Camila Alves McConaughey Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Today's guest is Camila Alves McConaughey, mom, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Camila is the founder of Women of Today, an online community where she shares recipes, health tips, and more. She is the co-founder of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation with her husband, actor Matthew McConaughey. The couple also co-founded Pantalones Tequila. Camila and I chat about her upbringing in Brazil, why she moved to Los Angeles by herself as a teenager and worked in restaurants and cleaning houses, her philanthropic endeavors, her entrepreneurship, and more. Camila, as you're about to learn, is smart and scrappy and lives to help others. It was a lot of fun talking to her. Stay tuned for our chat.
We've got a little housekeeping. Cherry Bombe and OpenTable's community dinner series Sit With Us is back. We started Sit With Us a few years ago as a way to connect with the Bombesquad in real life and highlight amazing female chefs and restaurateurs and the Cherry Bombe and OpenTable networks with special one-night-only dinners. It's been so much fun traveling across the country to places like L.A., Austin, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, celebrating food, community, and conversation and meeting so many of you. For our first dinner of 2025, we're headed down south to Raleigh, North Carolina, on Monday, March 10th for dinner at Tamasha, a modern Indian restaurant co-owned by Tina Vora. We'll have a delicious three-course meal as well as a panel conversation featuring local culinary leaders. Of course, there will be plenty of opportunity to network and meet other like-minded folks in the area. Tickets are sold out, but you can join the wait list at cherrybombe.com. Big thank you to OpenTable and to everyone who bought a ticket. I can't wait to see you on March 10th.
We'll also be in Las Vegas this very weekend for a special International Women's Day celebration. There's a kickoff party at Velveteen Rabbit on Friday, March 7th, then a networking breakfast at Encore at the Wynn on Saturday, March 8th, then a community dinner at the brand new Gjelina at the Venetian. Yes, there is a Gjelina in Vegas. That is happening Saturday night. You can buy individual tickets, or if you're a high roller, you can get a weekend pass. Just visit cherrybombe.com. I love Las Vegas and I can't wait to see some of you there.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Camila Alves McConaughey, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Camila McConaughey:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
I need to know how you do all the things that you do. You are a true entrepreneur and you care deeply about people clearly. So, we're very happy to have you on the show.
Camila McConaughey:
Oh, thank you. It's a pleasure to be on the show. Don't know if I have a proper answer for you. I'm still figuring out how I do all the things that we do.
Kerry Diamond:
I would love to start with where you grew up.
Camila McConaughey:
I grew up in Brazil, born and raised in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. It's a big city in Brazil for who is not familiar with the country. It's a big city, but I grew up between two environments. So, my mom is from a very small town and then my dad is from a very small, small, small town that it's about a few hours away from my mom's town. I grew up between the world of big city and everything that goes with that and then any break that we had, we were in this small town and farmland. So, my dad, rancher and a farmer, and a lot of my people in my family, miners and farmland and growing coffee and having cattle and that whole thing. So, grew up between those two worlds and very vividly, very present on both ends.
Kerry Diamond:
What was home like? Who cooked? What were the foods you were eating as a kid?
Camila McConaughey:
My mom did the majority of the cooking. My mom took over the kitchen. It's interesting that I love to cook now because my fond memories of her is her cooking and creating things. She's an amazing chef, but she was very protective of the kitchen. She was one of the moms that if you would come in and you try to help or she's trying to teach you, all of a sudden, she's doing it herself. So, it's something that I actually try to watch it with my kids because a lot of times I have the tendency to repeat how people taught us things.
So, I have to stop myself and let them make the mess in the kitchen, let them go through it. I know it's not going to work out, but they're going to learn or give the little hints. But yeah, she was the main chef growing up. I would say when we go to farm, my grandmother, I have these vivid memories of my grandmother cooking in a woodburning oven, the farm. It had the oven below the wood burning and all the holes on top to cook all the pots, really big pots.
Kerry Diamond:
Did she let you help or did she shoo you away similarly?
