait, why, Like what happened? How did you
get a job? You're not sixteen? And I was like, yeah, no,
I I applied and I got this job at Alphabet
(07:51):
toy store and I'm going to do the cash register.
And he was like, I can't believe they like hired you.
And so anyway, fast forward a few months I just
I was a kid, right, so I knew what toys
to buy, and so people should come in and they
would always ask me like, oh my, you know, my
son really likes to read. I mean, what should I
(08:13):
get him? He doesn't really like toys. And I would
always you know, point him to Shell Silverstein or you know,
like like just books that were just like would take
you out of you know, your element and things I'd
always know, like how to figure out things that people
didn't know about even before they walked in there. And
so so you're saying you killed it. You were absolutely
(08:36):
filthy toys salesman, Well I was, and then I became
the buyer. I was sort of like the Tommy like yeah,
so I would go to these like buying shows and
you know, and again I tell my friends, Hey, I'm
going going to this buying show this weekend and they're
like wait, what what how do you get to do that?
And you get paid and you know, it's great, and again,
(08:57):
like I think I was always I always sort of
led with this theory of I am so lucky that
I'm able to do this. Like I loved being the
one that was doing stuff that other people weren't doing
like I just I sort of I lead with kind
of like I am so fortunate that I that I'm
able to get this job. It continued on like I
(09:21):
you know, I was just telling a friend the other day. Actually,
a friend on Facebook reminded me how one summer I
just decided I was going to start a camp for kids.
And I asked my friend Robin if she wanted to
start this camp with me, and she's like, what's the
camp about? And I was like, well, I get these
like boxes at the grocery store that are for toilet paper,
paper towels, and you know, and I decorate them at home,
(09:43):
and I want to have a camp and we'll build
a city. She was like, wait, we're gonna build a city?
And I'm like, I don't know, maybe it's a town,
but it's like something. It'll be great. And she's like,
where are we going to find the people? I'm like, oh,
let's just make a sign and we'll just hold the
sign up. And you know, my brothers and my sisters
were like laughing at me. I mean they were just like, wait,
(10:04):
what are you gonna do now? And I'm like, okay,
I got this whole idea. It's five bucks, you know,
five bucks a day, and parents drop off their kids.
It's like a hundred and twenty degrees in the middle
of summer. We're all in the garage. You know. It
was just there were so many reasons why it wasn't
supposed to work, and like it worked. It was a
two week camp, and you know, Robin and I split
(10:25):
it fifty fifty, and you know, we were sold out.
We had like twenty kids each week for this camp,
and you know, we could have continued, but then we
got bored and we wanted to move on to something else,
and so people just decorated these boxes. We would just
make it up as we you know, went along, and
I think, like you know that that was sort of
the core. I look, you know, it's so much easier
to look back on kind of things that you did.
(10:48):
But I I just I don't know, I just always
just did stuff because I could, right Like, I just
I made stuff. I was always like trying my brain
was always like just trying to be creative. And you know,
I think one thing that I have so much appreciation
for now and both of my parents was they just
(11:08):
thought that gosh, you know, I don't know if if
they if the toy store allows her to work at
age fourteen, and no one's gonna say anything, all right,
Like they were just like whatever, you know. They yeah,
they were down with it, and they thought it was
kind of funny. I mean, they were just they thought
it was a little bit odd. And I was like
the only one that they knew that was fourteen that
had a job. But they, you know, they were like, oh,
(11:31):
that's great and so and I think like that's the
thing that I just was never afraid to sort of
do what other people weren't doing and also lead. But
I wasn't you know, sitting there like saying that I
wasn't student body president. I was like best friends with
student body president, like you know that kind of thing.
(11:52):
Like I was always just going and I lead with
like doing things that I was really passionate about. But
I also lead with God, this is so fun and
this is so crazy that we're doing this. And I
would only still do things if I was enjoying it
and I was having a good time. And so I
never sort of bought into this philosophy of go work
(12:13):
on Wall Street because that's the thing to do. I
like my entire life has been around only do things
because you actually really are excited about it, and you
can continue that on into sort of life and things
that you've become passionate about, including you know, everything from
(12:34):
helping people get healthier by drinking more water and you know,
as you know, also leading into some of the you know,
initiatives that I'm working on with Washington Washington around clean
water too. Like I think you you just continue to
do things because you can, and also leading with sort
of the same guidance that I did as as you know,
(12:57):
a young kid, which was really follow your heart, do
things that make a difference, that are a lot of fun,
but also you know people are enjoying it um and
that ultimately are just going to make things better. And
that was just really what I just kind of lead
in my life then. And now we'll be back with
(13:21):
more out of the hustle after the break. I'm curious, like,
now that you're in Washington, do you do you think
that you could have done it in the opposite direction
where it was like, you know, let's go and work
on change making at scale without having a platform like
(13:42):
hint or do you think that you know, having this
business makes a big difference. I think having the business
definitely makes a big difference. You know, I talk about
you know, a lot when I'm when I'm talking about
this initiative that I'm working on. So the so the
initiative is is around clean water. And I had sort
of been under this impression that there are people somewhere
(14:09):
like maybe it was the p A. I'm not even
sure that I actually thought of it as the e
p A, but I thought that there was some organization
on a national level that made sure that water in
America was safe. And maybe it even goes back even farther, like,
you know, growing up in Arizona, I remember going going
(14:33):
down to Mexico a lot as a kid, and my
parents would always say, don't forget, like, don't drink the water,
because the water in Mexico at that time you'd get
Montezuma's revenge and you know, it just wasn't it just
you know, typically you get pretty bad stomach aches and
you know, all kinds of stuff. So I felt like
(14:56):
I lived in this place that, you know, where all
the water we're safe. And so sixteen is years ago
now when I started getting into the water industry, Prior
to that, as you mentioned, I was at a O
L and I was in media at CNN, and I
felt like this was a world that some sort of
guidance on that I wasn't involved in. And so when
(15:19):
I started bottling and manufacturing the products, what I started
seeing as I was visiting plants was that there was
just a lot of different variables to water and it
really depended not only on you know, what state you
were bottling in, but also oftentimes what city you were
bottling into. And so that to me was you know,
(15:45):
it was like news, but it wasn't even something that
I focused on as much as sort of thinking to myself, Okay,
we have to remove everything out of the water in
order to add fruit to the water, and we don't
use preservatives in our product, and so there were things
that we needed to make sure that we were starting with,
you know, including removing everything out of the water. And again,
(16:07):
there were certain cities that had worse water than than others,
and so that's when I really started to realize that
again this is probably getting into too many details, but
but even our product, because we use fruit in our water,
we're actually monitored by the f d A as compared
to traditional bottle water is not. They're regulated by the states,
(16:30):
and so I was like what yeah, And so I
was like, this is so confusing, Like it's just not
I mean, it's bizarre. So if you're bottling, if you
have you know, I always call it the cheap bottle water,
the like twenty four packs or thirty six packs for
three bucks at whatever your local store is, Crystal Springs,
(16:50):
that's what's called. Well oftentimes it's it's like a private
label product. I know, I'm just I'm just making fun
of that. I'm just thinking of like the cheapest one
where it feels like I could tear the plastic if
I really tried hard enough. Are and so those are
regulated by the state that they were actually produced it.
And so again here's sort of another thing. You may
(17:11):
it may show up in California, but let's say, for example,
that it was produced in Arizona or Utah, and so
the consumer doesn't actually really sit there and do the
work to try and figure out where is this product
produced and is that area like filled with you know,
lead or what other regulations. I mean, they don't do
(17:33):
that kind of work. And again, like I learned so
much about this stuff, just from years and years of
of kind of looking at this. The other thing that
I learned is that when we first started bottling somewhere
at the same plants and somewhere at different plants, you know,
fifteen sixteen years ago, the stuff that was in the
water has gotten worse. It hasn't gotten better. So again
(17:57):
we remove everything. So you know, our product was and
still is very very safe. But I thought, for all
those people who don't have high filtration systems that you know,
in their plants, or reverse osmosis or any of these things,
like like what is the consumer ultimately drinking they they've
been sold this like idea of you know, straight bottled
(18:21):
water is better for you, probably right, And so that
was like really where I got thinking about, you know,
this clean water stuff. And again I still, you know,
I was still on my journey of of kind of
healthy living and a few years ago and healthy production
(18:42):
of our product. A few years ago I actually landed
in Washington when we were trying to get into the
school lunch programs and the school lunch programs, I mean,
that's that's a whole other topic. We basically we're fighting
up against the Dairy Association, who owns like the tray
for the public school lunch system, which is thirty million kids,
(19:04):
and not just public schools but also the Catholic schools.
