Designing for Survival: Business, Babies, and What Keeps Us Human with Lexi Montee Busch

This is a conversation about what it means to build something that meets people at one of the most vulnerable thresholds of life.

In this episode, I sit down with Lexi Montée of Happiest Baby for a layered conversation on parenting, leadership, product, loss, resilience, and the moral weight of innovation. We talk about SNOO, the science backed smart sleeper designed to support infant sleep and safety, but this conversation goes far beyond babies and bassinets.

We explore what it takes to build a company around a real human need, the difference between luxury and accessibility, the emotional complexity of early parenthood, and why care should not be treated as a private burden. Lexi shares what it means to work inside a family founded business, lead through ambiguity, navigate systems level change, and hold both commercial viability and moral consequence at the same time.

We also talk about loss, rebuilding after the Los Angeles fires, motherhood, imposter syndrome, resilience, and the strange, beautiful work of becoming more human while building something that matters. 

Transcript

0:05

We talk a lot about building companies. We talk far less about what it costs to build something that actually matters. Not just the product, not just the company, but something that sits at the intersection of care, complexity, and consequence. This episode goes there, into the tension between profit and purpose, between systems and people, between survival and meaning. In this conversation, I chat with the brilliant and remarkable Lexi Montée She's the Vice President marketing and communications at Happiest Baby. This conversation operates across multiple layers simultaneously. And Lexi brings such clarity to conversations on the personal, where we talk about identity and loss and resilience, the professional, where we talk about leadership, decision-making and growth, the systemic, where we talk about access and equity and policy, and of course the philosophical, where we talk about purpose and meaning and human behavior. At its core, it explores one central question. What does it mean to build something that is both commercially viable and morally consequential while remaining profoundly human in the process. Let's dive in. So Lexi, I like to jump right into things and I always like to begin by asking folks to tell me how they came to be. Who are you? That's deep and profound. Let's go. uh How I came to be. Well, I guess in this more adult version, I'll spare you the conception story and the rest. uh I think I've always really liked people and ideas. um I studied psychology and neuroscience and also literature in undergrad. And then I managed a research lab and I really thought I would become a professor of psychology. And then I took a hard pivot. I think if there's anybody who has an unorthodox background or is feeling down, like I'm your girl, find me. My dad calls me Slumdog Millionaire, if you're familiar with that movie, because in the moment of being asked such crazy questions, the retrospective of the disparate or seemingly disparate parts of your life come together and culminate in your ability to answer the question and perform in that moment. So perhaps a better response is like the... Steve Jobs commencement speech. ah But in hindsight, it makes sense in having those kind of psychology and literature backgrounds where you're thinking about people as you analyze, whether it's analyzing brains or behaviors or text. ah I'm interested in people. And so when I left academia to the private sector, the most natural fit for me was marketing, PR, understanding what makes people tick, how the gaze works, what's... you know, what's interesting, what's going to compel them. And so I've consulted and then I've been now uh in-house as well at startups, big and small. And oh I think that's how it came to be. I love that. love that. I'm also just thinking something else we have in common because I was in academia for a while. I thought I was going to, you know, love it, do research, write a couple of textbooks and stay there. And after I think two years teaching at university, I thought this is not for me. I need the real world. So interesting to hear that. Yeah. it's really glorified. think I was really like I went to Columbia for university, but I grew up in Los Angeles. And so, you know, the oldest thing we had in L.A. was like a palm tree. And I was very looking forward to this Hogwarts, you know, Oxfordish experience at Columbia. And I had that it was a really intellectually stimulating place for for university. But then. The research. be honest, was done underground in a basement, right? Like I've literally sat in a basement and wrote, you know, begging for grant proposals. And sometimes when you submit grants, proposals, it's like the table of contents itself is 80 pages. And you're just like, this is so unglamorous, uninteresting, unsexy. And I was at the time, um, I had a partner who founded a music festival and I had such passion in helping him grow that from. zero to selling to the largest music production company in the world. uh And watching my friends come to me for business advice, which I should have known was a precursor for who I would become. But I think it's exactly the same feeling. I was down there and I was itching. I love teaching. And so there wasn't really a path in the United States. There might be in other countries, but there's not really a path for teaching at a serious university level. without being a researcher and contributing to science in that way. And I just wanted to inspire young people and talk about the ideas. And that path had to first, it's not linear, but you had to first go through that method. So it wasn't for me and it was a hard pivot. So yeah, it was interesting, but I think it was all beneficial and all of that experience and thinking about human beings and how our brains work definitely has informed my business brain. Very cool. Was it after that that you founded Hyper? Yes. Okay. I noticed that people kept coming to me for advice. And I thought, let me contribute in small ways. Let me freelance or sort things because I didn't have that traditional trajectory of putting in the groundwork as a young intern or an entry level marketer. And so I wanted to learn quickly. And I was also hungry for a lot of responsibility um and I liked bouncing maybe because I have a bit of ADHD. I liked bouncing between projects. So I felt like I enjoyed the non-commitment. So I could work with teenage twin girls who started a music app that Tim Cook kind of took a liking to at a young age, or an author who said, turn this into a curriculum for Wharton Business School. Or when I was able to just do these really different things that were always stimulating and always interesting and always different. on this more finite project scale. So I think that's, that was where I started. And then it just, to be honest, accidentally kept growing. I see a connection between founding do you describe it as a PR company is that what it is yeah to your current role as well what was interesting for you Dan and how do you think you've pivoted in your new role with what you do I think people love saying I'm a founder and I'm an entrepreneur. And what I realized is that my decision to not scale a business on, on my own, to do just PR and marketing, go to market strategy and kind of providing people with the support and tactics they needed. That was my skillset and I could kind of give them easily. I was still an entrepreneur. I'm just an intrapreneur. I do entrepreneurial things on a daily basis. And it turns out that I'm still utilizing all of those different parts of my brain and all of the hunger I had for project shifts. mean, having a global company, even if it's not yours is, you you're at the helm and you're steering the ship and then headwinds come and a wave comes and a fish hits you in the face, right? Like there are just so many different things. And so I think uh I've... It's really the same. You have the entrepreneurial spirit, you have the hunger, you have the hustle, you have the drive, and then you have to have the energy. ah There's never a dull day. And so in that way, it's the same thing. It's just that each contract or project, if you will, is just within the same umbrella. Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about Happiest - Baby. What is it? oh Okay, so the happiest baby is a science-backed research-based company. It's founded by a pediatrician who had been practicing for many decades and had this idea on how to calm crying and increase sleep for families because he saw that everyone's pain point, no matter your socioeconomic status, no matter your age, your gender, your race, he really felt like the biggest pain point for parents when they have a new baby is exhaustion. ah And so he had this idea for something called the Five S's. He wrote this book 26 years ago. And so the Five S's were this really prolific way to help parents. didn't invent them. He never took credit for that. In fact, a lot of swaddling and baby wearing and some really obvious things that we just sort of forgot in the Western world to continue to perpetuate and to disseminate with the mimetic. kind of learning you get from passing things along. you have neighbors, gender was important in that moment. like, you know, it was always girls and women and moms and aunties raising kids in this village. And as women were able to get educated in the workforce, their priorities changed and their time and attention changed. And so maybe the young kid next door didn't learn how to calm the baby. And so we've left that behind and he And it was really so many different cultural practices, um especially from the !Kung tribe in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. And so he put these things together and was like, there's a calming reflex in the baby. Let's trigger the calming reflex. And so the book was fantastic. And many decades later, he had this idea to then create a product that could do some of the five S's for you. especially here in the US, we have no support. You're really stuck with your nuclear family. You know, if you're lucky, you have two parent household and the baby and that's it. And maybe your parents live on another continent. Um, and so he invented SNOO and he also happens to be my dad. So that's helpful, uh, for me to have met them and worked on this, but it was a real company. So many brands love to talk about like disruption and mission. Like this is a disruptor. Category defining we've created a category right like snoo was called snoo smart sleeper And now there's other smart sleepers like there was nothing like this in the in the world. So he had this idea Started the company worked with the best engineers and product designers and and took it to market and it was really just like a hero product company and then uh And then all the other ideas and accessories and products came from there That's really cool. I mean, I think it's, I want to say landmine, but it's not a landmine, guess. But it's something quite remarkable to find a problem that most moms, most families raising young babies have, and then finding how you create that, like a semblance of support or home or community for them. um I recall having my first kid. and you know like I always pride myself you know I can get shit done and then I remember the first time I had to take my daughter to a health care check center thingy it was literally five minutes away from my house and it took me an hour to get out of the house And I did not know what to do with myself. Like I had no mental space. And at that time as well, my God, I was not sleeping and I was not sleeping. Yeah. So I think there's also something there around. And then the thing you said about, you know, in the U.S. not having that community, the village that you have, the aunties that raise you in a lot of uh more collective culture. had a similar thing in Norway where, you know, you give birth here. Family members are like, now you can have a cozy time. We see you in six weeks to six months. And then you're thinking, my gosh, I need somebody to hold my baby so I can take a shower. I need to clean my house. I need somebody to clean my house. Ideally, I need food. So I think it's quite nice, you know, when I was looking up, preparing a bit for this conversation, looking up what SNOO has done for a lot of parents and kind of like that comfort that you have. I think I listened to a podcast where you were talking about needing to pee. and being, but it's real thing though because you're thinking how do I hold this baby while I pee? How do I keep this baby safe? You know, yes. time home alone with the baby. Not that I couldn't take care of her, but I didn't realize that when you're alone, like if you have to pee and you're holding a baby, I tried to take my pants off with one hand and it was not possible really. And you realize in that moment, like I don't know what to do with her. You don't want to put her on the ground. That's kind of gross. You can't put her on the bed or the sofa. Like she'll roll off. It's dangerous. And so I did run back and put her in SNOO uh For those who don't know, SNOO is this baby bassinet that's really smart and has this kind of robotic and AI element, but it's an organic cotton sleep sack. And so I just like zipped her in and clipped the wings into the sides, which are part of our big proprietary concept to prevent dangerous rolling over into an unsafe position. So I was like, okay, she's awake. I'll zip her in there and then I can't do anything wrong. I can't mess it up. And then I ran back and went pee. You Thanks Sharon. think like it's a lot of mothers can relate I think we take for granted that but it's this tiny baby You should be able to hold them by thinking the first couple of weeks and months There's a lot of insecurity that comes with you know, having a kid holding a kid I used to struggle like it used to be myself and my husband that would hold this little baby just to bathe her and then by month four I'm just like yeah one hand you're good and I'm other things like So you get used to it. But in the beginning, I think that's it of insecurity and especially when you're alone can be quite tough. