Building Human-Centered Business with Tyler Scriven

A thoughtful, dynamic and innovative entrepreneur, Tyler Scriven is the Founder & CEO of Saltbox, a co-warehousing startup on a mission to make logistics approachable, accessible, and efficient for all. In this episode of Serenbe Stories, we talk with Tyler about his vision for a human-centered business and how - even as an introvert - he enjoys the serendipitous interactions he has with neighbors at Serenbe. 

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Transcript

0 (1s):
Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called biophilic solutions. Our last season of ceremony stories, building a biophilic movement was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture the living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find biophilic solutions on apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and follow us today. So you don't miss an episode.

0 (41s):
All right, now let's get back to ceremony stories, a thoughtful dynamic and innovative entrepreneur. Tyler Scriven is the founder and CEO of saltbox, a co warehousing startup on a mission to make logistics approachable, accessible, and efficient for all. In this episode of ceremony stories, we talk with Tyler about his vision for a human centered business and how, even as he's an introvert, he enjoys the serendipitous interactions he has with all his neighbors at Seren B.

1 (1m 12s):
I, I shouldn't be, but I'm constantly surprised. And, and I suppose delighted by the, by the people that are attracted to Sam B and I ended up meeting, and it's just such a, such a, a rich community in that way. And even, even for someone who is an introvert, it, it, it, it encourages me to stop and talk. Cause I just, I, I never know what I'm going to find, you know, and that's cool. I want

0 (1m 37s):
To welcome everybody back to the ceremony stories today. Today we have resident Tyler Scriven and Steve Nygren with us. How are you gentlemen doing this afternoon? Great, thanks. Good to see everybody. We're on zoom again today. You know, the Delta Varian is chasing us back into our home offices, but I want to welcome Tyler, who is the founder and CEO of saltbox that we're going to talk all about that that's based here in Atlanta. He has a really interesting story to tell. And one of the first questions we always ask Tyler, how did you discover Seren B?

1 (2m 14s):
Oh, that's a great question. I, my wife and I lived in, in, in the bay area, California for a number of years and really appreciated the natural beauty of that area. And we moved to Atlanta in 2016 lane is a great city, but lacks some of the nearby, you know, retreats that, that, that San Francisco does. And so we kind of looking for something that felt a bit more like home at that time and came across B and decided to come down for, for weekend. Funny story, we actually never left the end property.

1 (2m 55s):
I had no idea the rest of it was there. So we didn't fully experienced it until later, but we're happy to have found it. It

0 (3m 4s):
Is funny how that happens, that a lot of people stay on the property and have no idea. There's this little village on the other side of the meadow there.

1 (3m 12s):
Yeah, absolutely. And I, I, now I now, you know, go to great pains to make sure that everyone knows, knows, you know, you know, their way around. Yeah, definitely.

0 (3m 23s):
We defined, put some maps over there to be like, there's more, there's more keep going. So you came for that first time, but you didn't walk away with a house that weekend. What sort of drew you back and cause you guys live up in Atlanta full-time so this is really a retreat for you guys.

1 (3m 41s):
Yeah. You know, I think like so many people, I, I was, you know, just and chanted by the, by the place. And we, we, it came back again and this time did actually explore the, the community and, and that evolved into spending some weekends and that evolved into renting, you know, a bit longer. And, and eventually during, during the pandemic, in fact, actually prior to the onset of the pandemic, we decided to, to buy something. And, and, and that, that, that had a pivoted a little bit as, as, as it began, we, we changed our plan some and accelerated things.

1 (4m 25s):
But, but yeah, you know, I think that, what, what, what can one say, right? I mean, so many things that, that I could say, but, you know, for me, I would say there, there are two things that are probably most notable about how Santa Maria is a different place for me, but the first is that I really, really value the silence of it. And my favorite times are when there's no sound and, you know, you, you, you it's, it's, it's, it's easy to, to, to forget how much we hear, you know, every day. And until we don't hear anything exactly.

