How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Live with Alli Webb and Andy Puddicombe & Rich Pierson
Episode Date: May 30, 2020Alli Webb, co-founder of Drybar, talks with Guy about why she believes that investing time into fashion and beauty is still worthwhile, even though many of us aren't going out much. Founders ...of the meditation app Headspace, Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson, talk about taking their business remote, and give some tips on how to approach meditation, even with an unquiet mind. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating these turbulent times.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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host. Hey, welcome to how I built this Resilience Edition. So twice a week, I've been sitting down for live video chats with different founders to find out how they're coping during the crisis.
And on Thursdays and Saturdays, we're posting excerpts from those conversations.
conversations right here. And today's episode is all about self-care, actually self-care above the
neck. We're going to hear from Andy Puddycombe and Rich Pearson, the co-founders of the Meditation App
Headspace. But first, an excerpt from a conversation with Ali Webb, co-founder of Drybar.
And if you heard her episode on the podcast a few years back, you may remember how she launched
a super successful chain of beauty salons that specialize in blowouts and hair products. Earlier this year,
Drybar was acquired for about $250 million, but Allie is still involved in the brand, and personally,
she's trying to make the best of the shutdown.
I've been on this like treadmill for the last 10 years and just running, running, running from
place to place and traveling and a million things. And it's been nice to slow down. I have to say,
I've enjoyed the slowdown. I've enjoyed the like, you know, presentness that this has brought me.
Yeah, for sure. But before.
we kind of dive into some of the things you're doing. Let's talk about TriBar. I know the company was
acquired in January. So can you just kind of describe what your role is with the company right now?
Yeah. Well, you know, my role has, you know, shifted throughout the years. And I'm still
heavily involved in product. And I still sign off on every product that goes out the door. And I'm
very proud of that. They are my baby. So I feel very strongly about that. It's really interesting.
And I know you know this better than anybody. You know, being a founder and you want,
a business to be a certain way to act to thrive and to act a certain way. But, you know, I'm not
the best person for running and scaling a business. It's just not what I do best. Which I think is also
a super interesting perspective, right? Because it's hard, it's hard for some people to say that,
but it's also really important when you know that like your skill set is, you know, in another area
and that actually, for a lot of people, it's not that interesting to run a company. It's more interesting
to kind of create a vision. And I don't think I could have said that to you five years ago.
You know, because it was like, it was like I had a very tight grip on the company for so many years.
And I mean, listen, I don't think anybody can run a dry bar store better than I can.
But, you know, to grow and scale to the size that we have, that takes people who understand that world and that and how to do that.
And that wasn't like my strongest suit.
Let's just briefly talk about drybar now.
I know that some locations have reopened in like Colorado and Arizona, Georgia.
They've been open for a couple days.
What do you know about how that's going?
and what do you know about like how to make sure that like customers and the employees are safe?
Well, we've put in so many new protocols.
Now clients are sitting a seat apart.
So there's a, you know, a client, then an empty chair than a client.
The stylists are all wearing masks.
We're doing virtual check-in.
So people aren't actually sitting and waiting for their appointment inside the shop.
They're waiting in their car and then they get alerted.
You know, when their appointment is, there's a lot of health check-ins before you come in for both our stylist and clients.
you know, to the point where if, I mean, it feels crazy, but it's so important.
You know, I mean, from a business standpoint, it does not allow us to do nearly as many clients
that we've done in the past because we're only letting, you know, it's like every other chair is being
utilized.
But there's been a lot of excitement and I, you know, a lot of people are very happy to be getting
back in and, you know, it's only on a very small scale right now.
I should.
And for anyone who doesn't know Drybar, because most of your clients are women, of course,
you offer services to men too, but it's blowouts. It's not haircuts. I am obviously in dire need
of a haircut. It's been 10 weeks, but I'm nervous about it. Even when people say, okay, it's okay to go
back out, I think I'll still be nervous about sitting in a chair in such close proximity to somebody.