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about working with family. How is that? You know, how, where is the line? How do you separate the, you know, parent-child relationship and also, yeah, where's the line? It's an interesting question. There are no lines like our houses burned down in the fires in Los Angeles, both theirs and mine. So we're currently living together. So like, if I see them in the kitchen, we're like, hey, remember that thing, that business thing, like, it might be different if a parent and a child worked at the same company, but it was someone else's company. But because it's my parents' business, they co-founded the company and run everything truly together as partners. And because I'm one of only four other executives at that high leadership level. It definitely never turns off. So the line blurs and the role of daughter or VP, in some ways, in terms of kind of hierarchy in both circumstances, they're sort of above in the pyramid, right? If you still respect your elders and your parents, but it's super fun. It's not perfect, right? Because sometimes we disagree. ah But we work really well together. We collaborate well. We have different strengths and weaknesses. So they very much compliment one another. And I actually think that it makes me really well suited to be an executive at Happiest Baby because I think one of the hardest things in executive leadership is if you're not the CEO and you have a CEO who is kind of hard to please or you have to please them because that's the way that they lead, you know, like more of a dictator type of leader. That can be really hard. And so for me, not only do I happen to have parents who are just like, unreasonably kind and good human beings and, have fostered a good culture in the company, so it makes it easy to be open. I think I also just am well positioned that if I don't believe something, if I want to do something differently, like I am relentless, like If we're in a group meeting, I will pick up the phone and call my parents' cell phone. um I think if I really believe in something and I want to do it my way, I just don't give up. think you probably wouldn't be able to fight the good fight in the same way. Because there's no shame, right? If it's your parents, you just repeat yourself till you can wear them down. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I often think about, think my mom would want at some point, you know, some of her kids to join the family business. And I think. we might kill each other, but I know if I really wanted to get something across, no better person to do it than my mother, because she's a fantastic business woman. And at the same time, I can drill and drill and drill and drill until I get a conversation and something that I can accept. Whereas some random boss that I don't necessarily have invested interest fully in the business, like, I'm gonna go home and rest. So I think, of course, that. I think what else is interesting is like, kind of, my initial instinct was to sort of brief you on how I feel like it's really helpful to the company ah in that way that I'm like, I can, you know, I can like really have a vision and really want to do something. And if at first they don't really want to and resist, I can wear them down. The converse is true also, like I, you know, we have the same vested interests. Like I have their back and I think. When you are at the top and you're a CEO and you're trying to do so many things, not everyone can always understand your position. I get them and I get their burden, you know, and I get whether it's, a business problem or whether it's, just trying to scale across several continents and 30 somewhat countries, or whether it's the care and responsibility you have here in the U S your health insurance is based on your employer. So, during the pandemic, when a lot of companies are having to downsize. having a big heart and caring that you keep people employed or they're uninsured at a time that's medically uncertain and frightening. And then the rest of people's families here in the US gets the insurance often through one of the adults, like so then the whole family, you so there's a lot of pressure that I can understand and I will always have their but even more so the company's best interest at heart. And I think that is rare because I think at the end of the day, not docking anybody, but most of the time human instinct is self-preservation and so people have their own best interest at heart but mine are conflated. ah These are my parents, this is their legacy, this is their blood, sweat and tears but also I work at this company that truly was born out of the desire to save babies lives. It's very noble but it feels like you feel it. Absolutely, absolutely. mean, it's a great cause. I think it's a necessary one because I think another fear that a lot of parents have, myself included, was, oh my gosh, I hope my child survives. And as much as it's... Well, I wanted to say it's an irrational fear, but it's a very irrational fear because it happens and you get warned and warned and warned about it. So I would, know, my husband also did this thing where he would wake up randomly in a fright, just like making sure she's awake or, you know, breathing, because he was also terrified about, she okay? Has she rolled over? So I think there's, I mean, something quite remarkable in creating a product that solves an actual problem for a lot of families. Yeah. is a really big problem and I'm so glad that even in your own expression of that you had this like moment of self-correction because ah it's really hard and they can really take over people's brains ah and even with that like listen I had a SNOO and I was still like are you alive are you alive like it's It's a lot. know what I ask often, I look around after I had kids and realized that every walking human also used to be a kid and was somebody's baby and somebody birthed them and raised them and fed them. And I looked around all the time and I would say to like my husband or other mom friends, like, who kept us all alive? Like, how are we all alive? Like, what? You know, it's pretty shocking. It's remarkable. It is kind of like, I mean, I'm like a big scientist sort of atheist, but like, It's a miracle. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I have a I remember the first time my daughter show off the bed So it was one of those You know, she was taking a nap rather than put her in her basinet and that I placed her on my bed Anyways, I hear you know On the floor and I'm thinking oh my gosh, so I run I think she was maybe like before they could roll over. So this was the first time she actually rolled over. And I remember thinking then, my gosh, I wish I had something I could strap her in with, you know, because that was terrifying. And of course I'm like, she brain damaged? And you know, you think all the worst things. I mean, she's perfectly fine. But I even see, you know, cause I remember just in looking up what you did. and more about SNOO just thinking, my gosh, that would have been nice in 2019, you know, when I was figuring all of this out with my first kid, you know? So I also just wanted to say, like, I think it's valuable, because lot of moms have all these, parents in general have all these things that happen that sometimes were so terrifying to talk about, you know? And then having something that takes care of the problem goes a long way. Yeah, listen, there is what is my dad used to say, the only perfect family is the family you don't know very well. And I look around all the time. I just did a podcast the other morning with a psychologist who like specializes in kind of postpartum and related topics. And I said, we talk about imposter syndrome in business all the time. We don't really talk about it at home. And I think when I go to school drop off and I see the moms who like have it all together and they have like, for me specifically, the concept that rings in my head is like clean hair. Their hair is always nice. Like I'm not having a great hair day this morning, Chisom And I was like, shoot, should I have woken up early and like, you know, wash my hair and whatever. And then their lunch boxes are really good. And the kids clothes are good and their hair is, you know, doesn't look kooky. and I let my kid put 85 bows in her hair, because whatever. um I feel imposter syndrome, less so with time, but imposter syndrome as a mom. You kind of look around and be like, who? When you go home from the hospital and there are cables and beeps and nurses and things, and then you're in charge to keep this thing alive, you're like, who put me in charge? I'm the parent now, right? Like this is it. I'm the person that is like supposed to be responsible for all of this and know what to do and how to handle it. And the irony is it's that at beginning phase, it's at the time where they can't communicate and you are left to a psychic interpreter. Yeah, yeah. mean, all resonates. I, you know, I had to learn that perfection looked a certain way, you know. I am the mom who I don't know everything happening at school. I don't have all the beautiful stickers for the longest time. Now I have some. just had to order it online. But for the longest time, I didn't have all those stickers. And, you know, they put the name and the numbers. I used to write my kid's name on with like a marker. Yeah. know just like hey there you go this is me and then of course yeah the moms who make all the plans i'm like i don't have time to do any of this and i think it's wonderful that you you know but i had to unlearn just like that whole comparison the it's not realistic for a lot of us and that has to be okay You're skipping a big step. You had to unlearn the comparison, is profoundly human. That is a social trait that we've evolved to do to protect ourselves. um There's a fantastic book called ah My Survival Instinct or Our Survival Instinct is Killing Us. It's by Dr. Mark Shone and it's really, he's a hypnotherapist. So I don't want to go on a tangent here, but the concept is that that our cultural, societal evolution is much faster, social evolution, than physical. ah And so that's why things like stereotypes and things that we've learned that we shouldn't depend on in the same way now with all these cultural constructs and things that have led to prejudice and racism and so many other things, they were predicated upon basic survival instinct, but that's outdated, right? you know, when a wolf shows its teeth, like, you know, to you and I, that looks like a smile, but that's actually like a killer demonstration about I'm about to bite you, right? And so, uh so it's really a fascinating book. I think what you skipped for me is also the pressure. um I don't know much about your life story, but you're in Norway, so, and you have an accent. So I'm assuming that there was, you know, some kind of immigration journey in your life. And I was raised um by an immigrant mom. And so, She didn't know about the culture of a brown paper bag. It was the 80s. Now it's probably a bluey lunchbox. But in the 80s, like a brown paper bag lunch and then putting stickers on the lunch bag and writing a note into the thing. And what is the appropriate, she is making gourmet food in a thermos and putting it to be hot like food. And I just wanted a fucking peanut butter sandwich, right? And so when I went to summer camp, That was culturally already weird to her, but you hear about it from the other families and you bring it home and you negotiate and then you get to go. But because she wasn't a parent who went through that, she didn't know that, you know, it's a big deal to send care packages and they should have food in them because there's no snacks at camps and they should have, you know, there's all this cultural stuff and pressure that as a mom in a new place, you also didn't get the education on. No one fills out a sheet. Like this is what it's like to be a Norwegian mom of a kindergartener. Here you go, Chisom Like you did, you you have to unburden yourself from not only traditional comparison, but remarkably stark comparison. Nobody gave you the instruction manual. Yeah, absolutely. mean, my immigration story, I actually spent formative - - years in the US, in New York and Mississippi and California. I spent some time in the UK and 10 years now in Norway and also Nigerian. I'm also Norwegian citizen. So I'm a bit of a all about the place. And I think... I wonder sometimes if people fall into, yeah, my computer does that sometimes. Okay, I wonder if people fall into norms and expectation. There is this idea of what it is to be perfect, what it is to be a perfect parents. And because ah my circle is quite international, uh even down to the schools my kids go to, a lot of moms or some moms are also trailing spouses. to Norway, whereas I work. And then there's that difference in I don't have the time to do all those things that I would love to do. But there's also that culture that You have to be everything all the time and there's a sense of perfection, right? And what is it to be perfect? You have to be a great wife, a great sister, a great daughter, a great friend, and somehow manage to be a great mom and look pretty while doing it, right? So it's like, there's always that thing that women, think, especially have to contend with and grapple with and how they show up in the world. