Susan Yara on How She Sold Naturium To e.l.f For $355 Million, Her FTC Investigation, and Building Through Backlash

0:13İng 2020

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1:03In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it.

1:13Susan Yara, are you ready to get hot, smart, rich? Yeah, yeah. I feel like I'm already, you know, embodying it. Yeah. You're also the first guest that I've done wearing shoes. How does that feel for you? Oh, well, that should we take our shoes off? Should we get comfy? Should we take our shoes off? Okay, are we getting comfy? that you said that because I'm such like a comfy vibes person, but this is so much more cozy. Okay. I love this. So this is not the first time that we've met. I know. Well, I guess in person, in real life, IRL. Do you want to explain how we met the first time? I used to have a talent agency called glow lab, glow lab collective.

1:50And, um, one of my talent, you had reached out to one of my talent to get her a deal where she would essentially be an ambassador slash, uh, investor in a company you're working with. So you and I went back and forth negotiating and it fell through, unfortunately. All for the best, but yes. Yeah, all for the best. Probably for you guys too. And since then, I no longer have that talent agency. I was going to ask. Okay, so you don't do that at all anymore. I do consult and I do work with any of the talent that I brought over to the digital department, which is the agency that now has that roster.

2:27Okay. I do work with them a little bit. I consult with them. And then, you know, obviously the talent that I brought over, I love and I adore them. So I still work with them too. It's so funny too, because I actually didn't, I was never a YouTube girly growing up. Like it was just never my thing. I was like playing sports and just doing other stuff. And so when we first got connected, I just was like, wow, mad respect. This woman's like an incredible manager because that's the role that like I thought that you were in. Little did I know that you had this like huge audience yourself. You had been building this like white space in makeup for so long.

2:58So one of the things that I've always been so fascinated about you with is like you're so equally as good on the camera and behind the camera. Do you find it hard to like switch what hat you're wearing? You know, I think that people, I don't, obviously we can't assume that everybody who is a content creator is a good business person, right? We've all met people who are creative and maybe they don't have that business mind. but I actually think to be a successful content creator, especially on a platform like YouTube where you have to do long form content, you have to really plan things out, almost like you're creating a TV show.

3:30I think you have to be very business minded. So I feel like I've always had a very big business mind. It's something that I got from my mom. She was always starting little businesses here and there when I was little and I was always helping her. I used to be the manager of her video store, RIP to video stores. Oh my God. And I learned just a lot about business and how to manage people. And then eventually I went into media, became a journalist. I was an on-camera news reporter in New York City, hated it. And then I went into publications and I started working at Forbes magazine. And they were just starting this whole world of the digital era.

4:07Like it seemed like something strange and new. And it's funny to say it like that because nowadays everything is digital. But back then it was all about print magazines. and so they hired me on to help start their video network and to be an online reporter and that eventually led to me doing this at different publications and then eventually I was like you know I could do this myself I could go on to YouTube I could start a network that's essentially for women with content that women want especially women in their 20s 30s and 40s where we're getting really well produced content around cosmetic procedures because believe it or not people wouldn't even admit that they did Botox 10 years ago I know it's crazy to think how, how, just how open people are about Botox these days.

4:49But just a few years ago, you couldn't get anybody. It's interesting. Like people are so open about certain things, but I think you're actually the first person that I'm going to talk to you. That's open about like, honestly, every single thing in their life. Like I actually want to figure out like, is there things that are off limits for you? But even your podcast is called like my life online. Would you say you're chronically online? First of all, Oh, I'm chronically online. I feel like the people I get along with the most know what I'm referring to when I like quote something from TikTok or I refer to something that was in a video.

