Speaker 1: I'm Katie Kurk, and this is Next Question. My company,
Speaker 1: Katie Kirk Media, wouldn't get to do all the cool
Speaker 1: things we do, like bring you this podcast if it
Speaker 1: weren't for the really innovative, smart and forward thinking companies
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to partner with. One of those is
Speaker 1: The Wonderful Company. Based in Los Angeles. The Wonderful Company
Speaker 1: is one of the biggest privately held businesses in the
Speaker 1: United States. You probably know their famous healthy products, including
Speaker 1: iconic brands like Wonderful Pistachio's, Wonderful Halos, Wonderful Seedless Lemons, Palm, Wonderful,
Speaker 1: Fiji Water, Justin and Landmark Wines, and Teleflora. On this
Speaker 1: episode of Next Question, I'm sharing a conversation I had
Speaker 1: with The Wonderful Company's vice chairman and co owner, Linda Resnick.
Speaker 1: Every time I get a chance to sit down with Linda,
Speaker 1: it's a real tree. Her genius in marketing comes from
Speaker 1: her unique and very clever way with words. I mean,
Speaker 1: who else would be crowned the palm Queen. But more
Speaker 1: than that, Linda and her husband Stewart, who together co
Speaker 1: owned The Wonderful Company, are deeply committed philanthropists, starting with
Speaker 1: their wide ranging efforts to enhance the lives of people
Speaker 1: in California's Central Valley and communities where many of their
Speaker 1: employees live and work. The Residus are also major supporters
Speaker 1: of the arts and of champions supporting the health of
Speaker 1: the planet by funding major climate change initiatives. Over the
Speaker 1: past several years, their philanthropic gifts have included seven hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million to the California Institute of Technology, fifty
Speaker 1: million to the University of California Davis, and fifty million
Speaker 1: to Technion University in Israel, all to further research on
Speaker 1: environmental sustainability across the globe. Since its Women's History Month,
Speaker 1: we could all benefit from hearing from this extraordinary, self
Speaker 1: made woman who today lives her life with one mission
Speaker 1: to give back. And by the way, if you want
Speaker 1: to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the
Speaker 1: top news stories and fascinating takes on health and wellness
Speaker 1: and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter Wake
Speaker 1: Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Now let's
Speaker 1: get to it. Linda. First of all, thank you for
Speaker 1: inviting us into your magnificent home. I don't think we've
Speaker 1: ever been treated so well. We're in this beautiful library
Speaker 1: or office your office, yes, surrounded by incredible art, little
Speaker 1: sandwiches on trays, on tea trays, and all sorts of suits.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for inviting us here. It's
Speaker 1: a real treat. It's my pleasure. Of course. I wanted
Speaker 1: to start by talking about you and how you became
Speaker 1: the woman you are today, because you built this insane success.
Speaker 1: And I'm always interested in people's origin stories because I
Speaker 1: think they explained so much what motivated you and the
Speaker 1: people who shaped you. So I want to go back
Speaker 1: to your childhood in Philadelphia. Okay, your dad was a
Speaker 1: film distributor. He was, and he moved your family to
Speaker 1: LA after he produced the now classic horror film The Blob. Exactly. Yes,
Speaker 1: daddy moved us here in nineteen fifty nine or sixty,
Speaker 1: I think, And I was a young teenager, but I
Speaker 1: was in twelfth grade. And so how was adjusting to
Speaker 1: life in La How did your mom adjust to it?
Speaker 1: I think it was difficult for my mother to leave
Speaker 1: her parents and her support, and for me it was
Speaker 1: a beautiful adventure. You wanted to go to art school,
Speaker 1: I did, and instead you decided you were going to
Speaker 1: start your own ad agency. Well, I did go to
Speaker 1: college for a year. My father felt that it wasn't
Speaker 1: worthwhile financially to send me to art school because he
Speaker 1: had to pay and I couldn't get a scholarship. And
Speaker 1: when I asked why I couldn't get a scholarship, they said,
Speaker 1: there's two Rolls Royces in your driveway. We don't feel
Speaker 1: so sorry for you. So I couldn't go to art school,
Speaker 1: which was a blow. And I went to Santa Monica
Speaker 1: City College, which by the way, is still a magnificent college.
