EP #71 - The Future of Sustainability and Wellness with Chloe Songer & Stuart Ahlum, Co-Founders of Thousand Fell

(gentle music) And I think we're a little lucky because we're also like in this, I don't wanna call it an echo chamber because echo chamber kinda has a negative connotation, but in this like cool community of people that are pushing the envelope and peers that are doing things like vertical farming and thinking about things like Irohatic medicine and making that mainstream. And I think that's really been an incredible sort of intersection with sustainability and with health and wellness. Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Endorphins. This week is dedicated to discussing the intersection between sustainability and specifically sustainability and retail with wellness. And I am so honored to have had Chloe Sanger and Stuart Ollum co-founders of Thousand Fell to come on to the podcast this week. Thousand Fell is a New York City-based sneaker company that offers a line of biodegradable shoes with the goal of changing how footwear is produced and consumed. In this interview, Chloe and Stuart talk about how they got inspired to start Thousand Fell after working in the retail industry in Asia for a few years and seeing how unsustainable the practices were there and in the retail industry at large. And they also talk about what circularity means when we speak about sustainability and what it means to be fully circular in the circular economy. Thousand Fell also has a ton of great content on their Instagram page about circularity. So I would definitely encourage you to check that out. We also dive a little bit deeper into Chloe and Stuart's personal routines and how they integrate sustainable practices and wellness practices in their day-to-day lives. I'm super excited for you guys to hear this interview. Before we get into it, make sure to follow this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer, give it a like, rate review, and enjoy listening. - Hi, Chloe, hi, Stuart. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. - Hi. - Really excited to be here. - It's great to reconnect and I'm really excited to kind of dive right into our conversation today around Thousand Fell and the intersection between sustainability and wellness. I know that we spoke probably about two or three years ago now, so this was like pre-pandemic about Thousand Fell and I was so impressed with what you were doing then. And I feel like every time my mom linked in, I see another post and like an award and honorable mention for the two of you with everything that you guys are doing with Thousand Fell. So it's just been incredible to kind of see the trajectory of the company and now that you're launching a new business as well. There's a lot that we can talk about today. - It's been a whirlwind. I think we probably met end of 2019, right? When we were about to launch Thousand Fell. - Yeah, yeah. And that was, that was right. Yeah, before COVID and everything. And it's funny because I know Chloe, you were actually like living in Wuhan. And now like I didn't know what Wuhan was at the time. And then of course when COVID hit, like everyone knew what Wuhan was. - Yeah, I lived in Wuhan in 2014 and 2015 for 12 months or a year. And yeah, it's actually, it's an incredible city. I have like incredible friends throughout Wuhan and Central China, but nobody knew what Wuhan was my poor last year. I would always say directly west of Shanghai, North of Hong Kong, South of Beijing. If you'll be like just in the center there. - That's like a good way I guess to describe it. And then of course everyone knew what Wuhan was. Like no one would, at the beginning, no one could stop talking about it. But today we're not here to talk about COVID and Wuhan. We're here to talk about Thousand Fells. So I'd love to start out with hearing a little bit about the origin story of how you guys started Thousand Fells, what got you interested in sustainability and being in the retail space. - Yeah, well a lot of that actually goes back to China, to be honest. So Stuart and I actually both met in Asia. Stuart was living in Thailand, Northern Thailand while I was living in Wuhan. We both did a postgraduate fellowship in Asia. And then neither of us wanted to leave because it was amazing to be abroad when you were young and post grad. And so both of us ended up getting jobs in and out or close to the retail and branding industries, I guess, Shanghai. So Stuart was working for a branding agency that was bringing Western brands essentially into the Chinese market. So building pedagogy around Beyonce or Skull Candy or some like big brands, right? And bringing them in and building a marketing strategy into the Chinese native marketing platforms. Like E.G.E or Yoku. And I really wanted to work for a brand. I was like, I had worked before in college for 18 months actually at Condonast in Vogue and Vogue China. I speak Chinese. But I really wanted to work for a brand to see the business side of fashion and send it up working for Alexander Wang's mom, Ying Wang, who had launched a made in China, designed in China luxury label called Rite. And I worked under a woman named Jasmine Ting and then another woman named Christina Liao, both of whom had started their careers in New York. They were Chinese-born American or American born Chinese since ain't around. - Yeah, reverse that. - Reverse that. Awesome women who had moved back to Shanghai. And not moved back, they weren't born there, but moved to Shanghai to have this kind of global, Chinese-American citizen brand. And it was a gorgeous brand, but I got to be on a small team and really got to see the means of production. And I'll let Stuart Townetel what he also saw separately, but we were both really close to factory systems and sample rooms and fabric sourcing uniquely. So that you don't see, I think earlier in your career when you're at a big brand here. And we also had to see a lot of the waste. And so kind of stuck with me as I went to my next role. - Yeah, so Chloe teed it up really nicely. And I mean, I feel like you did something similar with Vogue and Condonast and creating pedagogy within a new market. And trying to instill all of this legacy brand information in fast forward, essentially. But got really involved when I was in