5:20It's just, it's what I do and I'm always online. What do you think the biggest pros are of always being online and what are the biggest cons? I think the biggest pros are obviously you're in tune with what's happening on a day-to-day basis in pop culture with social media. If you run a social media business in any aspect of it, you have to know what's happening and it's changing rapidly every single day especially the algorithm the way that the social media networks work the way that things are trending obviously the cons are that you're not as present right and it takes up a lot of your time and sometimes you can just get stuck in a rabbit hole that's not serving you at all do you feel like sometimes when you're around people that don't want to live their life like chronically online or being present that it's hard for you to like relate to them in a certain way um yes and no I think first off I'm a zennial meaning oh what is that so I'm I'm I'm an elder millennial and elder millennials basically are the people who grew up with a little bit of like the old school we didn't have social media while we were in college we barely had cell phones we barely started texting in our early 20s um so like everything with that era was new so like we we spent our childhood and our teen years living old school okay like off the grid and then we transitioned into the digital the digital era in college okay so it gives us a different perspective and I think that because of it I I know how to just shut off too because I have kids as well and they're young they require a lot of attention I try to really turn off and spend weekends with them evenings with them and not really be so online and um and I think that because of that mentality I can be around other people who aren't chronically online okay so like when you think about what you want to share and what you don't want to share have there ever been parts of your life where you're like this is off limits yeah it's honestly it's my children yeah that's actually one of the things I was actually like doing serious diligence on because you do talk about a lot which we're going to get into today but like you do post with your kids but like so rarely where it's like you know that they're there do you ever get mom shamed because you don't post with your kids that like you're not with your kids enough in the beginning not mom shamed for not being with my kids.

7:31I think people realize that I'm a present mom. And I think that's because in the past, when I was first pregnant with my son, I really did actually start posting. I started a whole personal channel outside of mixed makeup. And I made that a focus because I found that I wasn't getting a lot of just straightforward information. I was in my journalist brain. I just wanted somebody to give me a top 10 list of what I should be buying for my baby. What should I take to the hospital? What should I, you know, just anything that I needed to know, I wanted it to be researched and have actual information behind it, not just somebody saying like, I got this today and I liked it.

8:08And this is a haul for my kid stuff. I really wanted to, to have some information and real reviews behind stuff. So I started posting about becoming a mom. And I think I connected with a whole new audience when that happened. And then they, they were with me through a big portion of it. I actually recorded a weekly show where I posted being pregnant with my daughter. And then that was the end of it. But that's so necessary because like as someone who wants to be pregnant, like I'm terrified of it. I literally have been talking to my partner about like maybe we should do surrogates. Like I don't know if I can handle that.

8:40Like I have so many problems. So I think this is where like it's a blessing and a curse because even with me calling off my engagement, like part of the Hot Smart Rich brand is about like embracing your full self and like doing everything in your power to just like have a life that you're so proud of sometimes that's business sometimes it's finance sometimes it is relationships and it's so funny where it's a double-edged sword where it's like when you're so brave to be able to share that part of your life so many people will take that and be like she's using this as like clickbait or to build a business like how do you think about your life in terms of like okay this is like what I'm living for me and this is what like is actually helping people and can be turned into a business and monetized um well for okay so i either that's a multi multi-pronged question there um when i'm thinking about what i can and can't post i think it's easy with when it comes to my kids there came a moment where i started realizing that my son would eventually um get a little bit older yeah his parents his kids his friends the parents of those friends and stuff they have access to social media it just felt strange there was some time in lockdown where social media seemed to change the vibe totally the vibe completely changed it felt less friendly it felt a little less um I don't even know how to explain it because I'd been online for so long at that point that this felt like a very big 180 in the in the way that being online felt and it didn't feel safe to me to put my children online and it felt like suddenly this wasn't their decision and so I just completely stopped doing that um now my son doesn't want to be online at all he just whenever I even try to record him he's like absolutely not you know how old is he he's eight see that's so smart that he even knows that though because so many kids I feel like are so interested in it like I look at Alex Earl's siblings and I'm like oh these kids want to be like chronically online already so young that it's interesting that your son is already like no I actually don't want to be like that do you know why that is um well he's very aware I think of social media because he's had an iPad for a while um and he thinks it's cool like he I have this picture of him where he he discovered I had them packed up my YouTube plaques where you know it shows that I hit a hundred thousand subscribers and I've got two of those because I have two channels and then I hit a million subscribers and I got a gold plaque for that and he found them and he was like it clicked for him he was like oh my god this is what my mom does and he he took he actually took a picture with my with my YouTube plaques being he was just like really proud of that so I think I think kids are very aware of social media yeah maybe not the repercussions and how long it how permanent it is right?