Speaker 1: It really is a two year college. It's fabulous. And
Speaker 1: then I went to work because I, frankly, I was
Speaker 1: a little bored, as you can imagine, and I opened
Speaker 1: my little advertising agency when I was nineteen. It was
Speaker 1: called Linda Limited, and eventually it grew till where I
Speaker 1: could get a proper office. Where did your ambition come from?
Speaker 1: Was it your father? I mean he sounds as if
Speaker 1: he was a very charisma addic, you know, good salesman. Yes,
Speaker 1: And he looked like Harry Graham. I mean he was
Speaker 1: absolutely a magnificent specimen, which I realized was not what
Speaker 1: you look for first, it may be what you look
Speaker 1: for third. But having said that, he had a lot
Speaker 1: of other incredible qualities. Oh he did. He was into
Speaker 1: the arts, he was into poetry, he loved film, and
Speaker 1: we had a lot of fun together. I mean, if
Speaker 1: it weren't from my father, I don't think I would
Speaker 1: have loved the arts. He carried me into the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: Art Museum in his arms when I was a baby.
Speaker 1: So you get your outgoing personality, your kind of jazz hands,
Speaker 1: if you will, from your dad and my mom and
Speaker 1: your mom they both had fabulous sense of humor, fantastic. Now,
Speaker 1: my mother couldn't speak in front of a crowd, she
Speaker 1: was terrified, but in a closed circle with girlfriends, she
Speaker 1: was amazing. So both parents were kind of personality us
Speaker 1: that's usually like there's one quieter spouse and one sort
Speaker 1: of more outgoing one. But which is why their marriage
Speaker 1: didn't last. I wanted to ask you about you wanted
Speaker 1: to know where I got my ambition. Yeah, I wish
Speaker 1: I knew where I got my ambition. And I've been
Speaker 1: through therapy and mindfulness and all sorts of things to
Speaker 1: find out why I'm so driven. And I think because
Speaker 1: one of the reasons is my mother criticized me so
Speaker 1: heavily my whole life. She did. Yeah, she never enjoyed
Speaker 1: with me my success, and so the more I did
Speaker 1: to try to impress her, the worst it cut. Did
Speaker 1: you ever come to terms with your mom about that?
Speaker 1: Did you ever talk to her? Did you ever have
Speaker 1: a come to Jesus conversation? No? I never did. I
Speaker 1: waited on my mother hand and foot. I was there
Speaker 1: every day of my life. I took care of her financially, emotionally.
Speaker 1: On her deathbed, which I was there holding her hand
Speaker 1: when she died, she said I wasn't very nice to you,
Speaker 1: and that's it did was it? Did she say I'm sorry? No,
Speaker 1: but she acknowledged it. She thing it meant something that
Speaker 1: she knew. But she had a horrible childhood, so she
Speaker 1: didn't know how to give love because she hadn't been
Speaker 1: given it. My grandmother and grandfather saved my life. They
Speaker 1: made me what I am today. Their love was so profound.
Speaker 1: They lived in Baltimore, but I would go as often
Speaker 1: as I could. It's interesting because it sounds as if
Speaker 1: you grew up in tremendous privilege. Is that correct? I
Speaker 1: mean I wouldn't call it tremendous. This is tremendous privilege. Yeah,
Speaker 1: right where we're sitting now. I mean, but this home
Speaker 1: is so opulent and beautiful, full of our and treasures.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the two Rolls Royces in the driveway
Speaker 1: when you were younger. Yes, so I was curious if
Speaker 1: your father was successful from when you were very little.
