Jennifer Garner on What Only Time Can Teach You

Jennifer Garner is an award-winning actor, producer, longtime Save the Children ambassador, and co-founder of Once Upon a Farm, an organic children’s food brand. After rising to fame on Alias, she built a career spanning more than three decades before entering entrepreneurship at 45 and helping grow Once Upon a Farm into a $724 million publicly traded company. Jennifer joins Emma to talk about the side of success people rarely see: losing years of her life when Alias made her famous, disappearing from friendships, and how the constant presence of paparazzi warped her confidence. Jennifer shares: What Jennifer is only now realizing about approval and earning her placeHow years of rejection and several failed ideas prepared her for entrepreneurshipWhat she’s learned about holding anger without burying itHow to recognize the value you bring without conventional qualificationsWhen fame and visibility can help a business, and where they cannotWhat it actually looks like to protect a company’s missionWhy your biggest chapter doesn’t come with an age limit

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Emma Grede?

  Today's guest is Jennifer Garner. Jennifer has spent three decades as one of the most recognizable actresses in the world. She's also a mother and the co-founder of Once Upon a Farm, the baby food company she helped build and recently took public, which was valued at $845 million when shares began trading. I wanted to talk to Jennifer because her story challenges so many of the things women are taught about success. That our best opportunities have an expiry date, that fame automatically creates security, and that the person at the top must have all the answers. Jennifer tells me what happened when Alias made her famous almost overnight, why she spent years trying to earn her place, and how she learned to recognize the value of her own contribution.

• 0:53Emma Grede?

  We also talk about money, anger, the business ideas that failed before Once Upon a Farm succeeded, and why she was able to build something at 45 that she just never could have at 25.

• 1:11Emma Grede?

  Jennifer Garner, welcome to Aspire.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:14Emma Grede?

  I'm so happy to have you here today. I feel like I have so much that I want to ask you because you are coming off of such a mammoth, incredible year after taking your company, Once Upon a Farm, public. I just feel like I've been nonstop seeing you in my social timeline after 50, Forbes 50 over 50, which is incredible. And you know, I was saying to the team before you came here today, there is such a familiarity with you. I think I know you and we have never met before. And I just wondered how you're actually feeling in this season of your life because it feels like there's so much incredible momentum there for you and we all are cheering for you in the best possible way.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  That's so nice. Thank you. You know what's funny is that I have a similar but opposite feeling about you, which is that you are so aspirational for any woman that I feel like I know you but in like that I am scared a little bit to be in the same room. You know what I'm... That is... You are... You're just incredible. So that is my feeling. But yeah, okay. So how is it feeling to be me right now? It's really fun. It's great. I always like to be me, pretty much. When Five Star Weekend came out, I had this... You know, I wrote to the producers at one point and was like, "It's really fun being me all of a sudden." It's really like, people seem to really like it. That works. Or, you know, when we did have the IPO, which was such a celebration for our company,

• 2:39Speaker 01

  the cool thing about it was that seeing our customers in grocery stores or on the street or in airplanes is where I usually see the whole world. I felt like parents were celebrating with us and they felt like it was their victory as well. If I can say that, like, wow, we've done this. This company has been alive an amount of time that we all remember. It's inception and we know where it is now and we've gone through this journey together. Yeah, it's nice.

• 3:05Emma Grede?

  It's so incredible. It is so nice, isn't it? It feels... It feels to me like there's so much goodwill towards you and part of that is because there is this familiarity with you. We've known you since you were so young and we've seen you through so many different seasons. And I wonder if you remember when you first realized that people have formed such a specific opinion of who you were and who you are.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  I think that opinion has shifted over the years. I definitely remember the day that I knew that I was famous. I had started shooting Alias. We were in the first season. By the way, I'd been working for a long time and I had been a regular on TV series and I'd been in movies, big movies, little movies. And I never had that. Sometimes people would be like, "Hang on, did I see you in?" But it was nothing, nothing like what happened with Alias. But I worked kind of around the clock, those first couple of seasons especially, weekends, everything. So it was the first Saturday that I had a little bit of time off close to Christmas and I went to Fred Segal to do some Christmas shopping. I'd never been able to afford Fred Segal,

• 4:12Speaker 01

  so I just was like, "I'm gonna go and see what I can find." And I couldn't even walk through the door because it's all industry people there, you know? I was so overwhelmed by that realization of, "Oh, this is different. This is a thing." And my older sister looks just like me and she had been saying to me, "I think this is a thing. I can't go." I mean, I'm recognizing this has become a thing. So I do remember that moment. And then it's kind of shifted where it's like out of the cool girl into the mom, into the friend, you know, the girl next door.

• 4:48Emma Grede?

  I feel like that's a phrase that we hear so much when we talk about you and think about you, girl next door, America's mom. When do you feel, like, outside of everything that people project onto you, when do you feel like the most like yourself, the most like Jennifer?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Oh, just at home in my kitchen with my kids. Easy.

• 5:09Emma Grede?

  Because that's you. That's where you're most at home, you're most comfortable.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Feeding a passel of kids, whether they're mine or mine plus friends or really any of them, that is, that's peak happiness for me.

• 5:20Emma Grede?

  I love that I'm speaking to you now at this point in your career, especially after I saw Forbes 50 over 50 list because there's so much talk and chatter about women in our business and actually just women in the world aging. And it feels to me like you're on this incredible trajectory of your career right now. But it's been a long career. You've done so many things. And I read that you trained at ballet before you even started acting. Like, I really want to understand a little bit more about your trajectory, like how you thought about your career if you ever imagined that you'd be in the position that you are now and really how you even went from where you started to where you are now.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  You want to hear it?

• 6:04Emma Grede?

  I want it.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Are you ready for 30 some years?

• 6:07Emma Grede?

  I want it all. I really do.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  All right, here it comes. Well, it's an interesting time for you to ask me this particular question because I was just in Charleston, West Virginia, where I grew up, at my mom's house. And I was going through my closet. She asked me to get, to take stuff back to California or get rid of it or whatever. But I read through all of my old notebooks because I've always kept notebooks. You always see me with one in my hand. It's like my woobie or something. My notebooks, my diaries, my things. And I can tell you that what I learned about myself is I was just a performer as a kid. I mean, at my school, my little Oakwood Elementary, I was literally in clown makeup all the time, doing different things. I was in ballet.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  And my first mentor, I've kind of had these pivotal people in my life all the way. And my first one is my ballet teacher. I talk about it all the time, Nina Lou Denton Passanetti. Ms. Denton was my ballet teacher. She ran the local ballet company. She ran and still runs at 80... Oh, I'm not allowed to say, but it still runs the local community theater. And she taught math at our high school. So I was with her all day, every day. I would just go from one thing to another, to another, to another. And man, did I luck out. Because she is someone who integrity... I had never heard a curse. I never saw her drink. I saw a work ethic that was just about teaching a bunch of kids

• 7:36Speaker 01

  and bringing theater to this, you know, this town in West Virginia. And so I just ate it up and I wanted to please her specifically. And I still do. She came to the set of Five Star Weekend to watch me and she gave me notes after, after scenes. But there is something about, like, I really love having someone in my mind and I'm trying to please that person.

