Tablescapes, motherhood, and more with stylemaker and entrepreneur Riche Holmes Grant

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah hart Unger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and fifty eight. We will be interviewing Richie Holmes Grant, who is an influencer and style maker and Tablescape expert extraordinaire. Lots more to hear about that. We've been watching her videos on YouTube and Instagram The Rich Life and really enjoying those. She came to us via a previous guest Lannie and Lander, who was talking about closet makeovers a couple of months ago. Sarah, she she did a makeover for you, right she did, And I've had on my to do list to like finish up with the pictures already and do a post, and I, for some reason, it keeps escaping my productivity grasp and getting pushed down. I think mostly because it requires like fully getting dressed up, and lately I don't do that because yes, exactly, because I haven't been on call for a while, and when I was on call, I was wearing scrubs anyway, and I've been doing more telemedicine, so I haven't been leaving the house. Although thanks to Lannie, I even feel like my around the house uniform has improved, because so the shirt I'm wearing the weed my pants are amazing, but this is the uniclode draped tea that I never would have found without her. And my uniform at home is now like jeans and one of these shirts, and I feel like I look passable and it's also very comfortable. And they just get thrown in the wash and they're like twelve bucks, so if they ruined after a bunch of cycles in the wash, I can get another one. I recognize that's not a very environmentally friendly thing to say. Hopefully it won't get ruined, but it is nice that it was inexpensive. Yeah, yeah, so no, Alanie's great and she did a whole online thing for me. She put together outfits, she made suggestions, and then she even went back afterwards and like wrote down like what goes with what? It was so cool. I recommend her services if you're, you know, thinking about what you want to do with your wardrobe when you get back to work. Well, hopefully eventually we'll get a blog post on that and then we can point everybody to that. But Ritchie also amazing style. We're getting all sorts of stylish people coming to us, which is wonderful. The table scapes, as we said, is a pretty awesome thing that she's doing those for different magazines that you'll be able to check out her work. Have you ever done a table scape, Sarah? You know I have not, but like I will admit that she has inspired me to kind of maybe go down that road because I think my kids would find it really really fun. I actually think Annabelle would be like a natural tablescaper because she's very into art. She's very into like what goes with what. She would probably design some custom you know, place cards to go with any theme that we could think of. And I am very obsessed with like hand lettering and stuff these days, so I could see how that could intersect because there is room for some lettering on some tablescapes. Yeah, no, it sounds awesome. I think it's the kind of thing I'd probably have to get somebody else to do, because I don't know, my brain doesn't work out. I love design, I love style. I love beautiful photos of beautiful homes, and recognize that this is one of those wonderful things I could admire that other people do. So there we go. But what we were also telling you about how awesome it is that influencer is like an actual viable career path that you Rithby has a law degree, like a very prestigious law degree, and has decided to go the influencer route, and that that's a career you can actually do, and she's doing amazing with it, Like I feel like most, I feel like the best influencers have some sort of talent that they're sharing. They're not just just influencing or something. And she is a great mashup of like businesswoman, slash she knows the law part under it, slash artist, you know, and then putting all those together with her great style and now it's a viable career that's just amazing. I love how so many new avenues have opened up, the ways people can work sort of non traditionally but still profitably. I mean, that's one of the amazing things of modern life and modern technology. And yeah, I mean, obviously there's downsides to social media too, but some cool careers that exist that wouldn't have, you know, fifteen years ago. That's exciting. Who knows what's the next career that will be out there, podcaster that's already out there, out there? All right, Well, here's and we had a great interview with her. We hope you enjoy it as well. Well. Sarah and I are delighted to welcome Richie Holmes Grant to the program. As we mentioned, we got to know Richie through a previous guest, Lannie, and that was very exciting that she was willing to come on. So, Richie, could you introduce yourself to our listeners. Hi. Everyone, I'm Richie Holmes Grant. I am so excited to be here. Yeah. Lannie loves this podcast. So when I got the invitation, I was like, Okay, I'll come, and I'm really excited to be here and share my story and my resources and