Riding Tandem

00:00:00 - Speaker A
Welcome to Riding Tandem, a podcast about building businesses, leadership and creating positive impact for our communities. I'm your host, Vivian Kvam, and I invite you to ride Tandem Works with me as I have candid conversations with inspiring business owners, leaders, and experts who are building on their dreams and creating impact. Get ready to be encouraged and learn practical tactics to help us build successful businesses, become incredible leaders, and have positive ripple effects. Let's go. Hello everyone. Welcome back to writing Tandem Works today. I have Elizabeth Pooley and her son Jack on the podcast today, which is super exciting. Elizabeth has over 30 years of experience as a small business owner. I'm going to guess Jack's not quite at 30 years worth of business experience, but I'm excited to hear what he has to say as well because he is involved in the business and they both, I think, just know a lot about what it takes to achieve your dreams. And I think it's really cool that we have a mother son team to talk to today, which is going to be a really interesting perspective. But a little bit about Elizabeth. She began her entrepreneurial journey at age eleven, and I had to giggle about this a little bit because she sent over in her notes that it started age eleven breeding and selling hamsters to buy basketball shoes. And on the one hand I was like, that is the coolest thing ever. And then I'm going to throw out there for people who are like, no puppy mills and no hamster mills. I'm like, okay, let's not go there, okay, let's focus on the fact that she was being super ingenious at age eleven. And I love that. And I also had hamster, so I was like, man, I should have gotten hamster from her. So Elizabeth also has been motivated by creating things. And so in her list here, she says creating things that are exciting, intriguing, beautiful, and peaceful things, which I'd like to know more about, that for sure. But it's all been in an effort to bring comfort to herself and to those around her. And because of this, she's always had an eye on using her motivation for creating and thinking about ideas and how to bring those business ideas to life by incorporating all those together. So more on that, I think for sure. Coming up. But one of the things that came up here as we were just talking earlier and looking through notes before the show, is that she realized that she always seemed to be thinking about whatever the business venture was, how to provide something to. So it's no surprise, I don't think that it has led Elizabeth to having multiple businesses that revolve around people and customer service. We're going to be talking about current business square donut today, so more on that. Yummy donuts for sure. And she also has these other ones that she's done and so jump in if I miss any of your businesses. Okay. But we have e's foliage and flowers, hoolies, pumpkin patch, grinders, coffee. And I love that she put asterisks brief. We'll have to talk more about that. And then, of course, square donut. And there are other cool things about Elizabeth, is that she's also the author of a book. And Jack, were you part of authoring this book?

00:03:00 - Speaker B
No.

00:03:01 - Speaker A
Okay, so more on the book here. But the book is called From Scratch, and it's really a book for entrepreneurs, I think. I think even if you're a business owner, getting started. Thinking about getting started already eight years in, I think you could benefit from this book.

00:03:16 - Speaker C
I definitely think so.

00:03:18 - Speaker A
Yeah. Awesome. So we're going to talk about that in just a bit, but welcome, Elizabeth. Thank you. Welcome, Jack.

00:03:23 - Speaker C
Thank you for having us.

00:03:24 - Speaker A
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I think we have to start with the most obvious. How is it that, Jack, you're working with your mom and mom. Elizabeth, how is it that you're working with your son, Jack?

00:03:37 - Speaker C
Go for it. Jack, tell the story.

00:03:38 - Speaker B
So I have always worked for my parents all my life. We grew up on a, you know, being told what to do and having a lot of daily chores that revolved around keeping the animals fed, cleaning out the pens, all that stuff. So it's always been a good, healthy relationship in that regard. But I went off to college after I graduated high school with aspirations of leaving Bennington and Omaha and doing something else. But throughout my first semester, I realized that isn't something I want to do.

00:04:15 - Speaker C
I have to intercede here.

00:04:16 - Speaker A
Okay.

00:04:17 - Speaker C
Because Mama had a tough point with this.

00:04:19 - Speaker A
Did you?

00:04:19 - Speaker C
He went to NYU in Shanghai.

00:04:22 - Speaker A
Holy bucket.

00:04:23 - Speaker C
Not only was my only son going away to college, he was going out of the country.

00:04:28 - Speaker A
Wow. Was that intentional?

00:04:31 - Speaker B
Yes.

00:04:31 - Speaker A
Okay.

00:04:33 - Speaker B
I wanted to get out of Nebraska and go see the rest of the world.

00:04:37 - Speaker A
Yeah. Some people go to, like, California.

00:04:39 - Speaker B
Yeah. I wanted to go experience something very different.

00:04:44 - Speaker A
I traveled out of country before.

00:04:46 - Speaker B
Nope.

00:04:46 - Speaker A
Wow. Good for you.

00:04:48 - Speaker B
Yeah. So yeah, so I went there. I was planning on studying physics, and I wanted to get into some sort of engineering design career for auto manufacture lectures.

00:05:00 - Speaker A
I can totally see how this is headed towards Square Donuts. Definitely.

00:05:05 - Speaker B
But I realized that is something I didn't want to do as a career. I didn't want to work for somebody else. I like the freedom of working for myself, or in this case, my mom. So I dropped out after my first semester, and I came back home, and my mom at the time was badgering me to go get at least a business degree.

00:05:26 - Speaker A
Really? Okay.

00:05:27 - Speaker B
And during this time, this is the beginning phases of her opening up Square Donut. So I told her, I don't want to go to college. I'll just learn everything from you along this journey compliment?

00:05:41 - Speaker C
Well, yes and no. I didn't know how to respond to that. I think my instincts kicked in, and I thought instead of what was best for me, I was looking at him when he told me that, and I thought, oh, my goodness, you need to go work for many, many other people. Yes, I can teach you a lot, but if you don't go work for other people, how are you going to know?

00:06:05 - Speaker A
Yeah, that kind of diversity of thought.

00:06:07 - Speaker C
So in service to my son and his education in life, I just thought that would be best for him. But after these conversations, obviously he's my son, and I resigned to myself. Okay, honey, you can.

00:06:26 - Speaker A
What was your thinking with that, though, before you go further in the story? Because a moment ago, you said you were trying to get as far away.

00:06:33 - Speaker B
As you could, so I did. I got my fix in. I would still like to long term move out of Omaha, but I thought growing a business and getting a career in a quote unquote self employed position would be best for me.

00:06:53 - Speaker A
I'm gonna ask a personal question here.

00:06:55 - Speaker B
Yes.

00:06:55 - Speaker A
Are you employed by the company or are you a partner or how's the structure work?

00:07:01 - Speaker B
I am employed by square.

00:07:02 - Speaker A
Donut. Okay, perfect.

00:07:04 - Speaker C
With, hopefully me turning it over to him.

00:07:08 - Speaker A
Cool.

00:07:08 - Speaker C
Someday with lots of asterisks.

00:07:12 - Speaker A
I mean, it's always interesting. I talk to a lot of business owners who know I'm hopeful if my kids want this, that I'm building a legacy, because that is a type of legacy business where people are like, I want this to be generational. And of course, there's always a caveat know, maybe Jack decides that's not for him. Maybe know, and so there's a little risk there, but you don't know, and you just got to strike out in some direction.

00:07:34 - Speaker C
Absolutely. And I think the most important thing for me that I struggle with in the mother son relationship in regard to being an entrepreneur is what's best for Jack taking my experiences and you know this from your own story. Your experiences weigh into it. I just want what's best for him, and I don't want him at any point to feel obligated to stay under my wing or my mentorship. So in me building businesses, I want him to have the financial freedom to move within those businesses if he needs to. So set him up for success, and then you have more options.

00:08:11 - Speaker A
It is interesting. So my family also, both parents were self employed. Grandparents on both sides were self employed. You could probably go back quite a ways, especially start getting to those generations that was much more common. But they had their own respective businesses. The one my dad bought from my grandparents, the other one, my mom started on her own, and then they ended up doing farming, which, funny story, I grew up on a cul de sac in nevada. Moved to a farm when I was 16, learned how to milk cows, raise chickens, sustainable egg farmers markets.

00:08:43 - Speaker C
Awesome.

00:08:43 - Speaker A
But keep in mind, I was 16 when we moved, and I grew up on a cement, asphalt, cul de sac with some grass kind of thing. We had a rabbit and dog and a couple of cats. But I joke now, like, when I introduce myself, it's kind of a fun way to introduce myself. Like I'm a city kid who learned how to milk a know and things like that. But that entrepreneurial, it that thread was there through even the farming and the egg and the farmers markets and things like that. So also was always very involved in my parents'businesses. And one of the first big ventures was making change wallets for casinos. Because in Nevada, that's industry is there.

00:09:23 - Speaker C
I remember hearing that your story.

00:09:25 - Speaker A
But my parents set that up for us. They made the opportunity available. We weren't like, I'm twelve, make change wallets. My dad's like, I have a business proposition for you. Would you like to try this? But to your point, I do wonder about the I worked within their businesses for a long time. Then I kind of did my own things, and then I did work for a couple of other companies. A little here and there. I can get where you're coming from, but you need to have a variety of experiences. On the flip side, some of my richest experiences came from my parents. Really?

00:09:54 - Speaker C
Right.