• 7:57Emma Grede?

  Is that something that you fictitiously make up in order to push yourself? Or do you believe that you actually, there always actually is someone that you're trying to impress?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  I've only just realized that I have done this my whole life.

• 8:08Emma Grede?

  Wow. That's a big awakening, isn't it? It's interesting because I feel like earlier in my career, I had almost like a similar thing that I would always be trying to make someone my boss. And when I started in my first company, I always talk about this idea, like, I decided that the board was my boss. And so I was like, "Wait a minute, there is no boss." Like, you're just, it's like you have to make one up in order to push yourself and to do well. But I find that very interesting. I'm sure a lot of women listening will recognize that as a behavior for themselves. Do you feel like it's useful or actually that that's a little bit of a block?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I think it's useful for me. No, I think I, I think I have manipulated it to be useful for me. I think, you know, the first person in my life is my big sister. And so I will chase her till the end of time. And when I was 20, I suddenly was like, "Oh, wait, my little sister's awesome too." I didn't realize it until I was older. And now she, I chase her as much as I do my big sister, just wanting, you know, to earn my place in between the two of them because I think they're so spectacular.

• 9:11Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I can totally understand that, someone who has a lot of sisters. I read when you first moved to New York and you were kind of early in your acting career that you really felt like a fish out of water. And I wonder, early on in your career, what confidence looks like? And if you can recognize like how that's changed through your life?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Well, I was a total fish out of water. I mean, the story is true. I really did walk through the city and because where I grew up, you said hi to everyone. You smiled and waved and said hi at every stop sign and you still do. And so everyone I passed on the street, I tried to engage with, make eye contact, smile at. My mom has always said, the more people you make eye contact with and smile with, the better your day will be. And you're passing that joy along. So that's, you know.

• 9:56Emma Grede?

  I think your mom was right.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  I do. I totally believe she's, she's right about that. But oh, boy, it doesn't work in New York City.

• 10:04Emma Grede?

  Not quite the same.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  I was like, wow, I am tired, mom, I'm so tired.

• 10:08Emma Grede?

  They understand me? I'm speaking a different language?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Now I look back and think, oh, you needed some water, you needed some electrolytes, like, calm down. So, but there was, there is a certain amount of confidence that comes from no expectations. I wasn't planning on moving to New York. I got there and had a lucky day and ended up staying. And, and in that lucky day or that lucky month, I ended up with a job understudying a play at the Roundabout Theatre. And during that period, I was really broke and ended up with this wonderful agent, Jeannie Nicolosi, and she sent me on a couple of TV things, which I never planned to do. But it was the first time things unlocked for me in a way that I wasn't expecting, in a big way that I wasn't expecting, which was, oh, people

• 10:55Speaker 01

  will hire me to be on camera, which I had never expected. I only wanted to be on stage. I trained to be on stage, I planned to be on stage, but I kept getting hired to be on camera.

• 11:06Emma Grede?

  Interesting.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  And I was broke. So, great.

• 11:08Emma Grede?

  You were like, I'll just take it.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, um, yeah.

• 11:11Emma Grede?

  At what point did you begin to feel confident that you could perform and live up to that, you know, that all the work that you were getting, the opportunities that you were getting, even though you weren't so purposeful about going after like the camera roles?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  I didn't and I don't. I, I do now, I have some confidence in that area because I know there's a certain skill set that I have. But I feel like I'm always chasing it. It's more about where am I a cog in the wheel, as opposed to how do I put myself out in front? That's just where I'm more comfortable. I don't know if it's, you know, growing up in a dance company, like my happiest, truly, if I could just, if you could plot me somewhere, it would be to be in the middle of a chorus of people singing and dancing on Broadway, not out in front, in the thick of it, where you all have like, private jokes and they've got your back and you're singing harmony and you don't have to worry because even though

• 12:08Speaker 01

  you want to do your best and you're giving it your all and you know that you're going to stand out for that, it's not really, it's not really about you.

• 12:15Emma Grede?

  I want to talk a little bit about your breakthrough role with Alias, because I feel like that role resonated with so many women and probably inspired like a million people on different careers, especially like women in the CIA and those types of jobs. And what did that success feel like for you at the time? Do you remember?

• 12:33Speaker 01

  I think it was pretty overwhelming. I think I don't remember a lot of it because the hours were so intense. It was such an intense time, but I know that I was, looking back, I'm aware of how overwhelmed I was. You lose a couple of years of life when you become famous. You have to recalibrate. You have to find yourself. I, I looked back and was like, wait, what happened to that friendship? It was me. I didn't know that it was. I didn't know I was separating, but I, it wasn't like I thought I was better. It was like, oh, my gosh, what is this? It was almost like an embarrassment around it. And I have enough distance from that now to know and to take ownership of that and to call those friends

• 13:14Speaker 01

  and say, ah, I disappeared. I think I disappeared there for a minute. And it's 20 years later, but hi, how you doing? What you been up to?

• 13:23Emma Grede?

  Here I am.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. How's it been? Um, but so all of that, like, just took a minute to adjust to, but the time on set was the happiest I've ever had. I think I've texted with almost everyone in the show in the last week, if not most of them in the last 48 hours.

• 13:40Emma Grede?

  That's incredible.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  I know.

• 13:42Emma Grede?

  That's incredible. What relationships you must have been. Did you understand, because I feel like for so many of us, when you're having the moment of success, it's so hard to realize it and to appreciate it. Were you able to appreciate it in the moment it was happening to you?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  I think so. I think I did get like, oh, this is, yeah, this is just, it was such a special show. There was never a day that I wasn't excited to go and say the words I got to say and do the things I got to do and wear the clothes I got to wear. I mean, it was pretty fun.

• 14:13Emma Grede?

  Pretty amazing. Do you think that the success you had in that show answered the questions that you thought success would? Did you go like, I've done it, like I've made it?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  I don't think you have that opportunity as an actor. I think it's always what's next and can I pivot from this? And is there more for me? Will I always and only be defined by this role? Do I have another, another role in me? Or is this just who I am now? So I think there's, there's always that feeling.

• 14:38Emma Grede?

  What do you think you've learned about longevity as an actress? Like, and what do you, or what would you tell the younger version of yourself when you're always thinking about, okay, where is the next job coming from? I imagine that's very different from how you feel now, given the career you've had.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  I think my work ethic has only improved as I've gone on because I take much more seriously, not just what the studio is spending on a vehicle for me, but also the time and energy of the people around me. And I take what they do very seriously. And so I want to show up ready to not take them and their time and energy for granted. And so that has shifted. Like now, every week, I work with my acting coach before I, I get on set. And, and it's, it's not like because I feel, you know, less confident or more confident. It just feels like I better be prepared. And if I don't set this up, then my weekend's going to go and I'm going to show up just knowing my lines without ever having thought

• 15:38Speaker 01

  more than that because I have kids and I have things. And so I better be really systematic about my work ethic. So things like that, I take it more seriously in a way than I did when I was younger. Did that answer the question?

• 15:51Emma Grede?

  Yeah, it totally doesn't. Even as you were speaking, I'm like, you still work with an acting coach? Is that like, really?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, because

• 15:57Emma Grede?