1 (5m 10s):
Now I'm like, huh, maybe I should get Jill to talk about my house because I could hear my air conditioner at my window every night. And the second thing is that, you know, I, I've never where at least rather not since I was a young kid, you know, lived in a, in a, in a, in a proper neighborhood with neighbors who I cared to to interact with, then obviously that, you know, Sam B provides that place. And, and that's a really unique experience for me, especially being someone who's pretty focused on work and pretty, pretty introverted to actually enjoy, you know, the, the serendipitous interactions I have with the people that live in my community.

1 (5m 51s):
Yeah.

0 (5m 51s):
We, I mean, I'll, I'll obviously echo that, but we, we just got a puppy and have, I'll have to bring her over to introduce her to everybody. But, you know, we took a walk the other day, you know, a gets you out of the house, but then you see everybody and it's fun. It's not just walking in Midtown, which we love, but you're really walking through this neighborhood and everybody stops and, you know, the shopkeepers and the landscape crew, and, you know, it's just sort of this really wonderful yeah. Village that we also had an experienced until we lived here.

1 (6m 25s):
Totally. The other thing I would say, Monica, is that, you know, I, I love architecture and design. I was, I was, I was actually an architecture major for my first two years in college. And I realized that you don't make any money in architecture unless you do it really, really, really good. So I decided to pursue something else, but, but, but I still love design. And, and, you know, there's so many beautiful homes in, in ceremony and, and as you know, it's so, you know, thoughtfully designed from, from, you know, every single detail. And so that for me is just, it's just, I drive a lot of joy from that and from being around beautiful things.

0 (7m 9s):
Yeah. And I find that the growing of it still is sort of exciting to, you know, I know some people construction noise, but I love the dynamic aspect of always something news coming in, whether that's a new cottage or a new restaurant or a yoga studio. So when you guys were living in the San Francisco area, saltbox, wasn't even a, an idea in the back of your head. So tell us a little bit about your time there, what you were doing and then how you got to Atlanta and, and, and came upon this super cool concept of really, I don't know if this is the right way, you know, co-housing, or co-working really for warehousing, which is, I think fascinating rather than we're so used to sort of the we work model, but this is really about having space for your goods for e-commerce that you're, you're potentially shipping.

0 (8m 3s):
So, so tell us a little bit about your story pre-sell and B and H and how you got out to Atlanta.

1 (8m 8s):
Sure. Well, you know, I, my, my story and my wife's story, you know, sit alongside each other. We, we, we, we moved to San Francisco actually to Palo Alto in 2009, in order, in order for me to, to, to join what was then a very small startup, a company called Palentier technologies. And my wife, faith is a classical pianist and had a very successful, you know, early career in New York. And so it was a big sacrifice for her to make that, make that move, but we, we did and, and, you know, and it, and it, it, it worked out very well for us.

1 (8m 48s):
You know, we, we both ended up joining very successful companies, I at where I was a part of the leadership team for about seven years. And, and, and my faith actually, you know, there's a very funny story, a much, much longer story, but the short version of it is that she decided she also wanted to work at a startup. And I said, well, you know, your, your, your classical penis, like nobody's going to hire you,

2 (9m 17s):
You know, and

1 (9m 20s):
I was wrong. So she, she did in fact, get hired. She, you know, met this, this young entrepreneur. He was 17, I believe at the time. And his name was John and he was from Ireland and he was founding a company it's called Stripe. And Stripe is now, you know, I, I must be the most valuable private technology company in the world at this point. And, you know, she was center the first employee there. And so she kind of beat me as it turns out, but, you know, we, we had a great time, a great six years living, living in, in, in Palo Alto and decided in 2016 to move back east closer to home and wanted to, wanted to, to, to, to, you know, pursue a different form of entrepreneurship.

1 (10m 14s):
And so, you know, one of the things that that meant for, for, for, for us was to buy a retail company, you know, we'd spent the past six years as a part of these hyper growth, you know, the startups and, and we wanted to kind of go to the other end of the spectrum. And so we bought this company and, and a lot of the experiences that we had and, and growing that business and, and, and moving more aggressively into e-commerce informed what we, what we are, what I should say, decided to bill, we'll start with box. And so I can tell you a bit more about that, but that's kind of how, you know, just how, how we got here and, and, and you know, how I got to the starting line

0 (10m 56s):
With small box and why Atlanta. I mean, obviously we've been here for 20 years, but we came out of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and we absolutely love it. And I, I'm thrilled to see more people discovering, you know, kind of what an amazing city it is, but for you guys, was there anything in particular, cause you could have gone back to New York, right?