00:09:55 - Speaker A
So it is an interesting idea father did.

00:09:57 - Speaker C
I mean, that's when you're truly looking at the child's best interest instead of something. In my case, I could very selfishly want him to just do this with me, pass it off. But in the long run, if he really is going to be successful, he does have to have that variety, and he has to have that opportunity. And I'm so thankful I can give him stepping stones. But watching him think and solve and come up with ideas is as a mother, I'm very happy and proud of you for that. Because you see him thinking about things or I'll throw things out that I'm either stressed about or I have a situation and you give Jack some time and he backs up and he's pretty quiet, and then boom, he just comes out with a great solution.

00:10:48 - Speaker A
Cool.

00:10:49 - Speaker C
It's amazing. And then the diversity with the traveling, I know he wants to do that. And my thing has always been the more experiences you can have, the more places like you alluded to is whether you're living there, whether you've traveled, whatever experiences you've had, the more experiences, I think, the better for your success.

00:11:13 - Speaker A
I agree with that, for sure.

00:11:15 - Speaker C
Yeah.

00:11:15 - Speaker A
Okay. So let's back up for people listening who are probably like, okay, we're getting oriented, but what the heck is Square Donut? What is that business? Where did the idea come from? What's kind of the history, how to get started, and then Jack, kind of what's your involvement with it? Paint that picture for us?

00:11:32 - Speaker C
Well, as you discussed, I've always had businesses, and I'm constantly, always looking for business concepts and business ideas. So getting square donut wasn't anything new, per se, but I was coming off of a lot of adversity to begin with and was also in a situation where I needed to get back into business. I needed to start another business, not only for myself, just because that's my calling, but also I needed to put the gas on it because I needed to do it quickly. So I was searching for a business to get into, and I had many, many ideas, very particular things that I wanted to do, and I was almost thinking about it too much. It was too strategic. I wasn't letting the creative juices coming. I wasn't looking for opportunity. My face was down.

00:12:33 - Speaker A
Kind of like collecting data and thinking.

00:12:36 - Speaker C
Yeah, really not allowing myself to be looking around and looking for opportunities. My daughter, who attended auburn university in Alabama for four years, she had graduated, and I was driving down to move her back to Nebraska. And on her last day there, her friend wanted to make breakfast for us before we hit the road, and he also brought some donuts, which I still laugh to this day because I'm not a sweets person. I have an aversion to sugar, but I wanted to be polite, right? And I was like, oh, great. But when I bit into this donut, I was so impressed. I was in heaven. It was delicious. It melted in my mouth. I ate another one and another one, and of course I was sick. Not really, because what I liked about it was it wasn't super sugary. And we hit the road and came back to Nebraska, and a couple months later, her friend texted me and said, hey, you know that donut shop I told you about? It's for sale. And I thought, well, that's nice. What does that have to do with me? That's in Alabama. And he said, just wanted you to know because he knew I was looking for a business. And a couple more months went by, and he texted me again, and he said, here's the guy's number. And I thought, okay. And I still kind of paused and waited. I thought, I know restaurant business. I know what this person has to do to make these donuts. The early morning hours, the labor, the overnights. I want nothing to do with that. That is just not the direction I'm looking for, honestly.

00:14:17 - Speaker A
Like, restaurant food, like you're saying in general. And then you add the bakery layer. I agree. I think bakery, and I go, holy buckets.

00:14:25 - Speaker C
Yes.

00:14:26 - Speaker A
04:00 a.m. Is, like, the middle of your day.

00:14:28 - Speaker C
Well, and I don't think a lot of people understand bakeries. Like, in our case, they have three shifts. They have the night shift, the 03:00 A.m. Shift, and then the 05:30 A.m., and we close at one. So restaurants, I know there's prep, sure, but with a bakery, a lot of people don't understand that you're around the clock for your employees.

00:14:50 - Speaker A
Yeah. People don't think donut shop graveyard shift goes through that.

00:14:54 - Speaker C
Right. And because our product is not frozen, it's fresh. We can't just prep ahead. Yeah. So I was kind of getting to the point where I was frustrated because I wasn't feeling really comfortable with any ideas I had had. And so I just thought, you know what? I'll give this guy a call and just kind of see what's up, and gave him a phone call, and we visited on the phone a little bit, and I ended up flying down there. I don't know why I just flew down there.

00:15:25 - Speaker A
I love have another donut. Yeah.

00:15:28 - Speaker C
So I met him, and we chatted a little bit, and I really did go down there. I knew I didn't want to do this, but I also know enough as a business person that you really need to listen to opportunities, and you need to listen to people. You need to see what's out there, even if they're not a good fit. So this turned into two or three visits, and everything, I guess, in me was saying no, but I kept getting these nudges, and they were strong, strong vibes that, you don't want to do this, but you really need to do this. Trust me. God was just sending down the message. And as much as I fought it and fought it, I was just taken over with, I've got to do this. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to do it. I'm just going to blindly trust and jump in. And so I kind of decided to do that and buy his business, but I knew it wasn't going to be the name. I was going to rebrand everything. So ultimately, I bought his general recipes and his equipment okay. Moved everything to Omaha, threw it in a storage unit, and then started the process. And then know, what's my logo? What's my branding? What do I want this to look like? I'm in Omaha. What's my competition? All the research started. So when I had flown down there, I learned how to make these donuts in, I think, two or three nights, the whole business, the back end, the front end, the donuts, the decker, everything. In three nights. I had an iPad, an iPhone notepad. I was writing everything down because my attention not a classroom person. I just want somebody to get to the point, teach me, and then I'll take it, and I'll digest it and put it where it needs to go.

00:17:14 - Speaker A
Like long YouTube intros.

00:17:16 - Speaker C
I just can't do it. It's like, just tell me how to do it, I'll record it, and let's move on. So that's what happened. Everything was in a storage unit. And then I just started.

00:17:25 - Speaker A
So, Jack, were you in the country then or where were you in the story?

00:17:29 - Speaker B
At this time? I would have still been over in Chianghai.

00:17:33 - Speaker A
So what were you thinking from afar?

00:17:36 - Speaker B
So she told me about it, but she didn't really go into detail. I was like, oh, well, just another business for mom. I was like, Just another business. We'll see how this one plays out and stuff. So at the time, I didn't think too much of it, but when I got back and I got involved with really I really liked it. And I was like, this could go somewhere.

00:17:58 - Speaker A
What is it you like about it? Because we're kind of hearing right now from Elizabeth. You're like I kind of was like, no resisting, but then decided I had the nudge. You see it and you go, I kind of like this.

00:18:09 - Speaker B
I got know I didn't have to go through all the negotiating and buying it and moving everything up here, but just the building something from the ground up and through creative process that goes into designing a business and figuring out how it's going to operate and things like that. I enjoyed that process.

00:18:29 - Speaker A
Yeah, it is fascinating. Yes. And I totally can understand the wanting to do it again and again and needing to. There's lots of reasons to need to, but that's what serial entrepreneurs and things you kind of laugh about. And it's funny. This episode is actually coming on the heels of just talking about another multi, passionate entrepreneur. She started multiple businesses, totally unrelated. And so I think this is a fun kind of like pairing up here of the two episodes because I think so many people struggle with I'm supposed to stay in my one lane, right. A lot out there about that. And I think for some people, that makes a lot of sense.

00:19:09 - Speaker C
I agree.

00:19:11 - Speaker A
But you've done a lot of things. I mean, we're talking like coffee shops, pumpkin patches, flowers.

00:19:16 - Speaker C
Yes.

00:19:17 - Speaker A
Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Just kind of the yeah. Why the variety?

00:19:22 - Speaker C
That's the kind of thing, like before the podcast, I kind of alluded when we were speaking about when you're younger and you don't have a networking system, you kind of feel like you're this solo person out there with all these ideas. And I've always been that way. These concepts, they just plague me. I have concepts every day.

00:19:43 - Speaker A
I love that you say plague me, because sometimes it does feel like a burden.

00:19:45 - Speaker C
It is. Everything you look at, you know, you could monetize, create, sell, change somebody's lives. I mean, everything in every different category. And it's overwhelming. It's exhausting being in my head, as I'm sure you've experienced.

00:20:02 - Speaker A
But people definitely said, vivian, you don't have to attach a dollar to everything. Right. I'm like, but it's so fun.

00:20:08 - Speaker C
It is fun.

00:20:09 - Speaker A
It is fun and also exhausting.

00:20:11 - Speaker C
It is and so I think my true passion is creating concepts. If I could create the concept, get a turnkey business going and sell it, ideally, that's where I would be fascinating. And I also know in creating these concepts, you really do have to get in there and be the employee for a while. You have to learn all the positions. You have to get your knowledge of the business. And now I'm totally off track.

00:20:38 - Speaker A
We were just talking about all the.

00:20:39 - Speaker C
Different business variety concepts, just concepts, opportunity, if it looking up and not being inside that box. And I think that's what's frustrated. At least I know my mother. I have a lady that's passed that used to be my surrogate mother, that I called my surrogate mother. It drove them nuts. I was always told, Why can't you just get a nine to five? Why can't you just do this? Why can't you just do that? My risk usually scared my friends and family.

00:21:09 - Speaker A
Oh, yeah.