How does that, how does your industry kind of think innovatively about how to accommodate
customers in this really weird, crazy time? Yeah. Well, I mean, that's really what we've spent the
last two months, you know, is like getting our, you know, technology in place so we could do
like things like the virtual check in, you know, being able to test the health and like temperatures
of people walking in the door, which again, all feel so surreal. But I want to see my
stylist go back to work because it's their livelihood. And, you know, there's just really no other
way for them to make money. We're very limited. So I'm out of loss too. So here's a question
from Melissa Sarais, she's in Michigan. What have you been hearing from franchise owners about
opening back up and how they've been able to do it and how are they able to stay afloat since the
shutdowns happen? I mean, I'm assuming this has been really, because many of dry bar locations are
franchised operations or significant number of them are. So these are small business owners, right?
I mean, this has got to be particularly tough for them right now. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I mean,
And I would say, like, you know, luckily we've been able to get landlords for the most part have been very forgiving in allowing us to, you know, push rent back.
And so that's been a really big, I think, help to, you know, for us to be able to keep the doors open or to keep the not go out of business completely.
And then, you know, cutting back.
And, you know, speaking of businesses and we haven't really talked about this yet, but we've started this other concept called squeeze, which is a massage concept.
And we've had to really cut back on what we're paying people.
and furlowing people and just a way to not completely go out of business.
But we've been really fortunate.
I would say, like, the vast majority of our landlords in all over locations have really
stepped up to the plate.
And I think that's been such a huge lifesaver for the business.
There's been a little bit of a backlash, particularly in social media, with people saying,
you know, why is fashion or beauty relevant now?
You know, is it something people really should be spending their money on?
And I'm sure you've heard that.
right, that there's sort of this question. Like, why would you go and get a blowout or why would you go buy a nice piece of apparel right now when we're basically all at home or in Zoom calls? What do you say when people ask that question?
I mean, listen, that drives me kind of crazy because just because we're at home doesn't mean we don't need to feel good. I mean, there's such a massive mental capacity to all of this, you know? Frankly, that's why Drybar has been so successful. I mean, yes, we're doing great blowouts and your hands.
hair looks amazing, but it's about the way you feel when you have great hair or the way you feel
when you put on an outfit that makes you feel good or if you do a little bit of makeup. And I think
that, I think it's actually crucial to not lose our sense of self and our sense of like what makes
us feel good. And perhaps that sounds rather vain. But I feel like, you know, there is,
you can't avoid that. I mean, the way we feel on the outside so largely affects the way we feel
on the inside. So I don't prescribe to that at all that there's there's like you should just,
you know, whatever that doesn't matter that stuff now. I think it matters more than ever.
Yeah, I think that's an important point. I know, I mean, I know that when you were in the
beginning as a dry bar, you were still not entirely sure it would work, which of course it did.
What, like, what advice? And I know you get asked for advice all the time from people who are,
you know, inspired by your story. But when you're looking to validate an idea,
What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are kind of looking to figure out whether their idea will actually work?
Do you think that, you know, it should be data driven?
Is it about talking to friends?
Is it just like an intuition?
Is it a combination of those things?
I think it's a combination for sure of those things.
And, you know, we are, we have a couple other businesses in the hopper right now.
And even during this time, we've thought of another business of something that we wanted that doesn't exist.
You know, I mean, I say all the time that, and especially with dry bar and with squeeze, our massage business, like, these are things that have existed for hundreds and hundreds of years.
We just created a better experience around them and made them a successful business that way.
You know, and I tell me, I urge people all the time.
Like, there may be something that you love that is just not executed well or branded well or run well that you could probably take that same idea and make it your own.
Yeah.
And right now is, is one of those moments because of the pause where.
And I've said this on the show before, which is, I think in five years' time, I'm going to be doing tons of interviews of people who came up with their ideas during this period.
Oh, 100%.
Obviously, this is a difficult moment for a lot of people.
And certainly we're in the middle of a health and economic crisis.
But it's also could be a time to just step back and think, right?
You've got two business ideas that are stealth that you can't talk about that you're working on.
But then you've got this other idea, squeeze, which is kind of like dry bar, but for massages.
And so how do you, how do your ideas come to you?
Well, Squeeze came to us because, you know, largely because my brother, Michael Landau,
who is my business partner in Drybar.
You know, we both have gotten massages all of our lives.
And we've always been really frustrated with the experience around getting a massage.
And the beauty of squeeze is that it's all, even though it's a brick and mortar, it's all app based.