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to talk to you about SNOO. I read that you named it. Yeah? And so tell me about that. How did that come about? Well, it's funny, it actually starts off as like such a classic sort of Silicon Valley type of startup story, but it has a name. It's ready to go. have, you know, Yves Behar, the most famous designer in the world for products, like designing it, helping with the packaging. And then for whatever reason, the trademark lawyers come back and they say, this name is taken, it was supposed to be called Sway, meaning kind of to imply the swaying back and forth, or the mom sway that I still do, right? Like you sway from left to right. And we were weeks away from launch. And so there was this like mad dash to name the product. Then what was really fun was the constant thinking, like in the shower, a literal pad of paper and a pen next to your bed. Although, you sometimes I would type it into my phone, but you do feel different feedback writing with a pen and pencil. And I don't even remember the birth of the word snoo for me. it just kind of hit me and I put it on my list and by new, was like, this is it, this is it. And then. This is reminiscent of what you talked about working with your family. My dad came back and was like, no, let's call it yawn. And I was like, what? First of all, I actually studied yawning as a phenomenon. It's called a socially contagious behavior. now I'm resisting the urge. When you talk about yawns, when you see somebody yawn, you have the urge to yawn. And so. I was like that first of all, that's a horrible name and it's so boring. And his response was something along the lines of like, it's like a cockroach. It's like, you know, it won't die. It's like so bad that it's good, right? ah But he said, also, I love the idea. It like makes you want to yawn and it incites that feeling of tiredness and that shared experience of the baby. And I was like, this is terrible. This is so terrible. And I fought tooth and nail. And so they go and they put their short list together. Um, a couple of team members threw in some options, uh, and then they took it to their meeting in San Francisco with Yves Behar. And it was like on a piece of paper and he goes, this one. And it was SNOO And I was like, so happy. was like, first of all, love winning. Who doesn't like, for being honest, like I got to win, but also it just felt like such a good name. And it reminds me of having children and feeling like. You can't imagine your life without your kid. Like it's just such a special thing. And that's how I feel about SNOO being called SNOO. Like I can't imagine it having any other name. ah It's just such a cozy, like it rolls off the tongue. It feels like the essence of what SNOO is, is being named SNOO. And then somebody in tech once pointed out to me very early on in like 2016 when we launched and said, you also have that magical kind of double O like Google and Yahoo and. I didn't think of it that way. So it kind of felt like an extra good omen, you know? And then also it was in my mind, but not a part of it, my mom is Serbian and there's a lot of different, it's a country where you decline cases and conjugate verbs. So in one kind of conjugation of the verb with one special declension, then in Serbian the word snoo. is like in your sleep, in your dreams. So there was that thread underneath it that felt something for us too, which was nice. That's beautiful. wonder, have you asked people what comes up for them when they hear the word? Because for me, when I saw the word, and it's also easy to pronounce, like it's difficult for anyone to call it like snow or something. Like most people will say snoo. I feel, you know, like when you're cradling, cradling your child. and you're watching them, that's what comes up for me. You know, that beautiful moments when you finally have some sense of clarity, like, my gosh, you're mine. You know, that's what comes up for me. So I'm just curious, like, did y'all ever check with folks, like, what comes up for them? I've never asked what comes up for them. That's such a great poignant question. I'm going to ask that maybe I'll have the, you know, put it on the social media, like on Instagram stories and fill a question box. And, you know, it's such a great question. I certainly heard whether people like it or not. And, and I will say it's been a surprisingly ubiquitous, like everybody likes it. And I did appreciate that there was no room for mispronunciation or anything. And think there's even something, it's not a name itself isn't an object, but if you can say it's anthropomorphic in a way, cause it has like the double O's are almost like eyes or there's something in there too, but I'm gonna ask people what it Life. I mean, there's so much. There's so much. Yeah. Nice work. It's great name. Okay. I want to talk about you as a leader. How do you lead? What is your leadership style? What are some values that you hold onto? What are some non-negotiables? Um, I mean, my style is really casual. I'm very open. I'm very fluid. I talk a lot. So I think I like to connect with my team. for me, you know, I know it seems like another startup kind of keyword zinger, but like culture is really important. I really appreciate that. I, I feel like when I go to sleep at night, every single one of these people is my friend. and I think that, you know, I have people on my team who have been with us since. launch, like we launched October 2016 and there's a person who works with me on my specific team who's been with us since December of 2016. Like we are a family and we don't, you we don't go away. and I see that a lot, especially with young people and job switching. so maybe I shouldn't, but it feels like a compliment, which feels warm and meaningful. I think I learned from watching my dad lead. to ask questions. I really appreciate his Socratic leadership style. He's really humble and has never thought he knows everything and he always asks your opinion. And we have interns who have a direct line to him, you know? So I think that was something that I didn't realize I absorbed, but I really like to ask people's questions, which is fascinating because I'm very opinionated and I have a quick... intuitive gut processing system. ah So one would think that you feel like you always kind of know everything, but I still want to ask everyone. I may not agree and at the end but I like to ah first hear what they all have to say. Those are sort of like some main points of my leadership style. I'm definitely curious. I'm thirsty. Like I want to absorb everything. I want to know what people think. uh And I think that You know, we're all a lot more alike than we are different in a lot of ways. And so, I really enjoy. Like figuring out what makes people tick and what makes them contribute and what they're good at. and, then seeing how they can apply that skillset toward their job. And I also think, listen, an unhappy employee isn't going to be a good team member. And it's not, it's like, not just, you know, maybe socially toxic, it's actually detrimental to work product. So. If I notice that like maybe someone's looking or feeling a little burnt out, I don't ask like only about their workload physically in terms of do you need, you know, clearance on your plate? I ask like, what part of your job do you hate the most or, you know, what do you not want to do? Or is there something you are curious about and you want to learn? Like, you know, is there a different channel you want to maybe peek over the shoulder of? Cause I think, a lot of our job isn't just to succeed as a business, but it's to help my team members be better members of marketing in general or society in general so that like when they leave, there's like a little birdie who went and learned and can do something in their next role. How do you navigate challenging situations that inevitably come up at work, especially when you have such a close knit workplace where there's that feeling of a sense of a family? Yeah. I kind of feel like the United Nations or something. uh I go, like, this is my strategy. I love to go one on one to every single person, right? Like, an executive team meeting, and especially if we have like different opinions or there wasn't a consensus at the end of the call on what we're going to do directionally, like I literally call product, finance, legal, ops, I want the one-on-one real talk of what you think and why you think it. And then I can amalgamate all of that into really cohesive and clear and honest truth and reality. I think a shared reality is very important. And then I marinate on it. And then if there's like a stakeholder or a roadblock who like, to be convinced otherwise, right, then I call that person. You know, I think there's something really, and again, maybe I'm aging myself, there's something really great about just like picking up the phone. Like not everything is a Slack or an email, you know, like, let's talk about it. I think that's such a faster, easier, more human way. Cause I've also noticed people have their own feelings and tendencies and they view an email that seems succinct and short and very clear and obvious to you, people interpret tone and everything so differently from one another, and they even can glean meaning differently. So I actually think it's great to like pick up the phone or walk over to somebody like we're a hybrid work model. And so I love being able to just like walk to someone's desk and like sit down next to them and ask questions. I love that. And I think what I'm also getting from that is clarity is important, even if you have to pull it out of people eventually somehow. And I think that's great. know, like I also run a company and I have a team or quite close and in the beginning of my journey, also trying to decide, okay, how do I show up? How do I lead? And I have ridiculously high standards, but at least it's communicated and what is expected is clear. And then of course, playing that role as somebody who brings everyone together. Okay, what is here? What are we doing? Do we have clarity? Do we agree? How do we move forward together? I think that's also interesting. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, So you operate at this intersection between health tech, parenting, and policy. And from what I know about the US, the policy process is can be chaotic, so to say. So of course, like there's a lot of complexity that you navigate. um guess my question is what drew you to that complexity specifically right? because you could have stopped at just helping parents but you wanted a systems level change. why? How much time do we have? uh Look, nobody's perfect. No government is perfect. And I will qualify this with, know, America is big. And I think people don't realize how difficult it is. Here's my story in irony and speaking to you is it's actually Norway was the example. I went to an international conference a long time ago on the prevention of SIDS and stillbirth. It's a conference that exists every year and it moves locations. And that year it happened to be in Scotland and delegates from all over the world, government cabinets appointed to health ministries or what other departments. are there to really care about the prevention of SIDS in stillbirth and newborn babies in their country. And from the US, we didn't have such a delegation. We didn't even have an NGO. We had two for-profit tech companies, and one was us. And I stood there by the product. I'm demoing. I'm talking. And this woman walks by and scoffs at me and is like super rude and condescending. And I said, well, we have almost 4,000 babies who die in their sleep in the United States alone every year. And she said, well, we don't need this in Norway. We don't have cot death. Well, also, you have a population the size of Los Angeles. it's a lot of education, right? There's a lot of access to health care. There's a lot of access to education. There's a lot of rural health care deserts. Like, we have a big company with a large population that can be hard to govern no matter how skilled you are. So setting that aside, we felt like we have a solution. It's weird to me that people can give my dad a hard time as a tremendous thought leader. uh in the infant space, in the sleep space, in the development space, in the child, you know, the general kind of child expert space, and especially in the SIDS space, because he has a product and people view you as a sellout. But that product was born, he was retired. He was an author and a pediatrician and he was already almost 65 years old. He was retired just doing his book tours. He was no longer a practicing clinician. And he came out of retirement to do this and be a startup founder and not to glamorize this, but it really is what you see on TV or whatever. You don't sleep, you don't eat, you fly in a shitty coach seat in the middle at the back by the bathroom, right? It's tremendous work. You can't do that at that age unless it really means something to you. And so he really wants to save babies' lives. I feel like I'm going to cry, sorry. Somebody I've cried every time I've told this story, but Somebody kind of said to me like your parents are really old they're really driving themselves into the ground and like, you know You see that happening and you kind of yell at your parents and you're like, what are you doing? You don't need this. Why are you doing this? you're gonna take ten years off your life where you're gonna drop dead and He said to me with but really earnest like not this is not like a line He said to me, I have to save as many babies as I can before I die. So that's who he is and what we do. And that's really powerful. ah So we have a lot of infant sleep deaths in the United States. And you can't change that without a systems level change. I can sell D to C from morning till night. I can only affect a certain amount of people. First of all, the people who need SNOO the most, because there is specifically both a socioeconomic and a racial sort of correlate here with SIDS, are the people who can't afford SNOO And we knew that from the time we invented it. So we knew that we would have to figure something out. And so pre-launch, we already came up with the idea, which is very unusual in the US, especially as a consumer product, to have a rental model, especially back 12 years ago when we were figuring all of this out. We knew that just because it's expensive to do the R &D and the research and the tech and the engineering and the building and the prototyping and the testing and all of these things in business, we knew that we would still launch and that it would still be an expensive product, but that that was okay, because that's what it takes to then eventually be subsidized by the government, by corporations. And that's the funny thing here in the US. I mentioned earlier that the companies provide our healthcare benefits if you're employed. uh Well, at the same time, they provide other benefits too. So SNOO is an employee benefit that 200 companies in the US provide from JP Morgan Chase Bank to Activision to uh Under Armour and so many Snapchat. So many companies provide SNOO as an employee benefit. And that's not just from the TV shows like the fancy Googles of the company. a factory line worker at the Under Armour company gets the same thing as the CEO. We have janitorial services as a client, like an entire company that provides cleaning staff. So in a way, the companies can also affect change much faster than the governments. There's a lot of, roadblocks and bureaucracy and hurdles we have to cross. And we're so happy that we're speaking to so many. you know, government entities, whether they're uh sort of third party health insurance providers, whether they're Medicare, Medicaid, uh state governments, the city of Atlanta now provides news to its employees as a city. That's really cool. And we're talking to other countries about doing the same, but to affect that change, I want to say something that also feels like that, you know, splashy startup deck. But when people talk about their audience, who is your customer? Who is your target addressable market? You'll hear some bros say like everybody, but I actually mean that. If you have access to electricity and a place to sleep at night, then whether it's your government or your insurance provider, you may not have the means yourself, but you deserve a SNOO and you are in our target addressable market because I can help you get a SNOO by some other mechanism. And that's critically important, not just to help parents sleep. not just to calm the crying that could be really grating and help contribute massively is one of the largest triggers to postpartum depression, anxiety, and psychosis, uh but also to kind of change the playing field. um SIDS in the US affects Black babies more. There was a 2023, I think, piece source of data from the census, the CDC. I'll have to find that citation for you, but SIDS went up. for black babies by 15%. This is not like 1%, right? This is a massive significant uptick. And it's remained flat for all babies in 30 years. Nothing has been helping. So imagine communities that are much more burdened with the loss of a vulnerable infant baby and then the trickle-out effects of the emotions, the finances, the... the future desire to have children. There's all of these effects that happened to that community because of a death. and SNOO was born out of my dad's pediatrician experience desire to help people and prevent deaths that are senseless because the data shows that around 50 % of infants who die in their sleep are found face down from rolling into an unsafe position. And 70 % of them are from you know, sleeping in an unsafe environment, whether that's, you know, on purpose and co-sleeping or by accident falling asleep in the nursing chair and, you know, in other sofas in other places, um we can help these people. So, there's a big passion underneath that. And I think that's why it's like this systems level. Thanks for sharing that. mean, it's beautiful. And I think it's always important. I mean, I'm an economist. I think things should be monetized. Otherwise, how are people going to actually sustain the thing, right? um I also think that for things that are monetized, for it not to be futile. We also need that passion and the drive behind it. I can imagine that for your dad to do what he does, to do the hustle, because I mean, you didn't anything, even when you're successful with it, it's 24-7, right? There's no break. You don't check out and clock out, so to say. And having that... love for wanting to fix and change or reduce pain for families as much as he can. while he can. I think that's a beautiful story. And of course, when you were thinking about when you were talking about the Norwegian and I'm thinking such a silly Norwegian thing to say. Like I can hear that. I'm not, I wasn't there, but I can totally see that. I can totally see that women like we don't have this in Norway. And I do think as well, I mean, there's that, you know, the Nordic arrogance that we tend to have because like the government provides everything. We're good. But I actually think for me, while I have two kids now, I think something like that could have saved me a lot of stress. You know, eventually I got one of those swaddle that you can put the kids in and the Velcro thingy and swadow them. But of course she could have still, or my son could have still rolled over. So I think also just what it does for the reduction of stress and the worry. And the nights my husband woke up in a pool of sweat thinking like, you know, we as a kid, is she okay? You know, and I think that's also something we do not maybe take account of as. How much stress? Because as new parents, you have enough stress. Now, if you can remove one of those stressful, my kid will survive. They're OK. I think that also goes a long way, right? So it's beyond, even where there's no high percentage of deaths by SIDS it's what percentage of stress does it reduce? and look like, you know, we would love nothing more than to see those percents go down, even if, even if we could have ever affiliated ourselves with that, because we're an FDA regulated medical device now, so I can't make any such claims. But, um but even if that were possible, you know, it would be in a long time. But I think one of the big goals that that he has that I think sounds lofty, but I think is achievable for us as we scale this business globally is, you know, you wouldn't drive your child one block without putting them in the car seat with the seatbelt. And yet the place that they spend the most time in is their bed. And at least here in the U S the number one cause of death for children under one is SIDS. Well, between one month and one year. Um, imagine a future where people say, you know, our grandchildren say, guys slept in beds without a snoosack and it's an, clip in a swaddle, keeping you safely on your backs. Like monster idiot, you know, past stupid past. Like, like, can you imagine that is the goal? The goal is that in 50 years, everybody goes to sleep in a snoo and everybody thinks that it's just like the other outdated practices that we had in our culture where, my God, I can't believe you did that. I can't believe you put your kid to sleep in, know, freestyle in the bed, right? And that infant deaths, you know, that dream of infant deaths being just a thing of the complete past. You know what it reminds me of? that there was a time people could drive, literally drive a car without being forced to like put on your seat belts. Cause I'm thinking, oh my gosh, you must want to die. And then you see even to this day, when that happens, simple accidents can easily lead to death because somebody did not have their seat belt on. So I was also thinking it could be also interesting on the policy basis, if governments almost make it law, right? It's like you need to have this and make it accessible in that regard, which means they also have to play a role. Absolutely. I read somewhere that, where you talking about toxic positivity in parents in culture, and we kind of touched on it a little bit already. But for you, you're marketing a product that is, well, I guess marketed to parents. And why was it important that you stay genuine in the reality of parenting and not feed into this culture of like the industrial complex of what perfect parenting is say on Instagram or elsewhere. Why was it important to do that given the type of product you sold? I love, I'm going to copy that, the perfect parent industrial complex. love this phrase. um Listen, it is hard to raise kids. Whether you work in the home or you don't work in the home, it's different kinds of hard. And I don't want to fool anybody. I don't want everyone to think like, oh, if I buy a SNOO, I'm going to have 100 % perfect sleeper who's never going to cry, and we're all going to sleep, and it's all going to be great. That's setting them up for disappointment. And We're a helper. We're here to help you be a better parent. We're not here to replace you. We're not here to replace your nanny or your night nurse. We're here to provide support. uh We just don't have support. And everybody could use a spare set of hands, right? Like when I have to go to the bathroom, I can zipper into the SNOO and go to the bathroom. ah But it's also really hard. If somebody said to you, can my mom come over? and rock the baby all night. You'd be like, yeah, come on over, right? But why is it that if you buy a product that can help you, you feel like you're not a perfect enough mom or dad, or you're cheating? It's the same thing. It's providing your child a loving environment, a little stimulus, right? A little shh, like to be cozy. um There is absolutely nothing in the world that any parent wants more for their child than health and safety and hopefully happiness. And I feel like I don't want to sell you that we can give you all of that, but I know for a fact in the data shows that I can help you get closer to all of that. And being realistic is really important. remember one customer, this is my favorite story. I don't even think I've told it publicly, but there was a girl, she was actually a friend of my cousin's and she like called customer care and she was crying and she was like. SNOO isn't working for us and we're gonna get a divorce and like this is so hard. And you know, the sleep consultant was like talking them through this and locking them off the ledge and