The Daily Stoic - Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams On Running a Business in Moments of Crisis

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Ryan speaks with Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, about finding a diet that works for you, the trials of running a growing business during the coronavirus pandemic, and, of course, how the Stoics would have felt about ice cream.Jeni Britton Bauer is the founder and chief creative officer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. Bauer dropped out of college to start selling ice cream after mixing her first special flavor, a blend of chocolate and cayenne pepper. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams are available in stores nationwide as well as at Scoop Shops in 12 states and the District of Columbia.This episode is brought to you by Amazon Alexa. Amazon Alexa is the perfect system to use to set up your house with Smart Home functionality—and with the new Amazon Smart Lighting Bundle, it’s easy to get started. Just connect your Amazon Echo Dot with your first Sengled color changing light bulb and you’re on your way. Visit Amazon.com/dailystoic to get 20% off the bundle.This episode is also brought to you by Warby Parker, the online vision care boutique that delivers glasses right to your front door. Warby Parker has an amazing selection of the most stylish frames for your glasses. And with their free Home Try-On program, you can try out five of your favorite frames for five days before you make a purchase, with no obligation. Whether you’re looking for stylish sunglasses or blue-blocker glasses for your computer, Warby Parker is the place to shop for your next pair of glasses. Try five pairs of glasses for free by visiting warbyparker.com/stoic.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Jeni Britton Bauer:Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenisplendidInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenibrittonbauerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. of necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward.

Listen to Business Wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ron Howell and I welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. It's crazy to think that, I guess it would have been in early March, I was scheduled to have today's guest come in to the Daily Stoke offices. We were going to record and then she had invited me to an event she was having an Austin, which I was very excited about, because they were opening a new Jenny's ice cream in Austin. And I do love ice cream. And I think the Stokes would have liked the two.

Seneca certainly would have been a nice cream fan. Even Marx really sort of deprived himself. A pictetus probably. But what I love about today's guest, Jenny Britain Power, is that she's dedicated crafts woman, craftsman, about what she does, even though what she does is make ice cream. And in fact, she's been doing it for more than 20 years now.

And Jenny's splendid ice creams is one of the best ice cream companies. I think in the world, their stuff is delicious. We absolutely love it in my family. But I always love talking to people who are passionate about what they do, not passionate, because it can make them lots of money or passionate because it's popular, but passionate because they love the craft

of it, they love the essence of it, they love just every element of the thing. And then that commitment is manifest or obvious in the final product. And I think Jenny's ice cream is a great example that it's not just a great product, but it's really successful business with stores all over the states. But it's not just a happy story. I mean, anyone who's been running a business in the midst of this pandemic knows, you had anything that involved customers coming into stores, you just got hit by a truck.

What I wanted to talk originally, I was going to just to us, you just got hit by a truck. And so what I wanted to talk, originally I was gonna talk to Jenny, it was gonna be a much more fun conversation. But in fact, I think this version ended up being a much more stoic conversation because we had to look at the adversity that she's been forced to overcome over the last several months, the opportunities that that's presented the business,

how she's actually managed to improve and expand elements of the business because of it, remember that's presented the business, how she's actually managed to improve and expand elements of the business because of it, remember that's the idea, the obstacle is the way. And I think it's just a great conversation, which I'm really looking forward to you sharing. And if you've never tried Jenny's ice cream, I partly recommend it.

And anyways, support local businesses when you can, especially places like Jenny's ice cream, and most importantly, whatever business you support, whether you're getting a pizza at Domino's or something, what you definitely have to support and be conscientious of and empathetic for are the people that are having to show up every day and sort of take risks for not very great amount of money. And so that's one of the things I talked to Jenny about. How do you keep your faith in humanity when you are experiencing a certain amount of callousness or indifference on behalf of what we know as a society called

carons, the people that come in and treat waiters and retail employees and other human beings like crap because they're to sort of selfish or self-absorbed or dealing with stuff in their own life. And she has a very bubbly person as you can tell. And I think she's got a lot to teach as far as sort of maintaining your faith in humanity in the midst of what is,

it clearly a great test of humanity. And so here's my interview with Jenny Britton-Bound, founder of Jenny's Ice Cream, and fellow traveler student of the Stoics. Telling my wife that I was interviewing you today, and she said to ask if you would send us dairy free gluten free ice cream because it's her favorite.

Just that's the flavor she loves. Any flavor she'll show you, any kind of ice cream that checks their two boxes. Oh, that's great. Well, we have quite a few actually. That's great. And actually, those are the dairy free ones are the ones that are finding that I'm turning to

even more lately for some reason. There's just this beautiful texture that's happening with the coconut cream that I love. Yeah, so I feel like it's not as heavy to, like I feel better after, like I can do dairy, my wife, like ever since she had kids can't do dairy, but I can, but I just feel better,

like same, my wife's like allergic to gluten, I'm not, but like I just feel less crappy when I don't have those things. Yeah, that's funny. I'm just such a dairy person, but like, so my point of view is, wow, I'm such a dairy person and I even love these flavors. And I love, I even choose them, so I don't know if because the flavor and the texture is so good.

So that's, I mean, I just think they're, yeah, they're good all around and that's awesome. Is it weird to you to think that like people have been eating ice cream for like 2,000 years? Or like obviously that's like the extreme end of dating it, but like at the very least, George Washington liked ice cream. Like how weird is that? It is weird, it's interesting because ice cream has been along this, you know, American,

I mean since the revolution and before, sort of journey and what we think of as, you know, America or whatever and it's it is it's so cool to go back and look at, you know, eras where ice cream almost just well, absolutely reflects the culture of what was going on at the time. You know, in the beginning it was very much an elite sort of thing because how who could have that technology to keep something frozen for electricity. And so it was this marvel, you know, but then all throughout history, it's just been right alongside so many different, different moments. And 20th century is a really good century to look at with ice cream because literally every 10 years, it was a different big moment, ice cream that really was sort of definitive of the

culture that was happening in America. History is this weird thing when you dig into it because obviously so much of it seems distant like if you were like what George Washington owned slaves but that was a really long time ago and then you're like also George Washington bought an ice cream making machine you're like maybe it wasn't that long ago. It wasn't that long ago. Yes, I know, it's true. And yeah, you can really, and then when you start really looking at history in the thousands of years, then you do realize

that wow, slavery really wasn't that long ago. And so of course, you're still dealing with the after effects of that. And that makes sense, and we should face it, because it's here, you know? Sure. But those, I mean, that perspective is really, is really important. That's why history is so important because, yeah, I mean, it wasn't that long ago, even though, if that's all you see, then yes, it feels like it was a long time.

