Kind Lips

Kind Lips founder, Josh Neuman, joins us to share his unique twist on lip balm with meaning.

Transcript

0:11

Welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, where once again, we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota kindness that it desperately needs. Oh, we got Steve Brown down in the studio here. Hi John. We have our aging, intern, Jeff Hoffman here. Uh, taking notes really to be here. Not sure. Not sure. Yeah. Welcome. There's the kindness that we've been looking for. KG just got off a, uh, a charter flight with the Minnesota Wild Kg. Where are we calling you at? Just got home to, uh, to see Fenway and Brooks, uh, over in Minnetonka. Traffic was lovely this afternoon, getting, uh, back on the ground here about four 30 and, uh, happy to be home. Happy to have you on and we will be getting to our special guest, Josh Newman in just a moment. But kg we always love to check in with you. The Wild came home with a split. Wow. One in one. The Timberwolves split. It was a big, big night last night. Yeah. So tell us about your, uh, your trip to, uh,, Las Vegas. It's a lot of time in Las Vegas, and you know, as anyone who knows me or listen to the show, not afraid to throw a couple bucks on a sporting event or a horse race, but. Six days out there, man, I, I was a little overwhelmed. They had that WrestleMania thing out there. There were clo everywhere, casinos were packed. Uh, you know what, I'm a one or two, two and a half days at the most guy when it comes to Vegas. It was great. The playoff games were awesome. The hotel was phenomenal. Where'd you stay? But as far as like, we stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, right? Oh. No casino, which is perfect. No smoke, which I love. And it was fine. But like I said, there were people everywhere. If you wanted to go to eat, you wanted to go check out a sports book, it was wall to wall, elbow to elbow. And as John, you know, uh, that is not my jam. But no, no complaints to, while they're playing great hockey, the, the key players that we've talked about here for months on the show that the wild have been missing are healthy, led by Caprisa. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to see what. St. Paul's gonna be like, uh, tomorrow night. Kg One quick question back to Vegas for a second. Is this sports question? No. Oh, okay. I didn't think so. Of course not. It's a movie question. Oh, okay. Did you, you had some time there, you should have gone to the sphere. Did you have any chance to do that? We're going to the sphere. Well, it's funny you, oh, you guys are going? Yeah. It's funny you bring that up. We're going to see Kenny Chesney next month, so I didn't wanna spoil that fund. Wow. Um, we, when we landed, as we flew into Vegas last. Friday we, we flew like you could see out the window. It is, it's a goofy but cool looking thing. Um, and I, I don't know what it's gonna be like for a concert. I got a buddy that saw you two there when it first opened up and he said it was just crazy spec, you know, just spectacular. Um, so yeah, I'll be there next month, John. There. We'll have a full report. Are you a Kenny? Are you a Kenny Cheeseball fan? Me. Yeah, I've seen him 15 times. Oh my gosh. What? He's phenomenal. I couldn't tell you a single song that guy sings. He'll know. I bet you when you hear him. You'll be like, oh, I didn't know he sang that I didn't know. And he does a couple of really cool covers. Uh, yeah. He'll, does he do any the ball? Does he do any Johnny Clueless covers is the question. No, I won't let him. Yes, the intern speak when spoken to. Well, I recent, I recently, uh, heard one of your episodes. You guys were talking music documentaries. And if you want to get up to speed on Kenny Chesney, a good one is, uh, the Boys of Fall. Have you ever seen that KG. No. I love that song though. That's the football song He did. He, he did, made an entire documentary about it. Nick Saban's in it. They interview a lot of coaches and just the whole sort of football persona, so, huh. Pretty cool. It's, it's a good one. It sounds great. Good pal. That's awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that. Hey, where are you in the Mrs. Stang when you go down there? I have no idea. Okay. I think we're staying at the Venetian, which I think is connected to the, uh, to the sphere. It is. Yeah. Which is, uh, wow. I said let's go someplace where I don't have to do a lot of walking. Oh, it is Vegas. You're gonna walk like crazy. So it says you. Yeah. There's a lot of walking. They have Ubers down there. They do. Yeah. Hey, let's go, let's go walk. The, what, what do they call that? The, the board or the strip? The strip. The strip. Oh good. It's any good meals. KG one in particular. And. I'm gonna butcher the name of the restaurant, but Aaron Sip runs our, our PR department. He's wonderful. He's been there. Yeah. Great guy. Since day one. He took us and I, when I say us, we were all invited TV and radio. Um, digital team. There was probably 10 or 12 of us. Ryan Carter, Joe O'Donnell, you know, the guys, and we went to an Asian restaurant. Aria. Aria is right next door to where we stayed. Yep. And it was family style and I think it was called Dim Sue Young. Oh yeah. It was incredible. I mean, absolutely spectacular. And, uh, they had these, John I thought of you. So we had this incredible meal. We had the swan green beans, we had uh, the short rib, we had all the different stuff. Rice and the end dumpling. Like chocolate thick. Like have you ever had a lava cake? Jesus, I think you're gonna have an material inside. The lava cake is inside the dumpling. Oh my gosh. It explodes in your mouth. Okay. Easy. It was incredible. Easy, big fell. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sounds, sounds delicious. Okay. You know, family style means you have to share with people. Yeah. Right. How'd that go for you? We did. It went great. Yeah. We ordered a ton of food. It was fun because I, I, I recall a couple of times where you and I have done family style and it felt like you were most of the family. No, I teased, tease, I tease. Of course. Um, of course you do. Hey, let's get to our guest. We got a, uh, a very interesting character on, the show today. Very fitting too. Very fitting. Yeah. I got sucked down the lip balm rabbit hole. I had no idea how huge lip balms are in the wor the number of YouTube channels dedicated to lip balm. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I thought that there were a lot of podcasts out there. There are a lot of influencers that are out there. Given their review. Some woman named the Lip Balm Queen Well has 1900 lip balm videos, and she gave really high marks to kind lips. Nice. There we go. Which is Transition, which is a company that was created by. Our new friend Josh Newman. Josh, welcome to the Kindness Chronicles. Welcome, Josh. I didn't even know there was that many, uh, lip balm. I didn't even know the lip balm queen exists, so that's, that's news to me. I'm learning today. Well, wait a second. You sent her all five of your flavors. Her favorite of course was is it Raspberry Lemonade. We don't, I mean that the old, I don't, honestly, if we did that would've been years ago, five ago. It was, it was five years ago that she posted this. But she really, she gave you high marks. Individual. Well, I'll take them. So there you go. Influencer marketing Josh. That's the new thing. You gotta get on those YouTubers that have a lot of followers and if they're giving you good reviews and drive sales, I really suck at marketing. So I, I can make lip balm and I, I'm stuck at everything else has to do with business. So let's start with why are you in the lip. Balm business. Oh, how did that happen? Yeah. I ask myself that every day. you know, I, I never thought, going to high school and college when I was, uh, I never thought I was paying for that tuition that I was gonna, you know, going to the lip balm business. And, and after, uh, you know, I think I was in my early thirties and I was kind of tired of. I looked at my hand one day and I was toying a lip balm. I was like, I've never found a lip balm that I like. I've always, I've always liked them, but I, I can't be rocket science to make a lip balm that actually works. And so, came up with a, with an idea and my mom happened to call me. And, and, uh, at the end of the conversation I said, Hey, I think I wanna start a lip balm, lip balm company. And she got off the phone about as quick as you canbra. Uh, so, but the next morning my phone rang. It was 6:00 AM. Picked it up. Like, who the heck's calling me? So early 6:00 AM my mom again. So soon somebody had died since mom's calling me at 6:00 AM and I said, Hey, you okay? And she said, yeah, she's been, I've been up since 3:00 AM I couldn't wait any longer to call you. Ooh. Like, I had the most vivid dream I've ever had in my life. And so I'm like, well, crap, I'm gonna be the one that dies. Not, yeah, it's not anybody else. And uh, so she said in the dream, I was young, got in this massive fight, said. Which of course I jumped in and said, well, she probably deserved it, of course. And um, you know, she said, for my punishment of saying to mean thanks to my sister, I had to write the law of kindnesses on my lips. And so I still honestly was like, come on, why you call me at 6:00 AM to tell me this dream? And then she goes, I think if you're gonna start a lip balm company, you're supposed to call it kind lips. Come on. Whoa. And I, and I was like, I think you're right. Like obviously lip balm goes on your lips, your words passed back through. And yeah. And, and I was like, she completely redeemed herself from the, from the day before when she dismissed my brilliant start lip. And um, yeah, so that's how it started. I got off the phone, went to GoDaddy and kind lips com was available, picked it up and I was like, alright, now I gotta learn how to make lip bal. How, how does a person make lip balm? What goes into