1 (11m 18s):
Yeah. Yeah. We could, we could have gone into a lot of places. And I think there are a few things about Atlanta. I mean, one, one was that it is, excuse me, it, it, it, it has had, and has this, you know, incredible kind of burgeoning now maturing tech ecosystem, which we thought was very, very interesting. And we thought we could have, you know, a meaningful impact on that. And, and, and, and, and that's played out quite well. You know, in fact, actually I just a research report a couple of days ago that, you know, ranked Atlanta is now the third, most productive startup technology ecosystem in the country behind San Francisco and in New York now, you know, others would debate that, but nonetheless, you know, th th the fact that one, one authority believes it's number three is, is, you know, quite meaningful.

1 (12m 17s):
And so, yeah, and, and, and, and, and th th there's a tremendous amount of great things happening here today. So, you know, with some mixture of that, and the fact that, you know, they are in it's, it's a really thriving African-American community and, and all sorts of ways tech and otherwise. And we were excited by that. And, and it's frankly, just close to, closer to home and, and we've got a great airport, you know, you know, it, it kind of, you know, checked all of our boxes. Yeah.

0 (12m 53s):
Yes. Steve always says, right. What, Steve, what do you say that it's, it's basically can get you anywhere in the country, like kind

3 (13m 0s):
Of five minutes to connections to the world capitals and very few places.

1 (13m 6s):
Yeah. And I, I use them all, so

3 (13m 9s):
I can't remember the last time I had a connector anywhere. I can't imagine. Yeah.

1 (13m 17s):
I don't, I don't, I don't, I simply don't go if it requires a connection, you know, I just I'll see you next time.

3 (13m 22s):
Yeah. And we had that luxury, you know, very few cities when you were in San Francisco, you didn't have that luxury.

1 (13m 29s):
No. I mean, not, not, not, you know, to major cities, but certainly not to the degree that we have here. And, and I, you know, I really, really appreciate that. And, and I, I think that's, yeah, for us, that was, you know, top of, top of our list in terms of, you know, at the end of life. Yeah. So, yeah. Sorry, go ahead. I

0 (13m 50s):
Was just gonna say, I think Sarah would be benefits from that quite a bit. You know, our location is, is integral, you know, really 25 minutes from the airport. 45 minutes from the city is, is really, I mean, that for personally, that's amazing for me, it's, it's super easy to get out and get home and do anything you want. So, so give us the, give us the boiler plate, salt box, and I, and I'll want to congratulate you that I, as I was researching, I saw that you got a substantial funding investment in the spring, so congratulations. It's in the press. So it's not a yeah. Yeah. That's totally

1 (14m 27s):
Totally in the press. I, I don't, you know, we try to avoid celebrating, raising money. I'm more, more money, more problems as I, as I

2 (14m 34s):
See it, you know, I'm

0 (14m 36s):
An optimist, so that means just more growth and you can fulfill your dreams. Yeah.

1 (14m 42s):
That's all, that's all true as well. So yeah, you know, we, we sell boxes raised a little over $16 million, so to date, and so, you know, what, what do we do and why am I think, can I go back for a moment to that? The, the, the, the reference to the company that we bought, this was a, a consumer product goods business that had been started in the trunk of the founder's car in Atlanta. And he, he ended up building a very successful company, you know, and that way, tens of millions of dollars of revenue with, you know, hardly any knowledge of, of, you know, business knowledge, at least, but, but eventually, you know, encountered a lot of operational challenges that, that slowed his growth.

1 (15m 32s):
And so, you know, we bought the company and our intention was to evolve it from what was primarily a retail distribution business. And to primarily they e-commerce based distribution business. And we did that pretty successfully, but, you know, what we found, what I found in the course of that was that we had all these really great digital tools to enable our growth. We had, you know, Shopify and Stripe and Facebook and MailChimp and so on and so forth. And, and, and these technologies now in the hands of millions of small businesses, and they, you know, they're very effective. And that means that they can, you know, start in and build and grow these companies, you know, quite effectively.