Especially if you start comparing outfits. I mean, Jesus. Well, it's, it's like people are people, right? And so obviously there were different, there were some things that were very different technologically, but like, like cold frozen stuff feels good at your mouth. And then when you add sugar on top of it, it tastes incredible. Like it shouldn't surprise us that when people had access to some of this stuff that actually it activated all of the same sort of things that it's activating in you.

And to me, that's a weirdly stoic idea that like, hey, this spoonful of ice cream that I'm having from Genies is not altogether that different from something that like a Chinese king was having 2,000 years ago and that were really kind of still on the same wavelength in a good way, like that we're still on the same, like, tapping into the same energy as human beings as all people who have ever lived have. So that's such a great way to put it, but I also think of a lot about,

and in my role in my company, I think a lot about, well, you know, like there's deja vu, which is experiencing something that you've never experienced before, but like as if it's familiar. But then there's this other idea, I don't know where I heard it, but somebody said it a long time ago, and I was like, that's so cool. But like a vujade, the reverse where you can see something that you've seen that's super familiar in your life that you've seen, you know, daily, you know, or a song or, you

know, something like ice cream, but see it with new eyes. And when you look at the history of ice cream, it is really fun to go back and think, well, what if I hadn't really experienced cold, frozen, you know, shuddered cream in my body before? Because you know, your body is hot. Right.

So your foot was frozen, yummy, luscious lump in your mouth. I mean, it's like very sensual and you think, well, God, that would have been incredible. And then, you know, kind of moving, like almost like time traveling with your emotional self, then you can start to see it now with those eyes as well. Because a lot of things that happened in the 20th century with Ice Cream 2 is that it just got, it just exploded and then it was kind of everywhere and then it was cheapened and then it was cheapened in culture, in our culture even. And sort of not really looked at as like a really beautiful

moment and so that's what we're trying to do and that's where I'm trying to do. But it's, you know, it's interesting how history really does inform and can really inform joy in a way to implement and understanding and perspective to experience joy and pleasure. I struggle with that with the Stokes because obviously they seem very serious. You might say joyless or depressive or whatever. I'd like to think that if Ice Cream had been

around in the Roman Empire, the Stokes would have consumed it within moderation and enjoyed it, but it would have been ordinary enough that they wouldn't maybe have written about it, but I do think there is this idea that like, oh, because of Stoic is moderate, because of Stoics and self-control, they sort of deprive themselves of all pleasures, but what we know about Seneca, for instance, like Seneca, it's reported Seneca owned 500 ivory wood tables for entertaining. So like you try to imagine how big your party is to need 500 tables. I've got to imagine if he could have been serving ice cream at these parties, he probably would have been.

Yeah. Well, and the thing about pleasure, I don't know how this relates to 500 tables, that seems like very much excess, but great. Yes, that's the best. That's the best. But the thing about pleasure is that it only lasts if there's a little bit of it, right? You can't, like, you know, so things like ice cream, and I'm a very good ice cream eater. I eat ice cream every single day pretty much. I mean, I almost never go a day without eating ice cream and really for pleasure, not just in

in the kitchen. But for me, it retains that place of pleasure in my life because I balance it, I'm very good at balancing it in my life. I mean, I don't drink calories, for instance, ever because maybe on Sundays, I'll have cream in my coffee, but like because it's a balance for me or I make sure that I'm not eating a lot of animal products because you know that's a balance for me or for you know just sugar in general. But I think that that then holds it in that place of where I can I can slow down and just pause and eat it and enjoy it and not feel burdened by oh this is terrible for me the sugar is going you know, I know what's happening in my body and what I've done,

and how I've set this moment up. And I also forgive myself when I go wrong, but like, it really, like I do think that there's a balance, and I think that's probably where maybe the stoics, and just I think when you're alive on earth, you sort of find that like, you know, if you just, if you just search for pleasure all the time, you end up not really finding it

because you overdo it, and then you become sick or at a disease or whatever. And so protecting pleasure, I think, is, and that's a little bit more epicurean, I guess, but in terms of, I guess how I think, because I do think from a point of view of pleasure a lot, you know, I think like if it feels good, it probably is good, and then you should do it and then learn from it. Well, we get, we get epicureanism almost as wrong as we get stoicism as far as the sort of stereotype, which is, you know, the stoic has no pleasure and the epicurion is about unlimited pleasure. And really like, Epicurus was about pleasure for which pleasure in the amount for which

there's no hangover. So it's like, I like ice cream, but when I eat so much ice cream, I feel sick afterwards. It's not pleasure, right? Even if it was pleasurable while it was happening. And so I think we have to understand that pleasure has its place, and to have none of it

is to live a joyless, crappy life, but to indulge in every one of them becomes its own misery. And I think unfortunately, when you look at like the obesity statistics in this country, that's where a lot of people are. Like they're not enjoying the ice cream. They can't not have the ice cream. Right.

And when we think about, okay, okay, I have to have the discipline to not do something. Let's just say ice cream, then it becomes like, then you start to get into well, but if there's an ice cream that's made without sugar or without fat, then I can eat as much as I want. Or, do you know what I mean? And so I actually think that this idea,

for me, it's about understanding what you naturally want and what you're driven to experience, but then, and then reflecting on that. And so it's okay if I'm naturally craving sugar today, which is maybe the worst thing in our natural food system that you can eat or whatever, but I won't feel good if I'm doing this forever all the time, but it is a certain satisfaction of doing it, allowing your body to do it versus like this idea of like, well,

if I'm just disciplined enough, then I will be perfect. Because I actually think that a lot of us get really upside down when we start over trying to follow rules of whatever it is. I mean, what, for instance, like for me, I woke up every year for most of my life and everybody said breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And I'm like, all right, I'll eat breakfast. I should eat breakfast. And when I realized that, you know, I'm not actually ever hungry in the morning.