Anybody who's got any money from the federal government government
for you know, K through basically K through twelve is
under these barriers. Like they've got to they've got to
have a milk on every tray. And and the only
(19:24):
sort of exception to that is um, the Dairy Association
has done a deal with the Orange Juice Association, So
your options are milk or orange juice. And so I
was saying that is pathetic and that kids should have
access to water and a product like hint that you
(19:45):
know is has lots of different flavors and and isn't
all the sugarl on and on. So that went on
for like two years, that fight, and we lost. I mean,
basically we could not get anywhere with the Dairy Association
UM to actually remove them being essentially the provider. I mean,
(20:06):
they've got a fifteen year contract with the US government.
It's just it's absolutely insane. And so the reason that
they gave that basically allowed them to sort of, you know,
continue what they're doing, is that there's drinking fountains across
the US. And so I went back to a lot
of nutritionists that I had met along the way, and
(20:26):
particularly nutritious that we're working in schools and said, you know,
unfortunately we didn't get sort of where we wanted to
go with this, but basically the response back was that
kids can drink out of drinking fountains. And so I
kept hearing across the US from these you know, nutritionists
and schools that they were not that excited about this
(20:48):
because there was you know, lead in the drinking fountains.
And so I started learning about regulations around you know
how those varied as well, and that totally made sense
to me, knowing what I knew about bottle water. But
it's it's even on sort of a different system, like
I mentioned to you, like in California, you only have
to test and in fact, you can't test anymore and
(21:09):
turn that in for basically your school to sort of
pass the lead test. They will only accept a test
from five drinking fountains a particular school, and which is
just crazy, right And so so anyway, so as I
started to you know, dig more and more into this
what is in the water beyond the lead. Then I
(21:33):
started to you know, really start to look at some
of these other things that are in the drinking fountains,
including this ingredients that you and I are talking about.
P fast um, which is a known carcinogen according to
the NIH and the Center for Disease Control. What's really
fascinating about P fast is that P fast in the
(21:55):
Dairy Association and in the Food Association and are is
is actually regulated. And so if you have cows or
cattle that actually has p fasts and their bloodstream, then
those have to be destroyed. And where does it come from?
(22:16):
Because it's essentially teflon. Are they adding it to the
water or is this like you know, from the plastics
that are just in the system. Like where is p
fast coming from? In the will? It's in the water.
It originally added added to the water. It's added to
the water, but it's in a lot more stuff than
consumers know. So, you know, we had these fires in
California and Southern California and northern California, and you know
(22:39):
that stuff that they throw on the fire is it
has p fast in it, and so it's now in
our water supply. It's you know, it's it's flowing in
our water supply. And most of these states are not
even that they're not even measuring it. And so the
e p A Is starting to look at it. It
used to be have known as this ingredient that it
(23:03):
was really like primarily close to military bases, but now
it's like it's all over the place. And and in fact,
in Connecticut, I think it was last year bloomin Fall,
the Senator from Connecticut actually shut down or sort of
pushed to shut down a couple of attle water plants.
(23:25):
I'm just as I'm just remembering. I used to buy,
like we would buy pots and pans that were advertised
with teflon as like the coding that would make an
anti slip, right, We're in reality that was something that
was really negatively affecting our immune system. Yeah, yeah no.
And it was like and you know again, it's like,
what's what's so crazy is the fact that you know,
(23:48):
we've got we live in these like parallel paths, right.
And and the way that you know, I look at
this too, is that the NIH and the Center for
Disease Control both say that p FAST is a known carcinogen, right,
they've removed it from milk, from cattle. In fact, if
(24:10):
you're you know, a farmer with either of those and
you have p FAST, I mean your business is gone.
I mean it's like they've done stories about it where
you know, basically it's come in and again, how does
it get in to the grass that the cow is
going to eat? For example, it's the water supply, and
no one is actually doing anything about this, right, And
(24:34):
it's just unbelievable. And again going back to sort of
stuff that I learned as a kid, It's like I
always thought that America had, you know, the cleanest water anywhere.
Like I thought, like, we just do it right, like
there's other places in the world where they don't, right.
And then so to learn that the only way that
(24:58):
we're actually you know, stopping this from ultimately getting into
people's homes or getting into people's farms is like we're
just not right. I mean, it's just I mean, there's crazy.
You know, we all heard about Flint, right, and you know,
horrible stuff going on in Flint with with lead, and
you know now they've p fasts has shown up in
(25:19):
Flint as well. I mean even when Flint sort of
raised their flag and said, we don't have the money
to fix this. They went to the federal government and
they said, we don't have the money to fix this.
And what you show up and they said no. And
so a lot of people ask, like, you know, they
just assume that Flint was fixed. It wasn't fixed. I mean,
(25:40):
and now we've seen it in new work, We've seen
it in you know, so many other places. And then
you know, if you look across the US at you know,
just strange cancers. I mean, Michigan has had some like
bizarre ones where there's just pockets where you see the gasses.
Is just incredible. This is our mutual friend and Brockovich's specialty,
(26:01):
right is that pattern recognition of this, you know, savage inequality? Yeah,
and it's crazy. And now, as I was mentioning to you,
there's a couple of studies that have actually been shown
how it relates to COVID And apparently people who have
had COVID that are still alive and some unfortunately not
(26:21):
alive that had p fests and their bloodstream are showing
that they can't produced antibodies to you know, prevent COVID
or you know, coming back and and sort of getting
them either and they're they're really tying it to you know,
this the body's you know, ability to really get this
stuff out, and so it's just it's really really frightening,
(26:45):
and so they so getting back to you. In short,
what we're doing is that we're working with with Congresswoman
Jackie Spear to hopefully build a case to actually take
this to Congress US to actually pay attention um to this,
and our you know, ultimately, our hope is that we
actually not only go and make consumers aware of this,
(27:11):
but try and actually get the states to put better
regulations in place for not only testing you know, things
like lead and p fast, but also doing more testing.
I mean, why does a school only you know, California
has some of the better testing in the US. And
why is it only five drinking fountains? I mean the
(27:33):
fact that in the kitchens that where you're washing the lettuce,
you know, you're using the water like that can have
all kinds of stuff and we're not doing any type
of testing around that too. So I you know, think
that every single fountain that you would be that would
come in contact with your food or that you would
(27:54):
be potentially drinking should actually be tested. So again, I
would not have had the information, the passion, the conviction
that I've had if I hadn't started my company first,
right like, I wouldn't have just had the knowledge. And
I think that that's where, you know, talking about these
(28:16):
parallel paths. What's frustrating is You've got the NIH who's
got their information, the c d C who has got
their information. All the states have their information, the e
p A has got their information. I've got my information
around you know, developing a product and actually seeing it
across these states, but nobody's really putting these things together
(28:37):
and actually saying how it's going to impact the health
of our country. Art of the Hustle will be right
back after the short break. I want to transition to
something that we definitely will not all get behind, but
another you know, could be considered you know, poise in
(29:00):
this liquid soda. Yeah, I don't want to assume people
understand the amount of sugar, the impossible amount of sweetness.
That's why absorbic acid is put into soda. I know
you have a personal story that motivated the starting of HINT,
so please tell tell the listeners. Yeah, so My story
(29:21):
began when I was a teenager, and you know, I
started drinking diet soda because I thought it was better
for me. And so over the years, I continued to
drink it, and every year they would come out with
this new diet drink that would taste tasted even better,
and I bought into it. So for years and years,
I'm drinking it. I had my kids. I even drink it,
(29:44):
you know, through my pregnancies, and you know, kept wondering, like, Okay,
there's these sweeteners in here. I don't know if I
should cut that out or not, but you know, it's
so good and for me. After I had my third child,
I woke up one day and it had been going
on for a while, but I I looked at my skin,
and my skin had developed this terrible adult acne. And
(30:07):
I couldn't figure it out. And it wasn't something that
I you know, you you don't even talk to your
adult friends about, Oh I got really bad acne, right,
It's just something that you're sort of like personally dealing
with that I just wasn't comfortable with it. I had
also gained all this weight, and I kept like thinking, oh,
it's from the pregnancies. But you know, I just I
just could not lose the weight. And I had been
a gymnast growing up. I knew how to lose weight
(30:28):
and work out, and nothing was working. And so finally
I went a few doctors. I started, you know, they
really pointed at my food and and said, you know,
you've got to like really pay attention. And that's when
I just got really you know, religious about understanding not
only sugars and diet sweeteners, but also like hormones and
(30:51):
sort of other stuff that that was going into you know,
the food. And I live in Marin County. It's pretty
easy to get, you know, pretty healthy food. When I
realized is that it actually wasn't my food because what
I had done was I did another test, which was
I got rid of like one day, just decided, cold turkey,
I'm not going to drink my diet soda anymore, and
(31:13):
I'm gonna drink water. I you know, never was a
water drinker. I grew up in Arizona. I should have
been drinking a lot more water. But again, like I
just figured diet soda was made up of water, and
so you know, it must be water somewhere in there.
