2: Matt & Josh - talk lip balm, bullying, and the human brain

Josh Neumann is the founder of Kind Lips — but this conversation isn't about the business. We talk about how he came up with the idea for a premium lip balm brand, the anti-bullying campaign woven into it, and how the whole thing traces back to his mom's dream. Josh also opens up about his background in real estate, his special education degree, and his geeky fascination with how the brain works. 

Besides Business is a weekly conversation with local Twin Cities professionals — not about their work, but about who they are beyond it.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone, welcome to Besides Business episode two. I'm Matt McGuire, Chief Loan Officer at Cody Mortgage. Each week here on Besides Business, we sit down with a local business professional to chat about their life outside business and see what makes them tick. Today we're excited to have Josh Newman, the founder of Kind Lips. He has a background in special education and he has a fascination with how the brain works. So let's talk to Josh today. So, Josh, thank you for coming in. I got my uh my kind lips premium lip balm. I know that's small if you guys can see it, vanilla lemon flavored. I'll put that on as we start. So thank you for joining us on a steamy day here in Minnesota. If you want to maybe just give us a quick intro on who you are and what you do, and we can talk a little bit about Kind Lips and then what you do outside of the office.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Yeah, well, thanks for having me. Um my name is Josh Newman. I I founded this company called Kind Lips, which is a lip balm company back in 2017, and and before that I went to school to be a teacher and bounce around and did a bunch of different stuff. And yeah, so it's not a not not very many people take that leap of faith to start a lip balm company, let alone something else.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

So yeah. Well, that was gonna be my first question to you is so when I discovered your lip balm, it was in a gift pack of a conference that I went to, and I was like, what is this? I'm actually a heavy user of lip balm. I don't know if that's that's a good or bad thing about me. But traditionally, I've been a Blistex guy, and everyone tells me, like, Blistex is trash, no offense, Blistex. Um, you put it on, you're gonna need more of it. There's junk in there. My wife hates the stuff, and so yours, it was kind of like maybe divine intervention for me. It it I don't know if taste is the right uh word, but it just it feels great, I love it. Um, and then that led us to connecting. So, in my head, when I learned about your backstory a little bit, and you told me today that you had a uh background in mortgage and real estate, so connected to my worlds. How did you switch from what you were doing prior to starting a lift balm company?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, so being in real estate for gosh, about 15 years before the idea of kind libs came about. Um, in all honesty, it was really unfortunate timing because I was making more money and had you know more time. I had kind of got past the hump of going up and down, and my years were consistent, and uh had a team and I was working about 15 hours a week, didn't have to do open houses, I need so I was in, I was, you know, at the good part. And and that's when I realized I wasn't happy. And so it it came from a desire that um of wanting to always grow and and develop and and improve, and I was like, well, if I'm not happy doing what I'm doing, what's more important, money or or happiness? And so I started wrestling with that question, and um I decided to pursue happiness and walked away from the money. So good for you. Well, I don't some days it's good, some days it's not, but so lip balm.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Do you have a background in I mean, I know some of the ingredients that when I was doing research, I know some of the ingredients that are included here. But how what led you to to just just launching a lip balm company? Is it just and I know you have we have separate missions of yours with the kindness, and you guys have an anti-bullying campaign and uh that you donate to, but how lip balm in general, how did you get there?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah, honestly, I was you know, sitting on my couch one day, and uh I was like, man, like I just am not happy with real estate. And that whole that whole year prior to this like self-talk on the couch, I I was out of the country more than I was in the country. Because I was just like, I'm like, I gotta go, I gotta get out of here, I can't be here. And so I was home and I was like, man, I'm just not not happy. And sitting on the couch, and I looked down on my hand and I was twirling a lip balm. And I was like, I've always liked lip balm, like lip balm can't be rocket science to make one that I think works well. And and like you had tried a bunch of lip balms always and was searching for the perfect lip balm. And so I was like, man, none of the I apply it 20 times a day. I want to make a lip balm that I only have to apply like five times a day. Um, and so I was like, this can't be that hard. And and so I had that self-talk and had the weird idea to start a lip balm company, and I was like, well, no one's gonna want to buy Josh's lip balm. How can I make it different? And a week before that, I had watched this YouTube video about this Japanese scientist, and his name is Dr. Emoto, and he did these experiments with like rice, and he would put like he took three jars of rice, put or three jars, put a scoop of rice in each of them, put water in each of them, covered them, and one he labeled love, one he label hate, and one he didn't put anything at all in or label it at all. And so he'd walk up to the three jars for 30 days and like time-lapsed it. And he'd say, I love you, I hate you, and the third jar he would avoid.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