And I just followed my body. I realized that I can fast really from six or seven in the I until afternoon, easily by just drinking coffee in the morning. And I actually feel really good and my brain works really, really well. If I just don't, if I follow what my body wants, you know? And my body doesn't generally want an excess of things, you know, and so sometimes it's ruining out the rules and the, and what everybody else is saying

and what, you know, might be whatever and just listening to your body and you're and being connected with that. I'm glad you said that about Fasting because that's sort of the journey that I've been on the last seven or eight months. And what I found is, one, yeah, I was sort of forcing breakfast that was not only like, I didn't,

I wasn't super hungry, but was forcing like, in interruption in the day in a weird way. So instead of being able to start the day and do what I want to do, I was like, front loading with this like meal time. But I found that I just think about food less. So I'm actually able to be more free with the food that I eat because it's just, yeah, I'm not thinking about it.

I'm not planning food. It's just, it's creating a much more sort of natural rhythm, which weirdly is a stoic idea. The idea of sort of living in accordance with nature, not trying to like sort of create this hierarchy of rules, this box that you're in, but kind of going with, not going with the flow, but having a smooth flow of life, which is Zeno's phrase,

to me is a much happier place to be than a person who's counting every calorie or something. Yeah, I think so. Absolutely. And we don't hear that very often, because in America, everybody wants to know the answer and believe that they're right or believe that they somehow learn the right way and that maybe other people are wrong or something like that but listening to your body. I mean I completely agree that I I just don't see food the same way once I

started just listening to what my body wanted. It took me a long time to figure out when I was hungry and what I needed and whatever and I just have a completely different relationship with food and I didn't do anything. I didn't diet or try or you know all I did was just like, if I'm not hungry, I'm not going to eat. And that's it. And anyway, it just really changed the way that I looked at that. And actually started to change the way I'm looking

at a lot of things because of that. And maybe it's similar to boundaries, right? It's like, I don't deliberately not watch TV during the middle of the day, but my boundary is like, we just, the TV is never on until like after everything for the day is done, and maybe you're watching a little bit of TV before bed, right? But if TV is just this sort of force that's like always there,

you're gonna do it much more than is probably a healthy amount, right? And I think what intermittent fasting is done for me is go like, look, the window for which food is on the table, like literally and figuratively, is, you know, from like, you know, 10, 11-ish to like, five, six-ish. And then food is not, is, is at a minimum, not even possible all those other times. It's just limp, it's just shrunk it down, it's a role that it plays in my life,

it shrunk it down much to a much more manageable level. So if in that time I wanna have ice cream or chocolate or whatever, I'm able to just be like, yeah, this feels good as long as I don't like, you know, eat seven bars of chocolate, like I'm probably not gonna do anything that I'm gonna regret. Yes, and when you, there are a lot of studies about sugar that just say like, if you're, you know,

the thing about sugar is that when you eat something that actually is sweet and it has sugar in it, then your body knows what you've just done and it will self-regulate in many ways. Definitely, it can be addictive and you can eat too much and you can get into that pattern without question. But like, you know, if I'm eating like an ice cream or a piece of candy, I know that's what that is and I can sort of say, well, obviously, can't eat this every meal.

That doesn't make sense to me. I cannot eat cake every meal. Just the same way you weren't going to watch TV all day long just because there's the TV there. But when sugar is put in a lot of our other products, so when you find sugar in bread and you don't know really that it's there, or you find, or added sugar, or in tomato sauce, or other things that are processed in the middle of the grocery store, and you're not aware of those, and you end up eating more sugar than you need, and then your body starts to crave it and need it,

and it's become in this totally different place of what is sugar in our food system versus like, well, you know, if you're going to eat honey in your tea, like you know what that is. And you can say, I'm adding sugar to something that I'm eating and I understand that and I have a relationship with that. And I can, you know, make sense of it and make it work in my life versus, you know, just eating things that we don't know where it's kind of from and or when it's like sugar substitutes, but just giving your body those craving of real sugar so you can get actual energy from it.

And so anyway, there's, yeah, it's just knowing what you're, I mean, part of I think, to joy of life or something is knowing what you're experiencing and being able to decide what you want in and what you don't. Do you remember what your introduction to stoicism was? I know we connected over Instagram, right? But I'm just curious sort of what that journey was like for you. Well, I, gosh, I don't know.

I mean, it was probably through you. I read the swerve, Stephen Greenblast, the swerve. Oh, it's such a good book. So good. I've read it a couple times. I love it so much. It's just such an escape for me. I love that it's just all over time,

whether it's in Pompeii or ancient Greece or in modern day when they're trying to get the scrolls unrolled and figure out what they're saying. They have to create a technology in order to do that. And I don't know. I honestly don't. I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm an,

in any way an expert, I'm a tourist of all of it. I think it's so interesting. And I'm also, I also really love Epicurianism. And just, I just like, you know, that I've spent my life, you know, in Ohio, just doing. And now I'm kind of in a time of like reflecting on the things that I've learned. And I'm finding that a lot of this stuff kind of lines up

with the things that I've learned in my life, you know, from just doing and reflecting here. And so I think it's wonderful, but it's just been within the last few years. I think Stephen Greenblatt's like an incredible author. He has a book called Will in the World that's sort of a biography of Shakespeare that's like just incredible. Even if you've, if you don't like Shakespeare, you never read a Shakespeare play, it will get you to understand it. And then more recently, he did this book called Tyrant, which is, I think, if you're trying to understand

what's happening politically, not just in America, but in the world. He basically looks at four or five different sort of tyrannical characters in Shakespeare, and the lessons they teach us, so he looks at Coriolatus and he looks at King Lear, and he looks at Julius Caesar, and it's totally fascinating.

His point was there's only one time did Shakespeare ever deliberately mention any like political incidents of his time? And it was a massively controversial thing when he did. And I think someone ends up getting executed or there's like some serious consequences for doing so. And so every Shakespeare didn't cease to be political. It's just that every political statement that Shakespeare makes afterwards, he hides in character study from the

ancients. And so you realize, oh, actually all these plays are deeply political. They're statements about human nature and what's happening in Elizabethan England, but he's talking about it through Julius Caesar or Coriolanus or Orkinglear. It's an incredible book which I cannot recommend the more. Oh I'm gonna get it. I really enjoy his writing and I know that I'll love it. I've heard about the book but I haven't had a chance to read it. I think he wrote that before this was or he's like a Shakespeare scholar. Yes that's exactly. Yeah, that's great. And then tyranny or tyrant.