And so I started drinking lots of water and throwing
fruit in my water. And that's when I really realized that,
(31:36):
you know, after two and a half weeks my of
giving up my diet drink, I was My skin was better,
it had totally cleared up. I had um lost over
twenty pounds and two and a half weeks. It was
like the easiest thing I had almost ever did, just
from making that change. It was incredible. And I kept
(31:58):
like I actually even longer story which I get into
in the book, like I went back to a doctor
and you know, actually I thought I was sick because
I was losing weight so fast and I couldn't figure
out what was going on. You know, over the course
of six months, I lost fifty five pounds, which is
a lot of weight um to lose in that period
of time. And again friends would notice, they're like, you know,
(32:21):
some would say, God, you look sick. Others would say,
you know, you look amazing, like you know, what are
you doing differently? And um. And then by the time
a year rolled around, like my body just sort of
adjusted at this point, and that's when I, you know,
really started to look at you know, this drink phenomenon
(32:42):
that was going on and why I had felt like
drinking diet soda was fine and and right right, like
I had been marketed to for years. And then I
started looking at other drinks that were out there, like
and which was never my drink, but like vitamin water,
like the fact that it's called water. And when I
(33:02):
asked most of my friends who were drinking vitamin water,
they were like, you know, shocked when I told them,
you know, fifteen years ago, vitamin water had more sugar
in it than a can of regular coke, right, like nobody,
and that's such an interesting observation. That was the biggest
drink of a decade. It was called vitamin water and
it had no vitamins and it wasn't water, right right,
(33:25):
and brilliant, brilliant marketing. But unfortunately, like that is not
what consumers thought it was right totally. I was drinking
it before my like sports games. It's like, I'm gonna
have a vitamin water, so I'm in like the best
condition to win the soccer game. Yeah, And so again
I was sort of living this life of like had
(33:47):
you know, this aha moment about how I had been
fooled and marketed to and like I was way ahead
of my time. I mean fifteen years ago. People would
meet me and and I would talk to them about
this and the and be like, oh, yeah, right. You know,
they just didn't really understand what I was talking about.
And certainly for for so many people, they sort of
understood that sugar was probably not that great, but people
(34:09):
weren't reading labels and so, you know, basically, I I
just again sort of going back to my roots of
you know, just thinking, like I would explain this idea
to people and they were like, okay, whatever. And then
I got bored one day and I thought, God, I
wonder if I could I just shot started shopping at
this local store that had just opened in San Francisco
(34:29):
called Whole Foods, and I was like, I wonder if
I could go get I could get our product on
the shelf there. And you know, I said this to
my husband and we hadn't launched the product at all,
and I just said I'm just gonna, you know, go
get it on the shelf. And he was like, okay, honey, whatever,
like really wasn't paying attention. And and then I think
(34:50):
realized that I was pretty serious about this, and you
know still to this day, like people are like, oh,
did you always want to launch a beverage company? I
don't even think this is a beverage company today, Like
from me, it's really an initiative around helping people to
get healthier. So every day, still to this day, fifteen
years later, I get emails and you know, messages on
(35:13):
social from people who you know, really identify hand as
helping them, right, Like it's a brand that helps them
drink water, lose weight, control type two diabetes, you know,
helps them through the cancer. Lots of different like that
that that word help comes up all the time. And
(35:34):
oftentimes it also you know words that consumers use and
again they're not thinking when they use these words. But
it's um, I mean, it's so impactful for a you know, founder,
a CEO to hear these things because it's like if
you can build a brand where people are saying you're
(35:55):
helping me, right, you give me hope. Prior to you,
like coming out with this product, I never thought that
I could actually lose the weight that I wanted to lose.
Yet we don't call ourselves a diet drink right, we
call our you know, we just help people drink water.
You know, we don't have any calories, but we're not
running around saying zero, you know, like this is this,
(36:18):
I mean, we're really we're like if you just focus
on the quality and what we're doing versus like all
of this like you know jargon that's out there that
so many other beverage companies, consumer products companies are using,
then you will actually get where you're supposed to be.
And and again, I just think it it really just
(36:40):
goes back to you know, a lot of people. I mean,
for a founder to still be here and still running
the company of CEO fifteen years later is pretty like surprising, right, incredible, right,
And I think that it's not only you know that
we've been able to build a brand that sticks, but
also you know, for me personal, I still feel like
(37:02):
I've got work to do. Well, You're you're you guys
are remarkable entrepreneurs. I mean that that you could, you know,
start this from literally I believe, and you might have
alluded to it, but it started with you boiling fruit
skins in your kitchen putting them in water, right, yeah, no,
And and again I had no idea what I was doing, right,
(37:23):
Like it was I mean, you know, somebody said this
to me the other day that they just figured out that,
you know, the best entrepreneurs are the ones that really
still to this day don't know what they're doing. And
I'm like, that's right. I have no idea. Every single
day I get up and when I'm not motivated to
(37:43):
like actually do anything, I will like announced to everybody,
I'm gonna go do two things today. And that's and
that is like, you know, I'm gonna go do two
things and maybe some things that I just don't even
think I like was ever going to be able to do.
Maybe it's a maybe it's reaching out to different like
for my book. I mean when I was when I
(38:06):
you know, got some people to read my book, I mean,
people were like, who are you going to get to
read your book? And I'm like Cheryl Sandberg, Jamie Diamond,
uh Like people are like really and I'm like, huh yeah,
I'm gonna I'm gonna go do it. I like, I
don't I don't care, Like I figure, I really really
believe that if instead of worrying about failure or worrying
(38:28):
about like what could happen, if instead you just like
keep moving forward and start on your journey, you'll find
things along the way that you're meant to do right.
So I never would have gotten to working on stuff
in Washington around clean water if I wouldn't have been fighting,
(38:49):
you know, and really understanding you know, trays and and
you know, school lunches, and I'm not done there, Like
I may go back there, but in the meantime, I'm
gonna go and do what feels right to me. Well,
your undaunted philosophy, it's an evolutionary jump in a sense
because you know, our decisions, individual decisions, used to be
(39:11):
so much more the consequences were so much more mortal.
But the way we hacked it myself and my co
founders is that everybody was more sophisticated than we were.
Every conversation we were having, we were first too, and
they were, you know, five hundred too. So our coping
mechanism was actually just to have as much fun as
we could and be like, you know what, if this
(39:32):
conversation is memorable and it's the most fun meeting they
had all week, likely something good will come out of it.
If we try to sound like we're smart, there's no
way we're going to make it out alive. But if
we have a great time and they have a great
time and we leave and they're like, I might invest
in that person's future. Typically, you know, the outcomes are
(39:52):
going to be far outside from what you even could
have imagined they would have been, no totally. And that's
the same with you know. I remember the first trade
show we were at when, you know, back in two
thousand five, I just had my fourth kid, and you know,
like literally a few weeks later, I showed up at
this trade show and I remember this huge guy in
(40:12):
the beverage industry um that writes like a you know,
analysis of beverages, Jerry Comuch. He was like, you guys
are gonna be like, you know, you seem like two
nice people, myself and my husband THEO, but you're gonna
be road kill. You have no idea what you're doing.
You came from tech. You're just these probably arrogant tech people.
And I just sat there and listened and you know,
(40:35):
watched you know him sort of decide what my future was.
And I'm still friendly with Jerry today. Like I I threw,
I remind him of this conversation, and and I wasn't
afraid to walk into a bottling plant and say, please
spend a few minutes with me. I know I'm gonna
ask really stupid questions, like you know, And there were
(40:57):
a lot of people that said no, like you're wasting
my time. I don't want to talk to you. And
like I'd be like, oh, that's that's really a bummer, Okay,
I get it whatever, and I'd move on. And but
I just kept knocking. I kept like going and and
and I think, like that's the thing that finally you
what you realize is like some of the conversations that
(41:18):
we had, we were the first product that used real
fruit in it other than Jews that was calling itself
water that didn't use preservatives in the product, so vitamin water,
Like whether they used fruit or not is a whole
other story, but but they they had tons of preservatives
in the product, and I just didn't want that in
(41:40):
my product. And so what we were doing is I
was asking the bottlers when they were bottling our product.