Camila McConaughey:
She won't let us help in the cooking process, but she was like, "You chop this, you go run in the back and go grab this herb or that herb." They will always test me and mess with me because I would spend majority of my time in the big city. So, they'll be like, "Run to the back and grab this cilantro." This was a different herbs and I would be like, "What is..." I'll be completely lost. So, she would give us jobs, but she wouldn't allow us to really get in the pots and cook in there.
Kerry Diamond:
What were some of your favorite foods as a child?
Camila McConaughey:
Oh, as a child, I think this chicken that my grandmother used to make and then my mom, she makes the best Brazilian chicken stroganoff and she makes the best feijoada. Stroganoff, most people might know, but in Brazil, we make a Brazilian version. It's very different than the European version. Very different.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us a little bit about it.
Camila McConaughey:
It's a bit more flavorful. This stroganoff that you have in Europe usually will have a brown sauce. The Brazilian, it's white creamy sauce, use like crema. The taste, it's way softer, still very flavorful but very different. You have with rice and you have some potato sticks or you do the fresh potato and you put it on the top. It's really good. Actually, it's one of my kid's favorite dishes. So, it's not even a traditional Brazilian dish, but it has become the Alves-McConaughey traditional Brazilian dish. So, I had the video that I actually put it out on Christmas and it's like this huge pot. I cooked this huge amount of chicken stroganoff for Christmas for everybody.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us the second dish you mentioned.
Camila McConaughey:
The second dish is the feijoada. It is a traditional Brazilian dish. It's different pieces of meat and it's black beans. You eat with rice and you eat with different condiments on the side and collard greens, orange slices, and hot sauce. If anybody has been to Brazil, you've seen feijoada and it's basically all over the country.
Kerry Diamond:
Camila, you mentioned your mom a few times. I was so intrigued because you have a description of her on one of your websites and you described her as a modern artist, painter, sculptor, chef, and “can do it all mystic.” First off, what is a “can do it all mystic?”
Camila McConaughey:
Well, she literally can do it all. She really can. I don't even know how, but she figured out how you give her a task and something. She's not really great with mathematics and the structural business side of things, but when it gets to creative or accomplishing a task, she just gets right on it and she does it. I grew up watching her. I mean literally she will be making these huge sculptures and then she'll be making these huge paintings, but then she'll put on a high heels and a really sharp outfit and be a designer.
She was a fashion designer when I was growing up and they should be making candles and then she'll be giving art classes and then she's just got this whole thing. The mystic part is that she's usually ahead of her time. The things that she would design or the art that she would do, it was always a little bit ahead of time. She's connected to Mother Nature and the universe.
Kerry Diamond:
How has she inspired you over the years?
Camila McConaughey:
I think that the beauty of parents is that they get to inspire you on the things to do and the things not to do. I tell my kids all the time, I say, "Look, I don't want you to be just like me. I want you to be a better version. I want you to get the good things. I want you to not follow the things that I'm to have struggled to work on through my life." So I think with my mom, I think the biggest lesson that I got was that. It took me a long time to understand that, to be honest. You know what I mean? Of not to fall on the same mistakes and try to then also grab the beautiful lessons and the strengths that she has and go, okay, I've watched that and witnessed that. My mom has gone through a lot and she's very strong. So, it's like how do I learn from that and make it my own?
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest. Jubilee is coming up. It's our biggest event of the year. It's an amazing day of connection and community and it is taking place in New York City on April 12th. If you are a Cherry Bombe member, be sure to use your Cherry Bombe discount when you buy your ticket. You can find all the details on cherrybombe.com. Members, you can find your exclusive info in your inbox. We've got a lot going on at Cherry Bombe and the best way to stay informed is to sign up for our free newsletter. You can sign up at cherrybombe.com or at the link in our show notes. Learn about any podcast guests you might've missed, our upcoming events, early bird ticket info, pop-ups, and cool food news. We send our main email every Friday.
You decided as a teenager to move to America on your own. Why did you want to come to America?