it? That right. How did you reverse engineer? I heard that you reverse engineered a number of lip balms that are out there. I'm assuming chapstick. Hey, wait a second. Yeah, no, I Did you do? Hold on. Did you do research? That's what you know. Show prep. I don't know about this. Jeff, John. John and Steve. You guys gave me heat about taking notes. There's so much wisdom in this show. I don't want to miss a. But, uh, I'm sorry. Josh hired Josh. I just have to tell you that one, we pride ourselves on no show prep. Minimal. Well, we checked out the website. You do minimal. I, we actually, I did, I did more show prep for kind lips than anything. I love the website. I love all of this. Anyway, so back to how do you make lip balm? Yeah. Yeah, you just mix it, you know, I guess everybody can do it different, but you find, I was, I'm kind of a minimalist. I was like, well, you know, I wanna make something that actually works because lips I found I'd use it 30 times a day. I'm like, I just want something I can use five times a day. That actually works and. So, you know, I started researching what ingredients go in all these different lip balms, and then just kind of, if the ingredients weren't organic or natural, I didn't want it. And so it'd be like, all right, if I got olive oil and, and uh, sunflower oil, do I need both? It's like, what's the better ingredient? What's healthier, what lasts longer? And just kept, you know, in my opinion, using common sense to make a product that would be. The least amount of ingredients and be the most impactful that it possibly can, you know, for the external. And then obviously knowing the intention of it was the internal as well, to be that reminder to, to be kind. So, I'm assuming it's organic. It's, of course it's, yeah. With USDA certified organic. How, so, how does that process go? How do you get something U-S-D-C-U-S-D-A certified, there's a couple different organizations that kind of handle it, but there's, you know, you have to file paperwork when you buy the, the whole ingredients. So the individual ingredients have to come certified and then you have to submit your, a few of everything. Oregon til company that certifies it organic and so you can use that symbol. Interesting. So, I mean, in all honesty, I could put organic on it, but I couldn't put USDA organic on it. Okay. Yeah. So without having to send in that paperwork and do all that business. So, very cool. To be honest, I've learned, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff that you, I feel like there's a lot of people that use a lot of different marketing terms that aren't as, you know, when they say stuff natural or they even use some terms. Going in that industry. But yeah, my wife is in the food ingredients business and the, the use of the word organic apparently. Has, uh, you know, there's different levels of organic. Yeah, yeah. Which is, I, I just find very interesting. Okay. Well, natural people say, oh, it's natural. And that's pretty much anything that you can touch is natural. It's, it's like, oh, okay. All natural. That's, uh, yeah. It's like me all natural. Hey, uh. Another question. That is always been a concern of mine. I have heard of people that get addicted to lip balm, like addicted to power. Oh, come on. No, I'm not kidding. Oh, yeah, my wife is. Oh, yeah. I mean, is is, is it possible that when you start using lip balm you have to continue using lip balm? Is there something to that I know that there has, there's some stories out there that you can, uh, do some more research and look into, but it sounds like there's some companies that had at one point put like, fiberglass, oh my god, in their bones, and it would kind of cut your lips and, and so you'd force you to use more. It's like school tobacco. There's companies out there now that. That even have alcohols in their lip balms, and so it dries out your lips. Oh, that's, so it forces, it forces you to use it more. Um, it's not very kind, you know, none of the No. Of larger, yeah, not kind. So, but I think at the end of the day, uh, you know, it's probably like anything, if you, if you use it every day, you're gonna, probably, your body's just gonna get used to using it. If you just, if you were on a desert island and didn't have access to lip bal, you probably would. Your body would figure it out. I, I imagine. Well as this is the, the Kindness Chronicles. What I'm most intrigued with is the sort of the, uh, the flip side of the kind lips brand that you've created and how you've used it for charitable purposes and for purposes in schools. You had mentioned a story, uh, during our prep Wow. about, a teacher or, you know, the students that have. Received the kind lips in the classroom and how they use that to, change behaviors, let's say. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us that. Yeah, so we, um, you know, about three months into starting the company and, and I. Order on my website, and it was for 33 tubes. And that was the biggest order that I had at the time. And I was pumped. And, and, uh, I remember this, this lady, and she reached out the same email, reached out about three months later and said she wanted to have a conversation. I was like, crap, I'm gonna get sued. Oh, no. Turned someone lip screen, you know? And, uh. So she says that we get on the phone and she's like, I'm a, she's like, I'm a third grade teacher for 18 years, and I had the most behaviorally challenged classroom that I've ever had said, I, I saw your kind lips and I gave every one of the students a, a tube and we did a lesson on you never use it, just be kind words. And, and she said it was really cute. They keep it in their desk and. Give their little deskmates a compliment whenever they take it out and use it. And she's like, but what ended up happening organically is, um, whenever the, a student would act up or do something mean, the other kids would tell'em to put their kind lips on. Ooh. And she said it acted as a buffer instead of starting any kind of a fight. The kid that was told that would like self-reflect and she's like, it went from being the most challenged classroom to one of the most wellbe behaved c What strategy? So brilliant child psych. Yeah. Like, well, if this worked for her school, like, this can work for any classroom. And so that was kind of when our, our school program was born. And, and so obviously, you know, knowing that each tube's a reminder to speak kind, um, we, we were, we were donating 20% of our profits to local charities and organizations. Um, pacer and new. Now we made that officially a nonprofit so that we're, you know, we're donating tubes to schools. Some schools are purchasing them, but we have a an eight lesson program where it uses a lip balm as just a behavior modification tool to teach kids to, in all honesty, it's about 70% teaching kids to learn how to be kind to themselves.'cause what I've learned in this is that most human beings aren't, aren't kind to themselves. They're, they're kind of people around them. But it's, you know, whenever we we're not truly kind to ourselves, that's when, when we seem to lash out at other people. So we're trying to teach kids how to learn how to love themselves and be happy with who they are so that, uh, we can end bullying and in the school systems. It's such a great idea too, Josh, because it's, it's a treat for kids, but it's not candy. It's, it's something that they can have for themselves. It's theirs. I remember when we were in grade school, all the girls had their little thing, you know, chapstick and whatever it was, and all these different flavors, and it was like, that was like their treat. So you're, you're essentially providing these kids with a gift for themselves and, uh, it's not gonna. Interfere with, you know, they're not gonna get it taken away for chewing it in the class or that it's just such a great, it's a great concept and it's sounds like it's working really well. Well, if I can just add, it is a treat according to the lip balm Queen. Because, yeah. During her review, she mentioned that several of the flavors were like putting candy on your lips. Ah, and, and I, but I mean, she, that was, she was highly complimentary of the flavor of those lip balms. You know, on the topic of behavior modification, are there certain, oh, there we go. Are there certain flavors using four syllable words, certain flavors that, uh, create different behaviors? I don't know. I was just. Uh, laughing, especially with the alcohol, like colors comment earlier. Yeah, like colors and numbers. Yeah. No, like a color can affect your mood. Right. Is it, have you done any research on that? Are you finding any of that? Josh? No, we haven't done any re you know, I actually did, uh, that'll give you something to do, Jeff. When I first started, I did, I did a flavor and I called it First Kiss. Yes. Ooh, ooh, nice. Trying to evoke a, an emotional response to what people, you know. Remember it was like a cherry and raspberry mix, nobody know what the flavor is, so I kept getting questions about what flavor is it? And so then I was like, all right, well. Fun experiment, but I'm not trying that again. So, Josh, when you were talking about the story about your mom calling, you said another harebrained idea. Were you a kid that had a lot of ideas and just they came, came to you? Tell me about that story. Yeah. I'm always, I've been an entrepreneur since I was just a, a little kid and always trying to, probably more thinking about how to get outta work than to, than to do work and, but always just trying to think of businesses or things to come up with. So, you know, I, I told her a lot of ideas across over the years, and so that was nothing that was new for her, which is, you know, I, I knew it was a significant idea. I felt like it was, you know, but, uh. As soon as she called me with that dream, I was like, well, I just have, I'm best follow up to that. You know, I, I worked for 19 years at Salesforce and, um, there was a lot