I'm like, why do I have to use preservatives? And
they're like just cuts, And I'm like, okay, slow down,
Like why just because I just don't understand. And so
that annoying little girl who used to always ask why, right,
And my dad was like, oh my god, I'm gonna
(42:02):
you know, like stop, don't ask me why anymore, stopp
being curious. Right. It's finally, you know, I had people saying, gosh,
I don't I don't know. I've just always said, like,
you have to use preservatives in the product, but I
don't really know the answer. And I'm like, well, we
should think about this together. And so that was you know,
I mean, I'll never forget. We you know, ended up
(42:24):
having a conversation with a guy and at a bottler
in Watsonville, California, and you know, it was just that
like he was like, I've never I've bottled lots of
products for people, everything from vitamin water to honesty to
lots of other things, and I've never had anyone ask
me why does the product need preservatives in it? And
(42:46):
so if I wouldn't have come into the beverage industry
really admitting that I knew nothing and instead just using
curiosity as my leader, and you know, and sort of
understand ending too that there's a lot of people who
don't want to go on that journey with me, right,
Like they don't want it. Well, I'm not. I'm not certain.
(43:07):
I'm not certain that's how how it plays out. Of course,
I'd prefer to have you know, natural products versus preserved products, right,
But no one had done it. At the same time,
Vitamin Water built, you know, a mass market brand that
was called vitamin Water, and so whether or not it
had it in it, it did create a marketplace where
there was now a gateway for people to start sort
(43:28):
of seeing themselves as someone that would want to drink
vitamin water. And by the way, on that consumer journey,
I'd imagine a decade later, your customers today at scale,
where at one time Vitamin Water customers who might have
been introduced to the idea this is my Tom Shoes theory.
You know, like Tom Shoes certainly isn't going to be
the brand that like you know, puts shoes on every
(43:50):
child in the world and changes the economic structure of
the planet. But it was the first mover in a
generation to make giving cool. Yeah, no, I I totally agree.
Also said something too that I think is is really
interesting that I thought a lot about. So a lot
of people ask me, like should I go start a
company or when do you know? It's like the right
time to quit your job and go start a company.
(44:12):
And my story goes back to my dad. Like I said,
he was this entrepreneur in my mind, and I would
say to him as a little kid, like, you know,
you have so many good ideas, like why don't you
go start your company? And well, my dad never said
to me was sort of what he valued. And he
had five kids, and my dad valued putting all five
(44:34):
of us through college, and that was the number one
thing like he valued. He said, like, this is what
needs to happen. And so he wasn't going to go
quit his good job to actually go start a company
because in his mind, that was selfish and that was
not putting his children in front. And so I always
(44:56):
say to people, I don't live in your you know,
shoot right, I don't know what you value. I don't
understand you know, your financial situation. But what I can
say is that no matter what your situation is, you
can make a plan and that way, you know, you
can actually live and live undaunted. Maybe that plan is
(45:20):
to go save money in order to get yourself to
a position to actually ultimately do what you want to do.
But if you just sit there and talk about it
and say I don't have enough money. You know, this
is like that you put walls up in front of
yourself all day long, or that person can do it
because you know their parents or their grandparents give them
lots of money. I mean that is not helpful, like right,
(45:44):
that doesn't help you to ultimately do what you want
to do. And so if you really believe that you
want to go start a company or start a nonprofit
or whatever you want to do, then start making a
plan and just start doing. I mean maybe that plan
is just sitting there on Saturday afternoon for you know,
blocking out time and actually writing this thing out and
(46:06):
trying to or talking to ten people in the next
six months. So you're doing something right. You're starting on
your journey to figure out whether or not this is
actually the right thing for you to do. But I
really do believe that, you know, whenever people say like, oh,
you know you're more fortunate, or you're like I I
just I don't know. I think that it's it's just
(46:29):
being too easy on people. I think you everybody can
go do what they ultimately want to do. It may
not be tomorrow, but I think that you can do
it in a certain amount of time, if that's what
you ultimately put stakes in the ground to wanting to do.
I love that that's such a great way to put it.
And I really appreciate you taking the time today. I
know that you have you know, the fam, the business,
(46:51):
your own podcast, the book, everything going on, and you know,
you're just such an inspirational entrepreneur. And you know, I
really love our friendship and thank you for the time,
and just you know, on our way out, you know,
speaking to those that have already taken that plunge in
our entrepreneurs I imagine that you have some advice that
you do give along with you know, being undaunted and
(47:12):
going for it when you feel anxiety, when you feel scared,
just pushing through. You know, what was one thing that
you wish when you were starting out this journey that
someone that had the experience told you probably two things
that it's okay too not actually hit the goal that
you originally intended to hit, and instead look at the
(47:36):
journey as learning towards where you're ultimately supposed to be.
And then also I think that passion really trump's experience.
I really believed that I couldn't do things, and I
put up my own walls. Initially thinking oh, I can't
go do this because I haven't worked for poker PEPSI like,
(47:58):
that's why I can't do it. But instead I just
decided it might take me longer. It might, you know,
every time along the way. You know, if if I
like people said, oh, as a female entrepreneur, like are
you going to be able to do this? Or you're
running you know, a company with your husband, like are
you gonna be able to do this? Like it's like,
(48:19):
you know, there's so many people. You have your own
doubts as an entrepreneur. I'm sure you did as well.
But then people will actually you spend enough time with
certain people and they'll put even more doubts in your head. Right,
And I think it's it's your own decision to make
to just say I'm going to keep going and it's
okay if it doesn't end up exactly where I want
(48:41):
it to go. I'm going to learn a lot of things.
There's gonna be great stories along the way. I know
there's gonna be good that's going to develop out of this.
And I lived and did interesting stuff, right, and and
that for me is like that's my legacy. Um, That's
what I want to be known for. That's what I
(49:02):
want my you know, family to know me that I
worked tirelessly to be able to do what I thought
was right. Well, thank you, Kara, I couldn't agree with
you more. Everybody, go drink hint Water. Listen to Kara's
awesome podcast by the book Do it All. It's called
Undotted and it's on Amazon and on our website at
(49:23):
drink dot com right now, too so, and thank you
for being on care Well, thank you Jeff. For more
(49:46):
podcasts for my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down as some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled learned their way into achieving great things.
(00:21):
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
today on the show, I had the pleasure of chatting
with Kara Golden. Kara is the founder and CEO of Hint,
the San Francisco based company which produces the leading unsweetened
flavored water. She's also the host of the Unstoppable podcast
and author of the upcoming book Undaunted, which releases October.
(00:41):
She's been named one of Fast Companies Most Creative People
in Business, and prior to Hint, Kara was the vice
president of shopping and e Commerce Partnership to a o L,
where she led growth of its startup shopping business to
a one billion dollar enterprise. In our conversation, Kara mentioned
that she believes that the best entrepreneurs the ones who
are willing to admit their no idea what they're doing,
and she argues that in these moments, the most important
(01:03):
thing is not necessarily making the right choice, but making
a choice to follow through, and they say, before you
change the world, you must first change yourself. So it
was no surprise to hear that Kara's curiosity with her
health and the product she consumed led her to founding
HINT and engaging with the movement to make clean water
available to all Americans. So please enjoy my conversation with
(01:24):
Kara Golden Well. Kara, thank you for coming to the podcast.
Thanks for having me. I'm always so excited to catch
up with you because I know I'm going to hear
about like a dozen deeply important things to me that
I should be spending more time on. That you somehow
while you know, raising a family of four four four,
(01:47):
I mean they're kind of out of the house now.
It's like it's crazy. I have my third that just
started college, which is insane incredible. Coming out the other
end of it, I feel like they've learned a lot
by having not only a mom, but parents that are
super busy and entrepreneurial and going up against crazy odds. Right,
(02:09):
and these are the uh, the next generation that isn't
afraid to sort of think about things, think differently, follow passions,
all of that kind of stuff. So I'm sure it's
such a journey and you learn a ton from them,
and like, it's definitely a perspective I don't get because
I don't have any you know, sixteen to twenty two
year olds that I kick it with on a regular basis.
(02:31):
So if you don't have that, it's kind of impossible
to have their perspective. You will, though, you'll see well funny,
funny enough like that go to would be you know,
pre having you know, more than one child, would be like, man,
how did you how did you start HINT with a
family of four in the house. I don't understand how
that's even possible. And then it's like, oh, it's making
(02:52):
sense out of chaos. It's just like starting a business. No,
I totally is. I remember when I was first starting HINT,
people would be like, what's like being a mom starting
a business with kids? And and I was like, you
mean starting a business with four kids under the age
of six? Like, and you know, and I joked about it,
but I said, I remember one day when I was
(03:14):
grocery shopping and the Target parking lot and I see
this I didn't have my kids with me, and I
see this mom who, like I was holding one kid's
hand and she had too. It wasn't were in like
the top part of the cart, and one was in
the car, and I was thinking, oh my god, like
that just looks crazy, and then all of a sudden,
I was like, oh my god, that's what I look
(03:34):
like probably to that, because right you just you know,
you just don't really take the time to actually think
about how nutty it is. And you know, we'll talk
about this later, but it's part of I have a
book coming out in a little bit, launching on October
twenty called Undaunted, and you know, there's there's definitely stories
(03:56):
about that and sort of things I've learned along the
way where it's really about tackling your doubts and your
doubters and and just going and doing it and learning
along the way. And you totally are an example of
this as well, where you know, you start in one
spot and you just and you learn and you tackle
(04:17):
failure and you're not afraid to say you failed at
certain things and you're going to do better and all
of those things. So I think like those are the
best entrepreneurs. Frankly, I think they're the best parents, they're
the best friends. Right, they're the best mentors all they're
they're the best leaders. And so that's really what this
book is getting people, you know, to talk about. It's
(04:38):
it's being called you know, part business. Part definitely talks
about the journey of building my company hint. But it's
also a bit autobiography. It's also a bit um self development.