00:21:10 - Speaker C
And like what you said, nine to five s are fantastic for some people.

00:21:15 - Speaker A
Absolutely.

00:21:16 - Speaker C
And I'm not beating that down. There's many times where I've wanted to give up and say, I'd rather go work for somebody. It's easier because it is. But when you're not that person, you just can't do that. So looking up and looking at all kinds of concepts, it could be a location where, hey, this location needs coffee, or this area needs some family event, or it really is anything that I look at and how could I create something and then monetize?

00:21:44 - Speaker A
Yeah. And it's just making me think a little bit of when I first got started. Well, my parents and then growing up. But my first business, gosh, I even have to back up on that. It actually wasn't my first business. I'm kind of thinking about, like, your hamster. I'm like, actually, there were all these other ones like I've talked about before, but when we started our production company, it was an interesting thing because there was a lot of startup and there still is ecosystem in Omaha, but like, Silicon Prairie News had really just come in around that time. Big Omaha was like a big there was just a lot of kind of this silicon vibe going on. And not to say it isn't, but it was a little different then. And we started a production company, which is a service based business, a creative service based business. And I remember feeling like, oh, I'm not an entrepreneur, because, yes, we were starting a business, but we weren't a SaaS company or we weren't a big tech startup. And this was the time when Huddle was getting started, things like that. So those were kind of the people we were mixing with, the founders of those types of companies. And I'm looking at what we're doing, and I'm looking at and I'm like, oh, they're entrepreneurs. We just are starting a business. But I've walked that back quite a bit, and I think what you're saying, and it's making me connect dots again, is an entrepreneur sees a problem or a void to fill, and then they go, I can fill it.

00:23:10 - Speaker C
Right, exactly.

00:23:11 - Speaker A
And that's literally like if you boil it all down, that's what we were all doing. And yet I had classified myself differently at that time, and then it was years later, I was like, no, we're all doing the same thing. And just because I'm not selling software or a technology solution or in your case you're selling donuts, it's not a software or something like that. It's still an entrepreneur. So anyway, I was just kind of thinking through that a bit.

00:23:32 - Speaker C
It's really important that you made that point. And on my experience, I always felt intimidated because I didn't have a college degree. So I thought, well, how can I be a business person? How can I be an entrepreneur? I don't have a college degree.

00:23:44 - Speaker A
Same.

00:23:45 - Speaker C
Well, then I did the same thing and walked myself backwards, and I thought, no, wait a minute. I've learned five times as much in life than I could ever get in a classroom. Now, that's not to say I can't gain knowledge in the classroom, and I will never knock that. I still think people need to get certain degrees or take certain classes to make their entrepreneurial journey easier.

00:24:07 - Speaker A
And we all look at Jack.

00:24:09 - Speaker C
Yeah, I want him to take an accounting class just to get those. You can cut time in half from my experiences, but yeah, not to put yourself in a box if your mind is that you are that regardless if you're on the Fortune 500 scale or the small business scale yeah. That's really important for entrepreneurs to recognize.

00:24:29 - Speaker A
And you're really in the same mindset, like you are solving really the same problems or you're working through similar opportunities, the application just looks different.

00:24:39 - Speaker C
Exactly.

00:24:39 - Speaker A
Or the scale might look different.

00:24:41 - Speaker C
Right.

00:24:41 - Speaker A
But I've had so many conversations with people who are operating in completely different worlds, and yet when it comes down to it, we're like, oh, it's a relational issue in the end, or it's a time blocking. It's the same thing in the end. And that's been really helpful for me to realize, too, of we're all just people trying to figure it out. Exactly. In the end. Some people have just figured out other things that I haven't yet. And so that's been an interesting revelation.

00:25:07 - Speaker C
There's a common denominator in entrepreneurs, and it really is persistence, because it doesn't matter what the product is. It could be digital, it could be food, it could be media. Whatever the course know, every entrepreneur is persistent, so it's really not about the product or the actual business itself. It's how persistent is this person and what are they going to do with it?

00:25:34 - Speaker A
Yeah, it's making me think. I have two thoughts. So Jack, I want to talk here about what your role is and what you're doing. Before we do that, though, I was just thinking about Elizabeth. So my husband just struck out on his own and he's always employed. I know, yes. This is so cool. And we've kind of talked about that a little, know, and he's like, I have so much to learn, I have so much to learn. And on the one hand, I'm like, yeah, you do. There is so much to learn. And yet, as we have had conversations, the biggest thing I keep coming back down to is I'm like, you just have to want it. And yeah, you need to learn this. Or there might be an invoicing system or a tip or something, but end of the day, it's, am I going to get up? Am I going to get it done? And then am I going to get up the next day and try it again?

00:26:20 - Speaker C
Precisely.

00:26:21 - Speaker A
Kind of it that's the formula.

00:26:24 - Speaker C
It is the formula. And it goes into kind of the second formula is you always need to hire and surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. You're not going to succeed if you don't, because none of us know everything. And that wanting it is absolutely key.

00:26:41 - Speaker A
So, speaking of surrounding ourselves by people who know so much, you've chosen to surround yourselves with each other. But Jack, you bring a very unique ingredient to this whole venture. Tell us a little bit about what you do and your day to day and how your role has either changed or expanded or what's it look like.

00:26:58 - Speaker B
So when we started squared on it, my role, I just tagged along with my mom and soaked up all the information and she kind of led the charge and I was just there and that moved into me. For the first year and a half, I was in the kitchen almost every night making the products, making sure everything went well with our staff and basically just as an employee. And then I would say over the last year and a half, I have basically gone from an employee to more of a manager assistant consultant for my mom. So I would say nowadays, a lot of times, whenever she has problems with the business or we need to streamline something or she just needs to bounce ideas off me on how to handle certain things, I'm just there to consult her and try to come up with a solution. That's where I'm at right now, is just kind of a manager role in the business.

00:28:08 - Speaker C
He's very modest because he's also, while he's spinning all these plates, he runs his own business.

00:28:14 - Speaker A
Wait, that says businesses everywhere in this podcast.

00:28:18 - Speaker C
Yeah. So he has a mobile detailing business.

00:28:22 - Speaker A
Oh, my gosh. We need to talk.

00:28:24 - Speaker C
Yeah. And he's very good at it. So as his mother, when he continues to work at the shop and on the shop and about the shop of. Square donut with me. I have to remember that his business is very always I'm always asking know do you want square Donut or do you want detailing delivered? Because I don't want to limit him. And Jack is smart businessman. He's going to go where the money is and not out of greed, but out know, pursuing those things. And instead of trying to grasp the standard of life and survival mode, he wants to have a quality of life. And we know in today's culture, your whole mental and physical state is critical to your well being. And that quality of life is going to come through the vehicle of financial freedom. That's all there is to it. So good for you. Jack, you've skipped ahead like 20 years.

00:29:27 - Speaker A
You mentioned a word in there, consulting. Consulting your mom.

00:29:32 - Speaker B
Yes.

00:29:33 - Speaker A
So talk to me a bit about that because this is an interesting thing. I feel like I have done that with my parents and I don't think they would mind me saying that very true. Not that I'm like telling them what to do from a superior place, but they will come and be like, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And sometimes I tell them what I think and they don't ask for sure. But I have found it to be an interesting role to be in.

00:30:00 - Speaker B
It is definitely a very interesting role to play. And I would say especially over the last three years with the Pandemic and with having a few years in between our last business and this one, my mom has her viewpoint of every business she's had in the past and especially with her generation versus now with this business. It's new. We started during the pandemic. So much has changed in the world, especially with a lot of our staff being young, especially our kitchen staff right now is only a couple of years plus or minus from my age. So communicating what younger people are looking for in a job and how they problem solve or what their problems how their problems need to be solved versus somebody that's from my mom's generation not to hate on the older generation.

00:31:00 - Speaker C
Oh, it's so true. Jack, speak frankly. It's true.

00:31:03 - Speaker B
Yeah. So it's a very different thing. And from her perspective, it's just another viewpoint that she can find a solution for with that.

00:31:16 - Speaker A
Diversity of thought is huge. Actually something that's come up with a lot of clients recently with their boards. Oh yeah, really trying to people throw around the word diversity a lot and understandably so. But a lot more is coming up too, of just diversity of thought as well. And that age difference can often bring a diversity of thought, but it's not always age. Sometimes people just think in a different way. So I can see how that's such a value to the business to have that.

00:31:46 - Speaker C
I think it's a rare quality in today's culture. He's getting the perspective of my generation. He knows the perspective from his generation. He's getting the perspective of an owner, operator, entrepreneur. He's getting the perspective of employees, their needs, what they want. And it forces your mind to stay open, objective, diplomatic. You have to have empathy and compassion if you want to be successful with people. And at the end of the day, people are in everything. So Jack's ability to do that and his calm disposition I'm a spaz. His calm disposition and his reflection is very mature for his age, but it's also very necessary, and I think we can all learn from that type of personality.

00:32:39 - Speaker A
That's cool. So many questions I could ask. But I do want to talk about your book, too, and I feel like your book and the framework you have there can help guide some of our conversations. So I want to dive into your book a bit. And you have in there I promised I would be sure to guide us through. There's kind of eight ingredients that you cover in your book, and I want to have you walk us through the framework. But maybe before we do that, if you can just even briefly tell us, what was your motivation for just authorship to begin with?