And this is just rice.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Just rice and water. And at the end of the at the end of the 30 days, the jar he said, I love you too, the rice stayed healthy looking, white. The one he said, I hate you too, it looked kind of brown and mushy. And the one he avoided was actually the most um gross looking of them all. And so it was a representation of like how powerful our words are, and so and then he the same scientist had done a thing with water where he would like pray over water or speak kind words to water, bless water, and look at it under a microscope, and it looks like a snowflake or looks symmetrical, or he'd say negative things and it would look blobbish and distorted. And so I was like, it really aligned with you know a lot of my self-development at that time and and self-discovery. And I was like, I was actually gonna call it blessed lips, and I was gonna market it as like it's gonna be prayed over, good energy was put into it, and just market it as kind of that. And my mom happened to call me soon after that, and uh, we talked for a while, and at the end of the conversation, I'm like, I think I'm gonna start a lip balm company, I'm gonna call it blessed lips, and and she's like, Oh, I gotta go, you're gonna be great at whatever you're gonna do, type deal. And so then the the next morning, um my phone rang right at 6 a.m. and it was my mom, and and I thought somebody had died. I wasn't thinking about lip balm at that point, and she's like, Um, sorry to call you so early. I had the most vivid dream I've had in my life. Like, something happened, like I'm like, great, I'm gonna be the one that dies. Like, why are you uh yeah, why are you what's so vivid? Um, and so I said, uh, she's like, in the dream, you were young, you got in a fight with your sister, you said some really mean things to her, and for your punishment, you had to write the law of kindness is on my lips 50 times. She's like, You're at this old desk writing this, writing these sentences out. She's like, every time you wrote that sentence out, the word kind and lips came off the page. She goes, I think if you're gonna start a lip balm company, you're supposed to call it kind lips. And I was like, I think you're right. And so I got off the phone with her, went to online, kindlips.com was available, picked it up, and then I was like, all right, well now I gotta learn how to make lip balm. So I had no background, and you know, I'd always cooked or made different stuff, but I never had a I didn't have a formulator background, and so I started learning like how to make lip balm. Then I bought every lip balm I I had hundreds of lip balms, and I would just write down all the ingredient profiles, and so then like if it wasn't a natural or organic ingredient, it got marked off the list, and then you would end up with like olive oils and avocado oils and sunflower oils, and I'd be like, Okay, do I need all of these? What does each do? So I tried to make the most premium product I could with using the least amount of ingredients as possible. So that was how that all worked. And I just, you know, started making lip balm on my stove at home, handing it out to friends and trying to make a formula. I'm like, I would buy this type deal.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Wow, that's amazing. I mean, so that was all all of that was that vivid in her dream to herself. All of the and that's the very next day you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yeah, that was after I had the idea of starting lip balm company. She calls me the next morning with uh the dream. And so I kind of felt like, alright, this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. And it was such a impactful moment for me where you know, being a top producer uh in a real estate company, I was willing to just walk away from it all and just be like, I think this is like what I'm being called to go do. And it was kind of like my my my moment of truth, just be like, all right, what do I want to do with this life?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah, no, that's very admirable. I mean, anybody that starts a business, I in the mortgage world am I work for Edge Home Finance, but I have my own company under that, and and being an entrepreneur, there's nothing more rewarding, uh nothing scarier. So and just uh especially walking away from something that's more sure like you did, is is I mean, hats off to you. And chasing happiness, I think, is a underrated move in our society. I think most of us get stuck in what's comfortable, what pays the bills, what we know. So to launch out that's why I Shark Tank is one of my favorite shows because you see those, I cry during some of the episodes because I can relate to those stories of putting it all on the line and and leaving day jobs to chase dreams and to make differences, and you've done all of that. So I didn't know all of that backstory, I knew some of it, so thank you for sharing that. Um one thing that struck me, I think immediately once I when I looked at the lip balm, I knew it was different when I got it in Arizona, and I saw immediately you know your messaging about 20% donated to to stop bullying. So if you want to talk a little bit about that, uh kind of where that comes from, your passion for bullying or anti-bullying in that case. Um, and it's 20% that you donate from every single sale, then, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah, well, it's it's changed. So I'll I'll get to it. So how it all started is when I was in real estate, I would give 10% of everything I made to like church or charity. Never even talked about it, or it was just kind of like you know, the integrity or the morals that I was that were instilled in me growing up, and and as I was more successful, I started giving upwards of 20% of every check I got. And when I started Kind Lips, I was like, all right, I want to build, I could never get myself to consistently give 20%, and so I'd always do anywhere from 10 to 20. And so I was like starting a new company, I'm like, all right, I want to give 20% of everything I make back to charity and have some sort of positive impact. And so that was gonna be built in. Then it started like, okay, the company was kind lips, the opposite of being kind is being mean, kids were getting bullied in school, my degree was in education, so it all just kind of seemed to be like, all right, this is what I'm supposed to do. And so we started giving 20% of our actually, we weren't even making any profit, so I was cutting personal checks to like different organizations just so we could like do something or get in get in the game. Um, and as that evolved, I realized like, okay, I'm giving 20% of our profit to these organizations, and then they've got operating expenses and they've got all these other things. And on top of that, we were also doing our own school program. So I ended up transitioning our school program into a nonprofit. So now I have KindLips and I have KindLips in the Classroom, which is a 501c3. And so now we we'd give way more than 20% to fund KindLips in the classroom, but but we're actually going away from saying a certain percentage because just for logistical reasons reasons for going into larger retailers, you have to do like a forensic accounting and all this sort of stuff. So we're just saying our mission is to end bullying, and now we're trying to prove that with being in the school systems and how we're making that all happen.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