Shanghai in startups. And in teams that were launching new footwear brands, new cut and sew brands, new made to measure brands. And what was so interesting is that it was this boom in sort of e-com that was happening maybe three years or four years after what had happened in the US, the infrastructure was starting to pick up there much in the same way. But you were so close to the means of production. So I spent a ton of time in between Dongguan, Shanghai and Fujian, which were kind of the footwear capitals in mainland China, really building out supply chains and following early founders that had had experience doing that. And Chloe's right, like it was, listen, I imagine that it was the same sort of like creative or energy that you felt in New York in the 80s when the garment district was probably humming. Everything was like a 30 minute plane ride away or like a quick train ride away. And it was like so incredible to be there. But on the flip side of that, you also saw kind of the environmental impact that that was taking, right? Like how intense some of these factory systems were, what cutting scraps were looking like? What kind of just like working conditions weren't necessarily dangerous, but like footwear has a lot of glues and it's got a lot of lasting. And it's just, it's a really like intensive kind of a visceral like build out experience that we were seeing really early on in our early 20s. And I think that really informed kind of the the niche within retail that we were really looking to occupy and the things that we were looking to change. And I think it was, I don't want to necessarily say it was a unique perspective, but it was definitely a perspective that we got really, really early on. And we were able to kind of jump like kind of two feet in to tackle the problem. I came back from China, ended up working at Gap. At Gap Inc. and you know, I have a friend in common from Gap, but and got to see I think on a bigger scale, what production, mass production, global production and a global brand network looks like. And you know, during that time, Stuart was actually working for another startup brand. We just had this epiphany like waste. Like the system can't go on in the way it's going on. And we're not moving fast enough. You know, at these bigger brands, like even a move into organic cotton, 60 to 90 cents a t-shirt hits your bottom line. And that the customer's not willing to pay, four to five X, the cost of that innovation more on their price tags. If for 90 cent innovation, it's four dollars more. You're not gonna, you're not gonna be able to afford it. And so it's, you know, we're balancing this tight rope because brands, many brands are publicly traded. Many brands have really tight margins. You know, you know, retail is not a margin rich business, like something like pharmaceuticals or tech or SaaS. Really tight margins, particularly taking to the account the cost of advertising. And so we didn't feel like sustainability was moving fast enough. And so that kind of led us to thousand fell and then that super circle. - I think it's really interesting that you had that perspective being in Asia and seeing how much waste was produced. Like I think when you see it firsthand, it really kind of can sink in and you can actually conceptualize like how not sustainable the retail industry is. And it's great that we're kind of moving towards this direction and their brands like thousand fell and now super circle that are like trying to further that conversation. And you know, as a consumer, I feel like we just mindlessly purchase things and not even realize how wasteful like these. these products can be or just like the production of them are incredibly wasteful. And you know, you describe it Chloe is like this epiphany moment. How did that then manifest into deciding okay, like I actually want to create a sustainable footwear company? Yeah, I can I'll answer this one. And I distinctly remember this conversation. We were we were walking down Broadway on the way back from yeah, which was in playback is I think it's still there. It's been right back with the officers in time. And we were like, all right, like if we really want to do this right and this working to start up, I'm like we wanted to rethink this entirely. Like what would we really like blue sky what do we want to do? So we want to do something that's sustainable. And we had tried in the months prior to have a vegan diet and to be much more conscientious of what we were consuming our own consumer choices. That's right. You always start there, right? That's right. And it was so hard. To find anything that was this intersection of at least moderately fashionable and sustainable. And and affordable. And the only options that we were seeing like Stella McCartney sneakers, like 750 and we were like early in our career and that was like way out of our budget. So what was everyone else doing? We didn't really know. We're like, okay, it needs to be something that's sustainable needs to be something that's price point attainable. And then we really double clicked into that and it's like, all right, like we have a good enough chops on the sourcing side to know that we can effectively sustainably source product. Like we can get something that's an organic cotton or we can get something that's a leather substitute that's more sustainable. But like at the end of the day, it all still goes to landfill. And if like we really are serious and like intellectually honest about addressing the problem, we've got to you know soup to nuts like cradle to cradle, solve for the waste problem and create something that's fully circular. And that was something that felt really worthwhile going after. And we had already had a time of experience developing footwear and we recognized to kind of coin this term of high frequency basics. Where we're like, but where's this unique product category? And there are others that kind of fit it, right? Like intimates fit into this space too. And like certain like verticals within cutting so do. But it's the first users often the last. And there aren't these like multiple resale opportunities. These things aren't holding their value. And no one knows what to do with it. Like you open your closet and you have like 15 pairs of shoes that are all stuffed in the back that