Speaker 1: He wasn't enormously rich, but he was successful. I would
Speaker 1: say we were upper middle class. He just cared about
Speaker 1: Rolls Royces. I've never owned one, okay, and I never
Speaker 1: will because it stands for my college education to me
Speaker 1: that I didn't have. But my life turned out great,
Speaker 1: So why am I complaining. We'll be right back. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about how you were really
Speaker 1: a woman ahead of your time, Linda. I mean, most
Speaker 1: women at the time you started your ad agency, they
Speaker 1: were pretty traditional, right. They were getting married, they were
Speaker 1: raising families, they were homemakers. What was it like to
Speaker 1: be in the work world? And what year was that?
Speaker 1: That was right in the heart of the Madmen era?
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, it was sixty sixty two, sixty three. All
Speaker 1: the way through the sixties. Running the ad agency was
Speaker 1: fabulous because I'm very creative, and so the creative spirit
Speaker 1: that I would have put into fine art parentheses. I'm
Speaker 1: not that great an artist. I'm doing much better than
Speaker 1: in business that I would have as a fine artist.
Speaker 1: But that creativity was expressed every day in the copywriting,
Speaker 1: in the art direction that I did, and eventually I
Speaker 1: could hire staff and I tried to get better people
Speaker 1: than me, and so that the agency did grow and
Speaker 1: it did extremely well. And you were a single mom.
Speaker 1: I was a single mom. It was very expensive. My
Speaker 1: ex husband was a deadbeat and he wouldn't I had
Speaker 1: to take him to court. I had no money, and
Speaker 1: quite frankly, when I married Stewart, it was he had
Speaker 1: no money either. He just seemed like he was going
Speaker 1: to someday be successful and he would understand my drive
Speaker 1: to be successful and not be outshined by me. I
Speaker 1: know when you first met Stuart, you said he was
Speaker 1: cute but kind of a jerk. He was kind of
Speaker 1: a jerk, because I can't imagine Stewart being a jerk,
Speaker 1: like you can't, well, let me enlighten you. So what
Speaker 1: happened was someone recommended me to this job. He needed
Speaker 1: someone to do some advertising for a men's clothing store
Speaker 1: that he bought. I said, I'm not going on that
Speaker 1: meeting Doug. You go. So Doug Spellman when he was
Speaker 1: my head of new business, and he went like three
Speaker 1: or four times. He said, this guy's amazing, he's so fabulous.
Speaker 1: I said, we'll sign the deal. He said, he won't
Speaker 1: do it unless he meets you. So I go. Now.
Speaker 1: I was provocative and adorable. I must to admit I
Speaker 1: had on boots that went above my knee, brown leather divine.
Speaker 1: I had on a lovely little tunic with nice lung
Speaker 1: sleeves and a high neck. So I think we went
Speaker 1: out to dinner for like three months and I said,
Speaker 1: are you going to give me the business? And he said,
Speaker 1: I'll give you the business, I'd rather have a meaningful
Speaker 1: relationship with you. And that's how our love affair started.
Speaker 1: And it was pretty amazing. And all these years later,
Speaker 1: you're still happily married. Yes, except for this week. You
Speaker 1: are working together, and you've been phenomenally successful, and I
Speaker 1: think you compliment each other in terms of your skills,
Speaker 1: and you have said that together we make one perfect person. Right.
Speaker 1: We're like salton pepper shakers. Can you explain that and
Speaker 1: sort of what qualities he has and what qualities do
Speaker 1: you have, and why it's worked, not only in a
Speaker 1: marriage but in a business, which isn't easy. It's not easy,
Speaker 1: you know, it's so hard to be in partnership with
Speaker 1: your husband. First of all, he's the boss. I figured
Speaker 1: that out about forty years ago. He's the boss. So
Speaker 1: that's fine. I understand that. But I do what I
Speaker 1: want because I have circuitous roots that I've managed to discover.