1 (16m 14s):
But then there's also the physical aspect of, of, of, of, of e-commerce. And, you know, that piece of it is incredibly messy, right? And, and, and, and, and, you know, whereas over here, you've got great tools over here. You have no tools, you know, you're working out of a self storage facility out of a basement or garage or whatever you can muster together. And, and, and that's really not the way that e-commerce should work. You know, if you look at the most successful e-commerce companies in the world, it's very obvious to pretty much everyone that, you know, it is the logistics back end. So to say that, you know, makes their business what they, what it is.

1 (16m 54s):
Even my son Patterson knows that Amazon is an Amazon because they have a pretty website they're Amazon, because they built the world's most sophisticated logistics infrastructure. So you have kind of this dichotomy where, you know, you've got, you know, a relatively small, smaller number of really big companies that have, you know, excellent logistics infrastructure. And you have, you know, millions of small companies that have no logistics infrastructure. And, you know, it's really hard for them to, to, to compete and succeed in that way. And so what we're building is we're building, you know, workspace and logistics infrastructure for, for small businesses that are engaged primarily in digital commerce.

1 (17m 36s):
And they've got to store things and make things and pack things and ship things. And they do that from saltbox. And, you know, we, we think of it as being what I would describe as the human centric, logistics business, you know, everything about the world of logistics today is about, you know, the object, right? It's about the box about the train, the, you know, whatever, but it's never about the human, you know, but when you kind of go from having, you know, having, again, a small number of big companies that need logistics to a big number of small companies, you've got, and all of a sudden, you know, think about the human at the center of that design and build a very different, you know, very different set of products and services to support them.

0 (18m 24s):
Right. And, and, and I see all these huge warehouses being built everywhere, you know, because, you know, we see them, you know, close to the airport, they're all over the place, but this is different, right. This isn't the Amazon warehouse. This is the, I need 10,000 square feet, which still a lot of space, but I need, but then I might need, maybe I want my office has there too. Cause it sounds like you also have a little bit of that more. What do you like modern amenities and conveniences that are added in, right?

1 (18m 58s):
Yeah, that's right. So at, at a salt box, you can get a, you know, 300 or 1000 or, or, or 5,000 or 10,000 square foot warehouse suite, which is in a larger warehouse, but it's air conditioned and it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, fresh and you've got access to loading docks and pallet jacks. And, but also photography studios and private offices and conference rooms, fresh coffee, even, you know, you're part of a community of peers that you, you, you, you find a supportive, you can get access to things like our elastic workforce, which is on demand, labor Hilton, you know, instead of having to hire someone else, you can just press a button and the enforcement rule will show up at your door.

1 (19m 47s):
They can help you for 15 minutes, one, so they can help you for five days a week, you know, five hours at. And so we're bringing this to do any task, any task, I mean, in any task, in the context of, of the, of the warehouse. So yes, Hey, I need you to pick pack and ship these orders. I need you to assemble these kits. I need you to label these boxes or, you know, whatever, whatever it may be. That's incredible. So yeah, it's all about it's, it's all about, again, creating, making logistics more approachable and more accessible, more affordable, more flexible, more, all the things that, you know, humans need, you know, and in particular, small, smaller companies and delivering it to them in a way that, you know, acknowledges, you know, who they are and their scale and, and so on and so forth.

1 (20m 38s):
And so, you know, we, we, in, in some sense, you know, think about the, the physical, the physical workspace, the warehouse is kind of the platform, but, you know, we're very focused on delivering services and other technology solutions, you know, on top of that, if you will, that, that give that, that, that, that merchant, that entrepreneurial, we're more, more leverage,

0 (21m 2s):
But it's kind of brilliant. And did you know that you were going to have this sort of elastic workforce and these other services on top of it, or did you find that some of these things got layered on as you were building it out and said, oh, you know what, this would be a great service to offer. I, you know, I

1 (21m 20s):
Would say that I knew, you know, it's, you know, you, anytime you're trying to build a company like this, you, you know, you, you kind of have to, you start with the, with the vision obviously. And an individual is not so much about every specific, you know, service or technology that we'll offer in the future, as it is about, you know, what is the overarching problem? And what's the thesis and, and, and, you know, everything kind of fits within that is fair, fair game. So, yes, in these, in this case, these are things that we, you know, anticipated, but I'm sure, you know, five or 10 years from now, we'll be, you know, innovating against problems that we didn't necessarily anticipate, but it still align with our, our mission.