advice with your listeners, so awesome. Yeah, and so you have had quite a varied career, and it started out a little bit more traditional. You got a law degree from Columbia, not exactly a you know, slummy it kind of thing. But then you made a decision not to pursue a full time legal career. I mean, what was that hard? Like what did your family think about that? Yeah? It was. It was I think the biggest decision I've made thus far in my life, but also the best. So, you know, you go to school like Columbia, and you the assumption is that you work in a big firm, you know, in a big city. And that was what I was pursuing all the way up until the spring of my third year. I went to see my grandfather. I'm from Washington, d C. The Washington DC area of Maryland suburbs, and I came back home from New York to see him, and he was very sick, and so I was trying to get him the hold on and I said, Papa, I'm graduating from law school in the spring. I have been the first grandchild to graduate from law school in our family, so you know, I thought he would maybe want to hold on a little longer, and he said to me, you know, when you graduate, I think you should just take six months off, sit on your parents' back porch, and then figure out what you want to do with your life. And that thought never occurred to me. I'd always been a super overachiever, like it's always about it was always about getting to the next step. And when he said that, I said, okay, but I had no intention of doing it. But he passed away two weeks later, and that was the last conversation I ever had with him, So it really stayed with me. And I talked to my parents about it, and I said, I think I want to do this. I had never taken a break before to you know, just explore life, really, and they were surprisingly okay with it. I stayed in New York, I took the bar, and then I came back home. I did not sit out on their back porch for very long. I ended up doing all these things I never had the time or courage to do, and it was just such an exciting time in my life. And one of the things that I did was help other friends start their own businesses. I was in the Small Business and Nonprofits clinic at Columbia, and I was like, wow, this is really cool. But I don't just want to have a business helping other people start their own businesses. So what can I do? And you know, it never dawned on me that I had like narrations of entrepreneurs in my family. I mean I knew that, of course, but it never dawned on me that I would be the next. And it just sort of it just blossomed from there my career as an entrepreneur started. I started my first business here at home. It was it's still actually I shouldn't say was. It's still here years later, from two thousand and three, a test prep, tutoring, academic consulting company called Innovative Study Techniques. And so that was my first baby. And you know, the joke is I still am barred in New York and Maryland, but I only do the fun stuff. My family surprisingly was very supportive, except my grandmother. She was like, well, how are you going to use your degree? I don't understand, and I'm like, listen, I use it every day. And that's the thing. I use my law degree in everything I do. I'm so happy I got it and I still get to do like I said, you know, things that are fun for me. But overall, it was the best decision I could have made. Yeah, it's still tough, but like, yeah, how I I'm interested in how you use it, like more like doing your own legal stuff for your businesses or is it more just like you have a perspective. It's both. Actually I never have to hire outside council. That's great. Uh. In fact, this is a little funny aside. I was in an elevator accident and yeah, it was it was pretty bad. And for a while, I well, I fired my attorney and I had to be my own council for a while. Uh. And and I because I found things that he missed and I was like, this is that, like I'm not paying you to do work that I could be doing. So and then I eventually found new council and we won, so that was great, and they were like, hey, why don't you come work for us? And I was like, no, I'm good. So so yes, in that sense, you know, I'm my own general counsel. But also in terms of the just the mental processes you just I mean, there's a way of legal thinking that just helped so much in business and thinking through things and and just the decision points you have to make, and and even I mean just being a support a supportive voice for people who are having legal issues. Actually had to step in and help a friend who was in a just a very unfortunate situation, and I had to step in and find attorneys for him, be sort of like his third counsel, and he everything ended up being okay in the end. But I was happy that I could be that person for him because he was such a such an important person in my life, and I really wanted to use my expertise to help him. So it's it's it just has so many benefits. Yeah. Yeah, and you've been a serial entrepreneur then because you had the test prep company, but then you also have Vambi Anywhere and everything else. So why don't you give us a rundown of the