Speaker 1: He is a genius in business. He sees the potential
Speaker 1: of every company that he looks at for acquisition, and
Speaker 1: he knows what you're going to do well and which aren't.
Speaker 1: And we have made very few mistakes in acquisitions. He
Speaker 1: obviously and you have become just built an extraordinary business
Speaker 1: and a really slate of businesses that encompass everything from
Speaker 1: pomegranates to Pistachio's water wine. I'm sure I'm leaving many
Speaker 1: of the product Teleflora, Yeah, Teleflora oranges. I love my
Speaker 1: little Kalos. What is his business? And your business philosophy
Speaker 1: been from the get go? Well doing well by doing
Speaker 1: good has certainly been our philosophy for the last twenty
Speaker 1: five years. We care about our employees. We know that
Speaker 1: without our employees, or in the case of tell Aflour,
Speaker 1: without our florist, for instance, we wouldn't have a business,
Speaker 1: and so we do concentrate on making sure that they
Speaker 1: have a healthy, happy environment. We do our best to
Speaker 1: do that. Everything we sell is healthy for the planet.
Speaker 1: People will say that feeds you water, you know, a
Speaker 1: single serve, Well it isn't anymore. It's recycled plastic. I
Speaker 1: was so happy when we could do that. Gosh, there's
Speaker 1: so many questions I want to ask you. From that answer,
Speaker 1: you have a sort of unique sense of taste. That's
Speaker 1: one of your gifts, where you're able to distinguish wines
Speaker 1: and what year they were produced. Did you always have
Speaker 1: this unique ability. No. Until I would start tasting things
Speaker 1: like palm. For instance, when I was in the orchard,
Speaker 1: they would make pomegranate juice with a makeshift champagne press
Speaker 1: in the dirt. We would be out there and I said,
Speaker 1: I wanted to taste like this because this is what
Speaker 1: it is, because what we sell is pure pomegranate juice.
Speaker 1: And when they would line up the different taste profiles,
Speaker 1: I would pick one that the taste, panel would pick,
Speaker 1: and that's when I started to learn that I knew it.
Speaker 1: With wine, it was uncanny that I could pick even
Speaker 1: the shipper in some Burgundies. It was crazy. I don't
Speaker 1: do that so much anymore, but I did have this
Speaker 1: ability to taste, and I don't know why. It's just
Speaker 1: a god given gift. Palm is your baby, and it's
Speaker 1: the twenty anniversary, yes, and you shepherded the development of it.
Speaker 1: And in your book Ruby's in the Orchard, you write
Speaker 1: about all the marketing quote unquote geniuses around the table
Speaker 1: and how they wanted to mix pomegranate juice with other
Speaker 1: juices or juice products, or you know, they wanted to
Speaker 1: put ten percent in and they wanted to make it sweeter.
Speaker 1: This is not high Sea. This is not high Sea honey.
Speaker 1: But you know the Greeks and Romans knew it. If
Speaker 1: you go back in history or even go to our website,
Speaker 1: you'll see the history of the pomegranate and how it's
Speaker 1: been revered for the centuries. The Egyptians King tut took
Speaker 1: a pomegranate invase into the afterlife. Didn't do them much good,
Speaker 1: but it's there now we can see it. You also
Speaker 1: designed the bottle I did. I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about your marketing acumen. I know that people have
Speaker 1: called you a genius, and very cutely in the book
Speaker 1: you say I never get tired of hearing that. But
Speaker 1: you're very self effacing and say you're not. How have
Speaker 1: you been able to have your finger on the pulse
Speaker 1: and figure out how to convince people to buy products?
Speaker 1: It's a gift. So I believe the most important thing
Speaker 1: in marketing is listening, and I base so much of
Speaker 1: what I do not completely on research, but we have
Speaker 1: a very brilliant research department where we study the consumer constantly,
Speaker 1: and if you noticed in our products, we're very direct
Speaker 1: on what we talk about, so we're honest and straightforward.