0 (22m 5s):
I love that. And you guys clearly have been successful. You've got two locations now, one on the upper west side, or is it the east side of Atlanta? West side. Yeah.

1 (22m 17s):
Dallas. And now actually a third would be open or Monday and we open another, another five actually this year. So,

2 (22m 27s):
Wow. You're, we're, we're, we're rolling here.

1 (22m 35s):
Sure. I can, I can share some of those. So we're presently in Atlanta, in, in Dallas and Seattle, as a, as a Monday, we've got a couple of locations opening in LA Denver later this year, another location in Atlanta and our location in Seattle. And, and, you know, we've got a long pipeline of other, other cities across the country that will open, you know, next year and beyond. Right.

0 (23m 4s):
And so you've made that airport even more important to you.

2 (23m 7s):
The airport is sadly is very important to me right now. Yes. I wish it weren't. I wish it were not, but it is.

0 (23m 15s):
And so for you guys, have you found that you've been able to spend a little bit more time down here? I mean, you know, sort of sadly due to the pandemic potentially, or, you know, have you felt like things were a little more flexible? It sounds like, you know, obviously things have ramped back up and who knows where they're going, you know, as we sit here talking in August, but have you felt like you've been able to get enough time down here? I, you know,

1 (23m 38s):
Never enough, never enough, but, but, but every little bit counts. And, and in fact, my wife has, is they are right now with some, some, some friends and, you know, whenever we have time, we are there. And one of the things that we've tried to do is, is to, to, you know, is to literally, you know, bring more of our friends and get them to buy, or at least to rent and just kind of building, building more community. And that, that makes it even more sticky.

0 (24m 13s):
Yeah. I think that's one of my favorite things is how, you know, an individual comes and then, then they bring their parents or, you know, the parents come and they bring their kids and friends bring friends. And, you know, we just had another couple who's been living in Midtown. Who's been sort of circling ceremony forever and they just pulled the trigger and it's happening. And they're moving in this Saturday is it is. And I think, you know, we all put up those reasons why or why not, but sometimes you just gotta take the plunge, you know? So it's fun when new people move in, because it just really adds to the fabric of the neighborhood.

0 (24m 55s):
And you never know who you're going to meet next. And there's just like super fun people that are doing all sorts of crazy things.

1 (25m 2s):
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm constantly, I shouldn't be, but I'm constantly surprised. And, and, and, you know, I suppose delighted by the, the people that are attracted to Sarah and B and I ended up meeting and, you know, it's, it's just such a, such a, a rich community in that way. And even, even for someone who's an introvert, it, it encourages me to stop and talk. Cause I just, I never know what I'm going to find, you know, and then I, and that's cool. And is your wife an extrovert? No. No, she's not. She she's, she's a much more, you know, you know, joyous, enjoy jovial person than me, but, but still introverted.

1 (25m 45s):
You're selling yourself short Tyler, come on.

0 (25m 50s):
I would have never pegged you as an introvert as the times that we've met and been together, but then I'm married to one. So maybe I, I have preference for the quiet, the quiet people. So tell me, you know, what are some of the things that you guys are looking forward to doing more of? I mean, let's pretend that, you know, COVID isn't really happening right now because we do have a bunch of stuff coming up this fall, which knock on wood. A lot of it's outdoors, you know, and I think will still happen. Is there anything in particular, the ballet's coming back, I've heard Terminus and yeah.