portfolio of rich at the moment? Yeah, So I st Innovative Study Techniques. That was my first company, and then a few years and I actually partnered with organization and together we founded a nonprofit with the goal of closing the achievement gap. It was a really wild goal that we had and it was great for the time that we were working together and everyone's gone off and done really great things. But I sort of went back to ist after that. And then ten years in, I got pregnant with my daughter, and I knew that I couldn't work the same way that I used to, So I like, this is so funny when I think about it. I never had any intention of starting another business, but I needed some things and I called my aunt, who's a seamstress I and I asked her to make them for me, and literally in the middle of the conversation, I was like, I think people might buy this stuff. It was it was such a light bulb moment, and I'd said, you know what, I'm going to go with this, and even if it goes nowhere, I just need something right now for me. I need to feel like I'm working, but not actually working working because I still really wanted to be with my daughter, I took four months maternity leave and so so it just grew from there. My first test group was a mommy group that I was in and they loved the product. So I launched on my daughter's first birthday. And then this is when things really started to take off. Just about a year into it, we landed a partnership with Martha Stewart, and so that was incredible because I'm totally self taught. I never imagined that things would kind of play out like that, but that was sort of the beginning of my career now in the lifestyle space, working with Martha Stewart and then eventually becoming a contributor to the site. So actually creating content for Marthastewart dot Com just really let me know that this was like a place I could I could really grow and love just really sharing what I know and just enjoying my life as it is right now, being a mom, a mom preneur, a wife, all of these things and wine. All right, let's take a real quick break and we'll be right back with more from Ritchie Holmes. Grant. That is amazing about the Martha's Martha Stewart partnership, and I would imagine you felt probably found some talents in yourself that you maybe didn't even know you had. So that's that's so cool. So let's talk about the table scapes because that's where they was going. There's a very Martha Stewart element of your table scapes, and people have watched you should you should go to Instagram and follow Richie. Go to YouTube and follow Ritchie. She has lots of videos, also starring her daughter, the Mini Boss. Uh you know about her her lifestyle content here, including gorgeous tablescapes. So tell us about the tables. Yeah. So the funny thing is, I want everyone to know this. I was never one of those girls who grew up saying I want to be like Martha Stewart. I love Martha, but that was just never, never me. But I do love a beautiful table. I when I started, so after I got sort of my feet wet working with Martha Stewart with the content creating, I decided I wanted to venture out and I thought I would just sort of revamp my own blog, and I got some really great advice from a friend of mine who was like, I think you should. Actually a few friends who came to my daughter's birthday party and they were like, you should be doing video. Your house looks like a studio, But that was never my goal. I just wanted a very nice kitchen and I always wanted a really cool crafting room. So they saw those and they were like, YEA, you should totally do video. And I've really never thought about that. But I've learned when multiple people tell you the same thing, you know they don't know each other, but they all tell you the same thing, you should really listen. So I listened, and I think it was maybe about six weeks later that I did my first video. I had zero experience with video, and the tablescaping came about because the show is essentially about my life. It's called The Rich Life, so all the things that make my life rich, and that first Christmas I wanted to share how we decorate our home, and of course tablescaping is a huge part of that. And that first video now has something like one hundred and seventy three thousand views. It's just was incredible, and that was my segue into this tablescaping world that I didn't even know existed on YouTube. I just I just always do my own thing, but people would come for the tablescapes, so that that just grew and I've had some amazing opportunities. I just had a great feature in Veranda about a couple looks that I created in la I've had partnerships with different vendors to include their pieces, so it's just it's been totally unexpected but amazing at the same time something that I really really loved. Tablescaping is my happy place, and I know that it can be kind of intimidating for some people, but I like to make it fun. I like to make it accessible for people and just beautiful. So what makes a good table scape? Like if if you're you know, somebody who's maybe design challenged, like me, if I was like, hey, I