  How often?

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Personally, I don't think, I don't think everybody does. I'm, I'm sure I could get by and you wouldn't really, you know, I don't know. But yeah, I've worked with Nancy Banks for years because every, every Sunday when I'm working and, and quite a bit before I start something so that we have like, I don't know, the, the objectives figured out and the super objective and how are we going to reach this level of grief? What's it going to feel like? How, what are the triggers going to be that help me get where I need to, you know, blah, blah, blah, acting stuff. I just want to set myself up to be okay, to succeed.

• 16:28Emma Grede?

  It says so much about you. I mean, so much about you that at this stage of your career, you are still striving to be great and to do things the best that you can. But also, we think about you as someone who has a reputation for being so gracious and so kind of, so, so exceptionally mindful and thoughtful of everybody else around you. And I, I have to ask you, like, do you ever just get pissed and like super mad?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:56Emma Grede?

  You do?

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do. It's, it's very hard for me. It, I have to go very far and I'm very ashamed after it's happened. And I don't think that I yell and bitch. And I mean, I don't think I yell in like, in an aggressive way. I think I get really quiet and icy. And I think that's such an unpleasant feeling to be around. But I'm just trying to manage my own exhaustion, frustration about whatever. I mean, it, usually it's because you're so tired, something small has set you off. You've just gotten too tired. But I hate that feeling.

• 17:31Emma Grede?

  It's a terrible feeling. I think that you are voicing what so many women feel. I recently wrote a book and I wrote a whole chapter on anger because I'm the other side of the coin, somebody that was, felt far too freely to be able to express their anger and needed to be able to rein it in a little bit. Thinking about this persona that, again, I, I always think about it being imposed on you and you might think about it very, very differently. Girl Next Door, America's Mum. But I wonder if somehow that's made it harder to express things that might disappoint other people. Because I feel like I speak to so many women, especially women that are in their 40s and their 50s and they've been so, they've become so accustomed to dealing with disappointment in a way that's so internal

• 18:13Emma Grede?

  that it never truly gets dealt with. And I wonder in all of your experience, like what that looks like for you now?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I really have to talk things through.

• 18:22Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  I have to talk it through with my mom, with my girlfriends, with Mo, who is in the room and probably absorbs more of whatever my feelings are day to day, more than anyone, because she's with me all the time. With Nicole, who's my manager and that I've worked with for 28 years, one of my, you know, best friends in the whole wide world. With Meredith, with whom I've worked about that long as well. I have to just talk it through and get to the other side of it.

• 18:59Emma Grede?

  I remember for a while there, you were really doing so much work. And I think you were doing it with Halle Berry to like, really think about how children would be protected from harassment. And it was specifically around this kind of, I thought, you know, this very kind of like LA centric thing of the paparazzi, feeling very comfortable to hound kids and hound families. And I wonder if that experience or how that experience actually changed your relationship with fame and changed, like, I guess, how the, the public felt entitled to you and entitled to a piece of your life. Because to me, it felt like you did such an enormous amount of work, like you weren't passive in it. You were like, okay, I'm going to go out there and

• 19:44Emma Grede?

  change this. And I thought, once you did that work, I wonder if it actually like, made a difference to your relationship with fame.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  You know, just to give credit where credits do, this was Halle. Halle Berry fully funded this. She went and found the policymaker who was helpful in writing the law. She, I think she paid for the lawyers. She had it all the way at the, you know, on the five yard line when I showed up. We had the, the group of us. I mean, there were, there were several, lots of us who were meeting in different places at different times. So at my house, at different houses, and one of my kids gave, at, at five years old, gave a very impassioned speech that was written out about what it was like to be a kid who was hounded by paparazzi and how scary it was and how big the cameras were and how many there were and their friends got shoved over at

• 20:32Speaker 01

  school and it was scary for them. So I was involved, but Halle led this particular charge. She offered me the chance to testify in front of the California, you know, government. And I took that opportunity and worked really hard. And I have to say, it was a great speech. On the heels of that, Kristen Bell went tabloid to tabloid, magazine to magazine. And I don't feel like she gets enough credit for this and went and spoke to them directly as a parent, which in all the things we had ever done, this group of kind of celebrities who were meeting to say people, it was as much about people are going to be hurt and worse, just

• 21:14Speaker 01

  because we are driving somewhere. Like, this is a public safety issue. We have to be part of helping it get better. And yet, we don't know how to be, because who wants to hear from us? But in, in all of that, it had never occurred to us to just go door to door and say, can you please help? So she really did that. And when it got better and it dropped from 15 or 20 cars on the weekend, down to a few, of course, my experience of living in Los Angeles and fame in general changed. I mean, the problem is, it's not just the public. I never blamed the public. They have been told, here, here are pictures. Take, they don't know how the sausage

• 21:59Speaker 01

  is made. They don't know what that experience is at, as a person that you suddenly feel like you're in trouble all the time, or you've been caught doing something, or you're about to be, or my gosh, what am I wearing? And it's, it really doesn't number on your confidence, but it makes you feel so self-conscious. But to me, what it robbed me of were those smiles with other people. The thing my mom taught me to do, I suddenly couldn't do anymore, because there were so many cameras in front of me. I was so, I wasn't a real person anymore. I was just like, what is the character in the Charlie Brown story that has the big mess? Pigpen? I was Pigpen. I was Pigpen with a big mess around me all the time. And it just was so humiliating and embarrassing, and not to mention what was happening to my children. And, and I

• 22:44Speaker 01

  will say, you know, it's, we tried to move. We looked at schools. I applied at schools, people across this country would be like, yeah, actually, she, they came and toured. She applied. They did the whole thing. But we realized that, you know, the pictures of us at the time were so valuable. People would, if we were on location somewhere, if we were trying living somewhere, they would just buy a big camera and get in their minivan and follow us. So it didn't, and that wasn't any safer. So it was just like, oh my gosh, we might as well be with our own, you know, we might as well mess up the city. We're already messing up. Like, they don't know what to do with us in Boston when we do this. So anyway, it's, it's been talked about so much.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  And it's such a, it's a very specific problem and not, not one the world really needs to focus on. But it was something that I was grateful to be part of tackling and standing up for.

• 23:38Emma Grede?

  I want to switch gears a little bit, because I want to talk about your incredible business, because it really is incredible.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  It is incredible.

• 23:45Emma Grede?

  And I really want to understand, because I'm sure that you have been in a position for so long where you could have done so many things. And when you speak about Once Upon a Farm, you are so knowledgeable and so passionate about it. But why did you actually choose this space and to use your influence in, you know, children's food specifically?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Okay, I have to back up and I have to talk about a person that I've spoken about before.

• 24:08Emma Grede?

