Hi friends and welcome to the papaya podcast. I'm your hostess, Try and Hermostus, Sarah Nicole,

and each week I'm going to be dishing out some sweetness mixed in with some seeds of wisdom

or something like that. So get ready to get inspired, get candid, get real, because we are all in this digital

space together. All right, everyone, welcome back. I have on today's guest, which is Lexi

Hensler, creator and founder of Give a Hugs. I'm so excited to have you on and to talk about all of this.

I just think it's so cool when somebody is a creator and becomes a founder and a creative

director that is so cool. So it's so nice to meet you. It's so nice to meet you. I love you and everything

you've done. You're so inspirational. So I'm just excited to get to talk with you

today. Yeah. Thank you. So let's go back to the beginning. How did you start on the internet? I love these stories because some people are like it's, it either was like, well, 20 years ago or it's like, well, two years ago. I just love these stories of origin because they give all certain types of hope for people. Tell us how you got started and what sort of like inspired you to like hit

post that first time. origin because they give all certain types of hope for people. Tell us how you got started and what

sort of like inspired you to like hit post that first time. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the first

time I hit post was honestly when I was like eight or nine years old. I have since found and deleted

those videos, which kind of wish I saved him somewhere. But I found him when I was 16. I was like,

these need to be scrubbed from everything. But I have always loved creating, being creative, making music videos with friends, making fun, silly little videos.

I grew up in the entertainment space, acting, singing, working in a theater.

And then when I was 18, it was time to quote unquote

grow up and go to college and go to graduate school and get an internship. And, you know,

the systems that were in place and thought to be the only way. And I get it. You know,

it really was the only way. And it's the way that like my mom built herself up and it's the way that she believed um she

wanted to like support me through still being able to be creative but she's like you need to go to

school and honestly at first I think I was really mad about it um because all I wanted to do was

just run away to L.A. and act and saying and stuff stuff. But she's my mom and she knew what was best

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