Tyrant, I think it's called tyrant. Yeah. So I'm curious for you because we were going to connect in Austin and what, like, is it late February, early March? I forget what it was. Right. And obviously, the world is turning upside down.

Yeah, you were about to open your store in Austin. I can, obviously, we've talked on the podcast a lot with people about sort of the health implications of COVID-19 and how devastating that's been, but I think maybe less explored is the economic consequences of it. How has that been for you? I imagine running been for you. I imagine running retail shops, this pandemic that mostly requires that people stand side has been, and you're in the midst of an expansion of it. I imagine that's been an incredible series of obstacles over the last six, seven months. Well, absolutely. And in the beginning, of course, we had no idea what was going to happen. I mean, we, you know, in that first six weeks, it, you know, nobody was sure. And so we were just shut down and it's scary, you know, you think you're going to lose

your entire team that everybody's going to lose their job. I mean, it's just like terrifying. The ground kept, you know, it's like, we couldn't get our footing. Every time you'd sort of think that you could make a plan because our leaders have said, okay, here's what we're dealing with, then something else would happen. And so that was really, really tough. But once that started to solidify a little bit,

we were able to really come together and make a plan even with the uncertainty. And most of that involved pivoting to delivery in our stores, which we were set up to do. And we luckily just absolutely at that moment we had shifted from doing, or using the apps, door dashes, and Uber Eats and things like that to actually doing order from our website, but then conjuring out with them. And that really helped save money for us. So I mean, a lot. Those apps are very expensive. But um, They take big like referral fees, right?

Yeah, it might be like 30%. It's a lot. And so we were able to, we were already set up to do that. And we could pull this, you know, just, just switch that at that moment, which helped a lot.

And then it was rearranging our menus to support delivery. So we could do that fairly quickly. But what we would notice, and so sores are definitely down and we're within that sort of hospitality range of anywhere from 20% to 80% we're like in that, and that, you know, I think we've, yeah, we're at like 30% down in our stores now, but

we were able to then Just just go full on with our website and with Grocery, so we are lucky in that way that we have three channels that we could then push her. And then ice cream has been so everybody's eating ice cream right now. It's like, this is what happens when we get into a crisis as a nation, we all eat comfort food. And so ice cream sales are really up. So I wouldn't say that we're, I mean, we're still going to end up losing money this year. That's just like the nature of what's going on right now.

Sure. But we're better off than others. And I feel so strongly for some, just all of my friends who are struggling so deeply in business, and I've been doing a lot of work in small business policy lately and learning about that avenue and just learning about that world and how the federal government and local governments can support small business. And because we're going to need to, because I mean, just this week, one of my absolute favorite ice cream shops in New York City called Ice Invice, I love them so much., just, you know, this week, one of my absolute favorite ice cream shops in New York City called ice and vice. I love them so much. Great guys.

Really creative. Awesome ice cream. It's closing because of COVID. And I'm seeing this all over the country, not just an ice cream, of course, but everywhere. It's sort of sad, but hopefully, hopefully we'll get through. You know, winter is coming. So it's like, it's, you know, who knows who knows what we're going to end up? Well, you brought up Pompeii, which is funny because

I was looking at your Twitter and like your pinned tweet from like the last day of February is like, we're opening two new stores in Tampa, come see us. And it kind of reminded me of those like, those people that were sort of caught in tomb to like eating at the dinner table or like, you know, at the fast and Pompeii and all of a sudden, you know, like you think life is going one way

and everything's normal and you've made all these plans and then as the Stokes would say, sort of fortune intervenes and you're just like, what happened? Yeah, it's so, that is, I mean, that's so interesting because it really was like this like very quick before and after, you know, everything is going full speed ahead and then all of a sudden everything comes through a screeching halt. Over the last several months, I've also been doing a lot of reflection about

because our stores are now open with like shields and like you can't walk into the most of our stores, you just walk up order and then pick up on the other side. And so, you know, safety is just our very first priority and that's been, and we've been doing really great job at it, but it's still not the full experience of being in a store. And so I've been thinking a lot about, well, what is that full experience of being in a store? And also, you know, going back to our history discussion of what has that been for America?

Like, the idea of being with your community, just standing right next to somebody without a mask on. Having a sample of a nice from you've never had before, that pushing yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone, and then ultimately finding this flavor that perfectly reflects your tastes, and then getting to share a little bit with your family and friends that you're with.

I mean, it's such a beautiful moment that I'm really eager to get it back, And I feel like I appreciate it so much more. And I've always appreciated I see. I've been doing this for literally my whole life. I mean, since I was, you know, for 20, almost 26 years, this like the only thing I've done. But I feel like every year, my appreciation for this grows because it's not just the scoop of, you know, cream and sugar. It's, it's this whole culture that we have around it. And it really is about people and coming together and telling stories. And that's no matter where you are on the planet, whatever ice cream is there, it's about telling the local stories

or and bringing people together to share a moment together and often, you know, whatever you choose, what flavor you choose is a reflection of who you are. And that's part of how you're letting your guards down to share with someone else, a little bit of you, and then learn something about someone else. And so I really just feel like, you know, now we need that more than ever, that kind of place, and of course, it's going to be a little while, but I'm even more sort of committed to making sure that we can figure out how to get that back. It's so hard because, right, you have your business,

which you've worked for years and years to build, and you have sort of what's in your probably immediate self-interest, then there's like sort of what's legally allowed, right, because there has been sort of so much latitude in some places and then less latitude in other places and then sort of contradictory, confusing guidelines in other places, then there's probably what your employees want, then

there's what your employees need to survive, like financially, then there's what your employees need or you need to provide to your employees to keep them safe. How have you charted through all these confusing, in some cases conflicting obligations and figured out this is what's right, this is what I'm gonna do. Cause it definitely feels like there's been a chunk of people who are just not even dealing with it at all and they're, there's denial about it, there's some people who are sort of heartless about it

and there's other people who are just sort of like well I'm just going to go off in my bubble and you know wait for this come back when life is normal okay how have you done that? Well I think and it isn't the first time we've been in a crisis. I mean, you know, crisis is a weird thing because it can center you and focus you. And, you know, you kind of almost advance through this, like, through fire. I mean, you purify your intentions. I mean, I think during normal times,

it's easy to just, you know, think a lot of everything's important and you're just having fun, you're just doing whatever, whatever, and doing the realtor doing it. And then all of a sudden, crisis hits. And you have to choose only a few things you can take with you and what are those. And it ends up being this really important time in your life, even if it's the hardest time in your life. And so I do think, I mean, I love your book Stillness is the key because I have always,