That makes sense. And I think I how you and I really had connected is I got the lip balm in Arizona, and then I was on a little day trip in Hastings, Minnesota, and I went to a coffee shop, Froth and Cork, and I saw potential sponsor shout-out. I saw your your lip balm again, and I'm like, and I didn't even know who was behind at that point, but I'm like, this company keeps following me. And I needed to get away from what I was using. So that's when I I think that the the 20% I think was probably old signage that I saw. But I know that your website, you have the the bullying messaging, bullying messaging updated, so that's great. Uh I mean, hats off to you again for that whole campaign. And so the fundraising that you do with schools, well let's talk about your education background, because I think that that you said that that plays into all of this anyway. So you have a you have a degree in special education. So your plan initially was to become a teacher, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah, so went to school to be, I was gonna be a I didn't know what I was gonna be, just thought I was supposed to go to college, and then um then I ended up getting into business school, then I changed that to at a buddy that was um in special education, and he uh in the education program, and so he invited me to help out with Special Olympics, and I did that, and I fell in love with that, and I'm like, this was so much fun, and um so then I changed my major to to elementary ed and the for the minor in special ed, then I ended up changing all the way to special ed. Um, and so that was my student taught, and then I was like, I don't want to be in the schools, so I'd never actually taught, you know, was ever hired as a teacher, but my degree is in education, so well I was gonna ask you why special education, so that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Um, have you do you st are you still involved with the Special Olympics and some of those events?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

No, not currently. I mean, I don't even have enough time to get everything done that I'm working on personally or you know with the business, but I bet I would love to, and and they're wonderful organizations.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah. Well, you said when you walked in here you're working six days, seven days a week now on Kind Lips. What do you I know that re the point of this show usually is being talking about stuff outside of work? Your whole life is work, but you have a very unique company, so I wanted to get into those details. So when you are at the end of those long days, long weeks, is there something specifically that helps you unwind or just get your mind off lip balm? If I I know there are times where mortgage gets too much for me, yours is a little more fun, but I'm sure you're like, Matt, enough beeswax and you're not gonna like lip balm either. So what do you do at night or morning, or what kind of gets you off of the lip balm track?

SPEAKER_00 14:55

If you man, I wish I had a better answer for you, but honestly nothing. And I don't it's a different, it's a different season of life for me than it has been in the past. And and to be honest, in the probably the last like three years, I've I've almost removed myself from like all friend groups and everything. Not not that I don't like them, I'm just so focused on what I'm doing. And I had a buddy um I grabbed coffee with a buddy not too long ago, and he was like kind of giving me a hard time because I don't go out and I don't go do stuff, and it and it hit me in a new light at that moment. And I was like, I said, if I was training for the Olympics, would you give me a hard time that I wasn't going out with you guys and I was at home and I was focused on working out? He's like, not at all. And I said, I'm training for my own personal Olympics right now, which is why I'm making this conscious effort to do this, and it's not because I don't like you guys or whatever, but this is what I'm focused on. And so um I really feel like in this season of life, it's I I don't have other, I don't have kids, I'm not married, and so I don't have any other responsibilities. And so had I have those, I would have to take time away from work and and you know focus on those other things. But for now, it's like I've got kind lips, I've got our kind lips in the classroom program. Um, I'm about 80% done with a book that I'm gonna be launching that will go for a children's book. Um, so that's been exciting. So I'm just finishing that up, and then we started a fundraising program for schools, so that's been a lot of work, and then you know, and I'm also I do all the websites, I I rebuild all the websites, I manage our Amazon, I you know, so everything. And so I've I've in a fortunate enough position where I've been able to like get my hands dirty in every part of the business, and I hope that a season's coming up where I don't have to have my hands involved in every part of the business.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Then you'll have to create a lotion company.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