  I know you're gonna name them. Let's talk about her.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Let's talk about it. So when I was little, first of all, I always had businesses going. I had a babysitting business. I had an ice cream business where I would crank the ice cream on the street and sell my homemade ice cream. And I would pay my mom. My mom was like, you didn't really pay me. But I'd pay her for the sugar and the eggs. I think I did in my mind. I'm sorry, mom, if that's a lie. But in my mind, I was paying my supply chain. So I always had an entrepreneurial mind. I think it took me having a friend who was like, you have more of a business mind than you think you do. And we're actually going to tap into that now. I really do believe that that's a big thing. So my manager, bestie Nicole King-Linden Entertainment, just for the

• 24:54Speaker 01

  record, she and I've worked together from the beginning of our careers. And we knew that I was reaching women and that I was reaching consumers because of the longstanding relationship I had with Neutrogena, with Capital One, with different things. And she was just like, you know, there's no reason you can't be on the inside of this as a founder. And I kind of didn't really, I was a little like, wow, okay. I kind of do what she says. She's younger than I am, but I do what she says. I always have.

• 25:23Emma Grede?

  She's made some good decisions.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  She's one of those people. It's just easier to agree with her. So the next thing you know, we start trying. And we had some flops. We had, we had one big play that we were making that was like a content play that I suddenly, I was pregnant with my third. And right before I had him, I was like, this is too much. It's going to have to be personal. I can't talk about my kids in that way. And we had done all of this work. And she was like, okay.

• 25:53Emma Grede?

  I don't know that you talk about the flops, because nobody talks about the flops. And everybody just imagines that like, the first thing you do manages to IPO. But that's kind of amazing.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  No, it was so painful. It was painful. And she handled it so well, because she was my partner in it. And it was like, we were down the line. We had beautiful branding and low, you know, we were really in it.

• 26:13Emma Grede?

  But you didn't let it deter you?

• 26:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:15Emma Grede?

  You didn't let it say to you, I'm not supposed to be doing this business thing. I better stick to the day job?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  No, no, no, I didn't. Or she didn't, or we didn't. So it was that. Then we had something with Joann Fabrics, which was crafts, fun things to do with your kids, called, my kids always say it like this, we made it with Jennifer Garner. Okay, that didn't work. We had a food, our first food brand, which made the most sense to me. And that I was, I was joining in, didn't even, I don't even remember what happened to it. It was such a crash and burn. We had a couple of things. Okay. So there was, there was also some beauty thing in there somewhere.

• 26:49Emma Grede?

  But you spent money, you spent time, you spent energy on these other projects?

• 26:53Speaker 01

  I did photo shoots. I did content days. I did meetings. I did flew around. I did, oh my gosh, so much.

• 26:59Emma Grede?

  What was it that wasn't clicking?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Ideating, I did product, everything. I mean, so many things weren't clicking, whether it was the leadership, whether it was me understanding how I could be helpful, what my role was. Because they were all great ideas. They all had, but a lot of great ideas happen. And very few of them actually turned into something. There's no shame in the game. They just didn't work.

• 27:20Emma Grede?

  Do you know how few people say that, specifically women, that there's no shame in the game? Some shit just doesn't work. I added the shit, because that's me. But so few women actually think like that. And I hear so many men that test and try things and it doesn't work. And they waste a bit of money. They waste a bit of time. And yet, they still go on.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  They shrug it up.

• 27:39Emma Grede?

  For some reason, women are far less likely to just move on. They take those losses personally, even if they're not a big financial loss. And I understand you might have been in a okay position to make some losses. But they take the losses so personally that it stops them from doing the next thing. And, and I want to understand why you could just do the next thing.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Because I'm an actor. And so, do you know how many auditions or meetings I've gone on that I've gotten down to the tier to here and not gotten? And then you do get one and you take it and it's like this big thing. And you think, oh, great, this is going to be amazing. You get it and you sell it with everything you have. And it just lies there on the floor. And you just think, oh, I loved you. I thought you were great.

• 28:24Emma Grede?

  But you had collected resilience.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I'm built with a good bounce. You know, I've got a good bounce back. And thank goodness, because none of this is nice. None of it's easy or pleasant. But yeah, I just was used to that. I had built that, that muscle.

• 28:39Emma Grede?

  Did you ever take it personally? Did you ever go like, all of these things are me?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, of course. Sometimes. But then you have to shake it off. I mean, there were auditions that, I always think back to this, this audition for West Wing. It was for a new role. And oh, my God, I wanted it so badly. And I got down and I tested for it. And when I didn't get it, I had to like, go to the desert, my first time in Palm Springs by myself and just sit there for a couple of days. And then like, two weeks later, Alias came to me. So what is it? God's rejection is divine, divine, wait, rejection is God's protection, whatever that is. I'm all for that. Let's believe that. You know, let's go with that.

• 29:20Emma Grede?

  I'm right. Absolutely.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  So Once Upon a Farm came along and it was very small. It was in some stores in San Diego. And it was also in some Whole Foods in New England and the Northeast. And I heard about it. And the second I heard about it, I was like, wait, I would have used that. That's different. I would have killed to have this brand available. Because fresh baby food? Why is that not a thing? Why are we making baby food at home? Because we don't want to, it's such a hassle. And you don't know if you're doing it right nutritionally. And meanwhile, your dogs and cats have fresh organic food in the grocery store in the aisle right there. So it just, it made sense to me. And I met Cassandra Curtis and Ari Ross, who was her

• 30:07Speaker 01

  co-founder at the time, and was just like, Tell me everything, how does this work? Why hasn't it been done before? And the difference was this food technology called high pressure pasteurization, HPP, which is our food safety step. Instead of cooking down until it's like got lost its nutrition, flavor, texture, color. It keeps it bright as if it's just out of your blender and keeps the nutrition intact, all of the vitamins, you know, micronutrients intact, the texture, flavor, color, and it keeps it safe. And it gives it just enough of a shelf life to get it to grocery stores and get it into people's homes and then into their fridge.

• 30:46Emma Grede?

  And you knew instinctively as a mother, you were like, there's a white space here. Because of what I've been doing and the brand deals that I have, I know that I can influence this demographic of predominantly mums who are buying this stuff and making the purchase. And what did you have to do to get into the business?

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Well, so I saw, I didn't see Nicole King. Nicole saw that John Foraker, who had, is so respected.

• 31:17Emma Grede?

  He's your CEO, right?

• 31:18Speaker 01

  He's our CEO. He was the first angel investor for Once Upon a Farm. And he was still running Annie's, which he built, took public, sold. He's like king of organic CPG for kids, right?

• 31:29Emma Grede?

  We love Annie's. We love a little.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  I know, cheddar bunny.

• 31:33Emma Grede?

  Cheddar bunnies. I was like rabbits, no, cheddar bunnies. My house is made of cheddar bunnies.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Of course it is, of course it is. John was still running Annie's at General Mills, where he had sold it, to whom he had sold it. Nicole arranged for us to meet. He flew to LA, had a flat tire in his Uber, like he was late, which now that I know him so well, I know that that must have killed him. And our conversation instantly turned to service, to how could I be part of this company? How could you be part of this company? It started as, what drew you to the brand? Do you believe in it? How would, how do you think it would work? And I didn't know that we were interviewing each other to work together. Only Nicole knew that. John might have known that. But we were having this conversation and I said, you know, I can't help but really

• 32:21Speaker 01

  have this vivid memory in my mind of with Save the Children, shopping with women who are dealing with food insecurity and they're putting together their WIC food and their, there's, you know, SNAP benefits and what's in the food pantry? What do they have in their freezer? What venison do they have at home? Because they, they were able to kill something. So all of those things that they are putting together, how does this food fit into that puzzle for them? And John and I kind of went down this rabbit hole. What if we could build this into a purpose-driven brand? What if it could be an answer in a small way, but taking on a leadership role for

• 33:01Speaker 01

  parents in America, which is a big fat country and there's a lot of America that is growing up without enough food in their cupboards.

