Why Slow Money Beats Fast Money

I often tell our team if we ask questions that all have answers to them were not good doing a good job of asking the questions or we need to observe the counter party feels that there's an answer for everything and often times there isn't for you know especially your answer. The answer I love more than anything is I haven't thought about that enough yet. I'd like to take some time and think about that and come back to you.

Family, where values guide values grow. Our guest today has built a career proving exactly this, into a multi-billion-dollar company. She scaled it from $20 million to more than a billion in sales with her personal values intact through every stage of that growth. Now she's president of investments at Camino Partners where she backs pioneering founders building enduring companies the right way. What is that right way? and integrity at the center. After all, the name Camino means journey, and that's exactly what she's continuing to do, not only creating a journey for herself, through building a company that all of us have enjoyed or at least most of us, the products of, but now helping other founders to build their companies forward. But you know with all of that, what draws me to Ali is not only the scale of what she's built, is the conviction beneath it. Her conviction that a company can solve real problems for real people. and earn success without compromising values.

Ellie, welcome! Thank you, excited to be here.

Yeah, it is, and I'm really excited about our conversation. The thing is, before you became the wonderful woman who I'm looking at right here, I'd love you to take my family back to your early years. Where did you grow up and talk about who the people were who shape how you see work and how you treat others? I'm so impressed with not only your career, your person as I think I know it,

So I was fortunate to grow up in the Midwest, so I grew up in Minnesota, and a suburb of Minneapolis, and from a family of five, that includes my parents, so older brother, middle sister, and myself, and fortunate also to grow up in a very entrepreneurial family. had a career where he was fortunate enough to invest in businesses, sometimes leave investing and go start the ideas that he was excited enough about and having an older brother, the conversation at the table kind of naturally gravitated towards business. And so at a very young age, I say I have a choice to either be bored out of my mind. or try to figure out what it was that they were talking about. And I chose to try to keep up, not really knowing how that would end up serving me later in life. But really, that was kind of the start of what I consider a key trait for success, which is just insatiable curiosity.

You know, insatiable curiosity is I think key to not just entrepreneurs but also to people anywhere today, especially as we've got so much sometimes that vanished, sometimes people see it as this it vanished, opportunity and access to information with we're talking AI or we're talking about simply the ability to meet people through journeys that we take. Sitting at your dinner table, you likely had a lot of view into how your dad saw the world and business therein. You also have a lot of responsibility from that I would imagine, given the time you were growing up in and the access to information you were getting at a table, how did that feel for you and how do you think it's shaped how you see work and how you treat others?

So I think it's You know, when you flash forward to at one stage in my career, I had a role of Chief of Staff for Daniel, which we'll get to, but I think one of the things it wasn't until I was in that role that I realized that that was actually the role that my mom held for my dad, but it was just at home, right? It wasn't in the workplace, but she was doing that at home. And so, And they were very, very different, you know, my mom was like, no one crosses us and my dad was, you know, from farmland, southern Minnesota, born to the local family photographer, and so not as much, you know, as my mom was fierce and my dad was. warm but also could be walked over and I think what I was able to watch and see is that oftentimes in business you have to find a way to blend both right and so you have to know where to stand your ground but to do it with an empathy and warmth that hopefully positions you what they're coming to the table thinking and experiencing and so always working through that and like the most constructive and empathetic way. And for me, that was at the family dinner table where I saw a lot of the way to shape and kind of combine things that you might think are counter-veiling forces.

you're so correct in that, those counterbalancing. And I love that you shape the conversation for us this way in the beginning because so many of our family right now are debating even amongst themselves about themselves. You know, where does my heart strengthen? need to be given where does my soft strength need to be given and how you're doing that isn't necessarily a day-to-day thing in business oftentimes there's a moment to moment thing in business and if you don't have any type or if you've not had in your life any type of example of that to see it at work and to see outcomes from it you're pretty much shooting in the anywhere in the world we've had. And the opportunity to grow a business from zero to global means that you're not just dealing with the people who in your instance were in Minnesota and my interest is in farmly and North Carolina. You're dealing with people who are coming from so many places. One thing I will ask you, what do you think? is different about how you see people with, and we're gonna get to the journey of your success, how you see people today. And what we believe about people today that you didn't get sitting across the table from family, and then how is sitting across the table today from founders teaching you about what we're betting on? You got what am I saying?