Camila McConaughey:
I have no idea honestly. I wish I had a more straight answer, but I knew that I wanted to get out of Brazil. I knew I wanted to do something different with my life. I think part of it, my childhood wasn't the worst childhood, but also wasn't the easiest childhood. We had a lot of things going on. From growing up and seeing so much and those things, part of me was just searching for a way to do it differently, to see something different, or to just disconnect from all of it. I remember getting in the plane, we were coming to visit my aunt. So, my aunt was leaving in America for quite a few years. She had a daughter here. She was married, and we came to visit her. They were going to a divorce and all those things.
We came here to be present with the family and her daughter. I remember looking at my mom in the plane. I literally had a suitcase, one suitcase, large suitcase full of books from school because it was like the last year before you go into college. You have to decide what you're going to do and stuff like that. You have tests every Saturday. Actually every Saturday morning, you have multiple tests, so it's full on. So, I was going to miss a bunch of schools. I have a huge suitcase full of books ready to just come and go right back.
No plans to stay whatsoever. I didn't even say bye to my dad when I came because I was just coming a short trip and going right back. I remember getting on the plane. Before the plane took off, I just looked at my mom and I was like, "Mom, I don't think I'm coming back." Without blinking, she just looked back at me and she goes, "I know you're not." That was it, and we did not talk about it anymore for the rest of the trip. It's been a long journey for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't know that's how you made the decision. You were very young, weren't you, 15 or 16?
Camila McConaughey:
Yes, I was 15.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Camila McConaughey:
Between 15 and 16 years old. Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
So your mom agrees to let you stay with your aunt and your uncle.
Camila McConaughey:
Yeah, my mom goes back to Brazil. My aunt takes me. So, my aunt used to model back in her days in Brazil. I was tall, not so tall, but I had enough height. My aunt dressed me up, I was a tomboy full on, and she just dressed me up. I remember like it was yesterday, this tight go dress, this huge high heels, could barely walk on them, and she took me to these modeling agencies all over. I ended up getting signed by a modeling agency, but I did not start modeling until I was 19 years old, which in hindsight, I would say back then it was really hard and really challenging for me. But in hindsight, I would've not been the person I am today if I didn't have those experiences.
Kerry Diamond:
You had a tough few years, Camila. Your aunt got divorced, I think you were couch-surfing, having to take whatever jobs you could find.
Camila McConaughey:
Yes, yes. I didn't speak the language neither by the way. So, when I moved to America, I only spoke, hi, how are you, how much is this, and I'm sorry, I don't speak English. That was it really. Things got a bit complicated with my aunt and the divorce and things like that. The one thing that we grew up, my dad was very, very big on values and morals and he was always like, "No matter what's happening, you stay by the right thing. You don't stay with people that are doing the wrong thing." Something happened that was not correct in my point of view and it wasn't done right. So, I couldn't stay in that situation anymore. I was like, "I got to leave, I got to leave this." I didn't know anybody. The only people I knew was my aunt and my uncle.
Trying to make a long story short, I went from living in a three-story house with horses in the garage and having just the duty of helping with my little cousin to not speaking the language and having to sleep in somebody's couch where outside the ice cream truck going by 1:00 in the morning. They're into selling ice cream. So, it was a major shift of transition. Because I didn't speak the language and I still had to earn a leaving, I did start... Going back to my dad again, we grew up middle class, not wealthy, but middle class. We had somebody that worked in our houses. Very common in Brazil that if you're middle class, you have somebody that's taking care of the things in the house.
But my dad always used to say to me and my brother, you still have to learn how to take care of our house no matter what because you can be the queen, but if your staff doesn't show up, what are you going to do? So even though having help, we grew up learning how to do those things and working hard. Even on our vacations when we would go to the farm and things like that, we used to have this huge festival every August in this small town with bands and concerts and all of that and big festivities. My dad used to make us go work on the coffee farm to earn money to spend in the festival. So, he always had those things. So, I know how to take care of a house. It's an honest job. So, that's what I did.