You've always been able to balance, like your early team
at a O L, like pre you know, hundred people
days at a O L. And I know where you know,
(04:58):
had a really rich experience, you know, building that from
a startup to a big organization, building the family and
building hint this you know, your incredible your incredible water
company that has really you know, helped my household. And
I'm sure millions of others get off of soda and
you know, of course I want to get into that
story in particular. But but but growing up, like, is
(05:20):
this is this something that you always this is is
this how you found balance? Where you like, you know,
a high school kid doing like eight different things passionately
at the same time. What do you see that's like
the through line the thread? Yeah, well two things. Uh
so my dad had actually I think about him now
often he passed away about ten years ago. But he
(05:41):
was an entrepreneur, but not in sort of the traditional sense.
He had actually launched a product inside of a large company,
a large company called ConAgra, but the product was called
Healthy Choice. So I grew up with him, you know,
constantly tinkering. My mom had decided in her forties to
go back to work and really follow her passion around fashion.
(06:04):
Maybe most dads would like learn to cook, but my
dad instead, since he was working for a company called
Armor Food Company UM which was later acquired by Knagra,
he just decided, why don't I just go develop a
product line that I would actually want to eat? You know,
I grew up in a house where I mean, looking back,
(06:25):
of course, you never really appreciate your dad right when
you're little. You're just like, oh my god, what's he
doing now? But things like you know, storytelling around sourcing,
and I mean he was really the first packaging and
product and I've gone back to sort of you know,
double checked this as well. That really he would talk
(06:46):
about the fisherman off of St. Simon's Island who were
giving up there, you know, their breakfast with their kids
in order to catch the best shrimp in the morning,
and you know, things that nobody was do wing. I mean,
this is like the early eighties. You know, grew up
around this, didn't have an appreciation for this at all.
(07:06):
But I also was the youngest of five kids, and
I talked about this little bit in the book as well,
where you know, I always I couldn't figure out, like
why my brothers and sisters got to like have jobs
and and you know do things that including they had money,
right they could go out and go to the mall
and go shopping, and I couldn't because I didn't have
the same money, because they actually had a job. And
(07:28):
so when I was fourteen years old, I went and
got a job at a toy store and in Scottsdale,
where I grew up, And I remember coming home and
telling my dad I got a job on Sundays and
he's like, wait, why, Like what happened? How did you
get a job? You're not sixteen? And I was like, yeah, no,
I I applied and I got this job at Alphabet
(07:51):
toy store and I'm going to do the cash register.
And he was like, I can't believe they like hired you.
And so anyway, fast forward a few months I just
I was a kid, right, so I knew what toys
to buy, and so people should come in and they
would always ask me like, oh my, you know, my
son really likes to read. I mean, what should I
(08:13):
get him? He doesn't really like toys. And I would
always you know, point him to Shell Silverstein or you know,
like like just books that were just like would take
you out of you know, your element and things I'd
always know, like how to figure out things that people
didn't know about even before they walked in there. And
so so you're saying you killed it. You were absolutely
(08:36):
filthy toys salesman, Well I was, and then I became
the buyer. I was sort of like the Tommy like yeah,
so I would go to these like buying shows and
you know, and again I tell my friends, Hey, I'm
going going to this buying show this weekend and they're
like wait, what what how do you get to do that?
And you get paid and you know, it's great, and again,
(08:57):
like I think I was always I always sort of
led with this theory of I am so lucky that
I'm able to do this. Like I loved being the
one that was doing stuff that other people weren't doing
like I just I sort of I lead with kind
of like I am so fortunate that I that I'm
able to get this job. It continued on like I
(09:21):
you know, I was just telling a friend the other day. Actually,
a friend on Facebook reminded me how one summer I
just decided I was going to start a camp for kids.
And I asked my friend Robin if she wanted to
start this camp with me, and she's like, what's the
camp about? And I was like, well, I get these
like boxes at the grocery store that are for toilet paper,
paper towels, and you know, and I decorate them at home,
(09:43):
and I want to have a camp and we'll build
a city. She was like, wait, we're gonna build a city?
And I'm like, I don't know, maybe it's a town,
but it's like something. It'll be great. And she's like,
where are we going to find the people? I'm like, oh,
let's just make a sign and we'll just hold the
sign up. And you know, my brothers and my sisters
were like laughing at me. I mean they were just like, wait,
(10:04):
what are you gonna do now? And I'm like, okay,
I got this whole idea. It's five bucks, you know,
five bucks a day, and parents drop off their kids.
It's like a hundred and twenty degrees in the middle
of summer. We're all in the garage. You know. It
was just there were so many reasons why it wasn't
supposed to work, and like it worked. It was a
two week camp, and you know, Robin and I split
(10:25):
it fifty fifty, and you know, we were sold out.
We had like twenty kids each week for this camp,
and you know, we could have continued, but then we
got bored and we wanted to move on to something else,
and so people just decorated these boxes. We would just
make it up as we you know, went along, and
I think, like you know that that was sort of
the core. I look, you know, it's so much easier
to look back on kind of things that you did.
(10:48):
But I I just I don't know, I just always
just did stuff because I could, right Like, I just
I made stuff. I was always like trying my brain
was always like just trying to be creative. And you know,
I think one thing that I have so much appreciation
for now and both of my parents was they just
(11:08):
thought that gosh, you know, I don't know if if
they if the toy store allows her to work at
age fourteen, and no one's gonna say anything, all right,
Like they were just like whatever, you know. They yeah,
they were down with it, and they thought it was
kind of funny. I mean, they were just they thought
it was a little bit odd. And I was like
the only one that they knew that was fourteen that
had a job. But they, you know, they were like, oh,
(11:31):
that's great and so and I think like that's the
thing that I just was never afraid to sort of
do what other people weren't doing and also lead. But
I wasn't you know, sitting there like saying that I
wasn't student body president. I was like best friends with
student body president, like you know that kind of thing.
(11:52):
Like I was always just going and I lead with
like doing things that I was really passionate about. But
I also lead with God, this is so fun and
this is so crazy that we're doing this. And I
would only still do things if I was enjoying it
and I was having a good time. And so I
never sort of bought into this philosophy of go work
(12:13):
on Wall Street because that's the thing to do. I
like my entire life has been around only do things
because you actually really are excited about it, and you
can continue that on into sort of life and things
that you've become passionate about, including you know, everything from
(12:34):
helping people get healthier by drinking more water and you know,
as you know, also leading into some of the you know,
initiatives that I'm working on with Washington Washington around clean
water too. Like I think you you just continue to
do things because you can, and also leading with sort
of the same guidance that I did as as you know,
(12:57):
a young kid, which was really follow your heart, do
things that make a difference, that are a lot of fun,
but also you know people are enjoying it um and
that ultimately are just going to make things better. And
that was just really what I just kind of lead
in my life then. And now we'll be back with
(13:21):
more out of the hustle after the break. I'm curious, like,
now that you're in Washington, do you do you think
that you could have done it in the opposite direction
where it was like, you know, let's go and work
on change making at scale without having a platform like
(13:42):
hint or do you think that you know, having this
business makes a big difference. I think having the business
definitely makes a big difference. You know, I talk about
you know, a lot when I'm when I'm talking about
this initiative that I'm working on. So the so the
initiative is is around clean water. And I had sort
of been under this impression that there are people somewhere
(14:09):
like maybe it was the p A. I'm not even
sure that I actually thought of it as the e
p A, but I thought that there was some organization
on a national level that made sure that water in
America was safe. And maybe it even goes back even farther, like,
you know, growing up in Arizona, I remember going going
(14:33):
down to Mexico a lot as a kid, and my
parents would always say, don't forget, like, don't drink the water,
because the water in Mexico at that time you'd get
Montezuma's revenge and you know, it just wasn't it just
you know, typically you get pretty bad stomach aches and
you know, all kinds of stuff. So I felt like
(14:56):
I lived in this place that, you know, where all
the water we're safe. And so sixteen is years ago
now when I started getting into the water industry, Prior
to that, as you mentioned, I was at a O
L and I was in media at CNN, and I
felt like this was a world that some sort of
guidance on that I wasn't involved in. And so when
(15:19):
I started bottling and manufacturing the products, what I started
seeing as I was visiting plants was that there was
just a lot of different variables to water and it
really depended not only on you know, what state you
were bottling in, but also oftentimes what city you were
bottling into. And so that to me was you know,
(15:45):
it was like news, but it wasn't even something that
I focused on as much as sort of thinking to myself, Okay,
we have to remove everything out of the water in
order to add fruit to the water, and we don't
use preservatives in our product, and so there were things
that we needed to make sure that we were starting with,
you know, including removing everything out of the water. And again,
(16:07):
there were certain cities that had worse water than than others,
and so that's when I really started to realize that
again this is probably getting into too many details, but
but even our product, because we use fruit in our water,
we're actually monitored by the f d A as compared
to traditional bottle water is not. They're regulated by the states,
(16:30):
and so I was like what yeah, And so I
was like, this is so confusing, Like it's just not
I mean, it's bizarre. So if you're bottling, if you
have you know, I always call it the cheap bottle water,
the like twenty four packs or thirty six packs for
three bucks at whatever your local store is, Crystal Springs,
(16:50):
that's what's called. Well oftentimes it's it's like a private
label product. I know, I'm just I'm just making fun
of that. I'm just thinking of like the cheapest one
where it feels like I could tear the plastic if
I really tried hard enough. Are and so those are
regulated by the state that they were actually produced it.