Yes, yes. You know, it's funny, because I recognize that we are all products of our environment and so my first, my first opportunity out of college was in the marketing services industry and you know driven to be successful, I clearly conformed to that environment. And then that was what led me to the opportunity to work with Daniel at kind and in the first meeting with him he was asking me actually some very similar questions you know what was my relationship with my siblings it was it was unlike any job interview I'd ever you know been in before and it was so different that I said this is certainly something I need to try and You know, 16 years later, still working and partnering with him and building things and so he brought me back more to what I felt was the leadership example I saw in my dad where you understand the people that are coming to work with you you understand. what they've been through, you understand what motivates them, you invite them to bring that into a place of work. It's actually additive to the overall mission. And so I think, I was fortunate. And even in that time, I would hire people from workplaces where that wasn't invited. And I was like, don't worry, I came from there too. In my months to a year I'll have you comfortable with this and you will be your full self here and you'll do incredible work as a result of it and so getting to be in an environment where you know I think culture is set from the top it's really hard to you know to push kind of against whatever example is set there and so. You know, fortunate to work with, I say, you know, Daniel is one of the most human humans I've ever met. Like he really, truly wants to understand everyone's story and reason for being what makes them get up in the morning. How do you find intersections between that and what they're coming to do with you and so. and I just feel fortunate that I landed in that place where I did in my career and then have become a leader and different than him, but in my authentic way, borrowing some of those same approaches.

I love that. Your ability to bring your authentic self and to evolve it, by learning and adapting, especially if that person who is modeling for you happens to be somebody you're working so closely with. And it's my understanding that at kind, everyone was encouraged to think as an owner, not just the manager, minding a budget. Now, that gets created on purpose. How do you grow that ownership of responsibility in someone, Ellie? And, Also acknowledge that in truth, the ownership of the organization is not theirs.

Yeah, I think it goes back to something you were saying earlier. I mean, it is dynamic management, it's situational management. And I think we thought about it at kind. it both structurally and behaviorally. And so structurally, you know, every team member was legitimately an owner of the business. Everyone had an equity stake. Obviously of differing ownership levels, but that did a lot to unite us behind the same objective and outcome. Right. And so it did a lot where I would say, you know, it was in the 100% hit rate, but pretty high one where most people who came there and stayed there, they worked for kind. They didn't work for themselves, they didn't work for their manager, they didn't work for some other reason, like they showed up and what drove how they spent their day, what drove their motivation was, I say I had a posted on my computer screen forever that said, make kind thing this. That was what we were all waiting up and thinking about versus kind of personal motivations, And then the other piece, the behavioral piece, is really more in role modeling. And what behaviors do you celebrate in a workplace? What ones do you advance? I kind of joke if people came and observed Daniel and I for a day, they would think you are the biggest pain in his ass. And that is true. And he is intentional about keeping that around. He wanted team to see people who disagreed with him with valid reason that could open and change his thinking. Yes, ultimately, the bulk of the ownership sat with him, but he was incredibly choiceful about decision authority being able to in creative ideation being able to come from anywhere in the organization. And so I think you need to have both of those things working and concert for that to be sustained in a culture.