• 33:10Emma Grede?

  And so you immediately felt moved by the promise of this mission, like what this company could do. But at that time, it was small.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  And it was a couple hundred thousand dollars.

• 33:21Emma Grede?

  I mean, really simple. That's like in startup land, too.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Right, crazy. So he and I shook hands at the end of that meeting. He said, look, I'll leave Annie's. If you want to do this, I'll leave General Mills and I'm in if you're in. And I said, I'm in if you're in. And we shook hands and that, that was it.

• 33:35Emma Grede?

  Did you know what that meant for you? Like, because again, that's a long time ago and I'm envisaging that.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  No. Of course not. Absolutely not. I didn't know what I was saying yes to. I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew that I believed in what Cassandra was building and I believed in John as a leader.

• 33:53Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  And as a man, as a, just like with it, you know.

• 33:56Emma Grede?

  As a good person.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  As a good person. As a man, it sounds like, like as a man, but no, as a good person. And that that handshake still holds.

• 34:05Emma Grede?

  Well, first of all, I feel like that is one of the single best ways to make a judgment call about being in a business, because at the end of the day, it comes down to the team that you're building with and the fundamentals are like, are these good people? Like, is there a great idea? Brilliant, tick. And do I have the right set of people to do it with? And so to me, it's like, yeah, there was a good man and there were two good women and you were able to kind of go, you know, one and one is going to equal five.

• 34:40Emma Grede?

  I was reading that, like you had said somewhere that you couldn't even read a spreadsheet in the beginning.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Oh, still struggle.

• 34:46Emma Grede?

  I mean, facts, I'm very.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  I didn't, it wasn't until not that long ago that I knew that if it's in parentheses, that means minus.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  So.

• 34:55Emma Grede?

  That's a good one.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  That's a good one. I was, I was always like, these numbers don't add up.

• 35:00Emma Grede?

  Oh, you're like, what? How's something wrong with your formulas? Yeah, okay. Can you put it in red, please? That's what I, I remember having, first of all, that's such a great thing, because I remember the very, very beginning of ITB, one of my first companies, I had exactly the same thing. And I was like, could you now do those in red?

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:18Emma Grede?

  So that I don't need to look for anything, because again, you don't know what you don't know.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't know what a KPI was or an ROI or ROAS or EBITDA, which is still sketchy on that.

• 35:30Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Well, in CPG there, which is consumer packaged goods, but there are about a billion of them.

• 35:35Emma Grede?

  I want to understand what you've learned about your contribution, because it's very, very clear to me that you go above and beyond that of a celebrity endorser. It's not just about leveraging your fame. No, you are very much a part of this business. But again, I do think that as women, sometimes the default is to undervalue our contribution. And I'd love to know what that looked like then and how you think about it now and how you've learned to think about yourself as a business person.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Well, John and I did not sit down and write out a job description for me. It was kind of on me to figure out where and how I could add value.

• 36:13Emma Grede?

  They really are nice people. I'd have been like.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  I might have had a job description.

• 36:17Emma Grede?

  We'll.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  I might have had that, but we didn't, we didn't lean on it. If we did, it was like this many post, like I had to join Instagram. That was the one thing I really had to do. And.

• 36:27Emma Grede?

  Didn't have an Instagram at the time.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  I didn't have an Instagram before that.

• 36:29Emma Grede?

  I love you.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  I know. So I said to Mo.

• 36:32Emma Grede?

  You're so good at it now.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Well, I said to Mo, who was my assistant at the time, I was like, guess what you do now?

• 36:38Emma Grede?

  You are social media manager lady.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  You're on social media. So, um.

• 36:44Emma Grede?

  Now she does a killer job. That, I mean, she does a really great job. But again, in a way that makes a lot of sense for you, because it feels like when you jumped on, I feel like you were immediately like a thing on social media or did that take a while? Like you were.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  I don't remember. I mean.

• 36:58Emma Grede?

  I feel like you were. We were talking about you, you didn't know, but we were.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, we kind of just jumped on and, and I knew that I couldn't do what was being done at the time, which was so many posts a day, so many, I just knew. And always selling, always, always, I just, that was like, arrgh. So Mo and I just devised, we just, she was a film major at Northwestern, she knows what she's doing and she is very funny, has great music taste and knows how to make fun of me. And that's kind of what it is. She's always, really what she's doing constantly is making fun of me and you're just allowed in to watch with her. So, okay, so that was the one thing I had to do. So what I realize now that I did is I adopted my Save the Children playbook, taught to me by Mark Schreiber, who's my mentor there and has been forever.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  With Mark, the things that I've done there have been a bunch of site visits all over the country, like for 18 years, tons of them, so many. And we have advocated on the state level and on, you know, in the federal government and then fundraising, of course. But it's the advocacy, Mark's family is political and he has kind of taught me that it is relationships and it's time and it's knowing what you're talking about. And it is for me with Save, it's been collecting the stories, going to people's homes, going to the schools, meeting the teachers who are receiving kids, who have had our programs in these communities and kids who haven't, just collecting all of this kind of, not scientific data, just stories, heart stories.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  And then going and talking about it and adding some statistics in, right?

• 38:32Emma Grede?

  What great advice, though, for somebody to say to you, it's about both relationships and time, because I think all of business is. When you look at your vendor relationships or your retailer relationships and then the time that you have to put into those.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:47Emma Grede?

  And you know, inevitably, when you're in business, you have amazing times and you have not so amazing times in terms of your sales period. It's your relationships and the amount of time that you spent with those people that enables you to weather through the storms, right?

• 38:59Speaker 01

  And our sales team is amazing at, at these relationships. So, so I just kind of took that model and plopped it onto Once Upon a Farm so that when I went to Minneapolis to meet with Target, they said, oh yeah, you know, a lot of celebrities come through here and they have their brands and whatever. And then the, what I heard was, and we never see them again. And that never, that's so far from my mind. I mean, I'm going to go to all of our major retailers in the next few months just to check back in, because I, I was working and hadn't been there for a while, but they all have my email. They have no problem reaching out to me and, you know, saying, and, and, and I know all of them personally, I've been to their homes, they've been to mine, we have done plant tours together.

• 39:41Emma Grede?

  Why is that important to you with all that you have going on? Why is it that part, that relationship part that you've really kind of honed into?