of parallels between your story in your thirties. Um, keep being inspired to change. Uh, mark Benioff, who started that company, who started at Oracle, have you heard of him? Oh yeah. Okay. Well, he, the, the short of the short story is that he was at Oracle. He needed some time away. He asked Larry Ellison, who was the CEO at the time, I just need a sabbatical. And he went to India and he ended up in a hut with a friend of his in, in this, uh, lady guru kind of saint. Um, listened to their business plan and said, make sure you give back. And he ended up then coming back to Washington, DC and was, you know, Washington DC Ums Seminar of business leaders led by Colin Powell. And he heard that same message. Make sure you give back, you're, you're. Powerful people. And then he had a dream. He was in Hawaii. He loved Hawaii, and he had a dream, and the dream actually inspired him. He had received a book from amazon.com, which had just launched, but instead of books and products across the tabs of the Amazon website, he saw accounts, contacts, opportunities, and all the different. Uh, functions of his CRM system that he was then to create. Now here he has 70,000 employees later. and giving back, exactly. Giving back. So he started a 1 1, 1 model. That, that was what I wanted to let you know is that 1% of their profits, 1% of their product, and 1% of their employees time give are given back. But I, in my show prep, I know I wasn't supposed to do a lot. Jesus, but you, you had said you donated a portion to anti-bullying campaigns, and so I, I wanted to just, that's a kind of a long-winded, uh, question, but. Do you have more you can share on that? Yeah, so when I, to answer your question about that, you know, growing up I was a little kid and, and I got a dollar a week for allowance, had to do chores and, uh, and so we'd go to church on Sundays and my parents always made me bring 10 cents. And, uh, I hated it. But as I, as I got older, it was just kind of one of those things that I had, um. Just kept doing. And so when I was in, I was in real estate before for this, for about 12 years, and, and every time I got a commission check, I'd give 10% right off the top. And nobody ever knew it. It wasn't like I told anybody, but as I got more successful in that business, I was like, I, I want to give more than 10% just to push myself and. So I started giving 15 and, and then every once in a while I'd give 20, but I couldn't consistently get myself to give 20%. So when I started kind Lift, I was like, I just gotta give 20%. I just gotta figure out a way to do it, build the business around it, otherwise I'm never gonna be able to back into it. So, so we just started giving 20%. Uh, that's very cool. Very. So here's a question. So you said you had an allowance of a dollar a week. Yeah. Were you born in the 1930s or, um, where were you born? You know, I'm the second oldest that, well, my parents had six kids and so I, the second oldest, born in 79 in Oklahoma. Oklahoma. So. You know, you know that's where the wind wind comes sweeping across the plane. Have you ever heard that, right? Mm-hmm. Oh boy. Here we go. Kg. You must have a question. You've got, you've got, I got a lot of questions. I, I guess kissable lips, he's got lips I'm most intrigued. Well, and the first kiss one I, I dated a gal, uh, who had a lot of aqua on sot. Um, no, but the flavor thing I'm intrigued by because I, I'm a big CHAPSTICK guy. I'm not make the switch over now. This is a much better cause, much better idea. But Josh, like, how do you guys come up with the flavors? Do you look over the fence and see, okay, what are they doing? Like CHAPSTICK is an all timer, right? They're the, they're the goat. Um, yeah. How do you come up with the, all the different flavors to, to keep this business kind of churning? Well, I get to make all those decisions, which is fun. So I, it's whatever I feel like, so I, you know, came up with like, what are kind of some, you know, we have a mint and, and we actually have mint. I have a mint, mint t my marketing. It's extra minty. Yeah. And I, I remember I was on vacation once and I got mahi mahi and I said, why is it, why do you call it twice? And he goes, it's so good. We named it twice good enough for mahi mahi. That's pretty good. Good enough for mint. Mint. Yeah. So that's a, that's a really extra minty one that I've got a sweet mint, which is a lighter mint, a vanilla lemon. You know, we did do raspberry lemonade, which was really good. Strawberry. I just launched a, a cherry flavor, so Chapstick. Okay. So, yes. Yeah, it really, honestly, it's not rocket science. I don't wanna recreate the wheel. I think most people either want mint or cherry or vanilla. Have you ever considered was my favorite? Have you ever considered a, uh, bacon double cheeseburger from Culver's flavor? Oh, asking for a friend. We can work one of those up for you. We'll let you. So how, how, where do you get the flavors? Like, do you have a supplier of flavors? What, how