I don't, you know, that would that was uh early on, it's it's fascinating not coming from a real estate world background and not understanding how like uh a CPG company works and how when I but most companies like uh a Whole Foods they want you to have three or four different products, they want you to have lotion and shampoos, and I had to make that decision early on because I had people ask me for you know, they're like we don't care, just make just make three other things. And I was like, that that's what other brands do, and I don't fault them for that, but I'm like, kind lips is not about just making money. Like, if I wanted to just make money, I would have stayed doing what I was doing, you know, and taking that leap of faith. And I'm like, no, this is about lip balm going on your lips, your words coming back out, it's a reminder to speak kind words, and so the the message on it I think is more powerful than just I don't want to have kind shampoo and kind everything just because I think I can make a dollar on it.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

So well, that's impressive as well. I I'm I'm happy to have you on because I think these are great lessons for everyone to hear, including, I think, and I feel this way a lot. I I I stopped drinking alcohol about a year and a half ago, and I drank too much prior to that. Nothing crazy happened, but it was taking too much of a place in my life, and I have two kids and a wife, and and my life's great. I don't need a substance to kind of take me out of that. But I found myself, you know, when I was when I would drink, I would unwind with alcohol, sports, I love sports my whole life. And once I stopped drinking, I like at night I find, especially now with AI tools and everything, I find myself working on my business, you know, almost until I'm ready to go to bed. I still watch sports, um, you know, Netflix show here and there, but I'm working on my business a lot in my spare time, which I never used to do when I would drink. And it's part of it is because I love what I do, um, and I'm trying to build my own business, you know, like you are different worlds, completely lip balm and mortgage, but same sort of uh parallels, I think, is if you love what you do, and hats off to you again for leaving something that you you probably liked and were okay with, but you didn't love and you weren't on fire for. And I think that's a good reminder for all of us that like if you love what you do, you might not need those escapes. I mean, you everyone needs time, and I know you said exercise is important to you, and you love exercising with your dog. So there are things that you do that are away from lip bulb, um, but that's just a testament to like if you love what you do, you're not really working. I I don't always love cliches like that, but it is true where you're getting the satisfaction where you don't need the other stuff. So that's really cool to see stepping into your your mission and purpose. And I'm sure that that has to feel great versus what you were doing in in real estate then.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

It you know, it I think it's it's not different, it's just a different, it's almost like a parallel where in real estate, you know, you have to have integrity, you have to show up on time, you have to, you know, do everything, you've got to clock and you've got to make sure that you're you've put your clients before your own personal life. Yeah. You know, if if you're sitting at home on a weekend and somebody needs a pre-approval letter and it's Saturday at five o'clock, you're leaving for a wedding, I'm sure the last thing you want to do is like get that pre-approval letter out. Also, you know, you know you're gonna upset your wife probably and and get that out. And it's just the the nature of the business. And so you have that integrity to do that. With kind lips, I would say the integrity and the character that I have to have with this company, to me, it's kind of taken it to the next level. And I remember when I was first starting Kind Lips and I was walking to get a coffee, and I live in downtown Minneapolis, and there was some garbage on the on the sidewalk, and I walked by it and I was like, man, if I'm gonna be kind, tell you know, if I'm gonna represent this company that's about speaking kind words, I have to be kind in every area of my life. And if I see some garbage on the street, I gotta pick it up. And honestly, it was the most inconvenient thought that I've ever had in my life. Because I haven't stopped picking up garbage ever since. And I walk by stuff and I'm like, man, I don't want to pick it up. And I'll walk by it and then I turn around and go pick it up. And it's like I have to consistently like, how do I be? And I'm I'm kind of like a I've got a snarky little sense of humor, and I can, you know, speak faster than I probably should, because I speak faster than I think, you know, and don't always say the most kind thing. And it's it's I'm I'm in this process of learning to like how do I continue to just get better, and also like give myself the grace during the day to to be okay to make mistakes, but and also so it's like yeah, I think this I don't even know, I think I'm going on a tangent now, but I haven't got on that. But that's kind of yeah, it's just continuing to to grow and and learn and and just try and be the best version of myself as I can in this season.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