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Well, it's a way that I can be helpful. It connects me to the sales team, the marketing team, all the, the brand team, the people that are with us, the ops team in these, in these meetings. And so I get to have a cross-functional meeting whenever I'm along on those trips. And that's really important, you know, to me. It makes a difference, but in order to be helpful in those meetings, you actually have to know what you're talking about. Cause I have sat through those meetings before and just thought, I don't know what anyone is talking about. Cause I wasn't in the, the, all of the, you know, not just the planning for the meeting, but I didn't know the nuts and bolts. That's uncomfortable for me. So I'm in the leadership team meetings all the time. I'm in the company meetings. I'm in, you know, in a,

• 40:33Speaker 01

  am I in hair and makeup, in the hair and makeup chair on Zoom? Yes. Am I catching up or reading notes after or giving a call to someone after? And I'm constantly circling things in my notebook that I don't know and reaching out to team members on Slack at the time or later. Can you explain this to me? Can I grab you on the phone? Can you talk me through this? But we did have that moment. So we had a real inflection point in the beginning where, you know, I'm like thinking, oh, I've got this beginner's luck. Right? So John and I joined Cassandra and Ari at the time, although he's gone on to run Coconut Cult. But, um, John and I and the sales team, whomever, we start going to meet all the major retailers around the country.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  And it's like, we're here, we're going to, we're entering a new category. We're giving you a new, new category. Welcome to Once Upon a Farm. You're so welcome. Yeah. Here we go. Because I was going to be so loud about it, we had to go into all the retailers all at once. So we got 10,000 doors right off the bat. And we have to then figure out very quickly, what's our supply chain going to be like? How, how is ops going to do this? How are we going to service all the country from this tiny little company to all of a sudden, boom, we have to go everywhere. So we go everywhere. We have this big coming out party. People are like, oh, great. Five minutes later, we go back out and John and I remember so well, this next kind of run around where we were at Publix

• 41:55Speaker 01

  and we were at Target and they said, we're not going to take you off the shelves yet. I was like, huh, I was so, like, the person never, the buyer never looked me in the eye. I was like, huh. So then it was like, oh, back up. We have to educate. These people don't know who we are, what we are, where we are. People aren't used to, just because fresh baby food seems like a no brainer to us. This is not the norm. It's not what anyone's used to. So we had to back up to go forward.

• 42:24Emma Grede?

  And it's so hard.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  It was so painful.

• 42:26Emma Grede?

  Getting on the shelf is one thing. Staying on the shelf is something totally different. And if your business isn't set up for that, you're in real trouble. I'm, I'm interested, like, why you feel the need to be so precise about your contribution? Because again, you're always giving everybody their props, but also it feels to me like you're very clear about what it is that you do and you bring.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  I don't know why.

• 42:48Emma Grede?

  It's just very interesting because again, I, I feel like, I don't know, maybe

• 42:54Emma Grede?

  people feel more at ease taking credit when something's like really good and it's working. And yet you feel very self-deprecating and like, it's like, no, I do this bit. And then I have these incredible people that do.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, because that's true.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  What do you want me to do? Just sit there and be like, well, then I made this decision and I bought pineapples. I said, we'll get them from Malaysia. No problem. That is, that's not what I'm doing, folks. I'm an actor. I don't know what you're talking about, but I do know how to do what I know how to do. And I think there's value in that. I think there's value in knowing your particular skillset and how you can help. And when fame is helpful and when it isn't, and when, you know, when I, and I do have opinions, of course I do. You know, I get to try the innovation. I get to weigh in and say, oh, I think this one is a little on the sweet side. But Cassandra's got that handled. She's still running R and D for us and she's amazing.

• 43:45Emma Grede?

  What actually changes when you take a company public, like not, not just for the founders, but for the way that the business actually operates? Cause I'm imagining that's a pretty steep learning curve wherever you sit in the business.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Well, lucky for us, John had done it before and Larry Waldman, our CFO and COO. And so they had done it with Annie's, as had a bunch of the team under John or in different companies. So he had learned a lot and he's always very happy to apply his key learnings. So we had been set up, he really set us up as a public company a couple of years before we actually had our, our, we came on to the market.

• 44:25Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Had our IPO.

• 44:26Emma Grede?

  You have to, right?

• 44:26Speaker 01

  So we did. So we were already SOX compliant, whatever the heck that means. We were already really reporting, you know, we were, we're a public benefit corporation. So that means that this mission that we talk about, you know, um, is inscribed in our charter and is something that we have to report on. There are very few public companies that are public benefit corporations, right? So the fact that we were taking that step meant that we had to be very serious about, are we doing what we're saying we're doing? Are we actually doing everything that we can to perform as a public benefit corporation? Anyway, all of this was going on for a while before the IPO.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  And then once that happened, John said to the whole company again and again, this is really exciting. Take a minute, take it in, enjoy the day, feel it, you know, it was a great day. And then I'm going to go back to work tomorrow and it's another day at work. And we're just going to get up and do the whole thing because now it is truly all about executing what we know how to do. We just have to execute against our plan and we have to keep it rolling.

• 45:31Emma Grede?

  I've read that prior to the IPO, you were the single biggest shareholder of Once Upon a Farm. Has that changed the way that you think about your own financial agency? Something that I think about all the time is women owning the value that they create. And you were able to put yourself in that position. Has your relationship to what it is that you own or the money that you've been able to create, or the wealth that you've been able to create for you and your family? Has that changed you in any way and changed how you think about money in any way?

• 46:04Speaker 01

  I don't think you're going to like my answer, but you'll have to forgive this part of my brain, but it doesn't hold on to it. I, I have had the same business manager for 30 years. Sorry.

• 46:17Emma Grede?

  What's his name? Tell me where he works.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Howard Altman.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  I adore him. He's one of my besties. And Howard is, you know,

• 46:30Speaker 01

  all he has to do is look at me funny and I convince myself that I am broke. My, my problem is I just, I don't know. It sounds like, but I give, I give a lot of money away. So every now and then he's like, can you pump the brakes? So that is something that I had to cool my jets on for a minute.

• 46:48Emma Grede?

  Was money ever important to you? Was that ever a deciding factor in taking the company public? Is it something that you have been like, I actually need to realize this value in this company?

• 46:59Speaker 01

  I think I would have been thrilled a few years ago to have been acquired. Until I, for the company to be acquired, not me, but, um, until I realized that,

• 47:11Speaker 01

  oh, the first thing a big company would do would be to scrape off all the stuff I really care about. Which is that we are the first fresh, organic baby food to be WIC certified. We're now WIC certified in 22 states. We just added Ohio this week. Our whole company like cheered. We're so happy to be able to feed more kids. We want to get this food in as many hands as possible. And that's up and down this, this, the wealth spectrum of our country. And that matters to me. Like, that's what I care about the number one most. It's the thing that I'm always the pesky one at the end of the board meeting when they're like, okay. And I'm like, um, can we talk mission just for a second? Uh, because you know why? I get to go to the places because we give food to Save the Children.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  And I work for Save the Children. I get to go to these places where our food is the only fresh food these kids have ever had. And that could be America's Salad Bowl in Central Valley, California. It could be in, you know, um, Dunay Nation in New Mexico. It could be Mountaineer Food Bank in West Virginia, where I'm from. It's, it's kind of dotting the country. And I just, I see, I actually get to see the impact. So it matters to me. It matters to me that we keep that up and that we are, that we continue to have that as our, as our, at our forefront, which we do. We have a very heart-driven company.

• 48:36Emma Grede?