So you book on the app, you pay on the app, you tip on the app, and you put all your preferences in an app before you even walk.
in the door. So you walk in and you say, hi, I'm guy, I'm here for my massage. And your therapist
already knows all the things you want, whether like the temperature of the room, if you want
the bed heated or not, if you want water lotion and on and on. So it's a very highly like
specialized massage experience, which really frankly didn't exist. And so again, back to my earlier
point, massages existed, you know, forever. But we have created a better experience around
him. And there's a million other things that I'm not even mentioning that make squeeze so special
and unique. Yeah. If you if you were to look back on this time in five years, right, and say,
this is what I got out of that period. I know you mentioned just the pause, you know, being,
just slowing down. What is it that you want to take away from this time that you want to kind
to build into your future life that you want to inform the way you think about how you run businesses,
how you live your life, everything? Well, I think there's, there's a new level of thoughtfulness
that I feel anyways, you know, that there's been something powerful to me in the kind of community
and camaraderie and people coming together
in a way that we've just really never seen
things I've never seen in my lifetime.
So I hope and pray that that is what comes out of this
for a lot of people, that there is this sense
of we're all in this together.
There's this commonality that didn't exist before this
that I hope continues to grow.
Allie Webb, co-founder of Drybar,
thanks for joining us.
And I can't wait to hear about all these cool new ideas that you have.
Thank you.
It was so fun to be here.
Always great talking to you.
That's an excerpt from my conversation with Ali Webb, co-founder of Drybar.
To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com slash How I Built This or to NPR's YouTube page.
When we come back in just a moment, we're going to hear from Andy Puddycombe and Rich Pearson, co-founders of the meditation app, Headspace.
They've got some very welcome advice about how to let go a little during the crisis.
Stay with us.
I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Resilience Edition.
You know, years before we ever heard of the coronavirus, Andy Puddycombe and Rich Pearson had tapped into something really important, which is we humans, we are prone to get anxious.
So they founded the Headspace app to help people meditate wherever they might be.
And the story of how they built that app is incredible.
We featured it on the podcast in September of 2019, so you may want to give it a listen if you haven't already done so.
Anyway, when we sat down to talk with Rich and Andy the other day, I really just wanted their advice on how to find peace and calm and quiet during this incredibly turbulent time.
What is it about meditation?
Like, a lot of people think it's weird, right, to sit down and to close your eyes and to focus in your breath.
But, like, can you explain what it is that it actually does for you and how it reduces anxiety?
It's only weird compared to the rest of our life, which is a life or.
distraction and over stimulation. So it's natural, I think, when we first sit down and try
meditation, it feels weird. It feels strange not to be doing something and simply to just be being,
you know. But once we kind of get past that, then for most people, we tend to feel the great
sense of calm and the mind, I think if we can create a bit more space where we're seeing
things either internally in our mind or externally in the news, and rather than reacting straight
way that we have that space where we're able to kind of go, huh, do we want to engage with that
or do we want to let it go? And I feel like actually having that extra sense of space in our,
in our mind, in our life is a really fundamental skill. Has it helped you, Rich? I mean, because
obviously Andy trained as a monk and you met him when you were going through kind of a crisis
in your life more than a decade ago, about a decade ago. And you are obviously a practitioner as well.
how has it helped you just get through this moment?
Has it kind of prepared you and allowed you to kind of cope with it
in a way that you might not have 10 years ago?
Yeah, for me personally, I think without a doubt,
and I think when I see other folks going through the same experience,
I see that they're really struggling with the resting in uncertainty
and not kind of knowing, and I struggle with that myself.
It's not like I've got a lot of work to go there,
but I think it's really helped me not try and plan too much for the future and not worry about what I think might happen.
And I think that's where for me personally, that's my own personal struggle that I'm always trying, you know, the last 10 years to be trying to work through.
And I feel that if I can just bring it back to what I'm doing right now, you know, the future is going to kind of take care of itself in a way.
Yeah, I don't know how I would have got through this.
I don't know how it would have got through the last 10 years, to be honest, but I think particularly in this moment, I've,
found it incredibly useful.
I mean, both of you, obviously, practitioners of meditation, but you're also running a business.
Andy, first to you, have you seen, been seeing a spike in people signing up for Headspace?
Yeah, we've seen a massive, a massive spike, especially in some of the early data right
at the beginning of the pandemic.
I think that some of the media starts across anxiety and stress content were up sort of a thousand
percent, being banned from businesses, from organizations was up over 400 percent.