You know, so that's so interesting. You even think about the name of the organization. But my sister Linda was starting her beauty salon years ago. She said one of the things she took from her classes was you have to make sure that the name of the company said yes something about the company. whether it sells, how you want to be known, et cetera. And I look at the name kind. And half of my family is English heritage. My husband is full-born English. and you go back to the the words history and kind kind of comes from the word king, which you know, suggests family. But when I looked into it and said that before the year 900, kind was primarily used to mean nature, you know, like to be of a kind, right? And then it started to integrate into the human kindness of things, thinking about the name of And then what it might infer to you, whether it's different than what I take from the name or not, and I've been a huge kind fan and customer, when you think about walking into that room, expecting to talk about brand-of-rearness for a little snack company, and you've already said yourself that you framed for us already that the interview you had was nothing of the kind, right? Um, what else happened that allow you to better career on that come from that conversation and has it kept as promised to you. You said you're now 19 years in working, 15 years in the, hey, look, that's still a track record, right?

We're working with founders like dog ears too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a founder. I'll take it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think. I mean, so you have to understand. I think how we viewed what kind of meant was very clear. And it was actually incredibly clear for me in that first meeting with Daniel where, you know, I have gotten the call because I worked with a lot of emerging food companies at the time. It as a marketer. And And so I thought I was going to go in and have that kind of straightforward conversation and instead, you know, I asked him what his vision was with this and he said, we are going to break down barriers between human beings, we are going to make them see their shared humanity. And once you started to pull that conversation apart a little bit, you very quickly get to his father's life story. And his father was a Holocaust survivor, liberated from DACA look, concentration camp. And there are a couple of stories from his father's experience in that time where the drill small acts of kindness are what sustained and saved his life. And so for Daniel kindness is like existential, right, but for it, but for the human ability to do that, he wouldn't exist. And so, you know, as someone who is going to come into a business and help to build out that vision that felt like a weight of the world, but also, you know, what what more worthy endeavor to try and even if you fail to try at that and I would say he he and what we did and and the way we lead and built has been the same as it was when you know when I came to that organization and it was a ten million dollar business selling six flavors of fruit nut bars. I think we think a lot more about the why and how we do what we do than the what the what is important to, but, you know, those things are forces that are often more important to carry you through a professional journey.

would not have survived. We often think of the big things people do in our lives. It is that series of little kindnesses that make difference. And I'm going to thank you forever for articulating that in a way that hit me. And it's going to go on one of those sticking notes on my bathroom mirror. Um, Ellie getting, getting into a deeper area of conversation, we know the FDA sent you a letter telling you to take the word healthy off your wrappers, uh, the easy thing would have been to just peel off four labels and move on, filed a petition saying the rule itself was wrong. Where did the knowledge of that come from and where did the nerve of that come from? Um, which I think is going to be yes. helpful to the many business owners and business leaders who are listening to you right now. For me, I'm just hinting to you that I think is going to be helpful to some folks regardless of where they are and where career or their life journey right now.

In spring of 2015, you know, things have been all going very well at kind. We were scaling the business doubling year over a year, winning new distribution. And we got a letter from the FDA that suggested that we were misproperally labeling our products as healthy. You know, as I would say, as people building the brand, we always took a philosophy of under-promise over deliver. We were so careful with You know, what we would say or claim, because we felt we were operating in a space of, you know, overblown claims, a lot of snake oil we say and so we really always tried to set ourselves apart and so when that letter came, I think first we felt awful, then as a learning culture. We said, we have to understand this, right? So let's start to dig into it. And as we dug into it, because we didn't even know that healthy was a, quote unquote, regulated claim. And so as we started to dig into it, what we realized is that the regulation had been drafted and set in the 70s and hadn't been touched since then. And, You know, as we learned what really dictated the use of it was fat content, more than sugar content, which we thought at the time, okay, maybe that was where nutrition science was at the time. But certainly, we had learned a lot since then, you know, 2015, especially about putting bad thoughts for me. And it didn't differentiate. And so, per that regulation, what we started to understand was you could have a salmon steak or an avocado, and you couldn't call that healthy. But you could have a bowl of sugary cereal that had some vitamin enhancements And it was, so as we understood that, we said, well, this can't be, and Daniel is very driven by the pursuit of justice across kind of all things I would say, but, you know, we started to, Uncover this and say, you know, we can't, this is no longer just about kind. This is about regulation that steers going to public health decisions. And so we thought we needed to do something about it. Every advisor, every board member we talked to said, just move on. You know, dealing with DC is not efficient. It's not a worthy pursuit, et cetera. And I think we felt motivated by what we had learned and Daniel certainly felt a drive to do something that ultimately what we decided to do was form. what's called a citizens petition. And so rather than us being the group that decided and defined it, we worked with nutritionists from all of the leading universities to author what they thought should change about it. And so that was not a short journey, but over the course of 10 years, the FDA has actually changed that definition. And in that process, you know, what we also thought might have been just outdated science. There was New York Times investigative piece that came out that actually found that regulation, the sugar association had hired and paid a couple of scientists to point the finger at fat and away from sugar. And so even how it was shaped had more nefarious kind of origins. And so we, and in that we were also able to put it back on our label much earlier in the process, but most importantly, that is now been redefined by the FDA and so the regulation is current and people can get better guidance by way of that.