  But you can only do that and you can only be that philanthropic, both within your business and personally, if you're making money. Like if you've got the profit margin to be able to give a lot away. So at some point, I mean, I just wonder if you ever sit there and be like, no, this is the most important thing, like this has to make money or whether you don't even think about it.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  I actually, yes, I do think about it. I do, I do think about that. I do think about like, I just think like, oh my gosh, if this worked, I could, I have my own dreams of what I could do in my home state or somewhere else. But yes, I do have those thoughts.

• 49:22Emma Grede?

  You know, it doesn't need to be the driver into a traditional way like, you know, I, I want, I want more for myself, but I do always think that it's such an important part of business and it's something that we're not always trained as women to think about like, what is the financial outcome for me? And yet you've created an enormous financial outcome for yourself.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  I think Nicole and I panicked when I, I panicked when I was first out of my marriage and realized I had taken such a step back in my work. Suddenly I realized like, I don't know how long I'll be able to work. It's not, this isn't a career that's like, hey, you're 60, you're 55, you're 43, come on, let's, let's pay you more than you've ever made. You know what I mean? That's not been traditionally the role. And I was suddenly like, wait a minute, I, I have to take care of myself. I have to take care of these kids. So what is it going to be? And so we just got very calculated and still. And she was like, how can you work? And I said, I can work in Los Angeles. I can't leave these kids

• 50:21Speaker 01

  for six months at a time. I would love to. I love going on location. That is not this time in my career. And so it's like, okay, what can we make happen? How can we do it? And we just got really targeted and, and still about it. And Once Upon a Farm was very much a part of that play. It's just the crazy thing is it's working.

• 50:40Emma Grede?

  And maybe not that crazy because you were planful about it. You had the conversation knowing that your circumstances had changed. You were wholly responsible for three children and this life and career that you've built. And yet you could sit down and say, I need a plan for this thing. I'm not just going to sit back and passively cross my fingers and hope for the best.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's not like you can just unfamous yourself. Life is expensive and you, you still have to kind of figure out how you're going to live. And just because you're well known by people does not mean that there is some great living being provided for you. And it, it became very serious to me really quickly. As someone who had never given a lot of thought to money, like, oh, I, I need to be an earner here.

• 51:26Emma Grede?

  Is there anything about you that wished that had happened earlier in your life and career that you'd thought about it earlier?

• 51:32Speaker 01

  No, because I was so lucky to be able to luxuriate and working some and being home and being a mom a lot of the time. I was, I was really grateful for that opportunity. I got to kind of have the best of both worlds. So I can't really look back and complain about any of it. It just, it is what it is.

• 51:51Emma Grede?

  It is what it is. And it all worked out.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  So far.

• 51:54Emma Grede?

  Yeah, so far, so good. I, you said that you never look at the, the share price day to day. And it felt to me like that was so much more about self-preservation and you not like living with the ebbs and flows of your company day to day, which just feels like such a-

• 52:09Speaker 01

  It's a distraction. It's a distraction from what you need to do, which is focus on what is, how are we doing today? What are we doing as a company? How are we, how's our culture? How are our people? Are we reaching families? Are we, are we growing? Are we, you know, we're, our household penetration as of last quarter was 6.2%. So we're growing. It's grown, you know?

• 52:32Emma Grede?

  That's great.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  It's great. It's insane. And yet there's a lot of room for growth.

• 52:37Emma Grede?

  There's a long way to go, but even the fact that a young company like that can have that type of recognition and that, you know, that, that to me is-

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Be part of a parenting ethos. Yes. I mean, look, we're here to shape the, the future of food. Period. We are here to reshape the future of your children's food and to make it easier for parents to be a parent's ally, that they don't have to choose between healthy and easy. They don't have to choose between fresh, organic, non-GMO, no sugar added, and convenience. Here you go.

• 53:09Emma Grede?

  Here you go. You can actually have it all. It's really, it's really amazing. You started Once Upon a Farm when you were 45. And I feel like that is an age specifically in Hollywood where so many women are seeing their, like their window of opportunity narrowing. What did you have at the age of 45 that you didn't have at 25?

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, so much. First of all, I had more of a range because I was a mom and because I, and not that being a mom like suddenly turned you into a different person, but it's so hard that I think it builds your empathy. I think it's easy to judge your characters when you're younger. And I think the more you grow as a person, the more you experience, the more heartbreak you have, the more you go through, the more you can connect with the hurt in the characters or the joy in the characters. I had that. I had more of a steeliness to me, I think. I had less of a, oh gosh, golly gee shucks, you know, and more of a, all right, what do we need to do? Let's get this done.

• 54:13Emma Grede?

  No doubt. What's something that only time could have taught you that no one could have told you?

• 54:19Speaker 01

  How you do anything is how you do everything.

• 54:21Emma Grede?

  That's a good line, isn't it? And it's so true.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  So true.

• 54:26Emma Grede?

  How do you do anything and everything?

• 54:28Speaker 01

  You just show up and you keep showing up. Don't say you're going to be, you know, an ambassador for a big NGO if you are not planning to show up consistently.

• 54:42Emma Grede?

  And you've done that for 18 years.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Not all the time. Not all the time. Look, when I'm working, I'm like, how's it going over there? You know? But now that I'm taking this, I'm taking this fall, this summer and fall, and I'm going again, again, again, again. And that's just for me, because how you do anything is how you do everything. While I can, I am there. What do you need me to do? How can I help? Tell me, point me in the direction. Tell me how I can help. That's kind of just the basis of the ethos that I have grown into.

• 55:11Emma Grede?

  Well, and it's bloody impressive to me how you've been able to thread the needle between your career and the fame that you've built for yourself, your business life and your philanthropic work, because it all is sort of one. And it's beautiful because it's so clear who you are, what you care about, how you spend your time. And beautiful that it all works as one, because what you're doing in your business impacts your philanthropic work, which is only made better by the fact that you are who you are, and you've built this incredible professional career. And I just feel like you can't do that when you're 25. You can only do that when you've earned the right and you've put the time in, as you say, and you've made the visits and you've built the relationships. And that's something

• 55:54Emma Grede?

  that we all can look forward to, because I think about my life and I'm like, I'm just getting so much better. And typically, that's not really what we're told and what we're taught. And I look at you and I'm like, you could never have done this.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  I could not, oh my gosh, not even at all. I wouldn't have given myself the, I wouldn't have believed that I could. But also I think I have, I benefit now from years of just basic goodwill, that if you show up on time and you know your lines and you don't cause problems for people, I am sure there are times where my career has been plucked out of, you know, work because people can know they can count on me. And I'm not going to show up on set and be fussy. Like people say, oh, you know, life is short. It's long.

• 56:39Emma Grede?

  It's long. Yeah. And people's memories are really long.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  People's memories are long. Yes.

• 56:43Emma Grede?

  And thankfully, our reputations, you know, I always say this, you know, when you don't think you've got anything, you have your reputation. And if you keep that intact, if you do what you say you're going to do, if you're truthful and you're kind, like good stuff just tends to happen. Just us. If you, and I don't want you to choose, but if you had to say what you would rather, like build and continue to build your traditional acting career, or see Once Upon a Farm become like this multi-

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Oh, kill your babies. Wow.