I think that stillness just stopping is important in times of crisis where you can just kind of get a look of the landscape, pause, know what your resources are, know where you're at, and begin to start to imagine what a vision could be. And I think that's one of the ways that we've been able to sort of manage through this is just by taking an absolute, just a

look, truthful look at everything that's happening as truthfully as we possibly can with all the information that we have. But I also will always go back to you in my company, the idea of fellowship, and probably before stoicism and all of the ancients, you know, my philosophy really comes from fantasy and science fiction. And I always just say people ask me like a lot of times what my favorite business book is and I say it's the Lord of the Rings movies. So it's just I mean I love this idea of fellowship and and so many of my I think the things that sort of kept me going when I was you know younger and starting out I didn't have haven't earned my awesome team yet is just that

sort of those ideas of you know know, that come from things like Tolkien or even like Star Wars and Star Trek, of course. But fellowship for me is about everybody brings their awesomeness in, their full whole selves, their, just their, their everything to the table. And then together we create something that's bigger than the sum of its parts, it's greater than the sum of its parts. And when I think about crisis, I think, well, all of a sudden, you just really solidify that fellowship, and that fellowship is starting to meet like now every day, or you might have met once a week, or every two weeks before

that sort of, it's kind of like the leadership team plus a few more people in my company. But it's a small team of maybe six or eight people. And communication and being there, and trusting each other, and listening to to each other and knowing that everybody's there for a very specific reason to fill this really important part of this mosaic, this fellowship that we are in order to then move us forward because one person really can't do it. I love the word company because it means community, like you're not alone.

And so that I think at Jennings is like the thing that really defines our company, I think is this word fellowship That everybody is important here and and that together we We're not gonna make it get everything perfect or everything right But we're gonna make decisions that we think are the best with the best people that we can and then move forward and try them and do it And then reflect so it's like that think do reflect circle that we're always in Is this thing all check one two, two, one, two. Hey y'all, I'm Kiki Palmer.

I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo, just the name of you. Now I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Kiki Pabag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bag, love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do.

So I decided I wanna be a podcast host. I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the Baby This Is Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad. I want to know.

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Hey, prime members, you can listen early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. And I have to imagine, you know, so you get dealt with this thing where suddenly most of your stores can't open or it can only open in limited capacity. The obviously you probably had wanted some version of retail or sorry, of delivery, but maybe the opportunity in the crisis is, hey, now we, we have to speed it. Like friends of mine that I've e-commerce businesses, it's like, this basically sort of fast-forwarded us through our five-year plan.

Like we had the idea of doing X, but it was unrealistic, it wasn't a high priority to open a second warehouse or expand this or that, and then suddenly, sort of by necessity, you're forced to do a lot of change. And then you may, although, as you said, you take a hit from it, you may actually emerge from it if you survive in a better position

than you were when you went in. For sure. And I mean, we knew we were, we've had a website since 2004. We've been, you know, we're probably the top shipper or one of the top of ice cream in the country. We're just, I mean, that's our busiest store by far, and it's great. But like, we knew that that could be so much more, but you know, even customers were necessarily ready. You know, even if we had done a ton of advertising, hey, guess what?

You know, you know, you can order online. You know, even that isn't enough to get people to like, do that, you know. And so, in every way, and definitely with delivery and source, we had been doing it, but kind of just a little bit at a time. It was like a, you know, just let's just dive and head first now and just go all in on this. And it's been awesome. And so it really will change the dynamics

of our business and what's possible, which is super, super cool because you can be a person that invisions the future and that's sort of playing that sort of, you know, projecting or telescoping into the future and you can find these moments. You know we're gonna happen, but getting there sometimes, you know, you have to get everybody along with you

and that can take so long, but yeah, we've been super fast-track. And I mean, one of the best places to look is education for the, I have a seventh and eighth grader and, you know, who are by the way right now refusing to go to school. So I'm the one dealing with that because they just think it's silly

and I'm not sure that I don't agree with them. Right. You know, because it's like all of this memorization. So I mean, my daughter brought to me a quote from Einstein. I don't even, I haven't double checked this at this Einstein, but she said that Einstein said that he never memorized something something he could look up. And she's like, so why do I have to go to school?

Well, I understand. But anyway, but yeah, it's fast-tracking everything. We're all trying to figure it out, but I think we're gonna end up in a better place because of it, hopefully. Yeah, I was thinking like just how, you know, obviously you have a company, my company, it's a small than yours,

but anytime you're in a position of leadership, it sort of gives you some sense of what it must be like to really be a leader, right, to be a general or a head of state, or even just a mayor or a governor where you're like, you're having to make decisions that affect tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. And I mean, I think one of the things that a lot of people have taken from the pandemic is just like, man, we have not been doing a good job selecting leaders.