said, well, what's going on and how old is your baby? And it turns out the baby was three weeks old and only sleeping five hour stretches. That's incredible. But this young woman didn't have any experience with babies. had never babysat. The first time she touched a baby was in the hospital when she gave birth. And she didn't know that at three weeks old, a five hour stretch is fantastic, right? And so in her mind, she was like, this isn't working. Everything is terrible because she needed context and education and experience. And I think that's why it's our responsibility to explain that you still have to feed your baby. But if you can get an extra hour and make those stretches a touch longer in those early days, I mean, we've seen, and we're at almost a billion hours of sleep, we're over 850 something million hours of sleep now. ah We've seen that every night from the very first night of use, you're getting one to two hours more sleep per night than a non-sleepy baby. That's crazy. That's like the first time in history that you can just buy sleep. Like for me that would, you know, that is the deal maker. That's pretty cool. Is it true that people are shamed for using SNOO in terms of support system? Okay. it's not that. mean, listen, yes, you have a little bit of that, right? Like, there's a little bit of a feeling. And I think some of it is cultural. In some countries, we see that more. But it's like, um you know, stiff upper lip. We all had to do it. You just grit and bear it. You can take it. It's part of the narrative of what it is to have a baby and deal with it. But you don't have to deal with it, you know? There are solutions that can be really helpful to you. you know, everybody has... things that they lean on. Like I like having a pillow and a blanket when I sleep. Does that make me like an inferior human being? Right? Like, no, I I have sleep cues. I have comfort. if I had to, you know, sleep on the ground and concrete, like, I'm sure I could sleep. Would it be as nice or as comfortable? Absolutely not. I like certain food. If I had to eat something I don't like, like, great, I'm an adult and a human and I understand the necessity. But I think, having a little bit of comfort in life or picking the things you like or getting a little cozy help, like it doesn't make you an inferior person in any way. But there is a little bit of those narratives in that perfect parent industrial complex. Like, no, I don't bake my bread from scratch before work like sorry I'm so sorry there's a local bakery and they can bake my bread thank you very much Absolutely. think anyone who's listening to this and thinking, my gosh, I need to do it all. You don't have to do it all. Take whatever help you can get, you know, and there is zero shame in that. People who feel like, oh, you should do it. You're not doing the work. That's your business. That's your problem. You know, I think we each have to parent how we can. Like it infuriates me, I guess, to even consider that. we do this in some sense to each other, whereas we should be providing a community of care and support rather than saying, oh, you should do it this way. You should suffer like me to be worthy of this role That's ridiculous. Question about the larger mission which you have, right? uh Seeds is massive, supporting parents, massive. And they're all powerful missions, but. big right and you're not just thinking the US you're thinking globally as well what keeps you anchored in this work so you do not get swallowed up or overwhelmed by just the bigness of it all You know, the bigness of it is what anchors me. we had a few years ago, like an all team meeting and there were a hundred people at long rectangle tables, which is, I'm going to cry again. You're really going deep today. were a hundred people sitting outside at this meeting. You know, here's the state of engineering. Everyone's different team is presenting and, know, kind of our own mini state of the union. Harvey looked at all of us and said, at this point in this many years, at this many hundreds of millions of hours of sleep, we should have had, we would have had approximately 100 deaths that we expected to see within the number of SNOO we had sold. And that's the number of people where you guys are today. Sorry. And to look around and see that many people alive and adults and doing things just existing. I, in my career, because of what we do, have met women who have lost their babies because they come to us. They talk about, wow, like, I wish we had this or, or this gave me the courage to have another baby. So I have hugged an inordinate amount of women who have lost a baby. And so you think about what would have their daily life been? Could they have had stickers on their lunch and all of these things and grown up and gone to high school and college and gotten a job and the dum mundane, banal daily things. And so to look around and see just a hundred people sitting at a table talking um and to surmise that that's what we would have. generally speaking, you get the gist of like looking around and seeing a hundred people alive and knowing that there are people alive from our work was. so profoundly moving that it can't swallow you. gives you the energy. It's a very different thing. I joke with my team all the time. I'm like, we can never go work in like cosmetics or selling candles after this. Like, like we better go cure water shortages in the world after this. There's, there's nothing you can do when you go to sleep at night and you really know that all of our typing and all of our slacks is not for nothing. We really want to save lives and it feels really good and big and it doesn't feel swallowing or all consuming. It's just motivating and meaningful and makes even things that people perceive as fluffery like marketing, it makes it feel very fulfilling. I love that. Thanks for sharing. um Two things coming up. ah First, I lost my second child in a miscarriage. And I think about just how difficult and impossible that felt. having held two of my children, you know, who are with me today and amazing, I cannot imagine holding a child like that and losing them because of something like SIDS you know and I was terrified I have to say like for the first couple of months especially the first three months completely terrified I don't think I slept properly you know so I guess my point being I can't imagine what it is to lose a child at that age when they come into the world But I can imagine that it is wonderful to not know. Yeah, because what I went through just by miscarrying, I cannot imagine what that feels like to bring a child into the world that doesn't make it, especially by something so preventable. So that was coming up for me when you're talking about, I'm visualizing this long table and this hundred people sitting around it and thinking, there's every child that could be dead that did not die, right? And that means so much. So thank you for that story. just want to say, because I want to be really mindful of people who have lost their babies. Not all instances of sui and SIDS are preventable, right? There's the true spontaneous, like, we don't know what it was. um And that happens, of course. But the vast, vast, vast majority is rolling over and other things. And I can't imagine that either. I just can't imagine. And I think as you were talking, I thought about That must be the best, most blissful of all ignorance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to find out happily. I wanted to ask about, yes, the question around SNOO being a luxury product, at least that's how it's positioned, it's not the cheapest thing in the market. And at the same time, you know, just hearing you talk about, you know, the value, the mission, and also just all the intention and the work that goes behind creating space and making it accessible to families that ordinarily cannot. afford it. So for example, something as simple as rentals or getting companies and policymakers to actually include this as part of what they offer to families. How do you navigate that tension between this is luxury, this is expensive, this should also be accessible to everyone via insurance. So how do you hold it? Hold it like this. SNOO is not luxury. It's expensive, but it's not luxury. Let me give you an example. ah In the United States, we don't have a lot of public transit infrastructure in most cities and towns. So most families here need a car. They don't need a luxury car, but they need a car. But any car is expensive. It has all kinds of motors and parts, and it has to keep you safe, right? At the end of the day, there was also just like a general basis of even the least expensive car. That's a lot of money for any family. And so in that same way, like, SNOO is a complex piece of machinery. It's on a drive train. It has suspension. It has a steel shield. It has everything that the baby touches is certified organic cotton. So it weighs a lot. Like when you buy a SNOO, it comes basically fully assembled. You just pop the legs on and that box weighs 65 pounds, that's like, I don't know, 27 kilos. So it's expensive, but it's not luxury. And that I think is what is really important to discern. And that is why we've never branded or positioned it like Hermes, right? Like it's not out of reach. It's not aspirational. It's sometimes the imagery can be inspirational. Yeah. Well, it was important to us to make it pretty. And that's why we had Yves Behar design it because you know, everybody deserves to have nice things in their home and so much of the infant and baby kid stuff is like plastic and the bright high contrast primary colors and all of that. And we just wanted something that you felt like not only did it help you exhale to help you sleep more and cry less, but it was like an exhale in the room, right? It fit in everybody's different decor. um So I think some of the imagery might look somewhat luxurious because it is a pretty product and because I think more and more regular people have prettier homes. know, even if it's IKEA, like IKEA stepped up their game in my 42 years of life, right? And the way that Instagram works, taught regular folks to look at aesthetic, right? And to take a better photo. So I think by nature, those visuals lend maybe the misconception of luxury. but we've never positioned it as luxury. And we knew before we launched that we want it to be for everyone. But just because it's expensive to produce, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't make our amazing idea, right? You need to make it anyway to scale. then with these partnerships from fantastic companies who provide it to their employees as a benefit or from governments who see the value uh in a well-rested and sane workforce of parents, right? uh they can see that value and provide it for free or insurance companies can understand the benefits of the added sleep in the data, but it's not luxury. And so I think there's a discernment between being expensive and being luxurious. That is he in this type of positioning, there is still tension. The price point is hard. And that's why we worked really hard to invent the rental model. And we did it ourselves. Like there is no third party person who was like, let me solve this for you. We had to figure it out as a small team. We had to find. a refurbishing partner who we trusted to really engineer and hold our quality standards. then, you know, so many other things involved. It's a, it's a, it's a complex operation to rent something and even figure out, you know, everything from sanitizing and shipping and payments and all of these parts of the business, but have it be as like seamless and inexpensive as possible to the parents. it's like basically the cost of getting, you know, a fancy latte, or you can have more sleep. security and safety, peace of mind, have this, you know, bed for your baby for the first six months of life and so many other things. And then I love like data and I love the app. I love like having a baby sleep today and how'd your baby sleep and like, you know, knowing are we normal and all the other types of questions we have, you know. I love that. like the way you see it and the way you explain it as well. Cause it makes sense to me, know, all my other companies and the service sector. and then this is the first time I'm actually doing products and I'm learning very quickly that if you want good stuff, it's also quite expensive, know, sure. could pick up paraffin and get cheap fragrance here and there, and then I can make it a certain price, but that is not what I want to put into the world. So to say, I also like what you see around. And I'm quite mindful that in Norway, we also have a luxury problem where, you know, what people might consider a high price in the US, I think, but that's quite cheap here because the standard pram or strollers that I have is around 2000 dollars. So equivalent of 2000, 20,000 NOK which is the standard we pay. And we think about it in terms of how many years would it actually last for this first child? And maybe there's a second