11:11But, um, but I think they're aware of it for sure. So when you were saying that things changed during COVID from being online, how many years were you online before that happened? Um, with my own personal, with my YouTube channel, mixed makeup, I had probably been online for about seven, eight years at that point, but I had been online for publications and media companies for since 2004. So a long time. I've been online for a very, very long time. Not as my own, like as a, as a media personality, basically. So was this the time when you said that you didn't feel safe, that you were canceled online?

11:48Yeah. Yeah. Can we talk about that? You know, I wouldn't even call it a cancel. Okay. Let's talk about this. When I think about people getting canceled to me at the time, it felt very intense, right? Like it felt like, Oh my God, I've been squeaky clean online for years and I've never done anything wrong. I can't believe this is happening. And then, um, you know, when you look at people who get canceled for things that are just awful. Yeah. And then you look at my situation. Wait, so for anyone that's listening that doesn't know what happened, can you explain what happened? So when I, while we were in lockdown, because of everything that was happening with the pandemic and COVID, the contract manufacturer I was working with at the time for a completely different brand basically sent me an email and shut it all down.

12:29They were like, they were based in Korea and they were just like, you, we, we, unfortunately because of this virus that's going around can't take on any new clients so we're sorry all the stuff that we've worked on the last few months we're gonna have to put a hold on this and it really occurred to me that I needed I needed to find somebody else to help me with this business and so I found my old business partner and at the time he had just started Noturium and and as we got deeper into the lockdown we were both kind of like you know why would we work on two separate brands this is a weird time at that point in in lockdown nobody had really we didn't really know that there was going to be this boom with e-com yeah right everybody just assumed like everything's going down like you could actually get a house at a really good deal at that point it was crazy people were like stocking up on toilet paper like it was a wild time so he was like you know notorium's a new brand it's a baby brand you've already helped to shape it with your point of view the way that you've you know like talked about it with your viewers and everything and the way you've been even convinced me to switch things up because he had started as a clean brand and I was like this isn't a clean brand this is a science brand this is a science-backed brand clinically tested results like this is what you need to be focusing on with this and um and so we were like you know what if there were ever a time to just last minute join forces let's do it yeah because we had no idea what was gonna happen what was gonna happen right so we joined up but at that point I didn't talk I stopped talking about the brand online.

13:58Okay. Because now this is like, how many times do you post it about the brand before? Maybe like three times. Okay. I know. Yeah, I know. But, um, but still three times. And, uh, and I wasn't the owner at that point. I didn't even know I was going to become the owner. Right. And then, um, you know, it, this conversation started happening. I stopped talking about it. There's like a true gap. I remember saying there was this, uh, I want to say it was a beauty independent article where they like put, like put a graph of like how many times I talked about the brand before I announced my, my ownership of the brand.

14:29And you can see there's this three times I talk about the brand and then there's this gap, like two months where I go silent about the brand online. And then I announced that I'm the owner. And, um, and I'm like, does, does anyone at all think about like what might've been happening at that point? It was that I'm in negotiations with my, my business partner, like to try to become an owner. It's a brand that's already started. He's already put money into it. Now we got to negotiate how this works out for me to come on as a co-owner. And even at that, we didn't expect to really talk about the, for me to talk about the brand because it was just a, it was a strange time, right?

15:03I wanted to get my hands on the brand, really turn it into a brand that I had put all of my influence into and then announce it when it felt like a really good time to do that. And you know, who knew when that was going to be, but I had signed the paperwork in early June and then there was a reporter from, I'm actually going to call it out from into the gloss and uh she's no longer there i don't think everyone said she was like the nicest person there were all these like like people online who had i can't remember what it was um my business partner had posted something that alluded to who the owners of the brand were okay and uh and he i hadn't signed my paperwork yet and he even gave me like a hard time he teased me he's like you better sign that paperwork because i'm posting this you know to like people are asking who are the owners and and he's like i'm gonna post something kind of ambiguous and you better sign it like he's teasing me yeah yeah and um so he put something like the two owners are Asian for him Asian Hispanic for me and then his like few uh employees that were working for him at the time and I saw that post go up on social media I didn't even have access to the social media at that point because I was not an owner yet and I said to him you know what's funny there aren't that many Asian Hispanic people in the skincare industry I wonder if anyone's gonna notice that and he's like oh that's so niche like no no one's gonna know people are creeps online like they connect dots that you would be like how did you know that yeah and in hours a reddit post goes up and it's like conspiracy theories susan yara is the owner of naturium and she's been talking about this brand and not disclosing that she's the owner and we were like wow and so i here's where i'm like the person that that probably messed up in the in the way that i handled it and that is i'm a very um i'm a very stubborn person it made me mad when's birthday?