Like in every country across the world, like, you know what I mean? Like you probably count on one hand, like the number of leaders that have really shined over the last seven, eight months. And so I was curious, I know Jennings went through like a sort of a health, anytime you're dealing with sort of live ingredients,

there's gonna be health concerns. I know you guys went through something a couple years ago that probably wasn't fun and, and you know, I'm sure you learned a lot from. What did you take from that crisis as you now look at, you know, other companies and like whether it's the NFL or Or you know in this case the White House and struggling under a public health crisis like what have you learned about like What do you do when like something goes wrong whether it's your fault or someone else's fault and you're dealing with sort of like hard

unpleasant and you're dealing with sort of like hard, unpleasant realities and a lot of no-win options. Like, what do you, what does someone do when you're the leader and you got to make those decisions? Well, I thought it was so interesting to see this unfold in front of all of us this year in the White House. And, you know, because I think we take things like leadership for granted. I mean, even I do, and I'm in leadership, and I, you know, you just, yeah, we just sort of take it for granted, but really when it, it's really about

when you get into these places of crisis, what happens then, and we are looking to our leaders so that we can, you know, humans just need to be able to create this story. We need to be able to have a vision of where we're going. And we have that every one of us has a story about where we're heading, you know, and what we're doing and a story of ourselves. And when you lose that, and you know, you really become untethered. And that is so important, an important set of a company and of course a country. And when you see our leaders sort of

not getting it right, not making it easy for us to imagine how we are all working together and how we're all advancing forward together. You realize that that is just such an important, but that's really what leadership is. It's building this sort of, making us all feel at ease on the path that we're on and what we're supposed to do today to get to advance us forward. And when we get all confused, then everybody starts trying to fill those gaps and do it. And then we all start betting heads. And that's exactly where we're at. Now, everyone starts fighting everyone. And it's no different in the company when we've been in crisis.

You have to project that you are, that you will take responsibility for this. And in taking responsibility, there is power, you know, you are, you're not going to get everything right, of course, but we're going to take responsibility for this. And that means we're going to fix it, if we can, and we're going to come together. So, you know, you come up with your process of this is what we're going to do. And then from there, you know, you're not going to fix everything the first round, but from there you start to swerve forward as you continue to tweak and continue to fix things together. But I think it's communication and you can communicate in so many ways, obviously, with words, but also in your actions and setting the standard of behavior that you want everyone

around you to hold. And I think those are so, so important. I really building trust in your team or in our country's case, just in the country. Building trust is probably the most important thing and how do you do that? Well, you do that through being open and transparent in your communicating and then showing what you expect from others and just being that, right? I think you're totally right.

It's the first step the leader, and I've been thinking about this because Mark's realist is emperor during the Antonin plague. It's like, the leader first steps up, but then the leader has to communicate like, here's where we are, sort of unflinchingly and realistically not magical thinking bullshit, but like, this is what it is. And then you have to say, and here's where we want to go. And then here's our, you know, as of this moment plan for getting from here to there. And you're gonna change and make mistakes and go down blind alleys along the way.

But like, here's our plan. And it's like, we want everyone to get on this bus with us. And I think what we're seeing in America, which is such, again, whatever your political views are, I think it's a good lesson. The American system was kind of supposed to be this decentralized system where everyone's kind of doing their own thing, but it was supposed to be kind

of tied together with some sort of common vision. And when that common vision falls apart, it's not that everyone does their own thing. It's that a lot of the things people are doing are in direct conflict with other people. So it's not like, hey, we're all going in separate cars to the same destination. It's that we're in cars crashing into each other because we don't know where we're going. And I think that that must be so frustrating too, as a business owner where it's like in

one state, it's this, in another state, it's this. And you may actually agree with the strictness in one state, but you also see the pointlessness of it because the other state is not being strict. And so the virus is just moving from one place to another. I think that's what's been hard for me. It's like, I feel like I'm doing, I know I'm doing the right thing. And I know I'm keeping my family safe. And I know I've made the right business decisions, despite what it's cost me.

But then it's really hard to stick with that when you see the futility of it because your neighbor is, let's say, not under the same obligation. Yep. And just even just getting through those different, the regulations, rules, protocols in different cities, there's also the everything has become politicized. I mean, so we are wearing masks.

We are in our stores. We are under high, like absolute safety. In fact, when the pandemic hit, for the first time in the history of our company, we actually changed our mission until we get through this, which I think is also important when you're in crisis. In my other crisis, we actually didn't have to change our mission. We just got super focused on it, the idea of bringing together and making better ice,

because the idea of better informs everything we do, blah, blah, blah. So in this crisis, in the pandemic, we changed it to absolute safety, keeping our customers, our communities and our team safe. And that meant everything from checking up on people we work with, to how there are protocols in our stores and all of that. But then the other part of our mission is to survive this, right? So we can be, we can be different, a different company now as we, as we move through this crisis than we were before.

But the problem is we can do the best we can, follow science, just try to hold on to that. But when we have customers coming in wondering why they have to wear masks and really getting angry about it. And I've got 20 year olds or 18 year olds working the counter who have no real way of enforcing it or, you know, and they're feeling scared because they're getting mixed messages and they don't have, you know, this is a very complicated thing. That is something that does not have to exist. We can have respect and trust for each other that like no one is trying to, you know, this 18-year-old in

this store is not trying to project a political message to you because she's wearing a mask. It's, it's, we, this is what we've decided as a company because we are just trying to do our best. And even if it ends up we didn't have to do that. Well, at least we were overkilling it. That's great. But do we have to get to this place where we are accusing everyone and whatever? That's the hardest part because we're all over the country and in various places, it doesn't matter what we do, whether we put up a Black Lives Matter poster or we don't, or whether we wear a mask or whether we don't, or whether we say all Black Lives Matter, or whether we don't. there is just so many ways

that we can really honestly hate each other. And it's just, it really feels that people are coming from this place of just boiling over anger that's verging on hatred. And I feel like that's so scary. And we have to each one of us figure out how to bring that, how to, how to, how to, how to, I don't know, bring that, bring us back together

and reduce that and bring that a place of love, I think, for each other and trust. It is, it's tough, right? Because you see, yeah, you, you, you understand that those feelings probably come from a place of pain, but then you also can't excuse what's happening. What's happening? I know something I struggle with, I'd be curious your thoughts, is like, and you must just have such a larger sample size, right? Because you have, you know, your foot trep, like, my books have sold both throughout the pandemic, but I don't, I don't actually interact with those people, right? Like the books just sell and sometimes I hear from them and look sometimes I see their nasty comments on social media, but like, I'm not, I'm not, they're not like coming through my house,

you know, in the way that like, your stores, people are coming in them. How have you, you seem like a cheerful, happy, sort of loving person. How have you protected your sort of fondness for people when you are probably dealing with more than the average person, the sort of Karen having a meltdown in the middle of a store because it's an 18 year old college student politely asked her

to put her mask on if she's gonna order ice cream. Like how have you not lost your faith in humanity? I really like to know. Well, so this goes back to my very first job actually. I mean, I had been working to my very first job actually. I mean, I had been working in my neighborhood doing odd jobs for people for a long time, but when I was 15, I got a job. I always knew I was going to work in an ice cream shop.