one. So was actually thinking we'd SNOO How long does it last? Do you find that family use it with different babies? How does that work? Families do use it with multiple babies. And in fact, the same SNOO that we sell is the same SNOO that's used in over 200 hospitals around the world. I would assume hospitals use it all day, every day, year after year. em So it's built really well and built to last, but also it's about use. Have you seen on Instagram where people do the math and they're dividing how much use they get out of something, whether it's something as frivolous as a purse. But for SNOO, you sleep in that and the babies at the early days right there sleeping 16, 18 hours a day every day, day after day and then the value of sleep like you know I'm sure like the other day I asked my daughter the same question every night before bed and we were so late to bedtime and I skipped the question and she came in here on Tuesday night at 3 30 in the morning and said mommy what was your favorite part of today and I was like it's 3 30 in the morning nothing but okay And I got up and did the thing. so like, I couldn't really go back to sleep and I had a big day the next day. And I would have given an arm to sleep more. Right? So like, what do you value the safety and security and the peace of mind? And so you divide that, but, your question is really correct. You use it from zero to six months of life. And so if you divide it, it's a couple of dollars a day. I mean, I couldn't even get a babysitter for 15 minutes. I'm not that SNOO replaces a babysitter, but If you had a teenage neighbor next door who was like, you can take a shower, stay home, right? We're not replacing total care, but you can take a shower, you can step away for two seconds, all rock and hold and shush the babies in case she wakes up from her nap. And you can take a breather. In the US right now, in Los Angeles, where I live, child care is like minimum $25 an hour and you're hard pressed to find that. And that's in sort of the kind of... less urban areas and you know in in yeah exactly exactly and you know in other parts of LA it's up to $40 an hour for a babysitter it's unhinged do people can't afford to have a babysitter at all and so what would you pay to just get like a little bit of help so that you knew have you ever like been in the shower or on the toilet or something when the baby starts to cry and then you're like i just need one more minute like i just didn't you know And so if you know that something is tending to the baby and you can get that minute, even if your heart hurts a little if they're crying, most of the time, it's like 90 % of the time, SNOO and Calm crying in under a minute. So most of the time, by the time you actually go, the baby already stopped crying. But even if the baby didn't stop crying, it alerts your phone and it levels up automatically and tries to serve the baby different combinations of sound and motion to help them. So you know that like your baby's not just being stuck in the crib staring at the ceiling, screaming for mommy with like trauma. It's getting soothing responses. It's really being responded to. And so you can have like the rest of your 30 seconds to get the conditioner out of your hair and turn off the faucet. uh I think that that is just so invaluable when divided across the six months of use. Thanks for sharing. Good to know. And so do I understand correctly that SNOO adapts to what it thinks your baby needs? Got you. Huh. there are different levels. And then after a while, if your baby hasn't stopped crying, it shuts off and it pings your phone and it says like, your baby needs your care. It tells you, know, go help, go help. Very cool, very cool. Because I had a thing for my daughter, you know, could move her around, you could strap her in, but it wasn't intelligence. I had to choose, you know, the level that I wanted it to move. So it's really cool to actually know that it adapts accordingly to what he thinks the baby needs. it's really designed to stimulate the womb, which is part of his kind of foundational his seminal work on calming crying in infants and all his decades of research. And then also just simulating the womb, which is like the most obvious answer to calming the baby is like provide a mommy experience. know, we just naturally shh and then. You wanna know what's wild? I still sleep with white noise. Cause I was using it for my kids. I still sleep with white noise. We make a white noise machine and it is called Snooby. It has like little cloud shape and it's like meant for kid rooms and I use it and I travel with it because when you travel a lot for work and some of the hotels are, you know, less than glamorous and you hear banging in the walls and the doors slamming and the fire escape in the hallways, like white noise is the best thing ever. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay. So I want to ask you about data. I love data. I love all things numbers that can show me anything about anything. So my question for you is you've been talking already today around, I think you've collected almost a billion, 850 million or something. You said hours of infant sleep. Yeah. What have you found out anything interesting about that data in terms of babies or any or even parents or any patterns that surprised you? Yeah, don't know anything about the parents except for some, you know, self-report surveys, but the data on the babies is fascinating. So for millennia, right? Like we just thought that babies are babies and they wake up and sometimes their day-night cycle is flipped and like that's just how they are. And we assumed that the earliest time we've seen evidence of circadian rhythm in babies is around five months, four months, five months. And in SNOO, we see a very clear circadian rhythm, meaning like a day-night cycle and a nighttime sleep at eight weeks. So we've entrained babies to have a circadian rhythm months before we thought was neurologically possible. ah That feels pretty huge. That is incredible. So I think that's the one that just really stands out. Wow. Yeah, because I think, I mean, I think this is first time I'm hearing this because I think when my kids, I'm just like, they don't know the difference. They just eat, wake up, sleep, eat, wake up, sleep, know, they're indifferent to like, it's really cool. All right. Huh. Is that concern around, I'm curious from a data perspective, especially now with all things AI, how do you navigate? all the things that AI will bring with the company that you're building. Oh my gosh, the future is so limitless. We've integrated this really fantastic chat bot within the app that is very specifically trained on Dr. Harvey Karp, being a pediatrician. such nuanced views of his, of his. And so you basically have him in your pocket. You can type in, um, how did my baby sleep or what are his patterns or, know, what's her best sleep stretch and what do you think is her best bedtimes? we can tell you, I mean, that's incredible. imagine how helpful it is to just be able to ask it a question. from having been connected to your SNOO, it can tell you, these are your best days of sleep. And then you can say, well, what did I do? You can log your feedings in our app. And so you could be like, um Did she eat more that night or less or what time did she eat or like what did I do differently and it can be like well this is what you did and this is what I think you should do and given your feeding and your sleeping schedules I think this is like your best overall like suggested schedule to live by like if someone could have told me that it would have been life-changing in those early days where we're just trying to figure it out. I love this. think I'm even more sold on SNOO I'm thinking, I don't have a kid. But now I know, you know, I need to gift somebody something who's had a baby. I need to check you out. that they want to have a baby, so it's not the first time. I love it. love it. And it's really nice. I think, you you can read as much about a company, you know, online and there's always something either great or not and talking to the people behind it and seeing the love and the passion that they bring to it. And I think, I mean, I see the passion you have for it and how much you care for it. So always grateful for that. So thank you for sharing. um So honestly, and been forthcoming with just the work and how you see it and the stories. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much for asking such poignant and interesting questions. It helps. It's really fun. I love my job. uh it's fun to get to talk about it, right? Because everybody just wants to talk about SNOO and the baby part and the parenting part and ah the elusive mom work-life balance part. But your questions are really profound. So thank you so much. Thank you, I appreciate that. Okay, I'm gonna go into the speed round. ah I ask everyone the same question. So I wanna ask you, what are you aspiring to right now? First in your personal life and then your professional life. um Growth, I think it's a period of growth for me. I saw something on Instagram that it was like the period of the year of the snake was over and that's about like shedding skin and now I believe it's like the horse and you kind of conjures a galloping horse and um you know, I think. SNOO is already so popular and so known and now is our period to like get more countries, more companies really get to that systems level of change that we want to see with SNOO. So growth for the company, growth for myself, growth for the business. ah And then personally, you know, our homes burned down in the fires in Los Angeles. And that's been very tremendously difficult, especially because my daughter was three and our other daughter was five weeks old. So I was very fresh postpartum and we were just like homeless bouncing around hotels, like had no stuff, you know, it was a lot. And so I think uh there's something about growth immediately too, like kind of that Phoenix from the ashes moment of like rising and hopefully maybe getting closer to finally rebuilding our home and our town. Cause since it was the whole city. of our hometown that burned down. There's no infrastructure, there's no power, water, sewage, streets are all torn up. We have no street lights, we have no supermarkets and gas stations and schools. It's a lot bigger than just your house burning down. So I think regrowth, rebuilding, building and growth are it for me. um Thanks for sharing and I wish you the best of it all in terms of growth and I can't imagine what it is like to lose your house. I mean I was watching with my family just from afar and it was just terrifying to see and really hard. right? yeah, very heartbreaking to see. yeah, sorry. But also really glad you made it out and that you and your family are safe. Yeah. Yeah. I like that you said Phoenix is my daughter's middle name. I love, yeah, the whole idea of rising from the ashes over and over again. And to be something better and stronger is one of my prayers for her. So she's named for that as well. I love that. Yeah. Next question for you is, if you could speak to younger Lexi, what would you say to her? my gosh. ah You know, I've had a weird, I've had a really weird life. It's full of immense privilege, systemic privilege and otherwise. ah But I've also had a very, like, unlucky life in a lot of ways. ah My husband wrote this book called The Serendipity Mindset, and it's just like such a fantastic book about how to create your own luck. And he starts often like big lectures and speeches saying like, How many of you feel lucky? And like some people raise their hand and I raised my hand the first time he did this. And he goes, and how many of you feel unlucky? And I also raised my hand. That duality, I really pulled that. And I think it's unique and weird, but I realized now, it's like a platitude. Like everything's gonna be okay. But if I could tell the younger me who was, know, had a death of a best friend at 19 had, was. left by my husband, my former husband with like one sentence and no warning and just, you know, just like lots of big stuff and whose house burned down. And because it was multi-generational for us, it's not just about the physical home and your physical stuff, which I think I want to give myself permission to miss. spent 25 years collecting handbags and jewelry and clothes that I loved and I'll probably never be able to afford to replace. But also I'm very sentimental. So I ascribe meaning to things. kept notes from summer camp. had kindergarten stuff. I took it all over the world and moved back and forth. I'm like, had it. You know, I saved it and I schlepped it and I paid a lot of money to ship extra stuff and hoard the stuff. And so that was hard, but the multi-generational part is hard because there's a lot of erasure. You know, my mom had all the family photos really of her side of the family. My stepdad is pretty much last man standing in his family as well. And then my real dad, we're all really close. And so he had a bunch of stuff here in the U.S. at my parents' house in LA. So not just the people who were in that house, but even the people not in that house, there are no more photos. I had just found their childhood things, or I see Instagram posts of people who... ah had their mom in that sweater and then them in that sweater and then their daughter in that sweater and I had two of three and now my daughter will never wear the stupid sweater that my mom kept from her childhood in Serbia and like made it to America and Survived me wearing in high school all the time and that kind of you know, well the erasure is hard The sentimental stuff is really hard. And so ah all of these things that you experience ah Telling your younger self that it will be okay. I think that All those hard things that I've done have taught me, really, really made me who I am and they've given me a lot of resilience. And even though I've had a lot of bad luck, I've had a lot of really good luck. And ah I learned from my husband's book that that isn't an accident, ah that I made my own serendipity and that I bridled and harnessed it. And I spotted the dots and I connected the dots and I had this sort of sagacity and tenacity and... drive and just did and made things happen for myself. um And so, and so, you know, that platitude of it'll be okay, but it really will. And for whatever reason, you know, your husband puts his bag on the shoulder and tells you, want a divorce and leaves and you're sort of in shock and you're dead on the floor. And then later your second husband and you do a Ted talk together about that. And you have the best husband in the world and the cutest children in the world. and um live a life that was even more meant for you. So every bad thing is somehow a good thing in waiting and it's going to be okay. That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing. You're a phoenix. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. That's beautiful. Is there a moment in your life that shaped and shapes you to this day in a way that you feel is fundamental? I mean, you've already said a lot and that's happened just now. Yeah. I think those bad things, they're so defining and they can really make you collapse. I'm not a super positive person. I wallow in that pain. I'm not a letter goer. I'm a stage five clinger, right? And so ah it can be really hard. And especially when it's like sickness and death ah and so many of these things are heavy burdens that human beings haven't quite cracked the code on. they really formed me. my husband talks all the time about this in his books too, that kind of uh Viktor Frankl concept or Goethe concept of like, if you treat somebody just how they are, then that's how they'll stay. But if you sort of treat them to their potential of how they could be, then they become that. They can rise to that occasion and be even better. And I think... uh that I've taught, I've sort of learned that in every one of these challenges, you know, like your house is burned down, but there's still work and you give birth, but your house burned down and there's still work. But also the girl below you at work is giving birth in five weeks. So you got to get it together quick because then there's nobody left in marketing. Right? So like there's a lot of challenges and I think also everybody has them. have heavy stuff going on. ah And I remembering in the moments of my heavy stuff, walking on the earth and not being able to wear a t-shirt that says like, you know, my best friend died or my husband left me or whatever it is that's happening to you on your t-shirt. And so people don't know and you have to operate in this normal sphere. It gives you compassion in that divorce moment. I lived in New York for 15, 16 years and you know, it has a reputation of having kind of angry, funky people, right? And this lady. We were walking in the opposite directions and she bumped my shoulder like really hard, And I feel like the old me would have been like, what the you know? And instead she like started cursing at me and went ballistic. And instead of that normal, perhaps knee jerk reaction I had, I remember thinking inside like, she's really angry. She must be really hurt. Like something like she has a heavy life. And I don't always have that compassion and I'm not perfect, but it was an interesting reframing and reframing is so important, not just to the outside world, but even to yourself and to yourself talk and to the imposter in you. So I think all of those things really made me a lot of who I am, all the hard, bad things that then, again, help you kind of rise like a Phoenix and grow, but learn. Hmm. I love that. Thanks for sharing that. think of, for me to pause button, I literally imagine a light switch. I can turn it off. Yeah. And I would just turn it off and take a bit and then I'll turn it back on afterwards. But one of the ways I deal with like angry people, even when they are at fault is I say, I wish you a great day, you know, have a great week. And I feel like, my God. Paltrow lawsuit? And she's like, I wish you well. And I'm like, wish I were nice. Actually, I love that concept of flipping the light switch. Do you know, did you ever hear Ariana Huffington talks about this? if your life, your life is the movie, right? So like, if you don't like it, like change the channel. I like it as well because it gives you the power of choice like you have that agency I think sometimes we just react and taking a step back to reflect and I love what you said about being I love that framing the stage five clinger ah I think there's something beautiful about sitting with you know, feelings. am a compartmentalizer. Like I don't have time for a breakdown, you know, today or tomorrow. And that's kind of how I always start You know, and some days I have to force myself to feel the thing because that I can compartmentalize it and toss it in the ocean and deep deep down. It's going to show up in the shower in two weeks. Yeah. breaking down, right? So I think it's also, there's something like beautiful about being able to sit with the thing and feel it, you know, and I always grapple with, okay, I have to feel this thing, but then I only have three days to feel this thing, you know, like it's a, I try to be practical, strategic about this thing, you know, like how long are we going to deal with this? You know, so I love it. But even if you're like me, like I, can't sit and wallow, I have to work. So there's like a split screen, right? Like a little bit, you're like, you're still sad, but you can still, you know, laugh with your colleagues on a zoom and still work really hard. And I really I really liked the distraction to be honest. Like when I got a divorce, I didn't take a day off. And with my first child, like all they did was sleep all day. So I just went back to work. Like she sat next to me in her snoo and I was like, what are you guys doing? What are we working on? know? ah And so I think that you can sit with your feelings, but it doesn't have to be 24 seven, whether you compartmentalize or you split the screen and switch back and forth or whatever it is, but you can do it. You can do hard things. We can all do hard things and looking around, you know, everybody really is a lot of people do hard things. Absolutely. I mean, had a meeting while in label and I went back to work. had a delivery. I had my son on the Friday. I delivered for clients a workshop digitally on a Monday and I'm that parents that I need to work and I know I'm in Norway. You could take a year off and the government covers everything. I can't. I need to work because otherwise I don't know what to do with myself and maybe there's a problem I need to fix but So that resonated. Like it's the worst thing can be happening in my life, but I have responsibilities, so to say. Former big CEO of like a Fortune 500 company. I heard you say I have a problem, maybe I need to fix that. And I know it was in jest, but it's such a fascinating thing that we as women do. um because I pivoted careers in life and was a late bloomer in so many different ways, I felt like I had some deficits. um And I think that really fed my imposter syndrome. And she did a reframing and said, you're not deficient in anything. You don't have deficits. You have a skills gap. And you can just learn that skill in two seconds. It's an irrelevant part. It doesn't have to do with your leadership, with your tactical, strategic mind, with who you are, with your value. ah was so fascinating. So it reminded me to remind you as brilliant hard working person who always has to work. uh You don't need to be fixed. You just have something to address. absolutely. And you know something that might surprise you? I don't believe in imposter syndrome. I don't. You couldn't, right? If you gave me a map, I wouldn't find it, right? I think that... I'm in awe of you. That's like, I literally, I was getting up on a stage at uh the Next web, do you know that business tech conference? I like it's in Amsterdam. It's basically Coachella for business. Like it's like a festival grounds and you're walking in and it's huge. every single person on my speech panel stage was. had an MBA and was a CMO and of multi-billion dollar companies. And I was like, I don't have an MBA and we don't have C suites except for our CEO or all VPs. And we're not billionaires and giant conglomerates. And I felt like that feeling you've never had that feeling of like, They're going to find out I'm not the same as them. I'm not as good as them. Right. I ended up getting there, loved the conversation, led the conversation a lot. And then the wrap-up press quoted me from top to bottom. And I thought, maybe I don't need an MBA and maybe I don't need to be a billion rich white man with the big C level and you know, like all these fancy things, but Man, I'm impressed that you don't have any internal imposter because it's hard. I have zero. I never had it, but I think imposter syndrome is something systems manufacture to make women feel less than, because it's often women. mean, some men have it as well, but it's often women who talk about it. And I think it's internalized systemic failure, because if you walk into a room and you're the only woman in a room, it is not your fault. It is a systemic systemic problem, right? So I also just think about imposter syndrome as it is unlikely that you would be in that space if you have not earned it. And that's a fact. Yeah. So I refuse to believe or even consider because I know how hard I work. Right. So, that's the thing, like if you think about yourself as somebody else, of course you'd be like, of course you deserve to be there. You should be there. Right. What would you say to your best friend? Would you go, no, definitely an imposter. shouldn't have been on that stage. Of course not. Right. So I think it's also just what we hear and how we talk to ourselves, but also how we've been socialized. Yeah. So no, I don't have it. I don't think I will ever have it. But I also know that I work my ass off. And if I'm in any room, I probably worked 50 times as hard to get in there realistically, because I'm also a black woman, right? So that's kind of how I view it, I guess. I also think there's cultural stuff. Maybe you observed that in the United States, but here in the US, and I think Europe does a better job, and I'm not as familiar with maybe the other continents, but you're like not allowed to praise yourself in America. You're viewed as cocky or arrogant, right? Like you're not supposed to, you're supposed to be humble. So it almost, for me, it's not like, when you talk about it potentially being manufactured, for me, because I'm also a little older, it was just finally giving me a word for what I was already feeling. So I felt happy that there could be a shared lexicon, that there was something that I could say that I'm feeling, and now other women and sometimes men in the room totally understood me because ah maybe what you're getting at is also like... you have this confidence because you worked your ass off to get there and you know what you have to contribute and to give to the world. But maybe if a lot of us are taught from a young age to not self-praise, then we don't have that sort of internal value and a lot of worth, especially in the West and especially in US. Your worth is your job title, right? Your worth is what you do. Like your worth is so many exogenous factors and not from within. And I as a person happen to have an external locus of control. So I would surmise that maybe you'd see more imposter syndrome if somebody studied or hasn't already studied this, people that get more value or pressure or, you know, I need like motivation. I love a deadline. Like give me stress. Let me work all night and not sleep. Love that. But like give me six months and I'm not going to start it for three. Right? Like. So having that, a lot of my self-orientation is around the forces that I'm not in control of. And so I wonder if there's a difference in a culture that allows self-praise, encourages self-praise from a young