Yeah,

so beautiful.

But she entered, Kate, and some of you may know this, she's a pioneer of horticulture and not just California, but America, but she introduced 150 species.

Bird of Paradise came here because of her.

Jacaranda, obviously.

Ouganvillia.

Ouganvillia because of her.

And I think I should have just fed it more and pruned it

How do you connect those dots between being taken under the wing in Europe and then coming to the US and starting your own creative agency?

Well, I got a job in New York at a magazine and was there.

Time Inc. had bought Essence Group.

They'd started a new magazine together.

I was the creative director there and very grateful to be there.

And this is sort of maybe the last gasp of the magazine's golden era, you know, when people were still making magazines and we're investing in them and and working with great photographers.

It was a real dream, dream job.

Pair that feeling of burnout with the pandemic, and soon Richard found himself at a crossroads.

I

think it's already happening.

We call them empty calorie brands.

There's a difference between a brand and selling things or making things.

And I think we have built a brand and in all the multi dimensions that a brand needs and a real believable thing.

And just making a product and selling it is not the same thing.

It's why the slop...

people have asked you to open a hotel.

[laughs] Not an elevator pitch

... not really.

I mean, it's, it's a collision of a, multiple things happening at once.

The, uh...

We, uh, I had started an office for my agency here in Los Angeles.

Um, I also had opened a bookshop 'cause there's not a lot of bookstores in, in Los Angeles, good bookstores.

And, uh, and then I used to work the bookstore on the weekend, and I was there, um, and a farmer walked in, who I knew 'cause I had bought trees from her.

Amazing.

Mm-hmm.

And my mom and dad sent us to a school that had sort of a- a military cadet component, I think, for high school.

I think maybe to sort of toughen us up a little bit.

And we were just bullied endlessly there, just ferociously.

And- and that's sort of, I think, manifested in different ways as- as an adult now, in terms of work ethic and throwing myself into work and things like that, um, before this new chapter.

Um, but then also, like a lot of, uh, real latent rage when my cousins would pop out another baby.

Mm-hmm.

... really disconnected from my body, not very healthy, not, you know, not, didn't feel very sexy.