I think the situation is to crowdsource your data back to the FDA and help to for all of us redefine healthy because the definition of healthy was broken until you guys stepped up. And I'm sure there are other areas that may continue to, you know, exist, but you may that big debt. into a rule that you knew was wrong in an institution that moves very slowly. I think you said, you guys are taking in there for 10 years, right?

The took ultimately 10 years, yes. Several kind of stage gaining processes. But that's where I would say the board and the advisors were right. Nothing happens quickly. And so I think they were worried about it being drain and a distraction on our executional resources. I think we felt it was important. It was important for our organization first and foremost because we, the whole journey started by us feeling that we had done something wrong. And so to go feeling that you had done something wrong to learning and figuring out Something was wrong and we have a chance to make it right was very motivating for the organization and so, you know, we felt that it wouldn't be a distraction because it would be a, you know, a force of kind of passion from the team to get this done alongside continuing the growth of business.

The thing that is so loud for me in what you're telling us right now is that it was never about selling more bars. You know, that bigger topic on how a company can be a moral actor. Not only a market one is huge for a lot of people right now and an important lesson and you offer a brilliant case study for the family who are listening who are at the front what I'm not hearing is, go out there guys and find that topic that is gonna be your moral flag as an entrepreneur. I'm hearing do what you do really well, be knowledgeable about it enough to do it well. And then when you come into glitches, seek the information of others, because you guys by following your source, your proud source of information from experts were open to, I think, hearing if you were wrong as well, you know, in what you were in front of me. You weren't, but you had to be open to it. You know, freedom like that is real. When you think about the ability to challenge your own industry and still live inside the rules while you're doing that. also to thinking about how Camino is built so that you never have to deploy capital a year of no deals can still be a good year. That's also a rare freedom. What does taking the clock away allow you to see and a founder that everybody else seems to be in a help our family to understand your thought process around that. That's certainly not the trend right now.