00:33:09 - Speaker C
I have always wanted to write books, ever since I can remember. In fact, I have a whole file on children's books, ideas.

00:33:18 - Speaker A
I've always wanted to illustrate that.

00:33:19 - Speaker C
Yes. In illustration.

00:33:21 - Speaker A
Okay.

00:33:21 - Speaker C
Hey, we might have to.

00:33:22 - Speaker A
I know I'm like you.

00:33:24 - Speaker C
I've just always wanted to author books, and I knew I'd write a book someday, but I really, honestly didn't think this particular book would be my first was working. I was collaborating with another business owner, carol SPRUNK from Clout Coffee Edge magazine, dine magazine. Talk about an entrepreneur. She owns all these businesses. I know. She's wonderful. And then her editor Kathy, who helps her on the magazine and some other things. And we were at the collaboration. I had made a whiskey donut for her anniversary because she does barrel aged coffee.

00:34:06 - Speaker A
Oh, delightful.

00:34:07 - Speaker C
And Kathy brought me a picture of her kids at our pumpkin patch.

00:34:13 - Speaker A
All right.

00:34:13 - Speaker C
So, of course, the tears were flowing, and it was so awesome. And they had mentioned you should write a book about square donut, and I said, Well, I've always wanted to write a book, but why would I write one about square donut? And they just said, the story. You have an amazing story. And I thought, okay, I'll write a book. Honestly, I took it seriously, but it didn't resonate with me because it wasn't about a topic that I thought I would be good at authoring a book over.

00:34:43 - Speaker A
What were you thinking you'd be good at?

00:34:44 - Speaker C
I don't know. It wasn't nonfiction. I always thought it would be fiction.

00:34:50 - Speaker A
Okay. Got you.

00:34:50 - Speaker C
And so nonfiction. I thought, well, that's a wow. Let's think about that. And then forcing myself to look back on the journey of Square Donut. And I get asked all the time about the story of Square Donut. Everybody wants to know, what's the story behind this? They all think we're a franchise and we're not. And I thought, well, maybe there's some validity to this. Maybe people do need to hear the story. And then it became inspirational, and then I was all in.

00:35:17 - Speaker A
And then you can just start handing out copies. Like, here you go, just read the book.

00:35:20 - Speaker C
Just read the book.

00:35:21 - Speaker A
So the book is called From Scratch create Your Recipe for Happiness and Success in Business, which I love. And part of your description, I pulled out just part of the description that I saw on the Amazon listing. So I know you can get on Amazon. Where else can people pick up?

00:35:34 - Speaker C
You can do it on Amazon. You can, of course, come into the shop. We have copies there. We also have the ebook. So for the kindle.

00:35:42 - Speaker A
So, yeah, cool. The description, as I was reading through it, I pulled this one line out, is just starting from scratch isn't easy, but there are certain ingredients every successful person shares. And I was like, yes, I need to know more about this. So I, full disclosure, haven't got to read the book. But you brought me a copy today. Yes, I did, because on the way, I was talking to Jenny who sets up the interviews, and I was like, have you read the book yet? She's like, I think I could listen to it here real quick. We were both just chatting about it. So thank you for that. Absolutely for that. But there's eight ingredients that you cover in your book, or topics, chapters, I guess, if you will, in the book, and I'd like to go over each one of those and just have you give us a little insight so that people are even more intrigued to go grab the book. And Jack, of course, jump in here as well. For sure. So, yeah, absolutely. Here you go. So the eight are motivation, opportunity, determination, leadership, grace, self care, optimism, and wisdom.

00:36:42 - Speaker C
Amen.

00:36:43 - Speaker A
So we have a lot to cover here, right? Quick, quick. There's a pop quiz. Jack, what are they? He's like, I've got this down.

00:36:51 - Speaker C
He hasn't read my book yet.

00:36:52 - Speaker A
What?

00:36:54 - Speaker B
I am not a reader.

00:36:56 - Speaker A
Okay?

00:36:56 - Speaker C
He used to be, but not anymore.

00:36:57 - Speaker A
Maybe you should record it as an audiobook for somebody.

00:37:00 - Speaker C
Yeah, we'll use your voice, Jack.

00:37:02 - Speaker A
Yeah, I think so. Jack, of course, jump in here, too, though, because I think any of these topics I'm sure you both have stories.

00:37:08 - Speaker C
Yeah, and he's very well aware of some of this, has a percentage of my life in here, so he's very well aware of that.

00:37:16 - Speaker A
Is Jack in the book? Surprise. When you read it, you're like, what.

00:37:21 - Speaker C
The dedication of the dedication? But, yeah, he's very familiar with the family and the personal and professional references that's awesome. Yeah.

00:37:31 - Speaker A
So the first one is motivation. And I put a couple of notes here, but just let you riff on it. But motivation identify what you really want in life.

00:37:40 - Speaker C
Yes.

00:37:40 - Speaker A
And I think that's so interesting because you were kind of talking about like, well, Jack, what do you really want in life? And are you chasing what you want? Is it quality of life? What is it? And you had suggested as well, just this idea of kind of previsualizing, I guess I would call it.

00:37:54 - Speaker C
Yes.

00:37:55 - Speaker A
So talk us through that motivation.

00:37:57 - Speaker C
So just your motivation, what's moving you? What is your whole motive for doing what you want to do and thinking? It really causes a lot of self reflection, which isn't always easy. And what motivated me was feelings. First of all, my childhood wasn't the most calm childhood. So as a child, you're always looking for whatever that peace is, and how do you quell these feelings or what's normal, what's not? You're navigating all these emotions. So my motivation was to find peace, even though I wouldn't call it that at that age.

00:38:39 - Speaker A
Sure.

00:38:40 - Speaker C
And then, obviously, we didn't come from a lot of money. Hence the hamster story of why I had to buy my own basketball shoes. When you see your mother struggle and you see that you can't have what other kids have, or you see the stress that a parent is going through, and you don't want to be like that. You're like, how can I be different? I'm going to be rich. Yeah, that's going to solve everything. Which, by the way, folks, it doesn't. But the thought, the motivation, where did it originate from? And that's what originated for me.

00:39:12 - Speaker A
You had mentioned in here, too, in your notes. I'm not 100% if it's in the book, but just conceptualizing your idea of money and time and resources, like, if they weren't an issue, what would your dream look like?

00:39:25 - Speaker C
Oh, yes, I thought that was interesting.

00:39:26 - Speaker A
Because I'm more analytical in that I look at I love to build business plans. I love to build financial models because I like the security of I know if I pull this lever, this could happen. If I pull this lever, this could happen. I don't tend to look at the end goal, like, how do I want to feel?

00:39:45 - Speaker C
Right?

00:39:45 - Speaker A
I'm more like, wow, if we do this, we'll have this if we have this result, talk to me about that.

00:39:50 - Speaker C
So you have a dream. In this case, I wanted a business. I always look at the end result and work backwards. I never start from what am I going to call it? I always start at the end. What does it look like? If money were never an issue, if I was a billionaire and I could do this, what would it look like? What would it feel like? I could visualize customers walking into in this case, the donut shop. What is that feeling? What do I want the employees to feel? How do I want to feel? What does it look like? Now, if that is it and it costs, just say, hypothetically, a million dollars, how do I get that same thing for this much money? And you start working backwards. So to me, if you work backwards, you're not restrained by, I can't afford it, I can't do this. It's more like, how can I do this? How can I afford this? Where can I cut and where can I expand? What's going to have the most punch? Is it a piece of equipment that's going to produce a lot of production, or is it going to be the wow factor when the customers walk in? Where do I need to capture my immediate profit as fast as possible? Boom. It's the feeling in this case when the customers walk in and being prepared for when you open your doors the first day, you can't have not thought about how they come into the store. You can't afford to not think about the aesthetics where they're standing, are they comfortable? Is their elbow going to hit the Pepsi machine? Is their kid going to trip over this?

00:41:28 - Speaker A
How's the bathroom feel?

00:41:30 - Speaker C
A lot of people would argue with me about this, but if you can eliminate all those obstacles, you have the best chance of coming out of the chute winning. And I always think, too, if a customer is going to complain about anything, what are they going to complain about? And I'm going to go down that list and I'm going to knock them all off. I'm going to knock every single one that I potentially can, I'm going to knock that off. So to me, that end thought is just as strategic as the business plan, in my opinion.

00:42:06 - Speaker A
I could see that applying to the team, too. Jack, I don't know if that ever plays in, but I'm just like, oh, that could be an interesting concept. Like, how do I want the employees to feel? What experience do I want them to have? What's their barriers? How do I knock them off before they like, what's the motivation for know?

00:42:24 - Speaker C
And you can't solve them all, but you have to try. And Jack knows even now, and he can attest to this. Whenever he comes to me with an idea or somebody else comes to me with an idea, my number one job is to shoot as many bullet holes in that thing as I can, because if it survives my bullet holes, we can talk. So let me find all the things that we would have barriers in. Let's talk about them, remove them. That's where your successful journey starts.