16:50Um, a Leo I'm August. Okay. I'm all fixed signs, by the way. My big three are like all fixed signs. Okay. I'm a Leo. I'm a Scorpio moon and I'm a rising. Yeah. You're so stubborn. So unbelievably stubborn. So instead of just being like, Oh, you guys like long story short, here's what happened. Just clearing this up. Instead. I was like, Oh, I'm going to egg them on. Oh, you like fed into the drama. Oh my God. That is like the complete opposite for me. I'm so like whenever I feel like I've done something wrong I immediately just get like panicked like I need to solve the problem but you were like I'm gonna like feed into this yeah I was like this is so rude of them like how dare they like try to try to accuse me of something that I've never that I haven't done but in reality I should have again this is this is social media had changed right everybody's kind of upset we're in lockdown there's a lot of injustices that are being you know put in the in the forefront yeah and and I really should have read the room a little bit better I really should have um but I didn't and and so I just decided you know what I'm just gonna and you know I was talking to my business partner he's like you worked so hard for this moment like don't let don't let this become a thing that that brings you down instead why don't you just announce it announce you're the owner we'll handle like we'll do some interviews and stuff and you'll get to tell the story of how you and I met how we became business partners and it'll all be fine because this is how social media used to be and how things online was it fine absolutely not no so it was like a disaster as soon as you what so how did you announce it did you have like a pr plan or you just went on live and you were like people i loved seeing people saying like she really like her pr agency really steered her wrong her like you know like all these things i'm like what do you guys we're all in lockdown i'm not even in person with anybody i'm sitting on my sofa with a six-month-old baby on my boob like i don't even we're not we're like just all watching and feeling the same way that everyone else is feeling.

18:43We're in this lockdown. Anyway, so we're ignoring it, ignoring it. And then this one girl who was just the most upset, like she was like the leader of the pack with this whole like cancel Susan situation. She went around to the media and she started saying, I've got this theory that Susan, that this like woman who's on YouTube has been pitching this brand to all of her viewers and not disclosing that she's the owner. And someone from Into the Gloss went ahead and bit. They were like, oh, we'll look into this. so fast forward to June and uh and and by the way I'm hearing about this I like like friends are calling you being like there's a story going around their own Facebook group that where it was like all about canceling me so I had like friends in that group that were like watching what they were posting and stuff it was really strange but how do you as like someone that has a six-month-old baby like feeding off of your body literally like handle the pressure of knowing that there is a group going around to cancel you and like take away your livelihood well in your mind you're like I haven't done anything wrong so like like if I truly did something wrong and meant to like hurt people yeah to people whatever then maybe I'd be like really nervous yeah but in some ways I was I was not seeing it from their perspective right I was seeing it from my perspective and I was like what's going on here yeah right like this feels wild and I'm not I haven't even done anything in my opinion I I was thinking in my head like I haven't even like done anything really really bad like these people were like a pitchfork being like we need to go and destroy her life where you're like wait why though yeah so then okay so you basically have to launch your brand with all of this negative cloud over you there's reporters but okay so so uh let me take it back to the reporter so this one reporter goes to the pr company yeah that we're working with as a brand right and she says she's worked with them plenty of times she's a beauty reporter and she says, hey, I want to do this roundup on serums and I want to include one from Notarium.