does one find the flavoring houses? So, yeah, so like I have a, a bubblegum, I made a bubblegum flavor because we use that one in the school systems and the kids liked it. So it, it's a little bit more challenging to do kind of the more, some of those flavors when we, we do everything that we use is organic, so to use like an organic flavor, um, it makes it lot more challenging. But I'm, I'm just not willing to compromise the, the integrity of the, the health of it, just because, and people don't realize this, like you, you swallow, you swallow a lot of that lip balm that goes on your lips. And so I'm, I'm kind of a, you know, I, I believe that you shouldn't put anything on your body that you can't put in your body. Yeah. Granola types. And so, um, yeah, so, you know, there's people that. A or different stuff that have petroleum in it and your body doesn't really digest that petroleum, so that stuff sits in your, sits in your gut. Vaseline, I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend, uh, putting Vaseline on your lip, even though that's what my mom used to do to me when I was a little kid. Oh yeah, for sure. We've come a long way day now that they do. Yeah. Yeah. So, sometimes our show takes a weird turn and I'm about to take one right now. Let's go. But it's about flavors. No, hold on everybody. No, no. It's about flavors. I have a brother-in-law who works for old Dutch. The different crazy potato chip flavors that they come up with it at Old Dutch, he just brought over something, I swear to God, and we can sample it when we leave here. It's called Gas Station Hot Dog. Oh, gas station hot dog chips. And apparently it's super popular. You know, like those roller dogs overcooked a dog and a roller. Yeah. I'm so hungry. I could eat a hamburger from a gas station. From a gas, yeah. Sushi from a gas station. But I, I am just as a person of, significant proportions, I am very fascinated with the whole flavors thing. I'm just a stickler for that'cause I've, you know, when I was before I made a lot more money before I left that I was doing and, and wanting into kind lips and so I got, got kind of accustomed to a pretty bougie lifestyle. Nice. I I, I kind of just to joke a little bit, but I was like, I never understood, I've never been married, but I so never been divorced, but I never understood why. My guys had to give away half of their stuff. It never made sense to me. And then when I divorced real estate and started a a, a small business, I was like, now I understand. Get used to a lifestyle. Like I can EA little bit more. Yeah. there's nothing. Honestly, back to like you, I wouldn't put anything in there that you wouldn't put on your body. So yeah, I mean it's all just natural, whole ingredients. No flavor or No, no dyes, no, no weird flavorings. Everything's organic and, and real. I just ordered 500 kind lips, uh, from Josh. And you know how like when we refer to, uh, facial tissue as Kleenex, regardless of what the brand is? Yeah, that's a problem. Do people ever refer to kind Lips? As you know, that kind lips, chapstick. Are you okay with that? All the, you know, I, I learned a long time ago to not, I don't really worry about a whole lot anymore the older I get, and so that, that was one of the battles I didn't wanna fight. And, but one of the cool things that, that I love with our school program is. We're, we're one of the first times, because we do a, I mean like second grade is, uh, a big year for our program, and one thing is what research shows that that human beings learn about, which is kind of scary. About 85, 90% of what they're gonna know their entire life by the time they're eight years old. Sounds about right, is like. Yeah, let's, let's get in there while they're young and impressionable and let's teach'em, you know, just whenever they're touching their lips or using lip balm to, to speak kind words. I love it. Great to themselves and their, and their friends. And so, um, but also like their first experience with lip balm, this kind lip. So one of my big hairy, audacious goals is, you know, in 20 years, like no one's gonna call anything Chapstick anymore. They'll call everything kindness. I love it. I love that. Good. A good goal. So Josh, you, you we're just talking to you, getting to know you now. You seem like a, a pretty laid back guy. You seem like a guy had a great idea and for however you've done it, you you maybe you, you are more motivated than you sound. You just sound like it's all kind of happening. You also sound like you're having a great time. How, how, how has this changed you? This, this business and Oh man. How much time do you got? All the time you want? It, it, it, honestly, the, the company has been a reflection or, you know, a lot of it is reflected like my own growth journey, even from, you know, and, and knowing after my mom's dream and kind of how I started to reminder to speak kind words as, as I remember over, over Covid time and I was, I was in the bathroom washing my hands