So I think inevitably, in times of crisis, we turn to, you know, things that we think might
kind of help us.
And I think Rich brought up a really interesting point just now.
And with meditation, I think sometimes we look at it and, you know, we might kind of think
it's going to fix everything.
You know, it's not going to change everything around us, but it will change our relationship
with those things. So whether we're in work or whether we've recently kind of lost our job,
whether we are in good health, whether we kind of experiencing poor health. It doesn't change
those things, but it does change our relationship with them. And it does allow us to kind of live
peacefully through the ups and downs of this kind of crisis. Yeah. Rich, I mean, just from a business
perspective, I mean, you guys have a team. You know, you're constantly making new, new stuff. So how is that
happening. How are people, for example, recording things? Everyone, I think, felt an even
great sense of purpose. And I think everyone really felt like, wow, the thing that we're putting
out there, people need more than they've ever needed it. And it's just being amazing to see the team
kind of rally. And they've all got their own personal situations at home that they're dealing
with, like all of us. And some of them are extreme. And some of them are kind of, you know,
they're doing well. And you've got people on their own, you've got people with sick family,
you've got people that lost jobs.
Like the ecosystem around our team
is really varied,
the experience that they're having.
In terms of like the practical,
like the team actually,
within about 24 hours,
the company was working online
really quickly.
In terms of recording,
you know,
Andy's actually in his recording studio at the moment.
And in our team,
like our video team,
they've actually just get really creative.
Like we put out a daily video product
every single day.
And so they had to completely restructure
the way,
that they produce that content
and they've done it and they've kept up with it.
And the same with the audio.
They just, I think it's, I can't speak for anyone else,
but I think internally our team have almost become more creative.
Yeah.
I want to get to some questions.
This is from Melissa Chaffin.
Andy, she asks, you know, even without the coronavirus,
she's not, I've not been able to clear my mind enough
to get benefits from meditation.
Do you have any suggestions for people like Melissa?
on how they can break through that.
I get that, Melissa, I get like, I'm going through my to-do list and, you know, it's hard.
I get it too.
I used to have that a lot too.
And then one day a teacher said to me, you do know it's not about stopping thoughts, right?
You do know it's not about clearing your mind.
And I was quite surprised by this because I always thought that that's what meditation was about.
And I realized that I was really focusing my whole practice on trying to stop thought.
and trying to achieve a state of mind that I thought was what they were talking about,
when people thought about meditation.
And he kind of reframed it for me and he said, look, just because you're sitting down
doing something called meditation, your mind will still think.
The trick is more about, kind of, how do you learn to step back from the thoughts?
And the truth is to begin with, when we step back from the doors, first we see just a locked
thoughts, and that is a surprise and a shock in itself, often an unwellcome one.
Then we see that to begin with, we're quite distracted, that we get caught up in planning for the future,
reminiscing about the past. That happens a lot to begin with. And then as we continue
kind of training, the distraction over time becomes less. And so I would say, Melissa, it's more
about being okay with the fact that thought to rise. It's about being okay with the fact that you get
distracted. Over time, that distraction does become less. And we tend to experience a quieter mind
and a common mind. Essentially, your mind might be cluttered and that's fine. That's that's totally
okay. Yeah. You can actually have peace of mind with a very busy mind. Andy, you, I mean,
anyone watching who hasn't heard this episode of the podcast, please go back and listen to it.
I remember you describing moments of extreme isolation when you were at that monastery, I think
in Burma, and you actually escaped from, I think you escaped from that place. And then when you
guys moved to the U.S. to launch this company, you were diagnosed with cancer and you overcame that.
And now here we are in a new crisis and everyone is in this crisis.
Like, I mean, of course, some people are suffering more, people who are ill, people who have lost their jobs, people who are alone and feeling really isolated.
How did all those things in a sense maybe prepare you for this or maybe you couldn't prepare for this moment?
But I wonder whether you kind of felt prepared in a way.
Yeah, I mean, my friends have joked that I'm skilled in very,
new things in life. The one thing I am okay at is being quite in an isolated place. So in some
ways, I am quite well prepared for it. I think when we take ourselves away from the busyness of
life, whatever the environment, whether it's a monastic one in the Himalayas or whether it's kind of
where we are now, we tend to amplify our thoughts and emotions. So everything sort of feels so
much bigger and so much more intense. And the temptation is to kind of get spooked by that rather
and realising, actually, we're just seeing the mind a little more closely.