20:38And I can't find who the owners are online. It seems very strange. And so the first person she reaches out to on the team doesn't respond back because they know it's like a weird, sensitive issue. I only signed the paperwork like a week before. And then she emails again. She's like, hey, just following up on this question, she emails another person on the team. And that person writes back, oh, the owner is Susan Yara, but it's embargoed information. she doesn't get any more context from there doesn't know that I just signed my paperwork a week before nothing and again I'm in the background kind of like like egging people on whatever they want to think this let them you know that kind of thing so she goes back to these people and she's like you guys were right like confirmed she is the owner she doesn't even write a story she just goes back to the Facebook group and like the leader of the screenshots of it wow so there was no article on into the gloss that was like okay no she just on her own was like but I like to think about the time of our lives at that moment and everybody was like on edge everyone was on edge and everyone was trying to do the right thing so I like to think that a lot of these people thought they were doing the right thing right there's probably a lot of people in that Facebook community that weren't like pitchforks we want to like cancel Susan Yara so many people probably were like open to being suede right so how do you start rebuilding trust with your community to now put Naturium in like this amazing light that I grew into yeah well actually I can and finally say this, you're gonna get some scoop here.

22:03So I didn't get a chance to actually talk about what happened for the longest time because the FTC called me. And they were like, we've never received this many complaints about an influencer ever. In like the history of the FTC, they were like, we are gonna have to do an investigation into this. You had an investigation from the FTC. I had an investigation. Wait, please talk about this. Because I literally just talked about this on a podcast episode about Revolve and like these three influencers that were named in this case. Yeah. What happened? So they basically, it's very intrusive. They make you hand over every form of communication with anybody that might be even closely, like slightly involved with the brand.

22:43And so they, and they, you have to give all this information, prove that I just signed my paperwork. I hadn't been like purposely trying to lie to people and not. Deceit people. It's like, you have to prove all this stuff. the thing is you would think it'd be very straightforward but it's the government right you had a lawsuit versus the government essentially yeah and uh and the and again like I wasn't that worried because I knew I hadn't done anything wrong right besides being a jerk right besides being like a person who decided to be stubborn and egg everybody on instead of just being forthright right um and uh but the problem is they were like if I was like well I gotta discuss this online like I'm a YouTuber I'm an influencer my community is going to expect me to address to them what happened and they're like if you talk about it then we have to open up everything to the public and I was like oh no no thank you like they've got my text messages and I'm talking text messages you can't erase anything like you have to give them everything so your most personal like if you're telling your friends like oh like about a BJ that is going to the FTC everything they're reading everything.

23:50Like it's, it's, it doesn't matter if it's like mixed into these conversations about your business as well. Like any conversation, you cannot pull any of it out. So you have to send it all over for a period of time that they asked for. So how long did this investigation go on for? It took almost two years. And then it's closed now. Yeah. They were like, sure enough, they send an email to our attorney and they're like, oh yeah. Like basically they were like, there's nothing to see here we're moving on you know like thank you that was it but I had to wait for two years to get that answer and then at that point it just felt like all right why even yeah like I'm like is it hard for you to talk about now where it like it's so irrelevant to your life but it's like it's still a big part of the story um it's not hard to talk about there was a moment it definitely changed the way I felt about being online.

24:38Okay. And it changed how, you know, like what I wanted to start, what I wanted to talk about. I feel like I used to be so completely open online and you could find anything about me. And if people asked me things, I would share everything. And it kind of closed me off because I felt like people who I had opened up to and really given my time to, a lot of these people were in my own private Facebook group for mixed makeup. And in there, I was always accessible, right like if they had questions about products we would make jokes we would have fun it was a really fun community and it just really put a damper on it and I think it did that unfortunately for a lot of my community too where we all felt like this fun community and then it felt less fun right you know have you been able to still do stuff with that community and like just in a different way um I think that I've had I'll say actually overall um this was a small group of people that were upset with me like the 80 20 rule like maybe even less than 20 right like I I would say that if anything, what it really showed me, I, there were like two or three days there where I just closed off, cried for days.