want my table to look awesome, what are maybe like one or two quick things I could do to make that happen? Well, I think the biggest thing for me is knowing your style and really owning that. So you know, it's easy to look in magazines and say, oh, you know that's nice, that's nice, that's nice, But what is your actual what is your style and what is the vibe that you're going for when you when when people see the table, how do you want them to feel? And that I think there's there's no substitute for that. You have to start there. And then in terms of the actual pieces, I'm so big on layering. That adds so much interest to the table. Different elements you can do on the table with like knack and rings and textures, and colors. I mean, I'm just I'm so big into just creating your own unique look. So yeah, you should just kind of jump in. I don't know if that was super helpful, but my table look is currently more dirty dishes. But so you've got to get there's a basic start with a basic set of white plates that you love. Okay, that's the easiest way to do it, and that way you can have that same set of plates and just style around those each time you want to have an event or each holiday you want to celebrate. I love the idea of it because it really is just you know, and it's even very pandemic friendly because you can do it within your own home with your own family to make a meal or event special, or even you could do it with video where you make a beautiful table and you're having it with your family, but you're also sharing it with family that's far and wide and they get to see your beautiful table. I will say, my my husband's grandmother, and she has passed away since she actually had quite the tablescape thing going on, and so looking at you and learning from you, I'm like motivated, like I think, I think this is going to be my new my new thing. You should you should totally try it. And everything that you said as far as the pandemic, we've actually done that. My cousin wanted a white party and everyone had to do a table scape. And first I was like, okay, this is work for me because, like you know, I need my tables to look good. But it was excuse me, it was so much fun and everyone had a great time showing their tables. And right now it's it's July. I know this is airing in August, but I have a Christmas look upstairs for a magazine shoot. That's the world of the magazine several three months in advance, but I love it. Yeah, we were recording three months in advance, and then we learned better after life started changing so much. And you include your daughter in a lot of your videos, And what is she what's her thought about it? Like? Does she it? Like what's her favorite part of this? She actually is a very avid tablescaper. I mean, I don't know if that's her favorite part, and I definitely did not push that, but she owns it. She did her first solo tablescape video last Thanksgiving, her friends Giving, and I was like okay. Well, she wanted to have a friends giving dinner for her friends, and so I said, Okay, the caveat is you have to do a tablescape and you have to do a video if I'm going to go through all this effort of having this cater she wanted it vegan, so I had it catered and she and she loved it. But that's her thing, is I think, just expressing herself to the world. And she doesn't do scripts. She's like, no, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't do scripts. I just I just go with the flow. And she's seven, by the way, so she's totally different than I am. But I love it. I love how we've got this chemistry on camera and we film when she wants to film. I never press it. She made there's a rumor going on around that she may be starting her own channel. I don't know. I don't know. But if so, you heard it here First Generation, Yeah, yeah, Now, of course you're not just your your daughter's caregiver. You know, you mentioned that you were also caring for your father these days, and I know we've had a lot of questions from listeners about that about you know, caring for aging parents and and you know, if they have health conditions and things like that. So how does that play into your life at the moment. Yeah, so my dad has dementia. His mom also had dementias, so but she actually his was way earlier. So it was a real shock for us when it happened. And when we discovered he couldn't live by himself anymore, we said, you know, we have the room here, so he needs to come live with us. But we weren't. We weren't mentally really prepared for all that it entailed, and I didn't know really much about sort of how the disease progresses. I'm learning as as I'm going along, and it's been it's been hard. It's been hard in terms of having the level of patience you need to be a caregiver too. I mean, as Riley is growing, my dad is regressing. So I'm sort of in the middle of this. But I will say that I do feel like it's it's a blessing that I never knew that I could handle. You know, I think that everything that I'm doing now has has just is just a testament to like, how how much strength you have that you don't even know exist until you're put