like your old running shoes and then you move apartments and you just like close your eyes and throw them away, right? So there was a really big problem there. And so there was this like perfect intersection between the things that we were passionate about. This big big problem that we wanted to solve within retail. This expertise that we felt like we could bring early in our careers to solving that problem in a physical product. And then kind of the same vision for a much larger vision, which I think we'll eventually talk to, which is going to be launching in super circle. Being able to kind of power circular systems for the industry at large. And I think what we did uniquely well and it was, I don't want to say it was like totally mastermind the entire time. I think it was a little reactionary, but a pretty strong north star was not just rushing into building infrastructure for circularity. In 2018, if we can imagine this, like we would co-in and be like, hey listen, like we're going to build these circular products. If you're like, what? What does that even mean? Does it mean it's sustainable? Like we had to get boiled down. Like we use coconut husk, because like people couldn't conceptualize this idea of being able to recycle recycle an item. And so the industry just wasn't quite there yet and wasn't quite ready. And the consumer was what needed that tangible product in their hands to understand like, oh this is what a circular product could be. So that was really what sort of was the lightning in the bottle moment, the conversations that we were having as soon to be early founders. And maybe I'll call it budding entrepreneurs. It was brewing, it was brewing in the background. That's right. And so yeah, it was essentially that. It was probably really passionate about. It was a very big problem that we wanted to solve. It was something that kind of sat in our wheelhouse and expertise and we were really excited to kind of go after it. You also mentioned this concept around circularity. And I know that you talk a lot about the circular economy. Can you share with my listeners a little bit about what the circular economy is, how it's related to sustainability, how a thousand fells mission is very much directly in line with being a circular product, being a part of the circular economy. Yeah, we're working on circular economy pedagogy, right? So there's a couple of ways that we use to define or talk about circularity. I'll talk about that first and maybe it's a conversation. Yeah, that's good. The first and easiest thing to say is before we get into linear economy for circular economy, just how do you make sure that a fiber or a product or a material has value at its end of life and it's not just trash? Like how do we move away from this culture and this economy of disposability where you take a resource, you make something and then it's done. It's never used again. And you've taken that natural resource or that resource be it synthetic or natural. And it has a single lifespan. And so the circular economy is this move from the linear economy, which is just that it's this take make waste model. You're taking resources, making products, and then they just become trash or waste. And moving towards a model where at the end of life, we still prescribe a value to that fiber or that material and we keep it in use. And or you know, and if we can't keep it in use indefinitely, right? Eventually, and I think what people I think the reason that the circular economy feels intangible or like someone said today to us that it feels like a retro futuristic pipe dream. Yeah, that's right. Where the reason that the circular economy feels the way is because you think about like infinite loops and like you think about these really cutting edge like far out projects where you can infinitely recycle a material and keep it in use indefinitely. And that's great. And it's incredible. And we're a huge fans of a lot of the work being done on the material science base. But at the bare minimum, it's how do we build an ecosystem in an economy where we can actually put those fibers back into their next best used case. Even if that involves downcycling. When I am definitely on record in 2020 and 2019, not agreeing with the statement I just said and saying that it means keeping things in use indefinitely. But I've changed my mind because I think that there's a north star for the circular economy to move from a make-take waste to what is it? Make taste reuse. Make take reuse. Yeah, I need to know all these. I think reuse regenerates. So helping the systems and the people and the planet be better than how you found it. There's a fourth bullet there. And that is the north star. It is where we need to go. But there is also a lot of material not just in the clothing industry already in use. And how do we find a way to keep that at its next best use case? That's where we're super focused right now. Is bridging that gap and then helping build systems infrastructure to get us towards that indefinite circularity ultimately. And then about thousand phones super circle, I think it's probably important to frame up the two businesses and what they both do and then how they're both circular. So thousand fell as Stuart kind of talked about a little bit. We designed a sneaker that could be pulled apart and where we could either recycle or down cycle every waste stream within the shoe. So the shoe is made the majority of RPET which is recycled polyester and then rubber, natural rubber. And then there are biobased phones. The RPET and the rubber are actually recycled with recycling partners of ours. And so the shoe is pulled apart and the phones are pulled out and the phones are sent into a down cycling waste stream. Down cycling means something still stays in use, but it might be then it might be its last use. So kids put into composite shredded fiber and goes into housing insulation, automobile insulation, or the rag and shoddy industry or different materials for construction like composite materials or things like punching bags or medicine balls, but it stays in use. We're keeping it out of landfill immediately and removing the need for new fiber. And then the RPET and the rubber, the RPET, how many times can the rubber be turned? You should be talking about this. Yeah, so rubber can be turned