Speaker 1: In it's called palm wonderful because palm, well, if you
Speaker 1: wrote pomegranate, by the time you read it, as I say,
Speaker 1: you'd be in the lettuce department. So the variety is wonderful.
Speaker 1: That's the type of pomegranate it is. So it's palm wonderful.
Speaker 1: And if I have line extensions, I call them what
Speaker 1: they are, blueberry, cherry whatever. I believe that if the
Speaker 1: product is good, you think within the box. The solution
Speaker 1: to the problem is within the box. But our products
Speaker 1: are so solid, you know, citruses from the tree, it's unadulterated.
Speaker 1: Our our pistachios are just harvested and roasted and sent
Speaker 1: to you and so forth and so on. So that
Speaker 1: is the intrinsic value of our products. The intersection of
Speaker 1: people carrying about their health and the products you were
Speaker 1: producing was very beneficial. Yes, it was, kis Met. We
Speaker 1: were in the orange business since the eighties eighty nine,
Speaker 1: I think and tell a flora we started in seventy nine.
Speaker 1: But the other the almonds, the pistachios, all of that
Speaker 1: grew in the nineties and came to fruition in two thousand.
Speaker 1: It was two and fifteen, though before Stewart felt that
Speaker 1: we should have a brand for pistachios. This is an
Speaker 1: interesting story if we have a minute and you can.
Speaker 1: There was a recall in pistachios, and it had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with us. It was a small supplier who
Speaker 1: had seminell at the plant, so they cut off selling
Speaker 1: pistachios everywhere. Everyone had to throw out their pistachios. So
Speaker 1: I was at the airport in Washington and Stewart called
Speaker 1: me and he said, you've talked me into it. We
Speaker 1: need brand because if we were wonderful pistachios, our pistachios
Speaker 1: would stay on the shelf because we had no issues.
Speaker 1: And that's when the big brand push started. It may
Speaker 1: have been earlier than that because I was on my tour.
Speaker 1: I think one of your sort of mottoes or edicts
Speaker 1: about marketing, Linda, is insight. Every threat is an opportunity,
Speaker 1: and so we call threats opera threats because what is
Speaker 1: the opportunity within that threat? And you have face challenges
Speaker 1: to your brand in the past, and you write about
Speaker 1: a situation with Peter upset that you were testing on
Speaker 1: mice and rats, although they they blew it up to
Speaker 1: say you were testing on rabbits and all kinds of
Speaker 1: dogs and dogs and you had protesters in front of
Speaker 1: your home. Initially, Stuart said, it'll go away, it'll die
Speaker 1: down right, yes, And then you all realize, no, we
Speaker 1: have to respond to this because you talked about things
Speaker 1: proliferating online and damaging reputations permanently. So how did you
Speaker 1: handle that criticism because you were testing on animals, rats
Speaker 1: and mice. I know that then you stopped it later on, No,
Speaker 1: not later on, we stop op it. That's how we responded.
Speaker 1: They were right about testing on mice. There was no
Speaker 1: reason to do it. It was just kind of the
Speaker 1: way that well silence worked in those days. But Peta
Speaker 1: was right, You for a juice, you don't need to
Speaker 1: test on mice. We've learned other ways of doing it.
Speaker 1: And we stopped that immediately afterwards because I realized that
Speaker 1: it was wrong. Fiji water was criticized and frankly can
Speaker 1: still be because of the plastic water bottles. Right, there's
Speaker 1: not enough recycling that goes on, we know, absolutely tragically. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that the money that we've given to Caltech
Speaker 1: and sustainability will find a solution for plastic. You know,
Speaker 1: there are enzymes that they're testing now that just dissolve plastic.