I don't know why, but I just did. I always wanted that job. And then one happened to open in my neighborhood within walking distance when I was 15 years old. So I got to work permit, and I started working there on the first day that they opened. And I was extremely shy. I had moved almost every year growing up. I was very quiet and Even though I wanted a job and even though I was like really excited to get it

I was and I and I went and I did the interview and I got the job. I was terrified to go and my mother said To me she said do you know that Meryl Streep is really shy and very very quiet and I was like Meryl Streep like that address You know and I was like well gosh, Street like that actress, you know? And I was like, well, gosh, if she can do it, then I can do it. So as I was walking to work that day, I remember just putting, I just seemed like, okay, I'm going to decide what like the best ice cream scooper, you know, in the world, how they would behave and who they are, whatever. I'm going to put on that character. And so I went to work and I did that.

And it changed my life. Because now I could see myself in a totally different point of view. I could put my ego aside, my ego being the thing that protects me, right? And that creates fear and anxiety for me. I could put that aside and just channel love and the things that I believe I wanted to experience on the other side of the counter. And so that's really changed everything about everything that I do. I mean, from then on, I started getting better at public speaking. I mean, it still took a really long time, but a few years later, I started teaching soap

making classes at a conservatory. I was just trying to get over public speaking, but really pushing myself because I could put on a character a little bit and put my ego aside. And I just kept going. By the time I was 22, I opened my first ice cream shop. And I think that really this is one of the reasons why. I really like that perspective of service. And part of that is turning someone around

and or going through that storm with them. If they want to come in and be like, you know, and express some of their anxieties and fears right now through, I don't know, treating me badly or whatever, I can kind of go through that with them, but it doesn't have to affect me. And actually, maybe by the end of this, by the time I go to ring you up on the cash register or

say goodbye to you, maybe I've changed you a little bit. It's a really important part of my work. And actually, I think the thing that I'm probably the most good at, I'm probably the best at it out of everything that I do. I mean, I, even when I make ice cream, I make it from the perspective of service. And I think all people who create, or all people who create things do it from a place of of no ego, you know what I mean? Like you take, I don't think if you go necessarily as the thing that like I think I'm better than everybody else. But more like the thing that's like, is pushing me or wanting me to, um, behave as sort of, you know, like, uh, it's almost a thing that's more causing anxiety for me or, or making it possible for me to go forward. You know what I mean?

Yeah. That's that sort of ego that I have to let go of. And then from there, it's just about flowing and getting into that flow of making people feel good. And so anyway, so that's a long answer to your question, but it is. It's about putting you aside, I think, and doing the thing that I know I'm really good at. And that is like transferring good energy to people and like just trying to be a good moment in somebody else's life.

It's almost more like a preacher, I think, than an ice cream maker, but it's something that I learned when I was very young. And I think that it's on good at it because I came from a place of honestly struggle before then, and I think that's what made me really actually enjoy it. I think one of the things we're bad at is understanding

like large numbers. So and Mars really talks about this in meditations because like, you know, is a world without shameless people possible? No. And he's like, okay, so you've met a shameless person like you know that a certain number of them exists. Like why is it surprising you that you deal with one? And I think one of the things, it's like, I think we want everyone to be like us.

I don't mean like the same as us. We just want, we want everyone to not be a cruel, mean, you know, unhinged person. And so when we deal with one of those people, it's really hard for us to sort of back out and go, how many people have I encountered in the course of my life or even the course of my day? Right? Like when I see, when I get a really nasty email from someone, my mind doesn't go, okay, but how many books do you think you've sold? How many books do you think you've sold today? How many positive interactions did you have with readers that weren't insane? So they didn't send you this nasty note. Okay, so one of them got through to you and sent you something mean, you have to be able

to sort of see it in the context of the larger hole. So I've got to imagine, too, like even with the mask thing, I think from a meat, bad actors play well in the media, the 80 to 90% of people who are being smart, are following the rules, are treating this seriously, are concerned for not spreading or hurting or negatively impacting someone else. They sort of recede into the background. And I've got to imagine, yeah, in the last eight months, hundreds of thousands, you've done hundreds of thousands of customer exchanges slash transactions, the vast majority of them would give you hope in humanity,

but it's our mind caloms on to the one nasty person and then we go, why are all human beings so terrible? You know, it's, I mean, really it's true. And you think, yeah, you get one email and it throws everything off. I absolutely. And you know, we, I always tell people that like, if you want to feel good, just come stand in one of our lines at our stores because everyone in our world is just really, they're just generally good people.

And I've made friends with people in line. I've heard from other people who've made friends with people in line. I've heard people who've gotten married because they met in line. And they get married at our store. I mean, so there's, so it really is true that we are creating a world. And I think of sometimes like the idea of entrepreneurship is building your own world. You get to make your own rules and you're

united by your values. And you get to create your own place where it's supposed to have, where it feels a very specific way. And that's what we're doing. And that is the success of our company and what we can be proud of is that when you walk into our place, our realm, that it feels a certain way and that most, most people feel that way and get it and are contributing to it because our customers are as much a part of that as anything that we do to make it that way.

But I also, too, I feel that when I see people who are really just not comfortable in the world, I feel that when I see people who are really just not comfortable in the world, you have to be able to envision who you want to become in order to become it, and you have to be able to see that somewhere in front of you. I think a lot of people, when you really start working in your community, you realize that not everybody has access to really good people in their lives. Or information. Or information. Or that acts just, I mean, I really do think that a lot of these people have been, or the person that's the most important in their life, the biggest,

whatever in their life that is just not getting it or whatever, so they've been influenced by some kind of, you know, a mom or a dad or somebody in their life that has taken them to other place. So you really have to, you have to, you have to be mom or a dad or a somebody in their life that has taken them to other place. So you really have to, you have to, you have to see that in order to become it. And I think a lot of times when people are really just so broken and every once in a while, somebody like that will come through my life and I can only just feel love for that person. And so I think no matter what it is, you know, even somebody who is out just the sort of ugly business person, you know, you just think like, gosh, you know, I'm so, I am so grateful that I have the eye come from a place of joy and that

everything I do is looking for joy and not money, you know, or not the things and materialistic things that don't matter, but those moments of joy and that come from humans and people and, you know, whatever, and maybe there's a way that I can help them understand that or maybe not, you know. Last question for you. What went through your mind? As I've had a few of these moments in my life, it's always weird and unexpected.