several times and you can take it at shredded, grind it, and then process it so that you actually create chrome rubber. So it can be used back into outsolls for new footwear, which is great. So it's componentry to componentry recycling. RPET can be recycled on a loop 20 plus times. It's a very durable product. And it has to have higher grade RPET put back into it. When you do go through the shred process, you do kind of degrade the quality a little bit. But again, it's these loops that you're able to run within these within these material feeds. So we've been really focused on that. And I know you were kind of teeing this up too, Chloe. The ether foams can be downcycled. We've got a ton of bio substitutes that are in our products, whether that's coconut husk or sugar cane that allow us to industrial compost. And so we're substituting a lot of these like traditional component parts. The TPUs, the heavy plastics, like the petroleum foams, we've taken that out and substituted a lot of that so the product can be recycled. And this kind of underscores a really important first step that I think the majority of the products are in our products. of the industry are starting to wake up to, which is designing for recyclability. And so people are thinking about this in material inputs and the construction techniques that they're doing, and it's a really important first step for future products. And I think what Super Circle does, which I'll let Chloe kinda tee up, 'cause she speaks about it really eloquently, is being able to solve for legacy product and existing product, as well as future product. But it's all about this, this logistics system and this tech system that we've built. Before you get into Super Circle, just a question about creating more sustainable products. Do you see this as an accelerated trend within retail, across all different types of retail companies, these companies and brands trying to actually build their existing products in a way that's more sustainable, like using more sustainable materials, fabrics, what not, maybe even in luxury, for example. - Yeah, I am really bullish on this. I think that in the next 10 years, no one will throw garments away. It just won't happen. And I know that sounds a little far-fetched, but I really truly believe it. We're seeing it across high love. We're seeing it in the LVMH, caring groups of the world. We're seeing it with contemporary luxury. We're seeing it with a very large mass market brands and we're seeing it even with fast fashion brands or lower price point brands. Everyone is thinking about how sustainability is gonna fit into the way that they're sourcing. And I think a lot of teams are realizing kind of in the lower part of the value chain that until sustainable textiles, if they ever do get to an equivalent price point to virgin materials, they need a better way for them to engage in sustainability. And so recycling really becomes an option there. So if you're so price constrained in your cogs, your cost of goods, design it to be recycled. And then that way we can come in and we can help really, really drive sustainable initiatives within a business and within a brand. - Yeah, I think, I've seen a lot around just like this acceleration towards sustainability. It seems like it's such a hot topic now. I don't wanna say it's becoming a buzzword, but it's something that a lot of people are certainly prioritizing and finding to be interesting and also incredibly relevant as well. And I wanna also touch a little bit on super circles. 'Cause I know that's the new business that you guys are launching. And I am very curious to hear how super circle fits into the picture of sustainability and everything we've talked about thus far with circularity and recycling materials and the circular economy. - So we started with Thousand Valle and Stuart actually talked about this earlier, but when we were first kind of shopping the idea, talking to people about the circularity, sustainability, in 2018 and 2019, I think it was too early to build a larger system and we felt like the industry wasn't quite ready. Brands weren't quite ready to make the investment and it actually would have been a terrible timing pre-COVID. So we felt like we needed to have our own product line and our own brand to really prove of concept, circular retail and what it could do and what it would look like and how it could be actually a sustainable business model. How can circularity be profitable, what does that look like? And so what we've been building, the way we describe it is that Thousand Valle has been the tip of the iceberg that you can see above the water line and beneath the water line, we've been building what we've been calling the full engine to power the circular economy and that's everything from the tech, the logistics and the shipping network and warehousing network to actually power take back. So we've talked a little bit about design for recycling, but when you get into what is circularity actually, like you can design something as sustainable as you want but if you can't get it back from your customer in like Iowa, North Carolina and California as like equally easily and you can't get it to one location to sort it and you can't get it to the proper industrial recycling partner, it's not circular. And you know, that might be a bold statement but design for circularity is not circularity. And so when we kind of dove in, it really is an infrastructure and logistics problem and it's the same problem facing the plastics industry. - That's right. - And so what Super Circle is, it's not a brand, it is a new business in the sense because we're just launching it but it is the tech and logistics infrastructure that we've built behind Thousand Thaub. So it's everything that's been running and powering the Thousand Thaub's take back program for the last two years and we're now rolling that out as a separate business offering for other brands. So Super Circle enables the world's best brands to power their own recycling and take back businesses and we actually went live seven weeks ago with Reformation as our first partner. So we now power recycling for Reformation. So all of their denim, sweaters, footwear, it all comes back and you can go online to Reformation and you can see Super Circle and it all comes back through