So Camino in a lot of ways continuation of the kind story and I would say, you know, what what I there were a lot of factors contributing to kind success but some of the macro ones. If you looked at the original inspiration, you know, Daniel, Denial formed the original product idea from a problem he was facing himself and he was traveling the world at the time never able to eat healthy on the go and and then obviously the like the why he was building it when he applied the name was what I had said earlier about you know the inspiration if we can build a brand with meaning. and use some of that attention that it captures to get people to exist in their communities in world in the right way than like what better thing to do. And so what I would say is that I recognize that some of the best businesses, it's not easy building a business. And so you need to have someone who's almost obsessive about the problem that they're solving. And that has a bit of what I lovingly call founder distortion right so like he may have been selling snack bars, but it was so much more than that to him right and so I think you know what and then and to know by going on that journey it is not linear. It, there are setbacks, there are turns, et cetera. And so I think now, in starting communal, where we look to put our capital and experience back to work with founders and teams in that growth stage, we're able to look through a different lens because we've been there. We've been on the road. It's not gonna be the same. We always say like, there's no, There's no playbook right every journey is going to be different but I think what we can understand and see you know first I look for Is this someone like, I think about like, what are they doing on the weekend, even? Right? They're probably thinking about the problem. They can't clear their mind a bit. And that also forms kind of how they build culture and reason for coming to their organization to build that. And so I think we look for that kind of first and foremost. The best businesses are not built to be sold. You make different decisions if you're building against an artificial timeline or building to sell it to X, Y, or Z party. And so we try to, also understand that certainly will partner with people who may have, it may be their desire to sell at some point, but that's not how they're kind of charting their course, and we have the flexibility to think about that and look at, What does that mean for decision making year over year? And so, you know, I probably oversimplify it, but I say if you have kind of time-bound capital coming in, they're looking at it and saying, okay, I need this business to be ex, you know, million or ex, billion dollars by this date. How do I work that back? Having been a person who has helped build a business, building businesses is bottoms up, you know, what you do this year allows you to think about new opportunities for next year, which allows you to think about new opportunities for the next year, and so we try to sit at the table and understand that with teams, you know, what, what is the opportunity, what is all their hard work the years before, afforded them the right to think about an execute year one, year two, year three, and and those things are going to change over time. And so that's where I say, like we don't come with a playbook, we come with lived experiences and point to view that, you know, we want the teams to be able to take on board and chart their own force with.

This is brilliant and for our family members who are listening who are not familiar with the name Camino, it actually is Spanish for journey and what you've just talked about is a commitment again to the brand. a communal and the difference that it's making in so many businesses and lives. Ellie, you've also talked about knowing what you know and knowing what you don't. Across the table, what's the tell that a founder doesn't yet know what they don't know? And that can be taught to them.

So, you know, the other thing I say that I try to observe a lot, obviously, choosing a partner and bringing on investment is one of the biggest decisions a founder and management team can make and and we know that right from again from having been in that seat ourselves and you're trying to, you know, you're trying to pitch your business, you're trying to put your best foot forward. But you know, I often tell our team if we ask questions that have that all have answers to them were not good doing a good job of asking the questions or we need to observe the counter party. feels that there's an answer for everything and often times there isn't for you know especially as you're thinking about big strategic decisions for a business there isn't a clear answer and so I observe a lot and getting to know founders and teams are they kind of ping-ponging the question in their mind and the answer I love more than anything is, I haven't thought about that enough yet. I'd like to take some time and think about that and come back to you. And that is so much more confidence and stilling for me as someone who's gonna be a partner who hopefully tries to influence you, help you think about things differently, et cetera, to be interacting with someone who authentically takes a question the way like that versus scrambles for an answer, because I think we are learning culture more than anything. I think everyone has to be nowadays, it's so dynamic, right? And so those are the ways that you see that in other people.

You know, that's truly helpful. I think whether we are talking about investing in someone's company or investing in someone's career into ours. And the lessons that you're teaching are so remarkable when you think about the dynamics of how businesses operate today. Businesses are now integrating AI more rapidly into the thought protocols in my own company. we use AI inside of our organization to help people be bigger and better productive and better is important. And we have to have a definition of what does better look like. You know, but, and they also, the ability to have people want to stay on the journey. Recently, I was honored by a team of women professionals Uh, as I was stepping out of a leadership role of an organization that I've cheered at Harvard for several years, and one lady stepped up who hadn't seen for years, Ellie, and I was like, wow, okay, I'm surprised what she's what is she going to say, and her big thing for her was that I've let a company that seems to have professionals with the longest tenure. in my company which is irregular for the industry itself. As I'm listening to you, think of how kind has stayed a founder-led organization and stayed private for a long of the most companies dare think about. It causes me to move toward how what you and I both know what it can do to a place. What does a long run way actually give a company that capital taken too soon may quietly take away? This is the flip side of what you and I, because I've been nodding in celebration to what you said thus far. Let's look at the flip side of that. And I'm sure you have to consider that when you're sitting at the table with founders who may not be quite ready. how kind or or along for the journey, Camino may want to be.