And so again here's sort of another thing. You may
(17:11):
it may show up in California, but let's say, for example,
that it was produced in Arizona or Utah, and so
the consumer doesn't actually really sit there and do the
work to try and figure out where is this product
produced and is that area like filled with you know,
lead or what other regulations. I mean, they don't do
(17:33):
that kind of work. And again, like I learned so
much about this stuff, just from years and years of
of kind of looking at this. The other thing that
I learned is that when we first started bottling somewhere
at the same plants and somewhere at different plants, you know,
fifteen sixteen years ago, the stuff that was in the
water has gotten worse. It hasn't gotten better. So again
(17:57):
we remove everything. So you know, our product was and
still is very very safe. But I thought, for all
those people who don't have high filtration systems that you know,
in their plants, or reverse osmosis or any of these things,
like like what is the consumer ultimately drinking they they've
been sold this like idea of you know, straight bottled
(18:21):
water is better for you, probably right, And so that
was like really where I got thinking about, you know,
this clean water stuff. And again I still, you know,
I was still on my journey of of kind of
healthy living and a few years ago and healthy production
(18:42):
of our product. A few years ago I actually landed
in Washington when we were trying to get into the
school lunch programs and the school lunch programs, I mean,
that's that's a whole other topic. We basically we're fighting
up against the Dairy Association, who owns like the tray
for the public school lunch system, which is thirty million kids,
(19:04):
and not just public schools but also the Catholic schools.
Anybody who's got any money from the federal government government
for you know, K through basically K through twelve is
under these barriers. Like they've got to they've got to
have a milk on every tray. And and the only
(19:24):
sort of exception to that is um, the Dairy Association
has done a deal with the Orange Juice Association, So
your options are milk or orange juice. And so I
was saying that is pathetic and that kids should have
access to water and a product like hint that you
(19:45):
know is has lots of different flavors and and isn't
all the sugarl on and on. So that went on
for like two years, that fight, and we lost. I mean,
basically we could not get anywhere with the Dairy Association
UM to actually remove them being essentially the provider. I mean,
(20:06):
they've got a fifteen year contract with the US government.
It's just it's absolutely insane. And so the reason that
they gave that basically allowed them to sort of, you know,
continue what they're doing, is that there's drinking fountains across
the US. And so I went back to a lot
of nutritionists that I had met along the way, and
(20:26):
particularly nutritious that we're working in schools and said, you know,
unfortunately we didn't get sort of where we wanted to
go with this, but basically the response back was that
kids can drink out of drinking fountains. And so I
kept hearing across the US from these you know, nutritionists
and schools that they were not that excited about this
(20:48):
because there was you know, lead in the drinking fountains.
And so I started learning about regulations around you know
how those varied as well, and that totally made sense
to me, knowing what I knew about bottle water. But
it's it's even on sort of a different system, like
I mentioned to you, like in California, you only have
to test and in fact, you can't test anymore and
(21:09):
turn that in for basically your school to sort of
pass the lead test. They will only accept a test
from five drinking fountains a particular school, and which is
just crazy, right And so so anyway, so as I
started to you know, dig more and more into this
what is in the water beyond the lead. Then I
(21:33):
started to you know, really start to look at some
of these other things that are in the drinking fountains,
including this ingredients that you and I are talking about.
P fast um, which is a known carcinogen according to
the NIH and the Center for Disease Control. What's really
fascinating about P fast is that P fast in the
(21:55):
Dairy Association and in the Food Association and are is
is actually regulated. And so if you have cows or
cattle that actually has p fasts and their bloodstream, then
those have to be destroyed. And where does it come from?
(22:16):
Because it's essentially teflon. Are they adding it to the
water or is this like you know, from the plastics
that are just in the system. Like where is p
fast coming from? In the will? It's in the water.
It originally added added to the water. It's added to
the water, but it's in a lot more stuff than
consumers know. So, you know, we had these fires in
California and Southern California and northern California, and you know
(22:39):
that stuff that they throw on the fire is it
has p fast in it, and so it's now in
our water supply. It's you know, it's it's flowing in
our water supply. And most of these states are not
even that they're not even measuring it. And so the
e p A Is starting to look at it. It
used to be have known as this ingredient that it
(23:03):
was really like primarily close to military bases, but now
it's like it's all over the place. And and in fact,
in Connecticut, I think it was last year bloomin Fall,
the Senator from Connecticut actually shut down or sort of
pushed to shut down a couple of attle water plants.
(23:25):
I'm just as I'm just remembering. I used to buy,
like we would buy pots and pans that were advertised
with teflon as like the coding that would make an
anti slip, right, We're in reality that was something that
was really negatively affecting our immune system. Yeah, yeah no.
And it was like and you know again, it's like,
what's what's so crazy is the fact that you know,
(23:48):
we've got we live in these like parallel paths, right.
And and the way that you know, I look at
this too, is that the NIH and the Center for
Disease Control both say that p FAST is a known carcinogen, right,
they've removed it from milk, from cattle. In fact, if
(24:10):
you're you know, a farmer with either of those and
you have p FAST, I mean your business is gone.
I mean it's like they've done stories about it where
you know, basically it's come in and again, how does
it get in to the grass that the cow is
going to eat? For example, it's the water supply, and
no one is actually doing anything about this, right, And
(24:34):
it's just unbelievable. And again going back to sort of
stuff that I learned as a kid, It's like I
always thought that America had, you know, the cleanest water anywhere.
Like I thought, like, we just do it right, like
there's other places in the world where they don't, right.
And then so to learn that the only way that
(24:58):
we're actually you know, stopping this from ultimately getting into
people's homes or getting into people's farms is like we're
just not right. I mean, it's just I mean, there's crazy.
You know, we all heard about Flint, right, and you know,
horrible stuff going on in Flint with with lead, and
you know now they've p fasts has shown up in
(25:19):
Flint as well. I mean even when Flint sort of
raised their flag and said, we don't have the money
to fix this. They went to the federal government and
they said, we don't have the money to fix this.
And what you show up and they said no. And
so a lot of people ask, like, you know, they
just assume that Flint was fixed. It wasn't fixed. I mean,
(25:40):
and now we've seen it in new work, We've seen
it in you know, so many other places. And then
you know, if you look across the US at you know,
just strange cancers. I mean, Michigan has had some like
bizarre ones where there's just pockets where you see the gasses.
Is just incredible. This is our mutual friend and Brockovich's specialty,
(26:01):
right is that pattern recognition of this, you know, savage inequality? Yeah,
and it's crazy. And now, as I was mentioning to you,
there's a couple of studies that have actually been shown
how it relates to COVID And apparently people who have
had COVID that are still alive and some unfortunately not
(26:21):
alive that had p fests and their bloodstream are showing
that they can't produced antibodies to you know, prevent COVID
or you know, coming back and and sort of getting
them either and they're they're really tying it to you know,
this the body's you know, ability to really get this
stuff out, and so it's just it's really really frightening,
(26:45):
and so they so getting back to you. In short,
what we're doing is that we're working with with Congresswoman
Jackie Spear to hopefully build a case to actually take
this to Congress US to actually pay attention um to this,
and our you know, ultimately, our hope is that we
actually not only go and make consumers aware of this,
(27:11):
but try and actually get the states to put better
regulations in place for not only testing you know, things
like lead and p fast, but also doing more testing.