Super Circle and we recycle it and well, we don't recycle it. We handle the tech, the shipping, logistics and we bank and bail waste cross brand and then get it to the appropriate recycling partner. And we just went live two weeks ago with me at the label. We're going live with 10 tree in a couple of weeks. We're going live with 10 to 15 brands in next 12 months. So the goal is I think in the next 12 months we'll hopefully have recycled just over a million garments. - Wow, I mean, that's incredible. - I think there's something really interesting that Chloe kind of touched on and I wanna pause there for everybody listening and just really underscore this. Recycling currently exists commercially at scale for post-industrial waste and that's like all the carpet in a high rise in Manhattan. That's all the same material that can be run through this system very effectively recycled. But it's really easy to collect that. You got a one location and it's all the same items. You don't have to do any sort. You know exactly what's in it, boom, you recycle it. The thing that we're solving for here is being able to tap into what we kind of think is the Holy Grail of textile waste which is like everyone's closets. And being able to transform something that individually is not recyclable because it doesn't, we don't know the contents or it's not at scale or it's not prepped in the right way and using the super circle system to deliver it to recyclers so that it can be. And that's like a huge hurdle and it's a huge impediment both for brands but then also for recyclers as well. And so we're kind of solving this problem on both sides of it. And what that allows us to do too is embed with really fantastic recycling partners that are pushing the envelope on recycling tech. So thinking about chemical recycling, thinking about how to recycle blends, thinking about how to recycle items without shredding them or without trimming buttons and zippers and grommets off. So it's really awesome. So we're kind of at this intersection between retail brands, consumers, and the leaders in the recycling tech. - Yeah, I think that's so fascinating. And congratulations on all these launches with all these brands that you're working with. I'm familiar with Reformation and I love their products and I really admire their mission, which is obviously very similar to yours. But I think Chloe brought up a really interesting point also around how design is, it only goes so far into the picture of the circular economy. Like design alone doesn't mean something is circular. And so it's really about like looking at the infrastructure more so that kind of underpins or is the foundation around the circular economy, which is really interesting because I, when I think about sustainability in fashion, I think about like the design of the product. And so it's really fascinating for me to see how far beyond, it goes so much far beyond that. Pudding a little bit away from the circular economy and what we're just talking about. I read somewhere that like sustainability is about the health and wellness of our planet, but more so it's about the health and wellness of our people. And on this podcast, I talk a lot about wellness and mental health. And I'm curious to hear your perspective on the relationship between sustainability and wellness as you see it, as entrepreneurs in the space and also any practices that you do in your life that you consider to be sustainable or related to wellness. - Yeah, there's a couple different things there I think too. I think we can kind of tackle this from how we see sustainability and wellness on sort of like the macro level and what we're seeing with products and the way people are behaving in these like consumer changes and behavior changes. I also think there's a lot to talk about in the sustainability and startup space and impact space with also just like personal mental health and wellness as well. And maybe I'll tackle that first and then back out into things that are maybe a little bit more macro that we're seeing, but I think it's never been a better time to be a founder. And I think that that doesn't mean that it's easy. I just think that it means that the road ahead has been paved in a very like hard fought way by others that have come before us and the conversation within venture and within founder groups has also really pivoted away from this like total hustle porn, which I think it still does and people are talking about how much they work and how hard things are. And I think there's some pride. and that too, you should be proud of how hard you work. But it's also a lot of that conversation is around avoiding burnout and living a lifestyle that's sustainable. That can sustain you for the duration that it takes to build in scale a startup. It's not a two-year blitz. It's like seven to ten years of time that you're dedicated to it. We've seen it firsthand, founders that just go, go, go, and just burn out. I think what's so interesting is there's a lot of resources. There's also a lot of startups, too, within our portfolio, our investors portfolios that are peers in the space that are addressing this. I think that's really great. I also think that that was precipitated by the craziness that was COVID and people trying to figure out how to pilot early stage startups through, and even later stage startups, through kind of an unprecedented time period. I think that there's been a big change on sustainable work styles. And listen, our team still works super hard. I would be totally lying to you if I said this was a nine to five job. It's definitely not. Everyone's always on and they're working really, really hard and really passionate about the mission. But I think that there's a little bit more focus on wellness. I also think when we look at kind of like a macro point of view, there really is this idea of intersectionality in the impact and sustainability space. And I don't necessarily mean that in like maybe the textbook sense of that. I mean that more in the sense that there is a lot of overlap in mission between activists and thought leaders in sustainability and then in other movements too. And in the wellness movement as well. And I know a lot of people are thinking about kind of this synergy and alignment with earth and renewability and regenerative farming