My first job ever was cleaning houses, and then I was taking English classes at a community college at night. As I started learning the language, then I started working in restaurants. First was a Mexican restaurant where the menus were all numbers. So, it didn't matter how much English I knew, whatnot. Then I, again, started learning language, started learning language, and got a job at a store, then got a job as a hostess at an Italian restaurant. Then I went to quit. This was a very pivot moment at a young age for me, trying to figure out on my own how to be secure with myself in a different country. I lost all of my crutches. I was having to build everything from scratch. Being Brazilian, you're in a big family, you have your friends, you have your cousins, your school that you've been going to.
I mean, the culture is very community-centered and the culture in America didn't feel like that. It felt very isolated and separate. You know what I mean and things like that? Not in a negative way, but it was just very, very different. So, I was working as a hostess in this Italian restaurant and I decided to quit because you don't make tips as a hostess. I was making tips at the Mexican restaurant with the menus with numbers. I went to quit and these two owners, they were Italian heritage, but from New York, very tough guys. I walked in to quit.
They were in the middle of a meeting and they could tell the moment I walked into the door and they just turned to me in the middle of their meeting and started like, "You are not F coming here to F telling me what are you going to F telling me. Go sit in the back. We'll be right there. This is not happening." I was like, "I had never had anybody cuss at me like that ever." I was a bit in shock. I went to the back and I sat down. I was like, "What has happened?" They finished their meeting and they came to me and I was like, "You're not quitting." I was explaining to them. What are you talking about? They barely let me talk and they turn to me. One of them turned to me and say, "Listen, if Ruben can become a manager, what is stopping you to do the same?"
It was one of those moments as a young adult, I don't know, I paused and I was like, "Well, you're right. Ruben is somebody that started the restaurant as a bus boy." I was already started in a position that was above bus boy. I was a hostess. Ruben's English was still broken up and all of that, but he worked so hard and had such a personality. He was so devoted to the job and I was just like, "You are right." I was like, "Okay, well, I'm willing to give it a try." I remember this, this was a big moment for me too, of standing up for myself. I went, "But you cannot cuss at me ever again like that. I never had anybody do that. We don't do that in my family. You can't do that." They're like, "Okay." I say, "And you guys need to have patience and help me when I do not know things to help guide me."
They're like, "Okay." That was the first time in my life in terms of a clear moment of okay, I have this go. Because up to then, it was just a mishmash of things. Okay, you're overcoming this, you're scrapping it, you're doing this, and you're cleaning your house. But this was like, "Oh, no. Right now if I do this well, this challenge is not only physical. It's up here. It's a whole thing. If I do well, I'm actually going to see the fruits of my labor in a different time that can actually get things better for me." I remember the first week, literally, I kid you not, I would be taking orders on the table and run back and be like, "Do we have OJ?" They're like, "What are you talking about? OJ is orange juice. Yes, we have orange juice." It would be like that.
It was one of those places too where you had to come out of the kitchen carrying as many things as you can carry, carry four or five plates at once. Then you get to the table and you had to learn, memorize everybody's names and seats on your table, and the owners would test you. They'll come out of nowhere and would say, "Hey, I want to go say hi to table five. What are their names? What's their name again?" You had to know, but it became such a thing. In the first month, two, I believe, I became the person that was selling the most amount of specials in the whole of staff. So, I have this picture of them feeding me, you get this prize, the wine, and you get to pick the dish that you want. I have this Polaroid of them feeding me and the wine and the thing. It's very sweet, but that was a big lesson for me to learn.
So, out of that, I then started to model and I got the call from New York to go work there in this modeling agency. I remember I had very little money to move to New York. In this restaurant, the people, the customers, they've become family in the restaurant. The week before I was supposed to leave all the clients, I guess the employees told them and they had a big jar and everybody made a whole thing of gathering money for me to go to New York and start modeling.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's so kind.