I mean, why does a school only you know, California
has some of the better testing in the US. And
why is it only five drinking fountains? I mean the
(27:33):
fact that in the kitchens that where you're washing the lettuce,
you know, you're using the water like that can have
all kinds of stuff and we're not doing any type
of testing around that too. So I you know, think
that every single fountain that you would be that would
come in contact with your food or that you would
(27:54):
be potentially drinking should actually be tested. So again, I
would not have had the information, the passion, the conviction
that I've had if I hadn't started my company first,
right like, I wouldn't have just had the knowledge. And
I think that that's where, you know, talking about these
(28:16):
parallel paths. What's frustrating is You've got the NIH who's
got their information, the c d C who has got
their information. All the states have their information, the e
p A has got their information. I've got my information
around you know, developing a product and actually seeing it
across these states, but nobody's really putting these things together
(28:37):
and actually saying how it's going to impact the health
of our country. Art of the Hustle will be right
back after the short break. I want to transition to
something that we definitely will not all get behind, but
another you know, could be considered you know, poise in
(29:00):
this liquid soda. Yeah, I don't want to assume people
understand the amount of sugar, the impossible amount of sweetness.
That's why absorbic acid is put into soda. I know
you have a personal story that motivated the starting of HINT,
so please tell tell the listeners. Yeah, so My story
(29:21):
began when I was a teenager, and you know, I
started drinking diet soda because I thought it was better
for me. And so over the years, I continued to
drink it, and every year they would come out with
this new diet drink that would taste tasted even better,
and I bought into it. So for years and years,
I'm drinking it. I had my kids. I even drink it,
(29:44):
you know, through my pregnancies, and you know, kept wondering, like, Okay,
there's these sweeteners in here. I don't know if I
should cut that out or not, but you know, it's
so good and for me. After I had my third child,
I woke up one day and it had been going
on for a while, but I I looked at my skin,
and my skin had developed this terrible adult acne. And
(30:07):
I couldn't figure it out. And it wasn't something that
I you know, you you don't even talk to your
adult friends about, Oh I got really bad acne, right,
It's just something that you're sort of like personally dealing
with that I just wasn't comfortable with it. I had
also gained all this weight, and I kept like thinking, oh,
it's from the pregnancies. But you know, I just I
just could not lose the weight. And I had been
a gymnast growing up. I knew how to lose weight
(30:28):
and work out, and nothing was working. And so finally
I went a few doctors. I started, you know, they
really pointed at my food and and said, you know,
you've got to like really pay attention. And that's when
I just got really you know, religious about understanding not
only sugars and diet sweeteners, but also like hormones and
(30:51):
sort of other stuff that that was going into you know,
the food. And I live in Marin County. It's pretty
easy to get, you know, pretty healthy food. When I
realized is that it actually wasn't my food because what
I had done was I did another test, which was
I got rid of like one day, just decided, cold turkey,
I'm not going to drink my diet soda anymore, and
(31:13):
I'm gonna drink water. I you know, never was a
water drinker. I grew up in Arizona. I should have
been drinking a lot more water. But again, like I
just figured diet soda was made up of water, and
so you know, it must be water somewhere in there.
And so I started drinking lots of water and throwing
fruit in my water. And that's when I really realized that,
(31:36):
you know, after two and a half weeks my of
giving up my diet drink, I was My skin was better,
it had totally cleared up. I had um lost over
twenty pounds and two and a half weeks. It was
like the easiest thing I had almost ever did, just
from making that change. It was incredible. And I kept
(31:58):
like I actually even longer story which I get into
in the book, like I went back to a doctor
and you know, actually I thought I was sick because
I was losing weight so fast and I couldn't figure
out what was going on. You know, over the course
of six months, I lost fifty five pounds, which is
a lot of weight um to lose in that period
of time. And again friends would notice, they're like, you know,
(32:21):
some would say, God, you look sick. Others would say,
you know, you look amazing, like you know, what are
you doing differently? And um. And then by the time
a year rolled around, like my body just sort of
adjusted at this point, and that's when I, you know,
really started to look at you know, this drink phenomenon
(32:42):
that was going on and why I had felt like
drinking diet soda was fine and and right right, like
I had been marketed to for years. And then I
started looking at other drinks that were out there, like
and which was never my drink, but like vitamin water,
like the fact that it's called water. And when I
(33:02):
asked most of my friends who were drinking vitamin water,
they were like, you know, shocked when I told them,
you know, fifteen years ago, vitamin water had more sugar
in it than a can of regular coke, right, like nobody,
and that's such an interesting observation. That was the biggest
drink of a decade. It was called vitamin water and
it had no vitamins and it wasn't water, right right,
(33:25):
and brilliant, brilliant marketing. But unfortunately, like that is not
what consumers thought it was right totally. I was drinking
it before my like sports games. It's like, I'm gonna
have a vitamin water, so I'm in like the best
condition to win the soccer game. Yeah, And so again
I was sort of living this life of like had
(33:47):
you know, this aha moment about how I had been
fooled and marketed to and like I was way ahead
of my time. I mean fifteen years ago. People would
meet me and and I would talk to them about
this and the and be like, oh, yeah, right. You know,
they just didn't really understand what I was talking about.
And certainly for for so many people, they sort of
understood that sugar was probably not that great, but people
(34:09):
weren't reading labels and so, you know, basically, I I
just again sort of going back to my roots of
you know, just thinking, like I would explain this idea
to people and they were like, okay, whatever. And then
I got bored one day and I thought, God, I
wonder if I could I just shot started shopping at
this local store that had just opened in San Francisco
(34:29):
called Whole Foods, and I was like, I wonder if
I could go get I could get our product on
the shelf there. And you know, I said this to
my husband and we hadn't launched the product at all,
and I just said I'm just gonna, you know, go
get it on the shelf. And he was like, okay, honey, whatever,
like really wasn't paying attention. And and then I think
(34:50):
realized that I was pretty serious about this, and you
know still to this day, like people are like, oh,
did you always want to launch a beverage company? I
don't even think this is a beverage company today, Like
from me, it's really an initiative around helping people to
get healthier. So every day, still to this day, fifteen
years later, I get emails and you know, messages on
(35:13):
social from people who you know, really identify hand as
helping them, right, Like it's a brand that helps them
drink water, lose weight, control type two diabetes, you know,
helps them through the cancer. Lots of different like that
that that word help comes up all the time. And
(35:34):
oftentimes it also you know words that consumers use and
again they're not thinking when they use these words. But
it's um, I mean, it's so impactful for a you know, founder,
a CEO to hear these things because it's like if
you can build a brand where people are saying you're
(35:55):
helping me, right, you give me hope. Prior to you,
like coming out with this product, I never thought that
I could actually lose the weight that I wanted to lose.
Yet we don't call ourselves a diet drink right, we
call our you know, we just help people drink water.
You know, we don't have any calories, but we're not
running around saying zero, you know, like this is this,
(36:18):
I mean, we're really we're like if you just focus
on the quality and what we're doing versus like all
of this like you know jargon that's out there that
so many other beverage companies, consumer products companies are using,
then you will actually get where you're supposed to be.
And and again, I just think it it really just
(36:40):
goes back to you know, a lot of people. I mean,
for a founder to still be here and still running
the company of CEO fifteen years later is pretty like surprising, right, incredible, right,
And I think that it's not only you know that
we've been able to build a brand that sticks, but
also you know, for me personal, I still feel like
(37:02):
I've got work to do. Well, You're you're you guys
are remarkable entrepreneurs. I mean that that you could, you know,
start this from literally I believe, and you might have
alluded to it, but it started with you boiling fruit
skins in your kitchen putting them in water, right, yeah, no,
And and again I had no idea what I was doing, right,
(37:23):
Like it was I mean, you know, somebody said this
to me the other day that they just figured out that,
you know, the best entrepreneurs are the ones that really
still to this day don't know what they're doing. And
I'm like, that's right. I have no idea. Every single
day I get up and when I'm not motivated to
(37:43):
like actually do anything, I will like announced to everybody,
I'm gonna go do two things today. And that's and
that is like, you know, I'm gonna go do two
things and maybe some things that I just don't even
think I like was ever going to be able to do.
Maybe it's a maybe it's reaching out to different like
for my book. I mean when I was when I
(38:06):
you know, got some people to read my book, I mean,
people were like, who are you going to get to
read your book? And I'm like Cheryl Sandberg, Jamie Diamond,
uh Like people are like really and I'm like, huh yeah,
I'm gonna I'm gonna go do it. I like, I
don't I don't care, Like I figure, I really really
believe that if instead of worrying about failure or worrying
(38:28):
about like what could happen, if instead you just like
keep moving forward and start on your journey, you'll find
things along the way that you're meant to do right.