in that position. So it's like this week, he he didn't remember that I was his daughter, So that that's been hard. You know. I I fully knew that would happen. I expected it to happen, but was I ready for it to happen. No, So we are now at the point where we're thinking about, Okay, what's the next step in terms of all after the pandemic is over. Will it be in his best interest for him to stay here or do we have to find a place for him to go. So that's you know, that's that's a hard place to be in because there's some guilt associated with that too, like, you know, have I done everything that I can do? But I think at the end of the day, the answer is yes, you know, the we do the best we can do to honor our parents, and certainly, if I was ever in that position, I want, you know, my daughter to do the same thing for me. But it's very overall, it's very, very difficult. But at the same time, I feel like again that I've been equipped with what I need, If that makes sense, Yeah, very much. I think one of the more practical issues right now is. I mean, you've always worked from home, and now everyone's there, Yeah, including both your father and your daughter, my husband yet your husband hopefully he's a little more self sufficient, but still everyone. How are you guys sort of? How are you still managing to keep space for doing your stuff while while everyone's around? Yet? You know, the first few months were very difficult for me. I was like, I have no idea how I'm going to work. I'm used to dropping Riley off at school. My husband's gone all day, and my dad he's just you know, he's cool. Sometimes I even take him out on tablescaping adventures, you know. But for everyone to be here, it's like my creative energy has just it was just zapped for such a long time until I figured out, Listen, I'm a creator, right, Like, I need to create a new way to do things. So I started doing more interviews on my show, live streaming as well as sort of faux streaming, where I will it looks like a live stream, but I've actually recorded it. And that has opened up a lot of doors for me to interview people who I normally wouldn't be able to because we're not in the same place. So that's pretty cool, and then some other projects have come into play with brands who are I think the standards are lower now, so it's like, hey, you know, you can film in your house and I have all the equipment, so it's great. So it doesn't look, you know, too bad. So I just have opened, you know, just been really open to doing things a different way that I think that works for me given where I am now. Unfortunately, I do have a studio downstairs that I can you know, sort of close off from the rest of the world. Uh, table scaping right now is a little bit of a challenge. The magazine shoot was cool, but the videos are hard because you know, people are just in the house because that's what we have to do right now. But it's I think it's it's it's been a challenge, but a challenge that I feel like I needed and to just kind of push me into just new avenues, I believe it. Are there any rituals that you found really helpful right now during this very different time. Yeah. So in the morning, I get up before everyone else and just have my quiet time with God. I do sort of devotionals and Bible study, and that is really key for me to set the tone for the rest of my day. I did that before, but it always felt really rushed because I had to get you know, Riley ready for school and make breakfast. And now I can really take my time, and I just I love that time that I have, and I also try to carve out when I can. It's not as consistent as it would like as I would like it to be, but just like, this is mommy time, Like, do not interrupt me before, you know, be subtle, like oh, I'm doing this, but I can stop and do this. But now it's like, no, this is mommy time. Do not interrupt me. So setting boundaries where you can, I think is just is really key to keeping your sanity because right now I'm doing things that I never did before, Like I am, you know, cleaning the whole house. I mean, listen, I'm all about outsourcing when it comes to stuff that you know you are not good at. And you know, I'm also doing all of the meals or I guess I should say ninety nine percent of the meal. So it's like when I need my time, I need my time totally. Well, you know, our listeners always love kind of a day in the life, and obviously This is pandemic edition, not normal life edition. But what would a sort of normal weekday look like for you these days? Oh my gosh, So right now I not only manage my own schedule, but I manage Riley's activity schedule. This summer. We worked really hard at the beginning of the summer to kind of craft a schedule for her that would really what would be fun and educational and really based on her own interest. So she's got a full on schedule. So I look at myself as her scheduler, making sure that she's got everything she needs. And then in between that, I'll squeeze in my own work, which is just creating content, so it could be for my own content or right now, I'm working on some really cool projects with