Camila McConaughey:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Before we get to your New York chapter, I just want to talk about L.A. for a second because L.A. has factored into your life in multiple ways. I was thinking about you this morning as I was prepping for this interview and given what's going on in L.A. L.A. has always been this beacon for young people with big dreams. I was just thinking you were there at such a young age really trying to make it. There must be so many young Camilas in L.A. right now. It just breaks my heart thinking of them and how they're fending for themselves right now. I'm sure you're thinking the same thing somewhat.
Camila McConaughey:
It's so tragic. It is so tragic. We can sit here and try to come up with words for it, but the reality is that we just have to find ways to help. So, many loved ones, so many friends, so many work teammates and part of our team. I mean so many people evacuated, lost everything. But to see the casualties, the people that did pass away, their families, their close ones, the first responders, the amount of work. I was thinking about it this morning when we lived in Malibu, we lived there for a good amount of years. The two older kids were born in Santa Monica. They were in Malibu for the first years of the lives until we moved to Texas and had a third child. Their biggest memories up into today, it's over there. That's their favorite place in the world.
This fond memories that they have. I was thinking about the firefighters from our station because we knew them. We had a relationship with them. To think what they're going through, what they're putting in the line, I was thinking a lot about them this morning. It's very tragic and I have dear friends that lost everything in a previous fire, came and lived at our house until they were able to rebuild. Yesterday they were packing everything up again in the U-Haul, the trauma again coming up. I had friends that had just evacuated on the fires right before Christmas and just came home a day before Christmas and now evacuating all over again. It's a lot of stories. This team member with the whole family with little kids and everything just lost everything.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, it's literally happening as we're speaking. So, it's hard to even know how to help everyone yet.
Camila McConaughey:
But it is ways of helping. It is a lot of resources out there. I think that if people are looking for a place that I do trust that I've been working with for a long time is this organization called Baby2Baby. They do have a large presence in L.A. and they're doing a lot of great work. I think that even from a distance sometimes, you get "What do I do? What do I do?" But if you just find something that you can help with and start even in the smallest scale, it does make a difference, but it's really no words for it. We just need to find ways to help.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll share the resources for Baby2Baby. That is an amazing organization. You do have your own foundation, you and your husband, Just Keep Livin’, which promotes physical and mental well-being for high school students around the whole country. I'm curious how that came about.
Camila McConaughey:
Yes. So, we started the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation... It's going to be 17 years now. Yes, because we started the foundation when Levi, our oldest son, was born. Right around that time, really Matthew was looking for a way to make an impact and give back and make a difference. We looked at all the different areas and different demographics, and he sat on this high school because high school is like the last year where you can still get in trouble and be sent to the principal's office. But if you continue to do that, once you're out of high school, you're going to jail. Believe it or not, when we're doing the research, it wasn't back then. It wasn't a lot of programs that were dealing with after school in high school.
It was a lot of programs for younger kids and not at that age group. So, he was like, "Okay, we're going to start this." We met with Shannon, which she's still running the foundation into today. She was with us from day one. She's ran the foundation into today. I was doing stuff in Brazil at a time and I was doing some stuff here in America, but majority of my efforts were in Brazil. We had this thing when we had Levi, our first son, whoever got the photo, the first photo of our first newborn was going to make a whole lot of money. So, literally, I was in a house, everything covered.
No windows and people were literally going to the neighbors and climbing into fences. It was a bit crazy because whoever got that first shot, we're talking about crazy amount of money. We're sitting there going, "This makes no sense that a random stranger, it's going to invade our privacy, get this photo and get paid that much money." So we said, "Why don't we do the photos? We'll get the money and we put it into starting this organization."
Kerry Diamond:
I had no idea that's how it started. You must've been so overwhelmed.
Camila McConaughey:
Yes. By the way, the organization was already established there, but it was just starting. It was like, "Well, this money will put a lot of wood in the fire." You know what I mean? To do it. So, we did that and I was going to take my portion of it and do these projects in Brazil and then I went into the school. I start meeting the kids and have an interaction with them. I remember they came to a premiere and I looked at Matt and I was like, "That's it. I can't do it. I'm going in. We're doing this together." That's when we got into the journey, put my funds in it as well, and did some stuff in Brazil too, but put funds in there as well. That's what the journey started. So, it's after school programs, nutrition on a budget. We do field trips, which majority of these kids have never done in their lives.