No, I appreciate you sharing that. That's great. I I it's funny you say that because I when I met my wife, she does that all the time, and she started doing it with my kids where we would be out and they would pick stuff up, you know, and recite. She's big on recycling and being good to the earth and just and just being good stewards. And uh so at first, of course, me, not that I'm anti-earth or anything like that, but it's just I think for me it's probably more yuck, that's dirty, or but she got my kids into it where they're like, Daddy, we need to go pick that up. So then it became your what you do, it became a regular part of my life, and and I'm used to it now as well. Or I'll pick stuff up with them and throw it in the trash or throw it in the recycling. So, I mean, my wife's gonna love that part of the life. See, there are people like me in the world that that care. So um, well, cool. That that's all great information. I did want to talk to you about you said that you are geeky about how the the human brain works. It's something that fascinates you, and I mentioned that earlier. Where do you think that comes from, or what what is it about the brain? I mean, it's it's it's an amazing piece of every human. I I my daughter actually had brain tumors when she was six weeks old, and she's perfectly fine now, but through that process of multiple brain surgeries and talking to the doctors, I had a new appreciation. I was 30, whatever, at 36, 37 at the time, and I never I knew the brain was amazing, but I didn't know how amazing it was until I'm talking to doctors who are operating on my my daughter's brain and how quick it can rebound and how it can grow. And that's some of the the you know, just the logistics of the brain, but the way that you are fascinated with the brain, where does that come from and what what are your thoughts on? I mean, I know it's a broad subject. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

I I don't think I even knew early on that I liked psychology because I my my experience with psychology was like a hard course in high school that I didn't want to take. And then I went to school to be a special education teacher, and and being a special education teacher, the reality is you don't have to know calculus, you're not teaching you know applied mathematics, you're you're teaching you're learning a lot of the curriculum that I learned about is behavior management. And you're learning how to control a classroom, how to get someone to like act a certain way. Um and so, or like how to design a classroom so that it's uh so that it can like handle physical challenges that different students might have. So then I went through that and then I and then I got into real estate, and I always joked that like, oh man, like that going to school to be a special education teacher was like the best training to be a realtor. And so, and then like as I started like thinking about life and and who I wanted to be, and and kind of some of those like questions, like, all right, what what kind of person do I want to be? And that you have have those conversations, or hopefully people have with themselves when they're become you know in their mid-20s, and I was like, How do I get myself to change these behaviors that I don't like to be these behaviors I do want? And so I started using behavior modification tools, being like, Okay, like I need to drink more water and stop drinking soda. So I would put a glass of water like on the counter, I'd always have it full, and that would you know get me out of the habit of grabbing something I didn't I shouldn't be drinking and just different stuff like that, and then and actually kind lips is always the idea of it, it was like it was a reminder to be kind, so it's always been a behavior modification tool. And so for me, I'm always like trying to see it's played itself out in a lot of different ways, but it's so fascinating, like how people think, why they do what they do, or you know, there's the mentalist type people out there that they just know they already know how the brain is gonna act before we consciously can figure it out, yeah. You know, and I think that's one of the beautiful things about Kind Lips and our school program is getting it in the hands of kids when they're six, seven, eight, nine years old. And the brain is at that peak time when it's the most and peak time to be formed. And and uh at about eight years old, science says that, like, okay, your brain can learn a little bit less every year. So if you play like a m match game or memory game with your kids, they're super good at it because their brains just can remember and contain so much information. And um, so a lot of people are like, oh, that's scary because they can learn so much bad stuff. It's like, well, yeah, also it's good because we know this is a window when we can teach them good things. And so I love the idea of getting them lip balm, not so that they use lip balm their whole life, but they associate lip balm with speaking kind words. So when they're 30 years old, whether they're using kind lips or bird spees or whatever else, they just know they're putting lip balm on, touching their lips, and that they should speak kind words.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