It's not that the mind has necessarily changed.
It's just that we're seeing those thoughts and emotions a bit more clearly.
In terms of the cancer thing, I think what that taught me was that the truth is in life generally,
we never know what the next day kind of holds for us.
And when you're on that journey of cancer, it's so easy to either jump into the future
and kind of just take a few words that the doctor said and kind of make something out of that
and disappear into sort of future scenarios that having yet happened, that may never happen,
or to go back to a time when we weren't ill and to kind of wish it were different.
And I think that really kind of helped just being able to be present with what's happening now.
And sometimes what's happening now is we don't know.
And humans, we search for certainty, we search for security.
That's kind of where we feel comfortable.
And when those things are taken away, we kind of feel a bit.
bit more vulnerable. So yes, all of those things have helped in kind of being more comfortable
in an uncertain world and feeling a little more vulnerable. This is a question from Jennifer Webb.
She says, while all of the meditation topics are helpful, and I think she's referring to the topics
on the app, she just lost her job. Sorry to hear that, Jennifer. She loved it. She was a huge
part of a family. It was a big part of her identity. She asks, is I try to gear myself up for a job
hunt in a new field in these times. What topics should I start with? Any suggestions for Jennifer?
And likewise, Jennifer. Really sorry to hear that. So we're actually just dropping in some,
there's this short form kind of content that's specific for people who have lost a job and or who are
parents go out and look for work again. If you're feeling especially kind of anxious about the
implications of losing your job, then obviously there's a course on anxiety. There's one on change,
which I think is really, really kind of helpful.
And then the third one is self-esteem.
I think for most of us, our sense of purpose in life
is often so tied up with what we do in terms of our working life.
When that's taken away, we can very often kind of lose confidence.
I know that you are now offering free subscriptions to people who have lost their jobs.
How does that work?
Yeah.
So if you go to headspace.com forward slash unemployed and you put in some details about, you know, when you lost your job, when your last place of employment, we'd give you free access for a year to the Headspace app for people in the US.
And it's free for healthcare workers in the US, UK, and France and free for educators in the US, UK, Australia and Canada.
So, yeah, there's a bunch of different ways depending on where you are in your particular journeys and individuals.
you can get free access to hit space.
Very cool.
This is a question from Paula Palmer, Raymond,
and I totally identify with this question, Paula.
She asks, does meditation help with frustration and feelings of,
you know, whatever's going on is out of my control?
Yeah, we deceive ourselves thinking that we control a lot of life.
We control very good of life.
I would say that actually you could arguably define the journey of meditation as just that,
letting go of control.
It's letting go of everything again and again and again.
There is a kind of an act of surrender in it.
And a lot of people, you can look at that in a negative kind of way.
So I don't want to surrender.
I want to fight.
Well, that's fine.
But fighting doesn't get us anywhere.
You know, it's not, there is a way of moving through life where we are both choosing
the direction and moving intentionally in that direction, whilst at the same time
being open to what is unfolding around us in life.
And when we find that balance, then I think we find a kind of a flow in life where we feel like we're moving in the right direction.
We're not sort of fighting against ourselves or those around us.
One more question from our audience.
This is a question from Colleen Wilson, Arturi, and also Nate Donovan.
They talk about, or they're asking about how do you stick with and be consistent with a meditation practice?
Are there any tricks or ways to keep doing it day after day?
Yeah, it's probably one of the most common kind of questions.
And one of the most challenging things, I think, to keep up a regular practice.
I think one is being really clear about what your motivation is.
If your motivation is to quickly solve a problem in your life,
then once that problem is solved or sort of resolves itself in some way,
you're unlikely to continue.
So kind of set up more of a kind of a, I'm going to do this for a long period of time.
Second one is tied to something that you already do.
So most people just either forget about it or something.
something else takes priority. So tie it to something like if you have a shower every morning,
tie it to that. So it's shower and meditation or it's coffee and meditation. What's that one thing
that you do every single day, even at a weekend, even when you're on holiday? Once that's kind
of there, then you're more likely to sort of remember doing it. And then the other one,
it's a really interesting one. We live in like an all on nothing kind of world, I feel. I think very
often we kind of think unless we're doing it every day, then we're not doing it right. And if we miss
one day, well, then what's the point?