So, we provide field trips for them. We have guest speakers that come and provide the kids with perspectives. We have anybody from very successful people to people who just came out of jail because you never know what's going to strike with these kids. We do trips. Some of these kids have never been on a plane and never get out of their own neighborhood. We do gratitude circle, which it's been a huge component of the program where the kids all of a sudden they start learning things that they're dealing with, that their peers are dealing with. They start to help each other.
We also serve special need kids in the program. We teach them how to cook. We teach them how to take care of themselves in that sense. We help them with college. So, we started a whole new thing right now because what happened was in high schools, there are Title I schools, which is very high rate of dropout, very high rate. We've learned that 100% of the students that come to JK Livin’ Foundation programs graduate, and a lot of them are the first to ever graduate in their families, first to go to college on their families.
Kerry Diamond:
That's incredible. You're doing this in cities across the country. This isn't just in L.A. or Texas based thing.
Camila McConaughey:
No, no, no. We're across the country. Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
How can people support what you're doing?
Camila McConaughey:
The best way is to go to justkeeplivinfoundation.org and learn about what we're doing. Businesses and individuals can sponsor a program. You can sponsor a program for a year. You can sponsor field trips, you can volunteer, you can come and speak. No matter what line of work or life you are in, you can come and volunteer, donate your time. You can come up with ideas. We had people that came to us and say, "Hey, we really need a program in Tennessee and we want to start one. I have this group that wants to get together and do it." So we got it. We actually have a scholastic curriculum now. So, we've worked really hard to be able to be a plug-and-play program as we expand and grow. We're able to do that with partners.
Kerry Diamond:
You are also the founder of Women of Today, a lifestyle website you launched in 2016 that focuses on things that we know are important to you, food, health, family, and more. Curious how Women of Today came about and what you have planned for this year.
Camila McConaughey:
I started Women of Today 2016 as you said, but I put very little effort into the first few years of Women of Today, because I went into this venture of doing a baby food company. That took all of my efforts and time. So, we have to just sat in the back burner. Then when I stepped down from that company, I've always worked my whole life. So, I'm the person that I need to be doing something, otherwise I become a very annoying person. I need to be doing something with my energy and time and what goes above over here in my brain. So, I said, "I got Women of Today. Let me go do that right now for a bit because I didn't have to report to earnings and investors and all those things."
I just started by the passion of really this idea and concept that we move a lot with Matthew's work. When I would go to other countries or even to the south of United States, the feel of community was always bigger. I'll show up in places with little kids, not knowing anyone, not knowing where things were. Within a matter of 10 days, I had all these people going, "This is where you do. This is where you go. Don't do this." I would be like, "Oh, my gosh. You have this community helping you." I would go back to certain parts of America and not have that. Especially women, it's mainly women, but we do have men as well in there.
We have so much knowledge between ourselves and we have so many things that we have learned in our journey and why it's not a broader conversation happening. So, really the idea of concept of us helping from each other on trying to do better for ourselves, our families, and our community. So, that's really in a nutshell what Women of Today is and what you see that we share is usually what the community is telling us. We didn't start doing a lot of food. We started with this broad thing and the community kept telling you us, "No, we want food, we want this, we want that." So it shaped it to where it is now. Everything you see there, it has grown organically. We have not done any marketing, PR. It's very organic grown community that is very active.
We've been doing events. So, if people are curious about what we are doing, sign up for the newsletter. Because a lot of times by the time we put it out to our newsletter first, things are sold out and we then don't promote because we always give the community priority first and then people don't get to know until later they see a video of something we did and they're like, "Oh, I didn't know." I'm like, "Well, sign up for the newsletter. You'll be the first one to know what's happening." We've been doing events. We've been doing a lot of community service before Christmas Food Drive. It was beautiful. We impacted about 1,000, 2,000 thousand families, something like that.