and I didn't wanna look at myself in the mirror. Like, man, like I'm not even kind to myself and I'm out here telling people they need to be kind to everyone else. And so I really, wow. Really had to start going down that journey of like, how do I learn how to be kind to myself? And, and then that's when our school program kind of took a turn and went from teaching kids to, to love the, or to be kind to their, their classmates to also learning to be kind to themselves because like, I don't want these kids to be, wait till they're 40 years old to have to figure this out. Yeah. truth be told, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror with, uh, my shirt off. And let's just say I wasn't very kind to myself. Sorry about that, people. Oh, no. Yeah, I know. That's that's a terrible, terrible picture that we just painted. Um, one last, I I have one last question. how do you connect with the schools? it's all word of mouth really. So schools reach out to us, their teachers reach out or parents reach out'cause they know, you know, what the intention of the product is. And so then we go in and, and we open source like all the, we have like eight videos and all this curriculum and so we source it and we schools, we do even wholesale. So we're really just trying to like, I just believe so much that it's gonna have that impact. Yeah. It's an investment. Enough stories where it does. So it's like my, I, again, I didn't leave what I was doing to, to start this, to, to make money. This is about mission and not money. where can you find kind lips? I'm sure you can find'em probably all over your house. The Amazon, like in Minnesota, I mean, we're probably in like three or 4,000 boutiques across the country, fresh times. Wow. Wow. I've said that. That's cool. Fresh, timely, honestly. Never done any marketing, so I'm just starting to, I, I love what I'm doing. I, I get to do this every day, but also it's, I, I'm a visionary, so I've got, you know, I just keep wanting to ideas. Stay focused. I see a squirrel and you know, I start chasing it type deal, so. So were you going to these boutique stores and just saying, Hey, will you sell my stuff? Is that how you did it? The first three I did, I went in myself, brought in a box of lip balm and I was like, okay, this took way too long. I need to figure out how to. So I just started emailing people photos of the product and mailing samples and just, honestly, it's just been like waking up every day and be like, okay, how do I, how do I figure this out and how do I do this? So it's, I have no idea what I'm doing and just trying to get a little bit better every day. and whatever people say that they need. And it's like, oh, like, like the school program. It was like, that was not my idea I've got a couple of friends that are teachers. This is Jeff. And, um, I was intrigued with what you said. It's the intern. That's right. The 50 plus. Uh, I'm on my own sabbatical right now, so trying to figure stuff out. And I'm on the Kindness Chronicles, so hopefully for whatever things get better for you. That's right, that's right. I've got some teacher friends. can a teacher just organically pick this stuff up and then what would they get from a curriculum and then do they. Like teach a 15 minute session or what? I'd love to a little bit more background on that. Yes, we've probably been in over a thousand class, a little over a thousand classrooms and, and just continued to get feedback and be like, how can I do this? And, and most of it, schools want something that's super easy to implement. That was the number one thing. And so. Um, set it up. So there's eight different videos. The videos are like five to six minutes long. Um, kids get the lip balm after the first one. They have to go around and give each other compliments and they high five after it. Wow. I love that. So there's a lot of science that creates new neuropathways. Yeah. For it. And you know, so then the next, after lesson two, they have to give themself a compliment to somebody else. And that's usually when it gets real, the work gets real. Wow. Because people aren't good compliments to. A genius man. I think it's really smart. That smart think is awesome, really. And, and such a f comes from such a great place. Yeah. I just, this is such a perfect, uh, thing for our, our podcast to, to, to spread this is what we want. Has there ever been a a feeling that you need to go beyond just lips like kind pits or kind feet? Um, you know, you know how, you know, that's a great idea. Kind feet. Yeah. Kind feet. Be good to your feet, like, yeah. I don't know. I just do you know, we're on that top. I started, uh, min, a little thing called Minnesota Kind, um, and then had a state fair booth last year. And so I started, wait a second. I saw that. Yeah. And started trying to push, because I was like, well, why can't we, uh, start putting these signs around the North Loop that say, like, be kind, say hi, and just really trying to create interactions and