1 (26m 28s):
Yeah. You know, I, for us, I mean, we, we, you know, like we, we certainly, as I mentioned, my wife is a, is a, is a pianist. And so she has, she loves music and, and, and, but, you know, to be honest, I mean, I think what we enjoy most about, about our time and B is just the quiet and the kind of the, you know, solitude I'm actually, I think, you know, Monica, we're working on a new, new, new house. That's gonna, you know, hopefully give us a little bit, a little bit more solitude, which we're excited about. And I think, you know, more, more intimate, you know, connections.

1 (27m 9s):
Right. I th I think I, you know, my, my, my vision, when I think about our new places, you know, let me go and round up kind of, you know, you know, four or five neighbors today and just have a dinner, you know, that that's, that to me is as much more fun than, you know, then the next, the next festival, even though, you know, festivals are great, but I got to recharge a little bit when I'm, when I'm there.

0 (27m 35s):
Yes. Like I said, I live with somebody like that. So he would prefer that we have people here only. Yeah,

1 (27m 42s):
Exactly. I am. I am. Yeah.

3 (27m 47s):
A couple of weeks ago when people come down, they run into people all the time,

1 (28m 2s):
All the time. And, and, and I think to that end, I mean, another thing that I would say about, about Sarah and, and at least my time there is that it, you know, it, it it's maybe because I've trained myself, I've made it this way, but it's, it's a place that encourages more, just more openness and more, more vulnerability. And, you know, in my discussions and interactions with, you know, really with everybody, but certainly with my, my, my friends. And so, you know, I just find that I have just, you know, richer, richer conversations there. And, and that's something that I value and, you know, is, is, is, is an important part of my life.

1 (28m 47s):
So

0 (28m 48s):
Yeah, sometimes we've garni and I have talked and you may have heard her say it that, you know, sometimes living here it's a little bit of a mirror is held up. And I don't know if it's the time in nature or the connection with people, but you do have not only an amazing support group of sort of friends that I think people find, but it's, but it's a very honest, you know, relationships of, everybody's sorta pushing each other to be a little better and a little more thoughtful and maybe a little more empathetic, you know? And, and I find that that is enriching, but it's also challenging. Right. Cause you know, we don't want to be, think that anything we need to change, you know, but, you know, I just think I found that really, really rewarding is, is having those conversations and sort of being pushed a bit.

0 (29m 41s):
I, I, I think it's super important to do that. So one of the things that we always ask is, well, I'll, I'll do, I'll ask one thing. Is there anything else you want to share with us about your work, about your family, about ceremony, and then we have sort of a final question that we ask. I don't think so. I think I'm asking the introvert, the introvert. What do you want to tell?

1 (30m 7s):
I I've, yeah, I've got through all my talking points. I'm good. Yeah. No, you're wonderful.

0 (30m 12s):
So we always want to know, you know, when you're telling somebody to come, who's never been here besides walk, walk past the, in and through the wildfire Metta to the, to the ceremony village, you know, what would you tell somebody to come look for? Or do you typically, you know, this marketing people don't tell you about?

1 (30m 34s):
Mm yeah. Well, first off I, I, as, as does everyone not a no, perhaps, except for you, Steve, but you know, struggle with how to describe the serum B it's, by the way, just as an aside there, I, you know, I'm constantly, constantly, you know, thinking of new ways to talk about saltbox and, you know, diff different kind of, you know, nuance points of view. And I see it, I see it as this kind of, you know, multi-dimensional thing. Right. And it makes sense. Cause you know, it kind of came out of my head and in my, my, my colleagues often say, man, like, I, I gotta write that down.

1 (31m 22s):
I got to figure out how to say it that way. And, and I, and I, you know, I, I would love for them to, but I think it's a bit of a hopeless pursuit in some way. And I think it's simply about Steve, right? I think I know no one's ever gonna, you know, you know, see it the same way you do would be able to talk about the same way you do because you know, we just didn't come from their head, you know? And so it's, I, I see that in a, in a, in a, in a, in a bit of a mirror in that way,

3 (31m 47s):
And I struggled to explain Sarah,

1 (31m 51s):
But only, only because you have so many ways you could, you know, you would struggle to write a book about it. If you, if you enjoy writing books, then you may struggle to put it into a few words. But anyway, I, I, I, I've tried to try to channel that, that, that, that the lack of words, and I just say, look, it, it's a, it's a really, you know, fascinating and surprising and unexpected community in the middle of the woods, you know, and that's it, you know, and, and just kind of leave it at that, because what I have found is that at the end of the day, you know, everyone experiences it a little bit differently.