So well, until we have birds bees on the podcast, we are officially a kind lips podcast here. Um, I thank you again for that messaging because I think every one of us, at least in some way, I I don't recall, I mean, I was bullied like any other kid, but nothing like major that scarred my life. But I saw other kids being bullied, and I I was I was never like the biggest kid in school. My stature still isn't isn't that huge. But you know, I I always admire the kids that stick up for other kids that are being bullied. I mean, I and I'm not just saying this because you're on here in the anti-bullying message. I think that I've tried to teach my daughter that she's almost eight, so she's right in the window that you talk about, and she is very much a leader, and I'm trying to teach her. Like, I don't, I think she's nice and kind enough that she won't bully people, at least not intentionally. Like, I don't think she has that bone in her. Um, so I'm not as worried about that, but I'm really trying to instill in her, like, hey, you are, because she does have those leadership qualities too. So I can very much see her be the kid that's like, hey, and that you don't have to be mean or crass about it, but like, hey, let's not do that. Like, that person doesn't deserve that, or sticking up for you know, the kid that is getting teased or bullied. So I I mean that message I think is we couldn't shine a brighter light on that. So I really appreciate what you're doing, having two children and just you know, someone who's concerned with the youth in America, especially as social media is bigger and bigger, and these kids can't escape that part of their life. Like they go, like my school day used to end when I left school, now it extends because of social media. So I think bullying is is even more important, and I'd love to partner with you on stuff in the future to help with your school program and give back from some of my mortgage stuff, and and we could talk about that offline. I've been very inspired today. So I appreciate you being here. Um, our second guest ever, it's been a great episode. Is there anything that you want to shout out, maybe with the school or fundraiser program, where people can find you? Anything you want to plug for kindlets?

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, I just I want to add one little quick note to that. I think the school and the and the kids, and you know, one thing that I really struggled with my my whole life until I was probably 40 was like learning to be kind to myself. And I was I could be kind to other people, but I wasn't always kind of, I was my biggest critic. And I think that that's I think a lot of people can relate to that, unfortunately. And so I think that's the other part with the youth is not only using kind lips as a tool to speak kind words to other kids, but it's really teaching kids to learn how to be kind to themselves. Because ultimately, like not every kid's gonna be an athlete, or not every kid's gonna be a supermodel, or not every kid's gonna be a lawyer, you know, and and we're but we're all uniquely perfect. We're all like designed to be who we are, you know, which and we need someone to stock shelves at the grocery store, someone to pump gas, someone to you know fix the toilet. We need it all, and everybody wants to be like two or three, you know, jobs, and so it's like I want kids to know that like it's okay to be exactly who you are, and and that message of being kind to yourself, and and it seems like it should be known, but it's not always like told to kids.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, no, that's great. That I I totally agree, and that's something that I think I mean, there's adults that you know, like you said, it was I'm 42 now, and I I've learned that a lot this year too, to be kinder to myself of where I'm at in life, where I'm at in business, where I'm at as a parent and as a husband, because I am a perfectionist by nature, um maximizer, Gallup would call it, and and my wife points that out quite often. And a lot of times that means I'm hard on myself and what I'm doing, and and just being kind and kind to others, kind to myself, I I think that's a great point. Uh, you know, added on to what you're already doing. So, yeah, anything with the school programs, fundraisers, um, anything upcoming.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yeah, honestly, the school program we we have I have these different videos that were going along with it, and I've always I've done a few different iterations of it, and I've what I've found is schools are so busy with everything that they have. So we're adding, um, we're just gonna make it super simple where we we have the tubes of kind lips, and then they get these like you matter and sodium words cards that go along with it, and we let schools use that however they want, along with they already have different social emotional learning and kindness curriculums that they're already implementing. So, where I think we're just gonna come in and be a supplemental product, and we do it for a dollar a student at schools. So, you know, you buy a tuba lip bomb on our website, it's five bucks. So, we're this nonprofit subsidizes that cost for schools. Um, also developing some new student kits that'll go out to like principals whenever there's a new student at a school, they'll get this gift kit and there'll be a bunch of different stuff in there just kind of welcoming the new student and making them feel like they belong. Well that's a new thing for this year, and yeah, I'm excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Well, yeah, that's I love that. And I I look forward to watching you soar. I can tell by just spending the day with you here that you believe in what you say. Um, you're a kind person at heart, no pun intended with the uh with the with the lip balm name. So I can't wait to see the things you guys are gonna do at Kind Lips and look forward to cheering you on here. Um, like I said, looking forward to partnering in the future and hopefully have you on a later episode when we're in some huge studio and it's episode a hundred or something like that. So appreciate you coming on and spending the day with us. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks, Josh. Thank you, kind lips, and we'll see you next week.