25:41Right. Like where I was like, Oh my God, my, my career is over everything I've worked for, everything I've built. My team was so sad. Cause they'd been there building it with me, you know? And even they had been like, you should just tell everybody what happened. Like just tell everybody the story. And I'm like, you're like, I can't though, because also because of the FTC. Wow. So what has made you decide to start talking about your divorce um people start noticing I wasn't wearing a ring okay that happened to me too so they noticed they noticed that real quick yeah um and uh and I just felt like eventually if I start dating or if they don't see me with my kids or because it's surprising how many people know you in person right also after you've been online for so long I don't have this massive massive following but because I think I've been online for so long people will recognize me or will have watched some of my videos or bought some of my products or something.

26:30And so they'll have questions. Right. And so I just felt like this was a really important detail because everyone knew me as a married woman. So if they saw me like out on a date or something, can you imagine people are like, I mean, shoot, I know how Reddit works. Like, like, oh, we saw Susan like cheating on her husband or something. So I was like, I'm just going to shut this down as soon as possible. I've learned from my lessons of like keeping things to myself that are really important to put out there. So I just went ahead and announced it and just kept it at that. How did it feel? Um, very, very final.

27:01Um, but good. You know, I, I, I think divorce, especially I was with my husband for 15 years. We were married for 13 years. So a very long time. Yeah. And, um, and I think what people don't realize is as a woman, I think that we take a long time to grieve that relationship before we even make that final decision. We probably have tried to fix it or have talks or do whatever, even with ourselves, right? Like what could I do to make this work? Before you finally get to that point where you're like, I am so done. So I think when I announced it, it felt very final to me and there was almost like a relief.

27:37So you started Naturium in 2021, 2020. So you were still married when you guys started it. And I guess like you have achieved truly like the hot, smart, rich lifestyle. Like you sold your business within three years of building it for$355 million. Has anybody else ever done that? Um, K-18 built theirs in about three years. Okay. All around the same time, actually. So as you have stepped into like this hot, smart, rich financial freedom power, did that change the dynamic of your relationship and your role in your marriage? I would say it probably played a factor, but before that I was already doing really well as a content creator.

28:16Okay. So I was already the breadwinner. Okay. Um, and, uh, and it was already in that direction. Right. Going in that direction. I think it's so interesting because money sometimes actually makes things so much more complicated and sometimes it makes it easier. What do you think like now that you have sold your business, like your relationship with money is like as it stands today? Yeah. Um, I mean, obviously it's, it's easier. Things are easier, right? When you have money, you're not as stressed out about, you know, like little things. Like if my kids get sick, I know I can handle it. I have a lot of privilege now, right?

28:49Like I get to spend a lot of time working on myself. I get to go to the gym and work out with a trainer all the time. Get a spray tan that looks amazing a week later. Like what is the secret? I get my spray tan whenever I want. I get lymphatic drainage every month. You know, I get to do a lot of these things where I'm focusing on myself. I feel like I'm on a big wellness journey and it's partially because I get to focus on myself now, right? And I have the money to do that. I was able to retire my parents that was a big dream of mine right get my mom a new car do all these things get them to you know just live a peaceful life because they were part of the rat race too right they were doing the constant day-to-day nine-to-five job where they barely I feel like they barely made ends meet and they were still doing this into their 60s you know so it felt really good to be able to help them and to be able to tell my nieces and my nephew that they're good.

29:38They want to go to school wherever they want to go, get good grades. I've got them. Do you feel like though, that now that you have achieved financial success, like people's relationship with you has changed because you have money. Like, are you constantly like picking up the bill when you're going out for dinner with girlfriends? And like, that's something I see when I'm around certain people in my life. It's like, they're just expected to do things versus it being like a treat for people or like you wanting to do it because it's out of the kindness of your heart. um I've always had this abundance mentality even when I was broke where I was like I'm good with paying for everybody I'm not gonna like I'm not gonna sit around thinking oh I only had I don't drink right like okay you don't forever barely have like a drink maybe a drink and I'll babysit that drink at dinner or something it's really just to be like make everybody else comfortable around me that they're not like oh god she's not drinking you know yeah um so I barely drink and uh and, you know, when I go out to dinner with people and they are drinking, right, or like, like couples and they're both drinking and I'm here like one Prosecco and, you know, like, and like one plate of food, whereas everyone's like getting a bunch of stuff and everything.