Like last week, I got an email that I was a clue on jeopardy. I saw that. That's great. I mean, that's nothing compared to, I guess, it was a two nights ago, although people will be listening to this much later, the leading presidential candidate for the United States tweeted that he was eating a picture of him eating Jenny's ice cream. And then if that weren't enough, Luke Skywalker retweeted it and asked where he might get some. How do you, how do you even begin to process something like that after all the work that you've put in

over the last quarter century to get where you are? Oh, that's a funny. And also, I'll add that it was my birthday. So, oh, incredible. It's really fun. Well, no, I am actually, I know Joe Biden. I know him because he loves ice cream. And because obviously we're gonna know each other.

He loves ice cream cones, right? Like all the pictures are him leaning on a corvette eating an ice cream cone. Right, with his aviators. He really loves ice cream. And I would say that like, you know, while a lot of, I imagine a lot of politicians, you know, are sending a lot of whiskey around the country

in thing. Joe Biden is sending ice cream. And he just, he's just an ice cream guy. And so wherever he goes, I imagine a lot of politicians are sending a lot of whiskey around the country in thing. Joe Biden is sending ice cream. He's just nice from guy. So wherever he goes, he meets the ice cream makers, which is so great and so cool. I met him a long time ago here in Columbus. He came of course to my ice cream shop. We've kept in touch.

I've seen him several many many times since then. We've become friends in ice cream. I think in doing good in the world, honestly, I've written for him about fellowship before we have similar views on many, many things. And so I'm very close with his team and so on. And so that was really cool. It was just so, so incredible and so cool.

And I think that, you know, I just think that like, if Joe Biden becomes president and even if he doesn't, honestly, ice cream has a role to play in bringing us back together. And I just, not just my, I see all ice cream, you know, and so I just can imagine, I can imagine like all the ice cream makers in America throwing the biggest ice cream social to just say, hey, you know, whatever happens in January, we are, let's come back together as people and love each other and ice cream can do that. And so that kind of stuff,

I mean, that's just kind of where I, I mean, I just started thinking like ice cream, I don't know, ice cream is just such a silly little thing, but it also isn't, it's like a thing that's been with us for so long. And it's about each of us as individuals choosing the flavor, you know, the, what I, what I love about Ice Cream is that the word flavor, if you

look it up in the dictionary, actually means character. It means the essential character or something. So I love the like, you know, all of these little, you know, things that you can, just little stories you can weave through Ice Cream, you know, that it's less sort of, it's a metaphor for life. It can pull you into the moment because you have to be with it and pay attention. Otherwise, it disappears in front of you, right? And that also this idea of character and flavor.

You're choosing this flavor, this character. And it really is sort of a little bit about who you are. And then you're sharing it with someone else. So all of that makes me feel very hopeful about the future. And I know it's just ice cream, but I think the bigger picture is, hopefully, as humans, we will naturally come to this place and figure out a way to share our stories

and our flavor or our character together, you know? No, look, I love hearing that so much. I was thinking about, like, one of those weird memories. I got to meet Richard Overton before he died, who is at one point the oldest man in the United States. And he would sit on his porch and eat ice cream and talk to people. There's a sort of a,

a good grandpa energy to ice cream of like, hey, do you wanna go get, because parents don't wanna take their kids to get ice cream, because they get all amped up and they wanna put them to bed. But so there's a grandpa energy to ice cream where it's like, let's go do something that's fun, one generation, like reaching over and pass through to it, you know, over a

generation to the younger generation. There's just like a wholesomeness and a goodness to it that I think, so I don't think it's, I don't think it's absurd what you're saying. I think there is kind of a weird hope and innocence to have the guy and aviators looking at ice cream cone. There's this idea that ice cream makes it better. And we always say Jenny's makes it better because it's like, if you win or if you lose, ice cream can make it better.

Of course. And that's like so much apartment. But I also like, I would just say, next time you get ice cream and any frame base listening, first of all, get it on a cone, if you can, scoop it on a cone because that is, I think that the eating on cone makes you a little bit vulnerable, especially if you're sitting in front of somebody and they're eating

a cone, too, it's actually like a really interesting moment. You have to be with it. You have to engage it. It does pull you into the moment a little bit. But what's going to happen is the ice can's going to be a little harder as you start eating it. And the flavor is going to develop as you go and actually as the ice cream sort of warms, it's really perfectly suited to melt on your palate. Like butter fat

melts below body temperatures is perfect thing. So just imagine like how it's unfurling scent. But when you get about halfway through the cone, it's going to be at just the perfect temperature where you're going to have this like really sort of exploding sort of blooming flavor. And also this lush texture of the cream. So next time you eat ice cream and you're going to have this like really sort of exploding sort of blooming flavor and also this lush texture of the cream. So next time you eat ice cream and you're going to have a little bit of percussion from the cone at that point and all the stuff is going to come together. It's going to be amazing. Next time you have ice cream, pull yourself in the moment to experience what you're having and what you're going through because it's every sense that you have. It's just all of you're using all of your senses

and it is one of the most incredible pleasures And I think sometimes we just think oh, it's just ice cream. We'll go get it We'll get our mint chocolate chip and go and you don't really think about it But if you really do sort of focus on it, it's magical It like it almost shouldn't exist. It's a frozen, but it's not frozen solid But it's not solid and it's just this incredible moment. So and now I'm gonna go get ice cream But no, I love it so I, that was, that was poetic. I can't really help but appreciate the much.

You know, or maybe it's expensive. Yeah. But, no, I really do think that ice cream is more than, more than what, maybe what we thought recently about it. You're totally right. Jenny, thanks. Thank you so much.

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