and connecting us back to like the core of where everything comes from in fashion and in retail and in sustainable fashion and sustainable retail. And then having that kind of also overlap into kind of this macro groundedness. And we're seeing this too with like a lot of the things that we consume as personal consumers right, whether it's the items that we're buying, the food that we're eating. And I think we're a little lucky because we're also like in this. I don't want to call it an echo chamber because echo chamber kind of has a negative connotation. But in this like cool community of people that are pushing the envelope and peers that are doing things like vertical farming and thinking about things like aerobic medicine and making that mainstream. I think that's really been an incredible sort of intersection with sustainability and with health and wellness. Sustainability and the future of sustainability and the climate is inextricably linked to wellness and health. And there's, you know, I could probably go on on list of millions stats. I love data. But, you know, it's pretty hard to, you know, there's clear evidence that an investment in a sustainable climate actually impacts your health. Everything from asthma to, you know, landfill just even thinking about ways to be able to start there. But lack eight water runoff, sludge, lack eight is like a toxic sludge that runs off from landfills, landfills being disproportionately closer to lower income communities. Landfills now in the developing world across Latin America and Africa. And so I think you were probably asked about wellness as far as personal wellness and mental health. But there's so much in the way of just, you know, sustainable societies, sustainable urban development and climate. And so I think it's easier for me to put in a 12 hour day to work every Saturday, you know, not that that's great. And so it's easier for me to just dive all in on something like this when I can see the bigger impact. And so I think probably many people on our team would also speak to vision and mission that Stuart mentioned as a main driver. You have also. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, also it does make sense that, you know, the sustainability and like wellness of our planet can, you know, directly impact our own health and wellness, you know, even at like a physiological level. It's funny. I was talking to my roommate the other day and she was like, my eyes are really itchy and, you know, like she wasn't feeling well and I was like, oh, it's probably allergies. And she's like, no, it's like, I think it's just because New York is so dirty, like in the air, it's so dirty. And she's from, you know, the south. And so I think it just, the quality, the air quality is different there. And, you know, it's just, it's interesting to see when you're in a big city like New York, all the pollution and it all kind of ties in together to your point. And so there is this very strong link between the sustainability of our planet and our own health and wellbeing. And very big link particularly for your generation, not to know about this in generation, but younger generations between climate change and mental health and climate doom or climate grief. Yeah, that's right. And I think it's one of the top five things that's causing this inextricable, or not extricable, but this inescapable sense of doom and gloom and anxiety. This never ending anxiety that comes from news media and hyper polarized politics that comes from COVID that comes from now we're in a, we're heading towards a recession as the economy falling off a cliff. What's inflation? Then underlying all of that is an article or a report every other day that the planet's screwed and you know, we didn't fix it fast enough and in a hundred years everything's going to be underwater and it's terrifying. And we have put blinders on and we're able to be like, eh, okay, fine, climate change, another thing. But I also think that the ability to take action, the ability to participate in a new system and the ability for both consumers, employees, co-workers, us as founders to not like to sit there and do nothing but know that you're hurtling towards this precipice to what I was going to say of like a cliff. Like that creates this feeling of paralysis and but the ability, you know, even if it's, you know, even if it's small or it's incremental to be able to make changes within your personal life, be it even again, the type of industry that you go into helps. Yeah, I mean, you're earlier you mentioned that, you know, what we need to kind of start with ourselves around sustainability. Like doing things that are more sustainable, it actually starts with like evaluating maybe the choices that you make. So drawing from your own life experiences, what are some practices that you, you know, you adopt in your day to day life, whether they be wellness practices or not, that you consider to be sustainable. Like how have you created sustainable lives for yourselves? You're completely right. The first place to look is at home, what can you do? And then from there, you can think about career and industry and then from there, you can even think about your own investment dollars and where that's going, which I think is really exciting that personal investment in sustainable ventures and sustainable funds is actually becoming more accessible. And I think that's going to a huge movement for personal finance. But in your, in our personal lives, we've done everything from thinking about diet to buying locally, shopping locally, cutting meat. We don't need red meat unless we're out. We went vegan for a time. We introduced chicken and fish. That's right. Back in, and that's just a medical need and it wasn't for us a moral thing about eating animals, but we do actually think about the farms and the businesses that we're supporting and only wild caught. So there's a lot of micro decisions use a consumer can make, right? And a lot of it starts with food. It's the easiest place to start and it's the one of the biggest impacts you can have. Then transportation, how you think about transportation, we're lucky being in New York. We don't own cars. We don't have to drive a lot. There is public transportation available. So that's easier. But then from there, it's other consumer