That we drive alone just a few hours. We do a lot of cool things. Again, if you're listening, you're like, "Hey, I don't know how or why, but I want to try to learn to do better for myself without the guilt, without the preaching, without anybody telling you, Hey, you must do this way or that way,' but just learning from a community." Go to womenoftoday.com and sign up for the newsletter, become part of it.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to hear about the tequila company that you launched. Tell me about this.
Camila McConaughey:
Yes, we're having a lot of fun with Pantalones. We went on this journey. I was quite nervous to go on this journey because Matthew and I, we work together pretty much on everything, but I'm always behind the scenes. So, people don't know that I'm doing that. It's been working out fine for all these years we've been together. So, when this opportunity, this idea and concept came of us both in front of the camera together, I was like, "Oh, no, this is not going to go well. We work very differently." He did some convincing to me and I came over to the other side. We went on this journey. We've been having a lot of fun. It is a certified organic tequila. That was very important for me. If I'm drinking this, all I drink has to be organic and clean.
We did that and then it was the journey also to make it accessible and make something that tasted really good that was certified organic that we were proud of, that didn't cost a crazy amount of money. We wanted to be accessible. We wanted people to be able to afford to get. So, that's what we end up with. It took us 47 iterations, so 47 different trials of tequila to get to where we are now. We're very proud of it. It's our drink of choice. The Reposado is our favorite. We now just went nationwide and people can find in their local stores and local restaurants. If you're not seeing it, ask for it.
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations. What aspects of the business are you involved in the most?
Camila McConaughey:
So a little bit of everything really. Honestly, Matthew and I got our hands on all of it. We're not just the names. We invested ourselves, we work on it ourselves. So, anything from the creation of the juice as we like to call, the design of the bottle, the label, the business accounts, the marketing. Matthew's really, really one of the best marketeers I know. So, he works really heavily on that, all the campaigns and all of it, and even securing accounts. We just started a partnership with Princess Cruise, and that's something that I worked on my own beginning to pretty much the end. It was time to go, "Okay, now we got to bring the legal team and the rest of the team in," and then they came in, but that was something that I work on myself. So, truly we're involved on every part of it. It's on our daily schedule.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned that you invested in this. Do you have other investors?
Camila McConaughey:
We have different partners, yes. Everybody brings a different skill set. It's a small group of the partners. There's only few of us. Everybody brings different skill and it's very blessed to have the partners that we have as well.
Kerry Diamond:
You've had a very entrepreneurial path, starting from your teenage years as we've all learned now. What do you love the most about being an entrepreneur?
Camila McConaughey:
I love that you can create. I love that you can do the impossible. It's challenges that you have to overcome and you have to get very creative to overcome them and solve them. You have this clear goal and this clear direction of like, okay, I want to get to that. Even if I don't get to that, even if I fail, the lessons that you learn on the way, it will set you up for the next thing that you're going to do, even if it's a completely different business, even if it's a completely different walk of life that you decide to go into. So, the amount of lessons, I am a very curious person. I love to learn. I really love to learn, hench Women of Today. I want to learn from you. You know what I mean? Talk to me. I'm very curious. I ask a lot of questions.
So, for me, creating things like that, it really fulfilled that side of me. I love to be able to look at something, be like, "Okay, this is really hard. How am I going to get this?" We're talking about Princess Cruise. I'm like, "Oh, how am I going to work this out and make all of this happen and the production and the delivery and the this and the this and the this and the this and then be able to turn that page and go, "We did that"? That's amazing. Again, even if you fail, you're like, "Wow, I met all these people on the way. I learned all these things. I still have great relationships with people that I've worked in the past that I learned so much from with businesses that didn't work." But then now with other business, they come back in and help and things like that.