00:42:52 - Speaker A
Have you had any ideas that come to mind? I'm putting you on the spot totally here, but where you're like, yeah, that one made it through the bullet hole test.

00:43:00 - Speaker B
They're not like something like, really impactful, but at least with my rolling squared on it. It's been a lot of smaller changes over the course that we've been open. And how I would view it in this case is like with our kitchen staff, my end goal is for them to be able to create a great quality product but have them have an easy job to do. Have them enjoy working and basically make their lives stress free in order for us to get a quality product to then serve to our customers. And a lot of that has been, well, we made our donuts this way when we opened, and I'll think of a solution, I'll be like, so how can I make that easier for my head baker? What can we do to save him time so that he's instead of working a ten hour shift, he's working an eight hour shift. And I'll bring that to my mom, and she'll be like, well, there's this, this and this, and then I'll find a solution to make it work with her criteria for it. And, yeah, over time, we've made some strides.

00:44:18 - Speaker C
Yeah. I think it's been very successful now that we've figured out each other's kind of approach.

00:44:24 - Speaker A
Yeah, I have a solution to make that easier.

00:44:28 - Speaker B
What is it?

00:44:29 - Speaker A
Well, if we had triangle donuts, you would eliminate one whole side, so the head baker would be like, one less side to make. We might shoot some holes in that one. The whole rebrand.

00:44:41 - Speaker C
Right.

00:44:41 - Speaker A
You were talking I'm like, more efficient. What about less side? So talk to me, too, about opportunity. Achieve your goals faster.

00:44:50 - Speaker C
A lot of that. I think a lot of people, when they put themselves in that box, I have to be, like, nine to five, or I have to go to school, or I have to do this, or we all come with a core set of beliefs that obviously we got from our parents or our experiences. It takes a lot to get out of that box and look up. And when you look at something, it's very intentional and it's a learned skill, and it takes a lot of work. But you have to look at that opportunity. You have to look at things through the eyes of the business or monetizing that. So if you look at a piece of land, you're like, wow, they want a lot of money for that. Wait a minute, that would make a really great whatever. Or you have to look up and you have to be able to receive these opportunities. You don't have to do anything with them. But if you were too pessimistic about looking at opportunities that could make your quality of life better, give you that vehicle of finances where you can go and help other people, you're really limiting yourself. So a lot of people get in that box, that compartment, and I don't do that. It's the daydreamer, it's the visionary in me. It's all those entrepreneurial things that I'm sure you experience where it could be driving around, you could be having a conversation, and something hits you. I am constantly receiving opportunities in my brain. It's what we do with those opportunities. But if you don't look up and get rid of that negative block, you're not going to see the opportunities, and that's sad for anybody, whether it's a business, a relationship, children, family, home that's applicable to anything, I would say for sure.

00:46:44 - Speaker A
And that's actually an area I struggle in, and people often be surprised when I say that because they're like, man, you're such an idea person and all that. That is when I have worked hard on. I have a scarcity mindset, like, deep down at the core, I'm just going to own that, raise my hand, be the first to say it. I have definitely trained myself out of that to a large degree. And so to give myself a little credit, I think I probably am not as much. I think maybe I am really looking for opportunities, but because I knew that at one time I didn't right. Might still go back to that kind of inner child. Right. And I'm like, oh, you're a scared person, or whatever, right? So I'm like, man, this is a great little therapy session here that I'm like, Remember my motivator motivated. It is. But the opportunity, it is a fun thing, and I do love and I'm like, oh, and then this, and then oh, and then this. So it's there. But I think that's such a great reminder that it does play into all of life. It really does different areas, and I'm even thinking about that with my I mentioned my husband just struck out on his own, and I can feel the triggers of obikash is there. Obikash is there? And then I'm like, no, we're in a new mindset now. This is an opportunity. So it's an interesting little struggle, I think, especially when you start something over.

00:48:03 - Speaker C
Yes.

00:48:04 - Speaker A
And there's been a little bit of that in my life just recently, because he's starting over, and in my life, I feel pretty secure to take a risk and all that stuff, but to kind of, like, start over and again, it's been a really interesting ride the past two, three months.

00:48:19 - Speaker C
Two things that makes me think about an opportunity when I apply it to parenting. Parents out there know it's hard, you're exhausted, you're tired, you're this, you're that. We could go on for weeks. We could write a book on that. But when you're tired and exhausted and you have an opportunity to teach your child, I and I look right at Jack, because I can see him as a four or five year old kid. I'm exhausted at the pumpkin patch, but he just yanked on my shirt and had a question. It could have been anything. It could have been something about the baby chicks and taking ten or 15 minutes to teach you that lesson. That's opportunity. That's opportunity. And then when you said starting all over, when the people read my book and they see all the adversity I've been through at, well, how old was I when I started? Squaredone at 50. Yeah, 50. Starting all over at 50.

00:49:14 - Speaker A
Yeah.

00:49:15 - Speaker C
That's scary. That's scary.

00:49:18 - Speaker A
It is. I mean, people sometimes don't want to say that because there's like, age discrimination and whatnot, but it is scary. Like, my husband's 45, and someone the other day said, wow, I commend that. And I was like, you're right. It is. They said that. I was like, you're right.

00:49:33 - Speaker C
And you don't know until you are that age. I mean, people will be like, oh, and even I the diehard optimist. As we age, there is criteria where I think I should be at certain benchmarks. But starting over, it can be scary if you let it take over.

00:49:51 - Speaker A
Yeah, for sure. Okay. So that leads really well into termination. Never give up.

00:49:56 - Speaker C
That's always been my motto. Always. Since I can even remember. Don't ever give up. Exclamation point, exclamation point. Exclamation point. Because, and I don't mean in situations where if you're in an unhealthy situation, walking away, that's not giving up. That's being smart. You're taking care of yourself. I just mean if you're after a goal and you get knocked down by a softball, don't stay there. Then you get knocked down by a rock, keep going. Because if you're not willing to take on this adversity and get knocked down, you're not going to succeed. You absolutely have to fail in order to succeed. There is no success ever. I would love somebody to name one success story that hasn't involved adversity and failure. Don't give up.

00:50:59 - Speaker A
Have there been times where you're like, that was too big of a blow? I'm not sure if I'm going to get back up.

00:51:04 - Speaker C
Oh, girl. Hundreds of times. Hundreds. Yeah. I've always said I'm that I don't know if your generation remembers this, but the blow up clown that has sand in the bottom when we were little kids, we blew him up. You'd punch him and he'd come back up. Put my face on that. That's me. And it just makes me even more determined to prove people wrong.

00:51:32 - Speaker A
I can see that for sure. And there's like certain personalities, I think, that are sort of wired that way.

00:51:37 - Speaker C
And it might be the fight or flight situation that we talk about in today's culture, but use that in a positive way.

00:51:45 - Speaker A
Yeah, I remember losing my production company business, and there was that piece of like, oh my gosh, I'm a total failure. On the flip side, I was like but I knew I had walked out of frankly dangerous situation at that point. And also there was that piece of me that's like, you're not taking me down. I'm going to figure out how to keep this going and all that. So that determination for sure. What about talk to me about the leadership piece and lead toward a common goal. And I'm curious how you've been leading your team, like with the Back of House things, but then also your leadership just as starting the business and owning the business and being the CEO. Do you call yourself the CEO or is our titles roles, or do you.

00:52:30 - Speaker C
Just kind of just owner and founder of this particular business?

00:52:34 - Speaker A
Talk about leadership a little bit, especially as you're somewhat partnering. You're leading the back of house team.

00:52:42 - Speaker C
I think I'll start with my definition of leadership and see how it's affected you and if it has at all. Jack but in leadership, to me, you can have bosses all day long. Some you like, some you don't like. But leadership, in my opinion, is a little different than being a boss. So you can have a boss who's telling you when to clock in, when to clock out, your apron might be wrinkled, whatever, but who's actually leading you? And the divide that I like to cross in my leadership is there's human beings that are working for me? Yes, they're employees. And at the end of the day, I will do what's best for the business. But these are people. They go home, they have lives, they have children, they have families, they have health. Let's be real honest. Employees aren't going to stay with you for their whole life. I mean, that'd be great. Dang it, if I could get that and write another book, right? We know to some extent, especially in our industry, they're going to move on. When they walk out that door for the last time, what do they think of me? How did I affect their life? So in society, if we want it to get better, in my opinion, again, we have to breed positive, good vibes. What did I teach them? How did I make them feel? Did they learn anything? Maybe it was good or again, good or bad. How can I lead these people while they're under my wing? Respect them, listen to them, build them up, make them not falsely feel important, listen to their ideas. You never know what's going to come of that. And most often than not, I see an employee who has a major weakness or an insecurity or a flaw. Well, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to leadership that right out of them. If it's an insecurity, then I will go in with grace and patience and tolerance, and I will lead to that weakness or that fear to build them up, to give them that confidence, and to get them to be independent and then interdependent. So my team has to work as a team. If I can't get them to be independent, they'll never work with the team and be interdependent. That helps the customers, the product, me, Jack, all the other coworkers. My leadership looks different than a lot of people's. It doesn't always benefit me in the workplace. But I will say that my employees on several occasions have said, I've learned so much from you. Thank you. They've remembered something about me, and a couple of them, maybe not so good things. And that's okay, too. I'm not here to blow hot air up into anyone, but I am realistic. But I want to build people up in general.