So I would say every situation is different, right? So I first acknowledge that because when I talk about kind and the choices that we had, you know, a lot of that tied to how Daniel started the business, right? So he, he built the business and it was profitable and cash flow positive from day one. And so that sits you in a seat where you're in control a lot of choices, right? And so to the degree that we ever took on. Capital, it was a strategic exercise versus a necessary exercise and so you were able to screen for the things that were really important to you. Other businesses require capital to grow and scale, right? They're not kind of self-sustaining from the beginning and so You know, if you were sitting in that, so you may have to think about it a little bit differently. Like the capital is prior to go from step one to step two, step two to step three, still I think you should very much try to think about and understand, you know, we say our motto and you can see it on, on the communal website is where values guide value grows. And so we focus often at the beginning on a shared set of values. Right? Do we think the same things are important in the world? Do we show up and do we celebrate the same behaviors? Now they don't need to be stated in the exact same way, but are they siblings? Like the things that we talk about,

Are they in the thirties?

Yeah, yeah, and and I think that is really important because I, you know, I tell, I tell our team, I tell people are considering partnering with is the only thing I can guarantee is that things aren't going to go to plan and that's going to be in ways that I didn't delight us and it's going to be in ways that set. you know, where we experience real shared setback. And only if you have those shared values, can you get through those moments? It's actually easy when everything's going well, right? So I think when you're thrown off, that those things show up. And I think, you know, when you have that, you can get through anything. And that goes for kind of who you're leading with, too. The point of ten years is interesting because actually one of the hardest things for us that kind and we have, we have a great culture, you know, I've been fortunate to work with the UN for 16 years. We have several people stuck. Communo that were that different parts of the kind journey, but, you know, when you have a business that is scaling, not everyone makes it over that journey. Right, the people who are maybe good at doing 0 to 50 feel either get lost or or are not fulfilled in, you know, 200 to 400 and so I think, you know, what we and that was so hard for Daniel that was probably the hardest thing for him at first was to. realize when we were in those moments, and then to figure out how to deal with it, right? And sometimes you're able to figure it out by maybe you have to bring someone in over someone, but then that person is still so excited about the opportunity for themselves and for themselves to learn. Doesn't always work out that way. And so we found that just managing those moments and the interaction with those individuals, with a lot of care and a lot of recognition for what they did for your business up until that point. And a lot of transparent discussion gets you to the right place and the right decision for that individual and for the businesses forward.

That's so crucial also to make sure that the promise you make when you bring somebody on is kept along their journey. And so transparency about what they can expect and that looks like I think is oftentimes not as evident as it could be if that is in an entrepreneurial environment because everybody's enthusiastic about getting there and discovering how your time is precious. Let's go for four, and I'm going to ask you four questions to which you'll give me four answers to your no wrong answers. And I'm hoping I can do it within a time frame that's kind to your morning. So first question, you are hosting a dinner and you get to invite four people from any time in history to present. Let's keep it humans who's at your dinner table and right.

curious when you started to have to say let's keep it human. I would do my mom. I lost her just to about a year and a half ago. My grandma, Robin Williams, and I think Lady Gaga. Um, my mom because I miss her and I didn't realize that, uh, yeah, I would start to miss her that I would be in a position to miss her this early, uh, I'm not because to me, she's actually the most interesting, uh, woman I've ever encountered, she was the family photographer that I mentioned in grew up in spent her whole life in a town of, 1500 people that was so cosmopolitan, so witty, so you know a woman of her community and just a lot to aspire to be. Oh my goodness.