Then at the end, when you go on that journey, the amount of knowledge that you gain then provides you the ability to help others in different ways. I think that's what I like. I think that also when you grew up in a way that you have to be scrappy, that you have to figure out, I didn't finish school. I didn't go to college. I wish I did, honestly, but I didn't. That was not part of my journey. So, for me, really to have this entrepreneurial spirit was really the only way for me to be able to do something different and not follow into a routine that I knew was not the right fit for me, for my personality.
I look at people that have very steady jobs and can do things, and I'm always at awe, honestly at awe. I tell them all the time, I'm like, "How do you do that? That's beautiful and amazing, and I wish I could do that, but it's not how my brain is wired." So for me, that journey was one that I'm like, "Okay, I could go on that journey. I can figure things out. I am scrappy. I can work hard, get my street smarts in there, and learn the lessons along the way."
Kerry Diamond:
You seem like someone who's trusted your gut from a very young age. Would you say that's true or have you had to learn to trust your gut over the years?
Camila McConaughey:
I have trust in my gut throughout the years. Doesn't mean I was always right, but I'm going to tell you and I'll tell you anyone that's listening right now, as long as you are in the right frequency with yourself, I'm going to say this because this is very important, listen to your intuition. You have to be in the right frequency with yourself. So, if you are lying, if you're connected to yourself the right way and to the environment around you the right way, your intuition and your gut always tell you the right direction to go, even when people don't believe you, even when people say you're wrong, even when people don't see what you see.
But that's very important to understand and to search for, because I know that when I'm imbalanced and I'm not in connection with myself and the environment around me and connected to nature and I'm talking about people go, "Well, I live in the city." You can be connected to nature and to the universe around you in a city. As long as you're looking at things and seeing life in things, you're connected. But I know that when I'm imbalanced, my intuition sways. So, it's not really my intuition, then it's my fears that are talking.
So, there's a big difference between fears talking and ego talking versus your intuition. I urge anybody to really learn on your own journey what's the difference between your fear and your ego talk and your intuition. Because once you know, that intuition will always guide you to the right direction.
Kerry Diamond:
Great advice. Thank you, Camila. Let's do a mini speed round. What beverage do you start the morning with?
Camila McConaughey:
Peppermint tea.
Kerry Diamond:
Sweetened, unsweetened?
Camila McConaughey:
Unsweetened.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite kitchen tool or implement?
Camila McConaughey:
Cast iron.
Kerry Diamond:
What's always in your fridge?
Camila McConaughey:
Basic, I always have eggs, but also I always have Omega oil, flaxseed oil.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite food film?
Camila McConaughey:
“The Bear” lately. Yeah, that series.
Kerry Diamond:
We all love “The Bear.” Well, I was going to say, what are you streaming right now? I guess you're streaming “The Bear.” Anything else?
Camila McConaughey:
“Will Trent.” Ramon Rodriguez is doing an amazing job with that. Super fun. That's what we're watching.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. The last question we ask everybody this, if you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Camila McConaughey:
I'm going to say Kristen Kish. She is a “Top Chef” chef. She's one of the most talented chefs I have been around.
Kerry Diamond:
She has a great restaurant in Austin, Arlo Gray.
Camila McConaughey:
She does. She does. She's very cool person. I'm a big fan of hers. So, she has actually cooked in one of the Women of Today events, open kitchen, everybody got in there thing. She has become somebody that I know and she can cook a storm and bring out flavors on things that always I'm like, "She's amazing." So Kristen Kish would be the person.
Kerry Diamond:
You just described her perfectly. We love her. Do you know she has a memoir coming out this April?
Camila McConaughey:
I do. I do. I actually wrote a little blurb. I've got to read it firsthand.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, very cool. I just got my copy yesterday, so I can't wait to read it.
Camila McConaughey:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
You're incredible and thank you for everything you've done for so many people.
Camila McConaughey:
Oh, you've been very kind. Thank you for the kind words and thank you for everything that you do and hope to cross paths soon again.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave a rating and a review. Anyone you want to hear on an upcoming episode? Let me know. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is a studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.