So I never would have gotten to working on stuff
in Washington around clean water if I wouldn't have been fighting,
(38:49):
you know, and really understanding you know, trays and and
you know, school lunches, and I'm not done there, Like
I may go back there, but in the meantime, I'm
gonna go and do what feels right to me. Well,
your undaunted philosophy, it's an evolutionary jump in a sense
because you know, our decisions, individual decisions, used to be
(39:11):
so much more the consequences were so much more mortal.
But the way we hacked it myself and my co
founders is that everybody was more sophisticated than we were.
Every conversation we were having, we were first too, and
they were, you know, five hundred too. So our coping
mechanism was actually just to have as much fun as
we could and be like, you know what, if this
(39:32):
conversation is memorable and it's the most fun meeting they
had all week, likely something good will come out of it.
If we try to sound like we're smart, there's no
way we're going to make it out alive. But if
we have a great time and they have a great
time and we leave and they're like, I might invest
in that person's future. Typically, you know, the outcomes are
(39:52):
going to be far outside from what you even could
have imagined they would have been, no totally. And that's
the same with you know. I remember the first trade
show we were at when, you know, back in two
thousand five, I just had my fourth kid, and you know,
like literally a few weeks later, I showed up at
this trade show and I remember this huge guy in
(40:12):
the beverage industry um that writes like a you know,
analysis of beverages, Jerry Comuch. He was like, you guys
are gonna be like, you know, you seem like two
nice people, myself and my husband THEO, but you're gonna
be road kill. You have no idea what you're doing.
You came from tech. You're just these probably arrogant tech people.
And I just sat there and listened and you know,
(40:35):
watched you know him sort of decide what my future was.
And I'm still friendly with Jerry today. Like I I threw,
I remind him of this conversation, and and I wasn't
afraid to walk into a bottling plant and say, please
spend a few minutes with me. I know I'm gonna
ask really stupid questions, like you know, And there were
(40:57):
a lot of people that said no, like you're wasting
my time. I don't want to talk to you. And
like I'd be like, oh, that's that's really a bummer, Okay,
I get it whatever, and I'd move on. And but
I just kept knocking. I kept like going and and
and I think, like that's the thing that finally you
what you realize is like some of the conversations that
(41:18):
we had, we were the first product that used real
fruit in it other than Jews that was calling itself
water that didn't use preservatives in the product, so vitamin water,
Like whether they used fruit or not is a whole
other story, but but they they had tons of preservatives
in the product, and I just didn't want that in
(41:40):
my product. And so what we were doing is I
was asking the bottlers when they were bottling our product.
I'm like, why do I have to use preservatives? And
they're like just cuts, And I'm like, okay, slow down,
Like why just because I just don't understand. And so
that annoying little girl who used to always ask why, right,
And my dad was like, oh my god, I'm gonna
(42:02):
you know, like stop, don't ask me why anymore, stopp
being curious. Right. It's finally, you know, I had people saying, gosh,
I don't I don't know. I've just always said, like,
you have to use preservatives in the product, but I
don't really know the answer. And I'm like, well, we
should think about this together. And so that was you know,
I mean, I'll never forget. We you know, ended up
(42:24):
having a conversation with a guy and at a bottler
in Watsonville, California, and you know, it was just that
like he was like, I've never I've bottled lots of
products for people, everything from vitamin water to honesty to
lots of other things, and I've never had anyone ask
me why does the product need preservatives in it? And
(42:46):
so if I wouldn't have come into the beverage industry
really admitting that I knew nothing and instead just using
curiosity as my leader, and you know, and sort of
understand ending too that there's a lot of people who
don't want to go on that journey with me, right,
Like they don't want it. Well, I'm not. I'm not certain.
(43:07):
I'm not certain that's how how it plays out. Of course,
I'd prefer to have you know, natural products versus preserved products, right,
But no one had done it. At the same time,
Vitamin Water built, you know, a mass market brand that
was called vitamin Water, and so whether or not it
had it in it, it did create a marketplace where
there was now a gateway for people to start sort
(43:28):
of seeing themselves as someone that would want to drink
vitamin water. And by the way, on that consumer journey,
I'd imagine a decade later, your customers today at scale,
where at one time Vitamin Water customers who might have
been introduced to the idea this is my Tom Shoes theory.
You know, like Tom Shoes certainly isn't going to be
the brand that like you know, puts shoes on every
(43:50):
child in the world and changes the economic structure of
the planet. But it was the first mover in a
generation to make giving cool. Yeah, no, I I totally agree.
Also said something too that I think is is really
interesting that I thought a lot about. So a lot
of people ask me, like should I go start a
company or when do you know? It's like the right
time to quit your job and go start a company.
(44:12):
And my story goes back to my dad. Like I said,
he was this entrepreneur in my mind, and I would
say to him as a little kid, like, you know,
you have so many good ideas, like why don't you
go start your company? And well, my dad never said
to me was sort of what he valued. And he
had five kids, and my dad valued putting all five
(44:34):
of us through college, and that was the number one
thing like he valued. He said, like, this is what
needs to happen. And so he wasn't going to go
quit his good job to actually go start a company
because in his mind, that was selfish and that was
not putting his children in front. And so I always
(44:56):
say to people, I don't live in your you know,
shoot right, I don't know what you value. I don't
understand you know, your financial situation. But what I can
say is that no matter what your situation is, you
can make a plan and that way, you know, you
can actually live and live undaunted. Maybe that plan is
(45:20):
to go save money in order to get yourself to
a position to actually ultimately do what you want to do.
But if you just sit there and talk about it
and say I don't have enough money. You know, this
is like that you put walls up in front of
yourself all day long, or that person can do it
because you know their parents or their grandparents give them
lots of money. I mean that is not helpful, like right,
(45:44):
that doesn't help you to ultimately do what you want
to do. And so if you really believe that you
want to go start a company or start a nonprofit
or whatever you want to do, then start making a
plan and just start doing. I mean maybe that plan
is just sitting there on Saturday afternoon for you know,
blocking out time and actually writing this thing out and
(46:06):
trying to or talking to ten people in the next
six months. So you're doing something right. You're starting on
your journey to figure out whether or not this is
actually the right thing for you to do. But I
really do believe that, you know, whenever people say like, oh,
you know you're more fortunate, or you're like I I
just I don't know. I think that it's it's just
(46:29):
being too easy on people. I think you everybody can
go do what they ultimately want to do. It may
not be tomorrow, but I think that you can do
it in a certain amount of time, if that's what
you ultimately put stakes in the ground to wanting to do.
I love that that's such a great way to put it.
And I really appreciate you taking the time today. I
know that you have you know, the fam, the business,
(46:51):
your own podcast, the book, everything going on, and you know,
you're just such an inspirational entrepreneur. And you know, I
really love our friendship and thank you for the time,
and just you know, on our way out, you know,
speaking to those that have already taken that plunge in
our entrepreneurs I imagine that you have some advice that
you do give along with you know, being undaunted and
(47:12):
going for it when you feel anxiety, when you feel scared,
just pushing through. You know, what was one thing that
you wish when you were starting out this journey that
someone that had the experience told you probably two things
that it's okay too not actually hit the goal that
you originally intended to hit, and instead look at the
(47:36):
journey as learning towards where you're ultimately supposed to be.
And then also I think that passion really trump's experience.
I really believed that I couldn't do things, and I
put up my own walls. Initially thinking oh, I can't
go do this because I haven't worked for poker PEPSI like,
(47:58):
that's why I can't do it. But instead I just
decided it might take me longer. It might, you know,
every time along the way. You know, if if I
like people said, oh, as a female entrepreneur, like are
you going to be able to do this? Or you're
running you know, a company with your husband, like are
you gonna be able to do this? Like it's like,
(48:19):
you know, there's so many people. You have your own
doubts as an entrepreneur. I'm sure you did as well.
But then people will actually you spend enough time with
certain people and they'll put even more doubts in your head. Right,
And I think it's it's your own decision to make
to just say I'm going to keep going and it's
okay if it doesn't end up exactly where I want
(48:41):
it to go. I'm going to learn a lot of things.
There's gonna be great stories along the way. I know
there's gonna be good that's going to develop out of this.
And I lived and did interesting stuff, right, and and
that for me is like that's my legacy. Um, That's
what I want to be known for. That's what I
(49:02):
want my you know, family to know me that I
worked tirelessly to be able to do what I thought
was right. Well, thank you, Kara, I couldn't agree with
you more. Everybody, go drink hint Water. Listen to Kara's
awesome podcast by the book Do it All. It's called
Undotted and it's on Amazon and on our website at
(49:23):
drink dot com right now, too so, and thank you
for being on care Well, thank you Jeff. For more
(49:46):
podcasts for my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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