• 57:16Emma Grede?

  What would you choose?

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Well, an acting career is so selfish. It's really just about you. Just personally, it's, I'm, I love, I love it. I love to do what I do. I feel really lucky. And I feel like I have so much more to learn. There's so much more to learn and to explore and do. So if I'm lucky enough to keep doing that, wow, wow. But I'm not going to say that I don't want O Farm to succeed. I don't know that it, you know, billions and billions, I don't know what it's meant to be, but I want it to be the, the fullest extent of what it's meant to be. And we are on a growth trajectory. We have parents' trust. We have parents' trust. We have, oh, there's a lot of room in that lunchbox for us to fill. Cassandra

• 58:01Speaker 01

  is in her magic kitchen with her team, cooking up all kinds of things. The innovation is happening. The bread and butter of what we do is, you know, serving babies to big kids. There's a, there are a lot of babies and big kids in this world. And we are very, very lucky and happy to be able to serve them.

• 58:19Emma Grede?

  Well, and we have that other 94% market share to go after. So you've got some work to do.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  93.8.

• 58:26Emma Grede?

  She knows exactly. Specificity in the numbers. I love that. And before I let you go, I want to ask you, what do you still aspire to do or to become?

• 58:36Speaker 01

  I kind of aspire just personally to continue to make choices that guide me to a more, to a wiser place, to a more spiritual place, to a place where I can spread love. And, and I don't mean that like in a, but in more like, love thy neighbor. It's that basic. And we have an opportunity to remind each other of that all the time, smiling at each other on the street, you know, holding the door for someone, small and big. I actually have a big opportunity to do that. And I feel like I haven't tapped into that part

• 59:21Speaker 01

  of my story yet. And so I don't know what that'll look like, or if that's meant to be. But I think that that is something that deserves my focus.

• 59:32Emma Grede?

  Why does that make you a little emotional when you think about that?

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Because it's true. And I think saying true things makes one emotional.

• 59:41Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I think that you're right. And I love, love that you say love because that's the most important thing. And actually, I think about it as the single biggest thing that we're missing sometimes in society, like just the the basic of love thy neighbor. I was raised to just love everybody, like to love everybody around me and be respectful to everybody around me.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  And look at you. You exude love. That's who you are. It's what you are. It's why you've built what you've built. That's why we're all attracted to you. So, um, and you're brilliant. All those seem beautiful, all those things. But it comes, it ultimately comes down to, to love and be loved. And so, and how are we doing that? And you're doing that by offering this, these conversations with people. I've learned so much from hearing you have these conversations with people.

• 1:00:32Emma Grede?

  And it's so important to think about that as a, uh, you know, it's not enough to say it's something that you have to practice doing every day. But what's beautiful is when you behave that way, it does come back to you. And just to the point that your mother said, like, you will have the best day when you find the most people to smile at because they feel it and it just is cyclical. It comes back to you and it's quick.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  But if you're on the subway or the tube.

• 1:00:57Emma Grede?

  Uh-uh. She's like, hold it in.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Just think it to yourself. Think it. Pick one person and otherwise, uh-uh, you might get, you might, somebody might beat you up.

• 1:01:10Emma Grede?

  That is absolutely brilliant. Okay, rapid fire. We're gonna go to rapid fire. Okay, what is the one place everybody needs to visit?

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Charleston, West Virginia.

• 1:01:21Emma Grede?

  What is an unpopular opinion you have?

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  An unpopular opinion I have?

• 1:01:24Emma Grede?

  Do you have one?

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  I don't even know what it would be. I mean, I don't like, I don't, I have food that I don't like, that everyone else loves.

• 1:01:32Emma Grede?

  Like what?

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Onions and pickles and olives.

• 1:01:34Emma Grede?

  Oh, that's really weird. That is like my three favorite foods.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  I know. Well.

• 1:01:37Emma Grede?

  Weirdo.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  There you have it. You're welcome.

• 1:01:42Emma Grede?

  Best, I'm sorry, I'm laughing at this time. This is not my question. Bring it. Sneak them in every now and again. I'm like, okay, best hug on a film set, no diplomacy allowed?

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Best hug on a film set?

• 1:01:56Emma Grede?

  Are you hugging it up on a film set?

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, you actually do hug a lot on a film set.

• 1:02:00Emma Grede?

  So what's the best one?

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, I just had these incredible group hugs at the ends of big scenes with Five Star Weekend to have five women together.

• 1:02:09Emma Grede?

  Oh, I like that.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Who love each other and are all great huggers.

• 1:02:13Emma Grede?

  Beautiful.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Them.

• 1:02:15Emma Grede?

  I mean, that's a good show. It's such a good show.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you.

• 1:02:20Emma Grede?

  So, you are so good in it. It's like so crazy. Um, what is the one thing that you are weirdly competitive about?

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Games, cross play, rumba.

• 1:02:28Emma Grede?

  Like board games?

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, Mo got ahead of me by one point yesterday and I was like, I don't like it. I don't, I'm not happy about it. Yeah.

• 1:02:35Emma Grede?

  She's competitive. Oh, I love that about you. Um, what's a book that changed your life?

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Oh, uh, lots of books changed my life. I mean, I, I wanted to be a writer when I was little. So a book that changed my life. I mean, recently I, I loved Whistler so, so, so much. The love story of that and the recognition that love stories can look different in all different ways. Oh my gosh. I don't, I don't know.

• 1:02:58Emma Grede?

  You're a big reader, aren't you? You read a lot.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  I, I try to really focus on reading. Yeah, I do read a lot.

• 1:03:03Emma Grede?

  That's my favorite pastime in the whole world. That's why I ask everybody that question. Cause I'm just trying to figure out my own reading list.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  What are you reading right now?

• 1:03:09Emma Grede?

  So I just read five books on my vacation, which was so, like, it was, you know, like so wonderful. And the last book that I read was that new Arthur Brooks, uh, The Meaning of Life. And I was like, why didn't I read this? The first book that I read on the vacation? Cause it was really one of those ones where.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  So you read nonfiction?

• 1:03:26Emma Grede?

  I do. I always nonfiction.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:29Emma Grede?

  I'm like reading, you know, like, uh, either some psychology or like a business biography, like very rarely. Unless Oprah's like, you have to read this book. Then I'm like, what, a percent?

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  What a percent. Exactly.

• 1:03:43Emma Grede?

  I'll do it. Yes.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  Yes, you did it. Yes, you got it.

• 1:03:46Emma Grede?

  Okay, we're gonna add that one to our list. Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on Aspire. I love speaking to you.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  You too. I really enjoyed this. Thank you.

• 1:03:53Emma Grede?

  Thank you, my love.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:03:59Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Our executive producers are Ashley McShan, Derek Brown, and me. Executive producers from Odyssey are Asha Saluja and Leah Reese Dennis. Producer KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Phil Sweetech and Carla Stelgardo. Social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Bale.

• 1:04:41Emma Grede?

  Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company, and WME. Josefina Francis, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Meekle, Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Viera. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemmagreed. Grede is spelled G R E D E. That's aspire, A S P I R E with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.