30:44I've never been the person to be like, um, excuse me, I only, I only owe$40. You guys owe 500 each, but I only owe 40. Like, I've always been of the mentality that like, if someone needs something, help them. If somebody, if you're like, you know, you're going to go do something, but you can't take someone with you because someone can't come with you because they can't afford the ticket to the concert buy the ticket for them if you can do it because it's going to be so much more fun if we're doing this together and you figure it out anyway and I've always felt that way like if I spend if I'm spending money and I'm at this point where I need a certain amount of money I'm gonna personally figure out how to get that money yeah right and it just kind of pushes me to keep getting it you have a true rich person mindset which is like you're not thinking and this is something I learned recently is like rich people think about how can I make more money and then make my money work for me whereas poor people or poor-minded people think like I need to save the money and like control the money and have it so tight to my chest what are the things that you're doing to make your money work for you now that you've achieved this financial success I do want to take a step back I grew up really poor yeah dirt poor okay and I and I do think that there is a little bit of this mentality right yeah you are trying to figure out how to just survive, right?

31:55And there's a cycle that I don't think people really consider if they didn't grow up poor, if they're not poor. You're in a cycle where everything seems to go against you, right? You don't have enough money to make rent this month, but now your child just got sick, so you're going to have to take them to the emergency room. There's extra fees around that. Your car suddenly breaks down. So now you have to pay for, you know, because you don't have a brand new car. You have a little hoopty ride, right? Like you're trying to just get around with that car. And that car gets you to work too by the way um so now your car breaks or you got a flat tire you need to replace the tire that's gonna be another 250 300 and then you park it you know like trying to figure out something and then you suddenly get a parking ticket in los angeles that can cost you 200 right and you're sitting here thinking how in a matter of a week did i just like get go in debt for like a thousand extra dollars and i can't even pay my rent yet yeah you know and it turns into this really crazy cycle where I feel like you cannot get ahead when you are poor.

32:53Yeah. And that just continues to happen every single time that every day of your life as a poor person. So of course they're thinking I need to hold on whenever I totally they don't come into chunks of money. They owe money. Yeah. You know and and life is how did you pull yourself out of that though coming from that family background? I truly believe that it's a mentality that you're born with. Right. Like I really, really think that success and, and, and knowing that you're going to go do something big, you're just that person. I have always, always thought that I, I always knew that if I worked really hard, I focused and I, and I knew what I wanted to achieve, that I was going to achieve it.

33:31And I always thought that even as a poor little girl, like I, you know, I, I'd be in rooms where I probably didn't even belong. And I, I'd be like first to speak up, you know, like, you're not getting me to shut up. Yeah. I'm going to like, let you know what I'm thinking. And I've just always been that person. Do you think that that is what, like when you look at your kids and now that they have a mom who has achieved this, like, do you think that they are going to have that same hustle, that same grind for themselves? I hope so. You know, this is my Roman empire. You know this, right? Like I, I think about this on a very regular basis.

34:03How do I raise children that are not brats first off, right? Because they do have access to anything that they basically want, anything they need, right? Whereas I used to have to watch my parents struggle through things. Their first languages weren't English either, right? My dad spoke Spanish, my mom spoke Korean. So as a five-year-old, as soon as I learned how to read and write, I was translating things for them. I was writing letters for them when they needed to send a letter to work or to the school. I was watching them really have to struggle through things, right? And it obviously created something in me that made me want to succeed to be able to take care of this.

34:39and not be in that situation like them, right? My kids don't see that. And I actually, there was this moment, I remember it was a couple years ago, my ex-husband was watching ESPN and this athlete, they had just like won something, let's say it was like, I don't think it was like Super Bowl, but it was a big moment for this athlete and he's being interviewed and he's talking about how his mom was a single mom and she worked so hard, she worked three jobs to be able to get him through everything and be there and support him. And I said, you know, it's crazy to me, you know like obviously like amazing for that guy and his mom that he's gotten where he is because of her help but my kids didn't see my struggle right they didn't see my growth and they didn't see how hard I had to work to get where I am um and uh and so they're not going to experience that gratitude right you know so I keep thinking about how do we how do we do this like how do we make it so that they can feel that gratitude feel that get have a little bit of grit yeah right and I truly don't have the answer for it.