00:55:39 - Speaker A
Yeah. And you say because I hear leaders, there's various levels of leaders and quality of leaders who will say, yeah, but if the benefit and the business and all that, and I think this is a bit what you're alluding to as well. It's like, okay, so maybe you can't one degree tie it to the benefit of your business, but there's benefit at least of the third, 4th degree in that they're a great citizen. Right. And we need great citizens in order to have great businesses. At least two, three, four degrees out.

00:56:13 - Speaker C
Yes.

00:56:14 - Speaker A
And you just need good people to come in and buy your donuts, for one thing. Right. But healthy people this sounds kind of funny. Healthy people buy donuts. Okay. Right.

00:56:22 - Speaker C
I know.

00:56:23 - Speaker A
Yeah.

00:56:24 - Speaker C
I hear what you're saying. I'm reading between the lines.

00:56:26 - Speaker A
People who are in a good mood or want to bring a good mood to someone or whatever, those are your people who are going to come in and purchase or just that's the neighbor that your brick and mortar is sitting next to, if they are good people, that helps your brick and mortar be good people. I just really believe in that a ton of if we do lift those people up around us, even if it's not having this direct bottom line to my business, I fully believe that it is having a direct bottom line impact.

00:56:54 - Speaker C
Happy people are going to attract happy people. And I don't know mean, like I said, Jack's a lot calmer than I am. His disposition is different. He's seen my leadership style. I know he does believe to some degree that I'm too soft in some areas, but I'm also very rough.

00:57:13 - Speaker B
Yes.

00:57:14 - Speaker A
All right, tell us more.

00:57:15 - Speaker C
Yeah.

00:57:15 - Speaker B
So I would say with my mom, she's great, but her leadership is far more emotionally charged than mine. I do care about our employees, of course, and I do want them to grow in our business and learn and live a happy life. But historically, my mom has always been far more personal with them, and that's great. And our employees love it, especially the ones who have stuck around. And I would say the people who have benefited the most from it are people who we have hired, who probably we didn't have the highest expectations of when we hired them. Like, right now, all three of our heads, our head baker, our head decorator, and our head cashier when we hired them, they never worked in an industry like this. They never had any experience in this type of industry. Our. Head decorator, for example, came from corporate. He got fired during the pandemic or at the start of it came in, just wanted something fresh. And now he says he's a lifer. He wants to stick with us forever and he's just like family. And that's what I want. At the end of the day, I just take a little bit of a more objective approach to it.

00:58:34 - Speaker C
You stick to the facts.

00:58:36 - Speaker B
Yes.

00:58:36 - Speaker C
This is clean.

00:58:37 - Speaker A
So interesting because okay. Are you into personality tests and things like that?

00:58:41 - Speaker C
Yes.

00:58:42 - Speaker A
Have you done the 16 personalities?

00:58:44 - Speaker C
I've done them on myself but I have not done anything on employees.

00:58:47 - Speaker A
Oh, man. So this is something we have. Anyone who works with us takes the test. We share ours with them openly as well and then we actually do this for teams. We come in and we do the 16 personalities. You can do it for free. You don't need us to do it. But we'll help them unpack it because sometimes it's hard to unpack it internally. Sometimes you need that outside person to say things in an objective way. But long story short, we love it. We like to help teams unpack it, figure it out because it is revolutionary to team dynamics, people working well. But for Michaela and I, I am very much I'm actually very subjective and very analytical and I'm not devoid of emotions. I have emotions, but they do not display like other people. And I am much more like, well, bless your heart, but the business does not benefit from that. Therefore we are going to follow. I admire that Michaela is much more I admire Michaela so obviously she's like but we have to consider these our like and I would consider myself a compassionate person, but on the flip side, when I look at our styles and way of handling things, she is much more like, it's going to work out. Let's just give it a little more room. And I'm like, three strikes. We have three strike rule for there's no three strike rule, by the way, but I have more of a tendency that way. And she's really like helped train me. But understanding our personalities also helps us then lean into the situation where we'll sometimes be like, this needs a Vivian, or this needs a Michaela, or I know I'm walking into a situation that I need a Michaela perspective before I get in there because I don't want to play hardball. But I know I'm going to be headed that way. So what an interesting dynamic between you two?

01:00:39 - Speaker C
Jack is very good at that. There are situations where he's like, no, you need to handle it this way, mom, in this situation. And it's not always good to act on emotion. It's good to use the emotions to think. But emotions aren't fantastic in most cases when it comes to business. So that balance is phenomenal.

01:00:58 - Speaker A
Yeah, I agree. I think it's a magical balance to have. And so I can recognize that because I think that's how Michaela and I are as. So yeah, for sure. Okay, let's talk a bit about speaking of grace yes. And accepting mistakes moving forward. And also I haven't read the chapter yet, but I'm just thinking, like, grace on ourselves, for our personalities, like we were just talking about. I have to give myself grace, too, and also recognize, like, I do have the best intentions for our team, and I do genuinely. Not in a weird way, but I do love them. But sometimes my way of doing that is a little more abrupt. You might say I have to give myself grace for that.

01:01:39 - Speaker C
I think that's often overlooked both employees and with ourselves, because I sit here and I think of what I tell employees and my kids, if you don't make mistakes, you're not learning. I say this loosely, but I don't care if you drop a whole tray of donuts. Did you learn something? Do you know how to correct it? Do you feel bad?

01:02:00 - Speaker A
Yeah.

01:02:01 - Speaker C
Let's move on. Let's not live there, right? Let's not berate somebody. Sometimes you have to make those mistakes to get the jitters out. So I encourage mistakes with grace. I think my biggest hurdle for me was grace with myself. I'm a perfectionist, and that is not a strength. I will preach that till the day I die. It's not a strength. It can be debilitating. Now, I know it doesn't have to be perfect. You can work as much as you can to get it as close as you can, but then you have to be okay with that. You also have to have enough sense to look behind you and see how far you've come. And I was always, don't look behind me, don't look behind me, because you're going to see something and you're going to stop. Your whole momentum is going to stop. And in some cases that's true. But having the grace to forgive yourself and not be perfect, having the grace to step back and do what you need to do for your own self, you have to preserve yourself. You have to take care of yourself and not apologizing for it, not feeling guilty, you have to extend that grace to yourself and others. It's part of the equation.

01:03:11 - Speaker A
What's your take on that, from your perspective?

01:03:14 - Speaker B
Yeah, I would agree. I think a lot of times the way I wrap it into how I train employees, and I want them to make mistakes because it is a great opportunity to learn. And especially we've had employees in the past who have a lot of anxiety about making mistakes.

01:03:35 - Speaker A
Oh, for sure.

01:03:36 - Speaker B
And when they do, I tell them it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's a donut. A donut doesn't affect your life.

01:03:45 - Speaker A
It's not heart surgery.

01:03:46 - Speaker B
Nobody's dying.

01:03:48 - Speaker A
Not to discount amazing donuts.

01:03:50 - Speaker C
Absolutely.

01:03:50 - Speaker B
But if you mess up an entire tray of donuts. Oh, well, life goes on. We'll make more donuts tomorrow. Right. It doesn't matter at the end of the day. And that's been my approach to relieve our staff and give them grace and working.

01:04:10 - Speaker A
I think that's huge and a really healthy way to approach a team. So I definitely commend that when we coach and mentor other business owners or managers, sometimes on teams, that is one of the things. But I would say, especially with owners, they have a hard time letting go because they do know they have done, they do have the background, and they know a mistake is going to happen, and they may even be benevolent about a mistake, but they're like, why make the mistake when we don't have to? And Michaela tells a story about working for her brother who owns a bar restaurant. He actually owns other things as well. But he had her doing, like, the liquor ordering, and she ordered way too much no or whatever, and it ended up being a quite sizable dollar amount that got attached at but end of the day, he was like, glad you made a decision, put you in that position. And they figured it out. They're going to roll with it. And some business owners would look at them like, Never. But she references that to this day as a huge experience and one that we talk to other business owners a lot about. It's like, go ahead and give them some parameters if you want, give them a budget, but let them make a decision. And it probably won't be the decision you made would have made, but it.

01:05:34 - Speaker C
Teaches them how to solve it, or it teaches them why that wasn't a good decision. They learn. That's a great example, giving grace to.

01:05:43 - Speaker A
Yourself as the owner to say, I was okay with that, and giving grace to the employee and grace to the whole thing.

01:05:48 - Speaker C
It's not always comfortable.

01:05:50 - Speaker A
No.

01:05:50 - Speaker C
But it is necessary.

01:05:52 - Speaker A
Definitely not. Yeah. All right, we've got three more here. So you talk about self care. Help yourself first. I was kind of curious. Take this any direction you want, but I was looking through your notes and I was thinking about you mentioned adversity as being a big factor in your journey, and yet the concepts that you come up with for your businesses are largely centered around these feel good concepts, like you were saying, the experience and how they feel. How do you maintain that? Especially in moments where you don't feel great, you're not feeling great a lot. Self care, making a great experience. I'm like, how are you balancing that? Or juggling it, maybe is a better word.