Yeah. Different stuff. So, so there's all sorts of ideas we could do. Josh, you had a, did you have a booth at the state fair this year? Did you have it backed by like the blue barn? Yep. Yep. Exactly. Good memory. That is why I have, I swear to God upstairs I have a tube of kind lips. See, I'm not kidding you. When I first, no way. I swear to God kg you might have been with me. It's very familiar when we were there. The day that maybe you're right. Actually, when we went to the fair and we had to go back to that goddamn did blue Barn, did you guys go to a kissing booth? Yeah, I did. I bought some, actually you got me a stick. They don't have that anymore, by the way. It was a, it was a raspberry flavor I think. I don't know what flavor it was. I'm gonna find Strawberry. Strawberry Ranch, something. I I, this, it's all coming to me now. Yeah, he's, and the reason I bought it, I had no idea. The reason I bought it is I was the packaging. It was the packaging. Yeah. It looks great for I thought kind hip. This is cool. For sure. I remember it and it was only like five bucks. It was a good deal. Yeah. It was awesome. Yeah, I remember that. That's funny. That's great. You gonna be there again? Heck no. One and done. if I'm anything, I'm honest, to a fault people would tell me, but I'm not going back to the state fair on that, on that side of it. We got a friend, who owns a store called the Minnesotan, Corey Roberts. And, he has got himself quite a, program out at the state fair, but. Getting into the state fair is quite a process as well. And we'll save that for another show. Yeah. Summertime it is. Uh, kg, you got any final questions? No, I, I think again, just making sure we can direct our listeners to, to get involved and to order some, I think that if we can just make sure we have the, the website, the information. Uh, one more time, just because I believe it's such a good cause. I don't wanna throw one thing out there too for, and you guys have got teacher friends or parents that have kids. So if you go com on our website there's a, it says school program. Mm-hmm. And parents and everybody can watch all the videos. They can, everything's open source, so like they can see the discussion questions. And like the kindness pledge everything there so they, they know what they're getting. So even if a parent wanted to use birds bees and they've got a, they've got a, you know, computer at home, they can have their kids sit there and watch videos and, and the parents can do it with them. I want this stuff to be out there and have an impact. God, this is just fantastic. I, super cool. Good idea, idea. My son's fiance is a kindergarten teacher, so, uh, there you go. I will, uh, direct her in that, uh, out in the district. Great idea. How about this? I'll sponsor her classroom. Oh my God. You heard it here, man. Okay. That's, we're gonna, I will send you the, uh, the document. Uh, this is a contractual obligation. There's been an offer and acceptance. Yeah. I love it. We we're gonna pump this up though. This is great. A what a cool idea. Yeah. Super fun. All right, well, great thing. We've given them 40 minutes and that's probably more than they deserve, right? Isn't that what we always say? That's good. That's good, John. Alright, Josh, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and, uh. I look forward to, uh, to seeing you sometime soon. We'd love to have you come to our event on May 21st. Yeah. Uh, at the, uh, the Masonic Heritage Center, we're gonna be, uh, handing out those, kind lips to, all of the students. Um, would love to have you come. We got the live podcast. I think KG might be on his way to the Kenny Chesney. Uh, concert on the 21st. I've delayed my journey until the 22nd because I'm, is it possible the wild might be still playing at that point? Not a chance. Ah, stop that. They might be John. And if that's the case, there is no Cheney. Oh no. Let's just all calm down. It's one, one for a reason. I also want to remind everyone to, uh, jump onto the Facebook page, uh, and give us some feedback. Give us some, you know, give us how we're doing. Give, let us know what's going on. Uh, rate our podcasts on Apple and Spotify. Yeah, I think we're, we're 4.8. That's pretty good. We want, it's better than most Uber drivers. We want to hear from you so. Please send us some stuff. We, somebody gave us a one star, four OUTTA 10 is about as high as I've ever been rated in my life. So I'm feeling great right about now. Yeah. But that's on a scale of 10, Kevin. Four point. That's what I said. I said 4.8 outta 10. That's about as high as I get. I looked in the mirror. I see it too. So I have more than doubled. Uh, my uh. So thank you again for all the be kind. Be kind to yourself, Kevin. That's right. Be kind to yourself. Alright Josh. Thanks Josh. Thank you. Kg. Nice talking to you. Intern Jeff. Always fun guys. No more for syllable words. Thank you. To be here. Thank you. And off we go. I'm a down for us. Thank You'all. Goodbye. and off we go.