I have the eyes you have to have on the world to even be up for talk for professionally at possibly an incredible human being. Yes, thank you.

Robin Williams, because I'm fascinated by his mind. I think complex humor like he had, you know, comes from really interesting neural pathways. And so loved his art, but would love to see what him not producing his art was like. And then Lady Gaga because I think she's just an interesting study of someone who has done things somewhat her own way in an industry that had a lot of rules and ways that she at different points said kind of no thank you not for me and so I always like to learn from people. who have charted those types of courses.

And who left Tony Bennett as I do. Let's go to for four music. What four pieces or genres of music are you listening to and why?

Well, here, if my 11-year-old son was here to keep me honest, he would tell you that Zach Bryan, Zach Bryan, and Zach Bryan. Uh, no. that's probably not a joke. I think, I mean, I do listen to a lot of bad sacks and he, he to me is a really, like a lyric, a striped and so I think, you know, some people associate in the country. I don't know that he's exactly But that I don't think that his genre per se, I think he's a little bit like maybe the Bruce Springsteen of our era, like kind of creating his spaces, but I listen.

No, I call it, I call him a fellow artist, you know, light. They bring the fellow spirit that we have. Yeah, I love it too, so you know, it sounded kind of like you were going toward an apology, but girl, no apology needed.

Here explanations work, yeah, yeah, I like his way. Let's work, so.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so he's one. You got three others you're listening to? Or is he that four eyes?

say it's probably that four times. I love Olivia Dean and listening to a lot of her, I think she's very interesting right now and has her own kind of crony style in a era that's overly poppy and so I like that she's doing something different and actually getting recognized for that.

Yeah, yeah. I share that with you as well. So hey, look, we could share each other's playlist easily. How about four books that you recommend to our family and why?

So I guess I have to say do the kind thing, which is Daniel's book about the kind journey and I have a little bit of PTSD about that book because he was choosing to sit down and write it when we were in like hypergrow, but I'm glad he did because he captured it in the moment versus retrospectively. And I think that you can see that and feel that in how he frames some of the decisions and the important things. So, that one because I've got a front row seat to what a labor of love book writing is. The other business book that I love is Shudag, my own right, and even just actually the opening quote, which is about to a beginner's mind, the options are many, to an expert they are think a very meaningful way to ask yourself how do I stay a beginner, right? How do I always stay a beginner and keep my mind that way? Then I would say if I don't want to think about anything drama writing and then another one that I actually have it here and this is from losing my mom but what to do when I'm gone and this is a book that was written by a mother and daughter and premature anxiety about the fact that she would lose her mom. And so they decided to deal with that together by writing this book. And so there's a lot of humor in it and a lot of meaning. I think the first day it says like, make enchiladas. And so just this idea of like, life does continue on and how do you stay connected in the little moments and the big ones and so I have a bunch of these books because it's not a broadly published one and you know feel awful whenever I have to give it to a friend but it is it's a good guide to life after time with your mother.

Well thank you for that. let's go for four. What four pieces of advice do you give to our family listening now? And if that advice was gifted you by someone, please pay homage to the author.

So I think I'll try to boil it down into one piece. So we actually, I have three kids, 11, 8, and 6. And you know, as we were, my husband and I were trying to think about how do we form happy, successful, contributing individuals in this world and how do we set them up for success at a young age? We formed a family motto. with them, where we tried to kind of take everything we thought was important and distill it down to something that works for a family with kids that age and so you know what we talk about is dream big, try hard, be kind. And if you do those three things, life should work out fairly well for you.

Wow, you know that's a mic drop, right? Thank you. Thank you so much. Your time is precious. This conversation has been precious to me. It will stay precious for me. I look forward to the film is hearing that. What they've learned from it and how it's impacted their lives. Thank you for what you've chosen to do in your career, Ellie. And with your permission, may I say God bless you from my heart for your home.

Yes. Thank you so much.