habits and consumer choices and I hate the answer like, oh, well, just shop brand you love. It's not just shop brand you love for the sake of shopping. But it truly is one of the biggest, you know, your wallet is one of the biggest places you can vote in day to day. And it's not shop for the sake of shopping, but you, everybody does need to shop, steward needed this white shirt. He got it at the real real. I did. This is the second hand shirt. Shout out to the river. Probably 60, 70% more clothing a second hand. Yeah. Second hand or vegan. We're trying to do no new leather. We're trying to buy no items that are new with leather. So, you know, not shopping for the sake of shopping, but supporting businesses that we want to see stick around and thinking about sustainable habits with our wallet. Then from there, how can you get involved and how can you think about your own career path and where you want to invest your time and energy and the types of businesses that you want to be involved in and the types of businesses and companies that you want to see around in 20 years? Because those are the companies you need to support. And so I think, and I think that that's changing. I think that, you know, I see with our generation people making, I was just on LinkedIn earlier looking at a friend from college who just went to a climate school for a week. People, you know, left Wall Street went to a climate school for a week and as a whole, now doing impact investing. So like people are making decisions more and more so about the world that they want to see in the future across, you know, their career. I mean, there's all there's just like the dumb small things like I hate to tell you things like bring a reusable water bottle, but there's the lifestyle changes like within fashion one that I love is do not wash your clothes. Don't wash your clothes. Please stop washing your clothes. I never washed my clothes. I wash only undergarments and workout clothes. And hang I like hang everything I steam it. I'm like I make sure it doesn't smell I spot clean, but it's like one of the worst things you can do is washing your clothes. I don't run the dryer. Yeah. Don't run the dryer. Hang dry it if you are going to wash them in front. Hang dry it. Well, in Europe they hang dry everything. I know my family in Greece who just hang it out to do it. It's so hot there. Yeah. But it's very sustainable. I know. I know. Yeah. The only thing I'd add to that too of like things that I've been really excited about has been I feel like a double clicked one more layer into like natural wellness. And I'm no expert by any means, but I'm starting to do things more like take ashwagandha like on a daily basis or think more about like turmeric lattes. And I feel like it's it's beautiful like cultural circularity where we're just like returning back to this like culturally like known truth from like India and the rest of the like these ancient civilizations are like, oh yeah, of course, like we've been doing this for two thousand years. But I think that's really interesting. And it's been it's felt really aligned in this idea of like back to the beginning. But no, I think I think Chloe's right. And I think I haven't really like vocalized this this thought before. But you know, I'd say maybe a hundred years ago. And then up through I don't know, let's say the let's say the 80s or even before there was this like massive industrialization and innovation in in like the world, right? And like there was all of this major progress. And it wasn't just for progress, sake, but like this very deliberate thoughtful progress. And it's not to say that we lost our way like, you know, in the past 30 years. But we got a little off track, I think, where the end goal wasn't what it used to be with this idea of like building a better world and a better society. And I think people are kind of returning back to that. And I'm really again like as I'm maybe overly bullish, but bullish on on nothing ever being thrown away from your closet in 10 years. I really think people are reevaluating the mission of their work. And I think that's awesome. And I like could not encourage that more. And I also think that I'm just going to borrow from Chloe's narrative. Like you can be in any industry, whether it's fashion or finance or or you know tech. And you can make decisions within your org to more closely align with sustainability and wellness. I know a lot of teams have like sustainable fibrous means or they've got impact arms and like trying to like nudge your career in that direction and take an active role and kind of pushing your career in that way is I think amazing. And then it gives you the the skill set and the tools to make bigger and bigger changes both personally and professionally. And I like could not encourage that enough. Yeah, it's a really great point you bring up. And I think it also goes back to this idea around just taking small steps also because there's a lot you can do clearly to incorporate more sustainable practices into your routine. Like lifestyle changes in your career and the decisions that you make. But I think it's really important to kind of boil it down into the small actions you can take every day that will kind of aggregate and culminate into something greater. And you know, I even feel inspired now to like go through my closet and also be a bit more like mindful about what I'm purchasing and consuming. And instead of just like throwing away clothes that I don't wear donating them or actually purchasing clothes through like a secondhand store thrifting or finding more you know ways to have like sustainable purchasing habits. So I'm really inspired from what you guys have been sharing tonight. And you know, I think it's also important that we continuously educate ourselves because there's clearly so much to continue to learn in sustainability. And how things are going to progress with the industry, you know, over the course of the next five 10 years as well. So, you know, I really appreciate the both of you coming on to the podcast to share some of your insights. Talk about thousand fell super excited to see Super Circle be launched. And, you know, before we wrap up tonight, my final question that I have for the both of you is something that I ask every guest that comes onto the show. And