01:06:32 - Speaker C
I can say this now with very little emotion because I'm removed now I've fixed some things. There was a point where square donut, the journey of square donut, it took my health, my physical, my mental, my whole well being. I don't even know how to say this without scaring people, but there was a point where I didn't know if I was going to make it. And when you go to the doctor, you're in the Er room for exhaustion. Jack took me to the doctor once because I thought I had broken my ribs. And it wasn't that. It was stress. You wake at least with me, with my kids looking at them, going, okay, Elizabeth, you need to ask yourself, is square donut as important as your children? Because it's killing you, right? It's literally killing you as you look at a one star review and you juggle with, why am I so concerned with making these customers happy and making this business success? Or do I want to be here for my children? And in what capacity at this point am I there for them? I'm not even healthy mentally or physically. So I'm preaching to everybody, employees. I'm making sure everybody's taking their time off. Are you drinking water? Are you eating? Taking a break? And at no time did I think at all that I need this, because I'm Elizabeth Pooley, I'm invincible. That clown is going to come back up and I'm going to prove to the world, well, when you can't walk up your steps at night and you end up in the Er, you realize you're not invincible. And it's so true. The cliche is so true. If you do not take care of yourself, you will not be able to take care of anybody else. And I didn't want to die over a donut shop.

01:08:19 - Speaker A
Yeah.

01:08:21 - Speaker C
It just came to perspective. And on that journey, I had to stop and I had to forgive myself and I had to simplify all the processes. Eat when I'm hungry, sleep when I'm tired. If you do not feel like doing something today, just don't do it. Give yourself that grace. Self care is also not always pleasurable. Self care sometimes is exercising. Sometimes it's eating right. Sometimes the taking care of yourself doesn't always it's not always enjoyable, but it's necessary. And I think I always felt guilty if I did anything like that, and I had to get over that. I still struggle with that today, but I apologize a lot less.

01:09:04 - Speaker A
Yeah, that is huge. And did not have the chest pain. But do remember waking up and just being like, I'm an early riser and my brain is going first thing in the morning, and I'm annoyed that I have to eat breakfast and brush my teeth and get dressed. I'm kind of like, it's all happening right now, and so sometimes I don't. But then that stopped and I was waking up in the morning, I'm like, I don't want to get out of bed. I'm not going to. And I showed up at my doctor and this was kind of the wake up call, one of the wake up calls. There have been various this is one of the wake up calls. And I remember sitting on the edge in the uncomfortable doctor's office. And my doctor knows me well, and I'm a very like, let's try a know course of action. If like, can I have honey for allergies? Like, I don't want to take meds. And so she knows this about me. And she walked in and I literally looked at her and I said, prescribing something right now. And she was like, Vivian, what's going on? And I just started having friends who were just really checking in, like, are you okay? What's going on? And I had one friend in particular who was begging me to try these supplements. And I'm like, MLM not interested, and all this stuff. Well, long story short, I end up taking them. I've been on them for five, six years now, and I'll preach it to the end of days. But yeah, the self care piece of that definitely was one of those starting points where I was like, okay, I have to make some very big decisions in my life for that exercise water. I mean, literally everything you just listed and that has continued to play in as I think about employees and team. I'm not just here for me. I need to be here for them. And that means getting on the treadmill for them. And me, I like a good run.

01:10:54 - Speaker C
And circling back around to how we were talking about personalities and you said you're analytical and you're this and that. We almost have to get that way in defense of our self care. So you being able to acknowledge a situation, have compassion for that person, but you're not wallowing there. You're moving on and doing that for yourself and saying, okay, I've got this. I need to take care of this. And no, I'm not going to apologize to any of you. I'm just going to take care of myself. I think that's important. That trait is very important when it comes to self care.

01:11:30 - Speaker A
Glad.

01:11:30 - Speaker C
Yeah.

01:11:31 - Speaker A
When I first got my 16 personalities profile back and I read through it, I sent Michaela an apology letter. Oh, my letter was like, is this me? I was like, because I'm like, this is me. And she wrote back, she was like she goes, actually, I don't see a lot of these things. So it's interesting the things we tell ourselves because we know ourselves so well, but we have to remember the give the grace. And because of self care, what I tell people is I'm a well adjusted what my personality type is.

01:12:02 - Speaker C
And I think also we tend to see in others what we see in ourselves.

01:12:06 - Speaker A
Totally.

01:12:06 - Speaker C
So we really have to correct ourselves a lot.

01:12:09 - Speaker A
Yeah, okay, we're going to dive into two here just because optimism and wisdom. So optimism harness positivity to combat defeat. I'm like, man, we've just been talking about all this. And wisdom share your knowledge to help others. And so interesting, even just between your dynamic with each other, sharing your wisdom with each other and being here on this podcast, just sharing your wisdom.

01:12:31 - Speaker C
Absolutely huge.

01:12:32 - Speaker A
But talk me through those two. There optimism and wisdom.

01:12:35 - Speaker C
I don't know why I always have been a diehard optimist. I don't know if it's because at such a little age there was so many things, so much trauma that you're in survival mode. And when you go into survival mode, I don't think you have a choice but to survive.

01:12:56 - Speaker A
Right.

01:12:58 - Speaker C
I think from that came the optimism. And I can't explain that to this day, but I'm an internal optimist. Doesn't mean I don't get depressed or whatever, but I will always try and look at everything in the good what is one good thing I can take away from something bad? Or what is one good thing that can come out of this situation? Let's turn this around. But I'm also a big believer in our mental. We can talk ourselves right in or out of something.

01:13:26 - Speaker A
Oh, absolutely.

01:13:27 - Speaker C
Our brain is absolutely powerful, very trainable. And plus I'm exhausted when people are negative. It tires me out. I don't like to receive it. I certainly don't like to give it. And I have yet to see one good thing come out of being a pessimist because what's the point? There's literally no point. You might feel that way inside, but you can't go and give that gift to the world because nothing good comes out of it. So why bother with the energy? It's bad juju.

01:13:57 - Speaker A
Yeah, I mean, even Simon, right? From American Idol.

01:14:01 - Speaker C
Yeah, Simon the pessimist.

01:14:04 - Speaker A
Even he has become much more of an optimist. They probably were like, okay, we've had enough of this.

01:14:08 - Speaker C
And looking at like we're talking about the bullet holes and things, that's not being a pessimist.

01:14:12 - Speaker A
It was more critical. Good criticism, which is important.

01:14:18 - Speaker C
And I think with the optimism and the wisdom, I suppose I've learned that in this life, in this world, you have to really elevate yourself and look down kind of like go way, way above. Picture yourself in the clouds in an airplane and look at the world below you. And at the end of the day, what's important? We can't see the ants on the sidewalk. We can just see the bodies of water and the continents and all of that in the clouds. But when we die, because we're all going to die. 100% chance italian, where did you leave this world so imparting? Wisdom isn't only a legacy I want to leave personally. But if we can impart our wisdom and our experiences and share that and have the grace and all these other ingredients, we are in essence making our society better, period. When our society is healthy, better, positive, optimistic, that is going to blow up at least in our circle. I know we can only control our circle of life, but that's my obligation to my world, my tribe, my circle, my business, my people. That's what I want to leave. So all that optimism and wisdom is tied in with a big bow.

01:15:36 - Speaker A
Yeah. What's been kind of your take on that?

01:15:41 - Speaker B
I would say I'm more of a carefree optimist versus my mom's. More of a calculated optimist.

01:15:48 - Speaker A
Okay. This surprises me.

01:15:50 - Speaker B
Yeah.

01:15:50 - Speaker A
I felt like you were very calculated. Now I'm, like, confused.

01:15:53 - Speaker B
I am the type of person know, I would say, what's the worst that can happen? So you might as well do it. Like, for example, when I went to school in China, my mom was so worried about me, and I was like.

01:16:10 - Speaker A
What'S the worst that could happen?

01:16:11 - Speaker B
What's the worst that can happen?

01:16:13 - Speaker A
A couple things I can think of. Yeah.

01:16:17 - Speaker B
For me, it's like what my mom said. If you zoom out, people get caught up on a lot of little things. It's like, you might as well just go and do it, because if it fails, you can always go back to square 199 percent of the time. So that's my take. If you want to do something, just go do it.

01:16:42 - Speaker A
Yeah. I'm not sure where I'm at on this one. I'm glad sitting between you two, because I'm like because I can resonate with what you're both saying. And then I also think, gosh, not to be a downer. I feel like now I'm being pessimistic, but I'm trying to be. I'm just like, let's think about this. I feel like that has changed for.

01:17:03 - Speaker C
Me with age oh, yeah.

01:17:05 - Speaker A
Where I still feel very much like what you're saying of, like, what's the worst, kevin I can always go back. Flip side, I am starting to have these strange feelings of, like, but I can't go all the way back. And so not to put holes into either one of what you're saying, but this is an interesting concept. Right. Because you need, I think in entrepreneurism, you do need that mindset of, like, what's the worst going to happen? I just got to step out, take the risk. On the flip side, I'm like, I got to be a little more calculated, because how many times do I get to go back?