better homes and gardens and real simple that you guys hopefully will see soon. So fun things like that I get to do. Like I told you, I did my Christmas table scape for another magazine last week. So I'm not working the entire day. I'm working kind of in chunks and getting a lot of stuff done during that time because I know that I'm pulled in so many different directions. But I think one thing that I've been able to do in the pandemic is really be more selective about how I spend my time, because before it's people had all these expectations, Oh, can you go here, can you do this? Can you do that? And now it's like no, so yeah, I every day is really different for me and that's the cool part. I think now it's way easier to get more creative with my days. Sarah, did you have any more questions? Or should we do our Love of the Week? No? I love that day in the life. She's getting tons done, even though it's in pockets of time. And I too need to protect my mommy time every once in a while because sometimes you just need a moment, a moment you need. Yeah, so should we do our Love of the week? What's your irs? So? Sweet mine is the Stationary Muse, which is a very small business, is a black owned business. The woman is adorable. She built it from scratch, She makes her own stickers in her home, and she's going to be launching her own planner, which I'm very excited about because she's showing little teasers of it and I'm obsessed with planners. By the way, Richie, if you didn't know that so anyway, called the Stationary Muse. You can check her out on Instagram. She's got some big things coming up the next couple of months. Awesome. Well, I'm mine's more of a concept. I've been doing what I call email triage sessions, so it I'm not as responsive these days perhaps as I might have been at different times, and the email kind of stacks up, and I start feeling like there's stuff in there I don't know about I need to look through. And I realized when I was going in and out and in and out, and I just was constantly feeling behind. So what I do is I just take like an hour at one point that I block off and I just haul through, Go down, down down. I've got my calendar, I've got my notebook for anything that I can't answer right now that I'm going to put on the to do list, And when I do that, I can get through the undone stuff from like a week and a half. I try not to let us stack up for a week and a half. I try to do this every like four days, three to four days, and so then I will take a you know, go back through the second four day trench two. So the four days that I didn't get to and then just quick spin through the last four to make sure I didn't miss anything then, but so much more efficient. So definitely recommending that, Ritchie. How about you. So I am not the most organized person, which people find odd because when they see my spaces they're always organized. But you know that's because I have some time to get them together. But I've been working really hard on deca uttering, and I just I now have the time where I can spend in each room, and so I've been taking each room corner by corner, starting with my workspaces. And I do have a shared workspace with Riley, so we're right now in the process of like making it super efficient and everything I have she wants, so now we have double everything. We both have two desktops two well we have two desktops, two laptops, and we have, you know, our same stands, and so it's just but I'm like, listen, whatever it takes for this to work, especially now that school will be online for the fall, We're going to do it. So we've been doing that in our office. We also something cool I didn't mention. We just won a home depot pitch competition. So yeah, our category was like the five hundred dollars project thing, so we decided that we would create an industrial chic closet library in our office. So that is a project that I'm working on, and I really want the whole office to be organized. So that's why I'm super decluttering the rest of the office so that when we do the closet project, everything we'll just be together. So I have like a professional reason, you gotta get it done, exactly, I gotta get it done. Industrial chic closet library sounds amazing. Yeah, yeah, we just kind of and it's so funny because we had to do a pitch video for Home Depot and so when I was describing it, and I just candidly asked Riley, because you know she doesn't do scripts, I said, what do you think about that? She was like, I like that. It's like a little bit fancy but also regular too, mix it together modern and boo. Yeah, it's great. It was just so funny. That was my favorite line in the whole bitch. So, yeah, that was great. I'll send you guys the link to that. Yeah, so that's my love of the week, just decluttering and just encouraging everybody just put stuff back where you found it. The world, the house will be a better place if you do that. I love it. Well, Richie, why don't you tell our listeners real quick where they can find you so you can always find me hanging out on Instagram at All Things Richie. That's our icche. My mom is in love with French, so in French it's pronounced rich but i'd say Richie our icche. And then YouTube The rich Life again that's our icche. And yeah, those are my main places. I also hang out on Facebook too, but I love Instagram and YouTube. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Thank you. This is fine, all right, Well that was inspirational. I am ready to start my new tablescaping hobby. Now. She was such a great She was great. So we're going to move on to our question segment, and this one I'm more interested in Laura's answer, so I'm going to read the question. All right. You talk a lot about the power of maintaining a streak in building a habit. I have especially found this true as I took up jogging this year, partly as a way to get pent up quarantine energy out and partly because of the health wake up callar family received when my father had a mini stroke this winter. He's doing well now, no lasting damage. O good. However, my jogging streak is over for about six weeks while I recover from a sprained ankle. The habit is still quite new and fragile, so I know this is an opportunity to fall off the wagon completely if I am not careful. Do you have any suggestions on restarting streaks when you are forced to stop for a long time. Yeah, So it's interesting because, as she said, when you stop a streak, it can be twice as hard to start back up as with any habit. That once you stop it, it's difficult. And you know, one of the suggestions that people have put out there is thinking of it not as a stop, but as a pause. That might be a Gretchen Ruben thing that you're not. You know that it's not the end, it's not the destination. It's that there's a for a little bit and then you go back into it. You can also change the streak that obviously if she can't run on her ankle at the moment, but maybe she would be able to do like bicep curls or something that that's a form of exercise she could still do, or some stretching or whatever it is that is accessible to her. And so that the streak is not about running a mile a day. It's about doing fifteen minutes of exercise and that you know that can be done in almost any way, shape or form. You know, even if running isn't an option for her at the time, and you know, just sort of set small goals when she gets back to it, and or even you know, if she doesn't like the streak. I mean, this is the thing. I don't think people do streaks who don't like them, Like you won't stick with it, like it's it's not fun if you aren't into it. And so if you're not into it, that is totally okay. Like it would be fine to say I'm going to exercise five times a week. That would be better than about ninety five percent of the population and would be great for health. It doesn't have to be seven days a week unless you get really excited by the idea of doing something seven days a week. And if you do, then you probably won't have as hard a time getting back started with it because you'll want to. I don't personally love to do streaks, so that's why you know this question. I was kind of like, you know, you don't have to. It's not the only way to maintain a habit. You could look more at, you know, percentage of days that you're doing exercise, or you could think in time limited streaks. I personally enjoy those a little bit more like if I you know, I'm currently doing this eighty day obsession thing, but there's definitely a part of me that's like, well, it has a finite end at the end of eighty days. It's not like I'm going to quit exercising afterwards. But I feel like it would be too much pressure on myself if I were just doing some sort of infinite exercise streak, and I feel like that could get out of hand, especially if I then sprain my ankle. Then I'd get very very upset that I couldn't continue it. So I don't know, time limited streaks might be a good replacement, Like, once you're better, you could do a twenty days of this to recover, and then thirty days of that and take a break, and you know, you don't have to put so much pressure to do something every day, And I don't think anybody should shriek, to should streak anything that they don't enjoy. Ah. Sorry, I found it interesting that you would stop a streak because you thought it was getting too oppressive. Yeah, that is definitely true. Particularly my so my meditation app will track whether I'm doing a streak. I don't find meditating something somehow conducive to streaking because I don't want to like berate myself if I'm not meditating, Like I want it to be like a purely like positive thing. If I'm doing it, I'm doing it. I'm not. I'm not. So I actually sort of get annoyed when I say that the app has too high a number, because then I'm like, Okay, now I feel like there's pressure and I'm gonna mess it up. So then like if it's gets towards the end of a month, it'll be like, okay, well, this is a perfect natural time to like not do it for a day, to like remove the external pressure of an impost polder A polder problems. All right, Well this has been best of both worlds. We've been interviewing Richie Holmes Grant and we will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.