Speaker 1: And if we can get that up to scale, because
Speaker 1: we're never going to get the recycling of the sapping
Speaker 1: is it doesn't get recycled, No, it doesn't. So but
Speaker 1: this bottle has probably you know, the recycling of this
Speaker 1: plastic has gone on and on and on. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we're the endgame or not. That depends on
Speaker 1: whether it's being recycled or not. Twenty four seven, we
Speaker 1: are looking for a biodegradable container for Fiji water. But
Speaker 1: we keep looking, and if anyone's listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: and wants to send me some ideas for a biodegradable
Speaker 1: good data, I'm all for it. The cardboard containers that
Speaker 1: you see with water, you are fooling yourself. They're lined
Speaker 1: with aluminum, and aluminum is not biodegradable. The first aluminum
Speaker 1: that was ever mind is probably still in existence, so
Speaker 1: that's a good thing if they remind it. But I
Speaker 1: think it goes to the landfill, so the paper product
Speaker 1: will disappear, but the aluminum will stay forever. So you're
Speaker 1: still trying to figure this outlasts the worst why because
Speaker 1: it's so heavy. So if you're shipping glass from Fiji
Speaker 1: to America, it costs like four times as much. The
Speaker 1: other thing is that if you get a glass container,
Speaker 1: it has to come from France to Fiji. It's got
Speaker 1: to be cleaned three times with water. You see all
Speaker 1: the water we're wasting. We'll be back right after this.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your philanthropy, because you and Stuart you've
Speaker 1: given away two and a half billion dollars in the
Speaker 1: last five to seven years. What is your philanthropic philosophy?
Speaker 1: Because there are a number of causes that you support,
Speaker 1: and I know you're a huge fan of the arts.
Speaker 1: You've been very generous to the Aspen Institute, and I'm
Speaker 1: on the board of that institute, so I know firsthand
Speaker 1: the impact you all have had there. So when you
Speaker 1: have so much money, how do you decide where to
Speaker 1: give it? Well, our employees' lives come first. I had
Speaker 1: an epiphany eleven years ago that I had to give
Speaker 1: back in a really meaningful way, and that meant going
Speaker 1: to work to do it. Besides my day job, I
Speaker 1: have a philanthropy department that is dedicated to giving back
Speaker 1: to the Central Valley and to the Fijian Islands. That's
Speaker 1: what they do. We also give big gifts to our institutions,
Speaker 1: but other people do that. We like to give to
Speaker 1: places that nobody else is interested in. Let's start with
Speaker 1: wonderful giving. I don't know how long it's been fifteen
Speaker 1: or twenty years that we've given every employee that works
Speaker 1: for us between five hundred to one thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: give to the charity of their choice. As long as
Speaker 1: it's a five O one C three and to date
Speaker 1: fifty seven million dollars are employ always have given to
Speaker 1: their local area. And so that is a very powerful
Speaker 1: thing to teach philanthropy to the employees. Well, not only
Speaker 1: that you have provided educational opportunities and all kinds of
Speaker 1: things to the people who work on your farms, the
Speaker 1: people who work in your factories. Talk about that because
Speaker 1: that is changing lives. Yes, So it was a pivotal
Speaker 1: moment in my life where I realized that I had
Speaker 1: to give back. So I looked at places that I
Speaker 1: cared about, and I ended up at home in the
Speaker 1: Central Valley. It's one hundred and forty five miles away,
Speaker 1: but my employees, I have five thousand employees in the
Speaker 1: Central Valley and their families. And I started in Lost Hills,
Speaker 1: this little unincorporated town, and about half of the people
Speaker 1: in that town had someone in their household that worked
Speaker 1: at the wonderful company, and they didn't trust me. It
Speaker 1: was really hard. I did a lot of research to
Speaker 1: see what they wanted and what they felt they needed.