01:17:37 - Speaker C
And I think that's like, what you said about me being more calculated. He's older now. He's in his 20s. He's seeing that part of me. Whereas when I was his age, I had no fear. Whatever. We could do whatever. I don't really care.

01:17:50 - Speaker A
Right.

01:17:51 - Speaker C
But now that he's an adult and looking at me in my optimism, it is a little different. It's kind of like our risk tolerance changes as we age.

01:18:00 - Speaker A
That's fair.

01:18:00 - Speaker B
And, like, with her, when she had her health problems and stuff, she was so focused on making sure the shop is okay. At that point, I was like, who cares about the shop? We have employees. The worst that happens is they mess up the donuts and a customer gets mad. That is not worth your own personal health the shop is not going to catch on fire and burn down.

01:18:29 - Speaker C
And I think, too, it helps me balance now the perspective of my customers. I was so hyper vigilant on that. Just crazy great hospitality, which I am, and it's still my Motivator. But if I get a one star review or if somebody complains, I now look at it as they have no idea what I have sacrificed for this business. Zero.

01:18:52 - Speaker A
Right. So what is their opinion?

01:18:54 - Speaker C
Their opinion? And although I take it into account and see if it's something we can fix, I no longer fixate on it.

01:19:01 - Speaker A
And it's a super interesting thing with reviews, not to get too far on a riff on that, but I think that's a great perspective. Reviews, comments, social media. I mean, that's a whole topic.

01:19:10 - Speaker C
Yeah, it's a whole nother podcast, for sure.

01:19:12 - Speaker A
But I think that's a good slice of information even to take today of, like, don't forget that if they knew the whole story, their one star review might be a ten star review.

01:19:21 - Speaker C
Exactly.

01:19:22 - Speaker A
Right. And they only see what they see, and so that is their reality, and they're entitled to their reality and what they saw. But do remember, they didn't see the whole picture. And we can always counterback with, well, they should think about that.

01:19:35 - Speaker C
No, I agree with not their responsibility either. Their view is here and rightly so. 100%.

01:19:42 - Speaker A
And if they did know, it might be a very different story. Yeah, I like to at least think that it might be just like we.

01:19:48 - Speaker C
Teach our front of the house cashiers. I've always told the cashiers, these aren't just customers, these are human beings. If they walk in and they're in a bad mood, you don't know what did they just get off a phone call? Did they just get diagnosed with cancer? Did their dog die? Are they getting a divorce? Did they lose a child? Don't judge them. If they're in a crappy mood, just embrace it. Give them a smile and see if you can make their day better for five minutes.

01:20:13 - Speaker A
It is a fun yeah. So, okay, friends, so the book From Scratch create your recipe for happiness and success in business.

01:20:21 - Speaker C
Yes.

01:20:21 - Speaker A
Get on Amazon. You can go into the store. We'll put a link for Amazon for sure.

01:20:25 - Speaker C
Great.

01:20:25 - Speaker A
Are there certain social media if people want to follow you and find out more, are there certain ones you like?

01:20:30 - Speaker C
Everyone. We're on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I'm not really super active on Twitter. Our industry is more specific to Facebook and Instagram. And we have a website, Squaredonitomaha.com. Donut is D-O-N-U-T. So, yeah, all those platforms. And our shop is 150 Eigth in Maple in Omaha. Yeah.

01:20:55 - Speaker A
We have an international airport.

01:20:57 - Speaker C
We do.

01:20:59 - Speaker A
Someone wants to fly in. I mean, I flew for other states for these donuts.

01:21:03 - Speaker C
Yes. And we are the only shop. We've got a couple of different concepts new businesses we're working on, but those are a little far out, and our focus right now is square donut.

01:21:16 - Speaker A
Are you going to get calls of, like, can we have a franchise?

01:21:18 - Speaker C
I've already got oh, I've had those since 2020.

01:21:21 - Speaker A
Really?

01:21:21 - Speaker C
And it makes me very proud. But you have to be really organized to go down that journey, and I'm not quite there yet. We're going to probably open up some more locations, but franchise is a bigger word, for sure.

01:21:35 - Speaker A
Yeah, it is a very different model. Okay, well, follow on social media. We'll make sure that there's handles in there. I'm sure that you will admire and crave, because the donuts are beautiful as cool.

01:21:47 - Speaker C
Yeah, we didn't even talk about the donuts. They're awesome. They taste phenomenal.

01:21:49 - Speaker A
Donuts are cool looking, and that food's always fun to follow on social, so do that for sure. And then located in Omaha, Nebraska. Yeah. All right. We always wrap up with some rapid fire questions.

01:22:01 - Speaker C
Shoot.

01:22:02 - Speaker A
Shoot them at you. Okay, here we go. What do you think is the biggest misconception about owning a business?

01:22:09 - Speaker B
That it's easy and you're rich and you're rich and life is just carefree.

01:22:16 - Speaker C
None of it.

01:22:17 - Speaker B
A lot of it is much harder and much more stressful than working a normal job.

01:22:24 - Speaker A
Yeah, I've heard that one, too, for sure. What's your favorite kickback and relax beverage? And do you have it with a donut?

01:22:32 - Speaker C
Vodka? No, Jack.

01:22:36 - Speaker B
I just like water.

01:22:37 - Speaker A
Just water?

01:22:38 - Speaker B
Okay.

01:22:39 - Speaker A
This is good. The self care is paying off over here. She's like, vodka, and he's like, I think a healthy choice is water. Love it. Is there any or all of these? Is there a song, book, or podcast that's just really inspiring you right now or recently?

01:22:56 - Speaker C
You think I have three.

01:22:57 - Speaker B
Oh, boy.

01:22:58 - Speaker C
Rich dad, poor dad.

01:23:00 - Speaker A
Oh, good one.

01:23:01 - Speaker C
Well, depending on the topic. Unreasonable Hospitality and the Seven Habits by Stephen Covey.

01:23:06 - Speaker A
Nice.

01:23:07 - Speaker C
1 minute manager. I'll throw that in there, too. Oh, yeah, those are my those are some good ones.

01:23:11 - Speaker A
I haven't read all of them, but.

01:23:12 - Speaker B
I've heard them big time right now. I don't have any.

01:23:15 - Speaker A
No?

01:23:16 - Speaker C
All right.

01:23:17 - Speaker A
Do you have a music genre you like? I feel like usually back of house kitchens, there's usually something jamming on.

01:23:23 - Speaker B
Our kitchen is pretty diverse when it comes to music. We have everybody who likes things from, like, gangster rap all the way to country.

01:23:31 - Speaker A
Nice. So it's a mix kind of rotated.

01:23:33 - Speaker C
Around a lot through yeah.

01:23:36 - Speaker A
If you perform well, you get to choose the next song. What excites you the most about the future?

01:23:44 - Speaker C
For me, it's creating an opportunity or a lifestyle for my children that I did not have.

01:23:51 - Speaker A
Cool.

01:23:52 - Speaker B
I would say just the opportunity and the freedom to do the things that I want to do with my life.

01:23:59 - Speaker A
Yeah, it's cool. I love this double perspective generational family. It's been super wild and cool. What is something that people often get wrong about you.

01:24:12 - Speaker C
That I'm an extrovert? Not in any form or fashion of the word.

01:24:17 - Speaker A
Everyone thinks I'm the extrovert too.

01:24:20 - Speaker C
No, total introvert.

01:24:21 - Speaker A
Total introvert.

01:24:22 - Speaker C
Yeah. Don't. I go like this. Hide.

01:24:24 - Speaker A
I'm like, this was fun. You exhausted.

01:24:30 - Speaker B
I would say people think that I actually enjoy making donuts.

01:24:35 - Speaker A
Fair.

01:24:36 - Speaker C
Yeah.

01:24:37 - Speaker A
Actually, I loathe making. We hire people for that. All right, last one here. What do you think business owners can do to make the world a better place?

01:24:50 - Speaker C
Care and give back when they can?

01:24:54 - Speaker B
I would say that and just be genuine. I think it's not a lot, but the businesses that are, for lack of a better word, scummy or disingenuous, really bring a lot of other businesses down.

01:25:09 - Speaker C
I agree. Be authentic. Whatever it is, just be authentic.

01:25:16 - Speaker A
Own it. Love it. Well, thanks for coming on here and being authentic. Yes, well, thanks for having it so much. Awesome. So again. One more time. Because it's the title from Scratch create your recipe for happiness and success in business. I hope you sell a million copies because of this podcast.

01:25:30 - Speaker C
Thank you.

01:25:31 - Speaker A
We're not quite to a million visitors or listeners, so I'm not sure.

01:25:34 - Speaker C
I haven't even promoted it yet, so it's still in its infancy of promotion.

01:25:38 - Speaker A
First promotion.

01:25:39 - Speaker C
Thank you.

01:25:39 - Speaker A
Love it. I'm excited to read it. So thanks for bringing a copy in.

01:25:42 - Speaker C
Absolutely.

01:25:43 - Speaker A
And thanks for just both being here and bringing such great perspective. I just think it's hugely valuable. And to your point, that ingredient there, just making sure you share that with them, so yeah.

01:25:53 - Speaker C
Thanks, Vivian.

01:25:54 - Speaker A
All right.