age, affirmation, self-worth, all this stuff from a young age. And then you could have this internal locus of not just control, but of internal locus of value. Because I think that was it. For me, the phenomenon was, I didn't come to work in marketing in a traditional linear fashion. ah And then I didn't get the traditional linear education. Listen, running a billion dollar business across four continents is the best MBA I could have gotten, but it was trial by fire, right? You're like failing and learning and growing. uh And so I think that you're onto something, but I would flip it a little bit on its side. And maybe there's something that you have in you, whether it was your parents, your own self. or something that you let yourself have that worth. And maybe it comes from the hardship of being in a place of oppression and less privilege that you had to work so twice as hard that you built extra confidence because you know that, you know. I think definitely there's a cultural aspect to it. I don't want to minimize that people feel it and it's a real thing. So when I say it is manufactured, I don't think by the people who feel it, I think by the systems that are designed to keep people small, right? Because chances are if you walk into a room and you know, say you're talking to investors and there are three men and three women and they have different backgrounds and then there are other people from different races, you might walk in there and say, okay, we're all different. It's fine. They don't all have the same MBAs from the same place. So I fit, right? Because those rooms were designed for more. not like a certain type of persona or person or degree, right? So it's not really the people, it is the systems around them. And I think the cultural piece for me, even though I spent long formative years in the US, and then in the UK and then everywhere else, so my accents are a little bit confused because of everywhere else I've lived as well. I think for me being Nigerian, there is something about a culture where you are expected to be in those rooms, you are expected to be exceptional. The surprise is when you are not. So no one gives you a crown when you do something great. That is the expectation. Like in my home, they were too great. There's an A, a pass, a B, a fail. It's that simple. C, D, E, F does not exist. So I think there's a cultural aspect and I'm really grateful for that. In Norway, for example, it's worse than the U.S. Like you're not supposed to be, to take pride in anything. You could have Cured cancer, example, you're supposed to say, no, no, I do this small work, you know. So there's a cultural thing there, but I do think it comes from, I think for me, I also credit it to my mother and I credit it to being Nigerian where being exceptional is the standard and the norm. You should be in the room. You should, when you're not in the room, that's the surprise, so to say. Yeah. You know what, someone, you're just, repeating the word room. And someone said something to me once that was very close to me in my life and really was one of the most like memorable sentences I've ever heard. He said to me, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. I keep, I think of that often. I think when you like meet your heroes or get on the stage with the, all these male CMOs and you're so impressed and then you realize like they're not that impressive. And I'm still surprised. My husband's always like, why are you surprised still? like, I don't know. I guess I assume the best in people or I, I am impressed by big. Educations and titles and experiences at amazing companies. And then I'm like, and so maybe, you know, maybe I was meant to be on these bigger stages or in these rooms because I wasn't meant for those other rooms. And when you get to these places, it's really fascinating to kind of demythify the beast. you are probably a breath of fresh air on those stages where people are saying the same jargon nonsense. you know, like I'm on a lot of stages and it doesn't take much to be a breath of fresh air, you know, like, and that's the thing, cause you think, my gosh, this person has a degree from here and here and here, but just being real, being honest, being authentic, that is what people want. And ultimately, if you can connect with people, if you can speak to the soul and you are accessible to black women, white women, you know, Asian women, And non-binary folk, that is what life is. Like what value is your fancy education and your billion dollars if you can't reach people who are supposed to be your customers or your target group, you know? Yeah. So yeah, okay. I feel like I can also talk to you for a while. Okay, Is there something you value that you no longer value? You valued that you no longer value. No, This makes me feel like I haven't like evolved enough in life. But I actually like I have been who I am since kindergarten. um So not really. For good or for bad. I'm sure it's riddled with bad but no. Well, you sound like someone who introspects a lot. So I think that's a good thing. Yeah. We don't always have to change if our values are firm. Yeah. um What is a book that most impacted you? I really I'm not saying this as a wife like I was about to say, are you going to say your husband's book? I love it. Like, do I have a copy at the table to show you? It's the serendipity mindset in the UK and a lot of other countries. called Connect the Dots. And... Okay. Yeah. Okay. So my husband wrote that book and his idea was he's an introvert. He's not like me. I mean, it's funny because when you meet him, he's so charming, you wouldn't think so, but he had this... So he was a professor at the London School of Economics and he... had this company he founded that he would interview the Fortune 500 CEOs and CMOs and talking to them. And what he realized is they had something in common that they all said that luck, they could chalk up their success to luck. And he was like, okay, this isn't adding up, let me see. And he realized that they do mean luck, but they didn't know that they were cultivating, creating their own luck. And so that also was innately who I already was. but I didn't know that there was a language or a vocabulary for it and they didn't know how to teach it to others. And that's what's really interesting in building teams and businesses. I've really picked people. I really, like there's one person who I love so much at work and we really connected so much that on our second or third interview, we both were like crying. I think there's something about that big mission of saving babies and then maternal instinct between women that maybe lends itself to that. But I really care about people and I invest in people and my family invests in people and culture. And so when there is somebody who doesn't have that skill naturally, I wasn't sure how to explain to them how I do it until my husband wrote this book. And then I had a framework, a scientifically based, a business provenance. This is not like woo woo manifestation. This is truly operationally defined, statistically. proven that's now taught at the top business schools in the world that's put in all the management journals and that's at all these companies now is how to spot opportunities, how to even kind of know they're there and to practice like a muscle doing that, grab the opportunity and then sit on it and create something from it. um It's really, really. fascinating and I think it can really help people personally, you know, finding partners, finding their best friend, finding their co-founder at their next venture, or professionally driving impact and innovation in the workplace, you know, designing offices, building community, and then pivoting. The pivots, I mean the pivots, like the, a solar company who was trying to come up with like something reflection oriented, you know, and then that, you think you're a failure, but that technology actually like, creates solar power or the old example of amoxicillin, right? Like there's just all these things that were made up by accident, probably all the best inventions. uh So I think that was it. I that. I think I have that book and if I don't, I'm gonna get it. Because I feel like I think I have it and I've, yes, I'd love that because it's the, I mean, I'm big on neuroscience and creating the life that you want. I like what it is about. I need to go check. Okay, I have a final question yeah. So for someone listening to this, I like to give my listeners something concrete from each person. So for someone listening to this who might be struggling with who they are, how they show up in the world right now, maybe they are trying to figure out how do they lead themselves, how do they lead others, what would you say to them? I mean, that's like the existential whole point, right? Like that's the billion dollar question. It's okay not to know. think everybody thinks they're supposed to know everything. Supposed to know how to be a good parent, supposed to know how to run the company and scale the company and never have a problem. So I think, you know, first and foremost, it's corny advice to give yourself that grace. I certainly don't even know how to do it, but to take pause and like, you know, let it go. channel your inner Elsa. But I think, you not only don't have to have it all figured out, but you can figure it out later. I think I felt a lot of pressure that I was a later bloomer in life. And then my dad reminded me like grandma Moses started painting at 70, right? Like it's never too late. And one of my weird early client launches was to launch a book. of poetry written by a woman who was 106 years old who had never written a poem until she was 99. ah So it's certainly never too late. And she was then endorsed by the poet laureate of the United States. I think figuring it out as you go, as long as you are actually thinking and being introspective and asking yourself questions, having clarity, having a shared reality, like... You can think all you want of yourself, but if it's not realistic, that's not going to help you, right? So like, look in the mirror, the good, the bad and the ugly, like we have all got it, em you know, and then, and then one foot in front of the other, who do I want to be? What do I want to do? What do I want to leave on the earth? My husband is all about something he calls em regret minimization and like deathbed regrets and that's not going to be like, I should have written better emails or something. That's going to be big. That's going to be, I wish I worked for good in the world. I wish I worked for whatever nonprofits more. wish I was kinder to my whomever. There are going to be bigger things. And then you can look at the big picture and align. If you're someone like me who might be a little neurodivergent, have ADHD, you can still be a fantastic leader. In fact, I think that all of those perceived flaws of mine that I'm too, you know, I care in all caps, right? Like, it's not a weakness, it's a strength or it's a double edged sword, you've got to learn to bridle it, but it's there for you. um And so I think like, sometimes people like me and the neurodivergent types, the big goals can feel big, break it down. If you want to be X, what are some of the steps along the way, right? um And there is something about speaking something out loud, not in that ethereal woo woo sense. I mean, there is some whimsy and charm to that as a concept, but I think that it's also because speaking it out, you're forced to come to terms with thinking about it and planning it, or just at least putting words to it. And that's the first part of action. If you kind of only picture something, but you don't speak it, your brain can think in really multifaceted lateral webs, but thinking and speaking has to be linear. mean, maybe not in Eastern cultures, Japanese cultures and some ways where writing is different and it can be more nebulous and collective, but. Usually most cultures, it's like one side to the other side, linear thought in order in a row. And so since that's how at least English works, it forces you to do that. And so I think there will be a path, even if you don't know what it is, if you just start to think it and speak it. I love how your mind works. That was a brilliant. No, that was brilliant. That was brilliant. So like all good things, all brilliant things. So thank you so much for a fascinating conversation. I mean, I expected it would be great But this was better than I thought. So I want to say thank you so much for your time, for sharing, for your energy for all that you are. really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for your wonderful questions, for your patience as you observe me unravel and think of these things, you know, in real time. again, I just am so, I'm so impressed by you as a human and what little I know of you. So I hope to cultivate a friendship and keep in touch. Thanks for listening to Overnight Wisdom. New episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe so you don't miss them. I'm Chisom Udeze. Thank you for being here.