Speaker 1: And the first thing we did, which we thought would
Speaker 1: benefit everybody, was to redo the park. And today we
Speaker 1: have two beautiful buildings at the park, and I fell
Speaker 1: in love with these people because I realized that I
Speaker 1: am no different from those mothers except for the fact
Speaker 1: that I had luck and privilege. I had the luck
Speaker 1: to be born in a family that would put a
Speaker 1: roof over my head, that would educate me at least
Speaker 1: up through high school and feed me, and they didn't
Speaker 1: have that. And so we started with the park. Eventually
Speaker 1: we built a school, and so today we have a
Speaker 1: beautiful Priest School. Through graduation, a hundred of those kids
Speaker 1: have come back to work at the wonderful company, which
Speaker 1: is the thing that I wanted to do to end
Speaker 1: the cycle of poverty in the Central Valley. By bringing
Speaker 1: educated minds to the valley that didn't have to work
Speaker 1: in the fields, that could change the dynamic there. We
Speaker 1: give free healthcare to every employee and their entire family.
Speaker 1: They never pay for meds. We triosh if they need
Speaker 1: cancer or other dangerous diseases. We save lives every single day,
Speaker 1: and we have free therapy. We have wonderful gymnasiums where
Speaker 1: people can go after work and work out. Every bit
Speaker 1: of food that is served. You will not find a
Speaker 1: vending machine unless it has bubbly water in it. There
Speaker 1: are no soft drinks. Every bit of food is cooked
Speaker 1: fresh every day, and it's all healthy, low sodium, low fat,
Speaker 1: and it's working new and Stuart pledged seven fifty million
Speaker 1: dollars to cal Tech for sustainability and climate change research
Speaker 1: to work on things like alternatives to plastic water bottles.
Speaker 1: What other things have you asked the smart people at
Speaker 1: cal Tech to focus on? You don't ask Nobel laureates
Speaker 1: what to focus on. They know what our desire is there.
Speaker 1: We embrace the same desire. They want to save the
Speaker 1: planet more than we do, as much as we do,
Speaker 1: as much as humanly possible, and so we don't give
Speaker 1: them directives. In closing, you know this is Women's History Month. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you have been a powerhouse woman for many years.
Speaker 1: With so many women becoming CEOs or in the c suite,
Speaker 1: and of course so many women becoming entrepreneurs. What advice
Speaker 1: would you give them? Well, where women are today makes
Speaker 1: me very happy. Look should be in business. We have
Speaker 1: an insight that's different than men. Men and women need
Speaker 1: to work together to build businesses and countries, and all
Speaker 1: of that work we add so much. What would i
Speaker 1: say to women, be true to yourself. In the end,
Speaker 1: when you look back at your life, that is the
Speaker 1: thing you'll be the most proud of that you stood
Speaker 1: up for your beliefs. Try to work in an area
Speaker 1: that you believe in that you think is making the
Speaker 1: world better rather than the world worse. Have a family.
Speaker 1: There's never the right time. Look, I had two kids
Speaker 1: or twenty three, and by the time I was twenty nine,
Speaker 1: i had five because I inherited Stewart's three kids that
Speaker 1: are the loves of my life. Have children. There's never
Speaker 1: the right time. But boy, when you reach my age,
Speaker 1: if there's no one there to talk to, it's sad.
Speaker 1: And so make your babies, make the world better. What
Speaker 1: do you hope people will remember you and Stewart for
Speaker 1: our philanthropy. I was put on this earth to do
Speaker 1: this work, and I I mean, there's nothing about our
Speaker 1: work that's out in the public domain. We don't talk
Speaker 1: about it, but we just do it. And I think
Speaker 1: that my legacy will be changing the paradigm of poverty
Speaker 1: in the five or six cities in the Central Valley
Speaker 1: that we serve. That's a pretty good legacy, I hope.
Speaker 1: So you are wonderful. I'd loved talking to you. I
Speaker 1: could talk to you for another hour. Oh, I loved it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a
Speaker 1: question for me, or want to share your thoughts about
Speaker 1: how you navigate this crazy world reach out. You can
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