it's directly related to happiness and mental health. What is something that brings you a bit of endorphins every day? You already mentioned Dr. Gondo, which are like huge fans of taking it for like a year now. Or like evangelizing the power of fungi to anybody who will listen. For me, the number one thing although it's not every day, but it's making time for my closest friends. Like I think what keeps me going is having like really concentrated, I caught hang time, really concentrated time. I'm just like totally turned off of work and I'm with my closest friends and I'm like, this is why I'm alive. For me, it's like they're just so important to me and it's so fun and I love seeing them. They're my college friends. And so I think finding time for yourself with friends and community and then family also falls into that and hanging out with family and seeing them super important to me. But finding time in space to just completely shut off and being with the people you care about is what kind of keeps me mentally in check and got me through like COVID and fundraising over COVID in the last year. Yeah. That's a really good one. And now makes mine seem way less deep and hard for me. Oh, obviously mine was having time. Yeah, that's a really good one. No, this is mine. I love routine and ritual, but not too much structure. And I had to throw that out there as being like a startup founder. Like this is the wild, wild west. And I love that. But every morning, I've like stopped drinking coffee every morning. Yeah, this is mine every morning. I drink tea, drink a cup of tea. And the brand that I love is tea too. And I probably makes me super basic. But there's this Melver and Breakfast tea. And it was like for whatever reason, it's the most enjoyable, like amazing thing. And it's not to the point where like I can't start my morning. That's I'm not the I'm not the coffee grouch. I used to be that person and I'm like thankfully not anymore. But it really calms me down. And I think that there are these moments that you're running so hard and everyone is and life's moving at you a million miles an hour. And I think I think that people, people mistakenly identify these like major like highlight moments of like, you know, vacations that are like defining happiness in their life. And like those moments are great, but they're they're few and far between. The moments that really drive happiness are the moments that are repetitive that you do every single day that dominate like actual meaningful hours of your time. I mean like to close point it's friends and it's being being in that community. I think to my point, it's it's kind of the small things that you can do every day to slow down for 10 minutes. And it seems inconsequential, but it really it really makes me happy. They add up to I mean, everything that you guys just said really just resonated with me and I took a positive psychology class in college and I remember our professor talking about how like we think that we're the happiest and we're on vacations because we look back. We have such fond memories of those times, but like in reality, if you try to recall what you did on vacation every single day, like you're not going to have any any memory of that like to your point today, where it's really about those small changes that you make every day. And I really resonated with that point on like finding comfort in ritual and routine, but not too much structure because I think it's really easy for me to like want that routine and conflate it with having a lot of structure. But like you said, life just comes at you in a million directions and a million miles an hour and you can't always have that structure. And so it's like what are those small things you can do every day that are grounding that you know, you can look forward to that kind of will set you up for success. And I also gave up, I gave up coffee a year ago. I'm a big match a person. Haven't really got into I mean, I like English breakfast tea, but match is more of like my go-to drink. You gotta try tea too. If you want to go crazy, also try chogatee. Also again, evangelizing the fungi here. I've I have you heard of mud water. It's like the coffee. So I used to kind of partner them with my podcast and you know, I have an affiliate code shout out to the affiliate code. And it's for those who don't know it's a coffee. off the alternative, but it's a combination of like different types of mushrooms. And I've also seen a lot in the news about ashwagana, but I don't really know a lot about it and like what the health benefits are. So do you guys like take a pill? Is it like a drink? Like how do you consume it and what are the health benefits? Disclaimer, this is not medical advice. There are partners that are pills and for drinks. And I started with drinks and then I just started taking the pills and you can Google it. So don't take my advice for it, but eventually it regulates what the claim is that it regulates cortisol. And there are some studies that there hasn't been enough research into total fungi. But whether it's placebo or not, we feel it. We're like less stressed, we're more mellow. I just, you know, I'm sleeping through the night and particularly during high stress things, like fundraising or pitching or you know, it's awesome. And you know, the idea is I think that it regulates cortisol. It has benefits for memory. It has benefits for diabetes and blood sugars. So I think there's so much we don't know about the power of fungi, but yeah, similarly we're in the chaga and the water. And it's all like the super foods also. I mean, I'm really lights me up and maybe that should be like another podcast episode. The power of fungi. I love it. I think that would be pretty awesome. But there's paying a fuller. You're paying a fuller. I think so. I love it. Well, thank you both so much for coming on to the podcast. For my listeners, you can find thousandfell.com, Instagram, thousand underscore fell. It has been such a pleasure having the both of you as guests. Thank you again for coming on to Everyday Endorphins. Thanks for having us. Thank you for listening and remember to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform you prefer. Don't forget to keep spreading endorphins. And find things that bring you endorphins every day. See you next time.