You might as well just give up all together.
That's not how it is.
I would say, but think about this as, you know,
in the same way as we maybe kind of exercise, you know,
if we hit three, four times a week,
that's a really good thing.
That doesn't mean you've done anything wrong.
If you go a few weeks and you realize,
oh, I haven't been meditating.
Great.
Start meditating again.
It's really important kind of not to give ourselves too hard a time,
not to be too judgmental,
and realize that to establish a regular routine,
takes a little bit of time practice.
Before I let you guys go, in five years' time, when we look back,
if hopefully this has been cured and there's a vaccine and we're back to living a
version of normalcy, what do you want to learn from this moment?
I mean, that applies to you personally and professionally and the two of you as leaders
and your company.
What do you want to take away from this to say, that's what I learned during this time.
First to you, Rich.
I hope that we can look back at this situation as a kind of start point for looking at mental health as important as physical health.
We've always thought that mental health kind of, they're inextricably linked, but I think the situation has accelerated that conversation way, way quicker than it would have otherwise.
And so I think the thing that I would hope is that this is in schools, this is in businesses, this, you know, we are taking the conversation of mental health as one of the most important.
conversations that we can be having as a global society.
And I think that would be an incredible thing if that could come out.
Andy?
Yeah, I mean, obviously sharing that.
But also, kind of how we prioritize what's important to us in life.
I've heard so many friends and people around me kind of saying,
this has really made me, you know, it's an enforced stepping back,
but in stepping back, it's really made me think about what's important to me in my life.
How am I going to simplify in my life so that I'm able to do those things that are important?
me and I can spend more time with the people who are more important sort to me.
So my hope is just generally we will come out with this with a great sense of clarity personally,
as Rich said, also kind of as communities as well as to what is most important in our lives,
our health and our happiness.
Could you just, I mean, I have you here and usually you're in my earbuds.
Could you lead us for a short meditation?
I'd be happy to.
I'd be happy to you.
Maybe just do a couple of minutes.
Is that what?
Yeah, like a minute or so or two minutes?
Yeah, sure.
We can do a really, really fast meditation.
Okay.
Okay, so for anyone tuning in, not familiar with meditation,
don't worry if you haven't done this before.
I'll lead you through the exercise.
And you can do this sitting up or lying down,
whichever you prefer.
So I always recommend just starting with the eyes open.
Just a really soft kind of focus,
wear the space in front of you.
I'm just taking a big, deep breath,
breathing in through the nose.
And as you breathe out through the mouth,
just gently closing the eyes and just allowing the body to sink down
into the seat or the floor beneath you.
I'm just taking a moment just to enjoy,
not doing anything,
and having anywhere to go.
And as you sit there,
just becoming a little more aware of the body.
So use this as an opportunity just to check in with it.
to notice if the body's feeling restless or still whether it feels heavy or light.
And as you become more aware of those physical sensations, just starting to notice the breath.
But we're just going to stay with the breath just for a few seconds.
Sometimes you might feel it in your chest, sometimes in the stomach.
You can't feel anything, just gently placing your hand in your stomach.
you can feel that rising and falling sensation.
So as you rest your attention in the breath, lots of thoughts are going to come up in the mind, allow the thoughts to come,
allow the thoughts to go each time just gently bringing the attention back again.
Just knowing this is a place you can come back to at any time during the day today.
For now though, just gently bring the attention back to that contact between the seat and the floor,
overflow beneath you
and whenever you're like that.
I can't actually want that to keep going.
Yeah.
You do that go home.
It's fine.
It's so great.
Even that just two minutes is so great.
Rich, Andy, so great to see you guys.
Hope we get to see each other in person.
Thank you for joining us.
Just so appreciate you guys so much.
Thanks, Guy.
That's an excellent.
for my conversation with Andy Puddycombe and Rich Pearson, the founders of Headspace.
To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com slash how I built this, and if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at YouTube.com slash NPR.
If you want to find out more about the How I Built This Resilience series or other virtual NPR events or even get RSVP reminders, you can go to NPRPresents.org.
And of course, check your feed every Monday for a brand new, full-length episode of How I Built This.
This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with help from John Isabella, Julia Carney, Candice Lim, Gianna Capadona, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe and I'll see you right here on Monday. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.