1 (32m 32s):
And, and, and the thing, the thing that is consistent, no matter what is that, I think those kind of three things, like, I think everyone finds it, be surprising and unexpected and fascinating. Now they may find it to be that in lots of different ways, but like, they always tended to be that. So I'm telling the truth. I'm not telling the whole lot, but I'm kind of telling, you know, the, the core of what they're probably going to experience your questions of what do I, what I suggest people do. I nothing unique. I suggest they actually take, you know, take the time to go walk in, walk in the woods, you know, which is easier said than done, I think.

1 (33m 14s):
And, and if they're really adventurous, you know, actually stop and talk to somebody. Yeah. I think the residents are the best.

3 (33m 25s):
Yeah, no. Cause

0 (33m 27s):
Cause the residents will give it they'll, you know, on the street they'll give it like it is, you know, and I think that's what we should be telling people. Like, just like you said, like everybody's going to have a different experience and every single experience is valid and

1 (33m 42s):
Yeah. W we shouldn't, we shouldn't try so hard to try to sum it all up. Right? Yeah. And we shouldn't,

0 (33m 47s):
Instead of always be closing, what is like always be iterating we should say, or something we say always be shipping at saltbox.

3 (33m 56s):
That's a good, and I always say that people feel an energy on the street, and it's where the IR in a community where everyone's filled with hope that they, rather than complain, they can change it. And you and your wives certainly fill that, fill that a place that, you know, you're, you're not the kind of people that talk about, what's wrong. You talk about the hope of what you can change and you get out there and you're doing it. And I think that makes a real difference when you are filled with community and chances are the neighbors that you're talking to, the reason you're willing to come out, but chances are, they're doing something interesting. That's for a better future.

3 (34m 36s):
We just love having you and your family here.

1 (34m 39s):
Thanks, Steve. I appreciate it.

0 (34m 42s):
Well, thank you. And now that I know that faith has this little piano thing.

2 (34m 48s):
Oh, really know, oh my father-in-law, she's a, she's a phenomenal teacher and she loves to perform

1 (34m 57s):
Really, really beg, you know, it's tough, but teaching short she'll jump on. Good at baking.

2 (35m 6s):
I am good begging in my father-in-law, who

0 (35m 8s):
Hasn't been here, he's from San Francisco. And did you go to Stanford? Cause he, he went to his, he's a Stanford guy, but he was a classical classical pianist, not professionally, but like top of the amateur. And so he plays beautifully, but I will say

1 (35m 25s):
That her best friend who actually is with her right now, he is a brief plug for him. His name is Adam Levin. He's a incredible classical guitarist. In fact, his most recent album was the number one classical album in the country on billboard charts. He sees. And he, and he, he performs all over the world and does all sorts of things. So we should get him for sure. Being an artist in residence, we should figure out how to, I mean, he's, he's big time, but he'll, he'll do it though. So we gotta, we gotta get them down there.

0 (35m 59s):
Be the artists and residents. Yeah. We'll figure something out, but, well, that's so fun. Well, we love having you here and I'm really, really appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to us because really we've found like the stories from residents are the most fun.

1 (36m 20s):
Thank you. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much. All right.

0 (36m 25s):
Thank you for listening to and stories new episodes are available on Mondays. Please follow us and leave us a five star review and visit our website to learn more about guests, episodes and everything. Seren b@serumbstories.com. This episode is supported by the, in it Seren. Be nestled in the rolling countryside of the bucolic community of ceremony, where guests can walk on the 15 miles of private trails through preserved forest land, the wildflower meadow and the animal village, relax at the pool hot tub or in rocking chairs on wraparound porch, lay on the croquet lawn, grab a canoe and jump on the in-ground trampoline, connect with nature and each other all while staying in a luxurious space at the end at ceremony.

0 (37m 7s):
Book your stay today at <inaudible> dot com, S E R E N B E I N n.com.