EXPERIENCE 214 | Building Teams & Community, One Scoop at a Time - Jessica Dizmang, Owner of Ben & Jerry’s Fort Collins, Denver, and Boulder Locations and 2024 Operator of the Year

This week, I was pleased to be joined by Jessica Dizmang, the Owner/Operator of the ONLY three franchised Ben & Jerry’s locations in Colorado, with scoop shops located in Fort Collins, Denver, and Boulder.  Her father had a career in corporate franchising, with a stop at Ben & Jerry’s, and made her aware of an opportunity in Boulder.  She was a fresh college graduate, and very not inclined to work at an ice cream shop - but a couple months later, in March of 2002, she became part-owner and operator of the Pearl Street Ben & Jerry’s location.

23 years later, Jessica has developed a three-piece set of thriving locations on the Colorado Front Range, each with an empowered team.  In 2024 she was named the Operator of the Year, and we explore her many lessons and learnings from along the journey.  And - she’s a LoCo Think Tank member!  

Don’t miss Free Cone Day, April 8 at Ben & Jerry’s locations around the nation, and please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Jessica Dizmang.  

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This week, I was pleased to be joined by Jessica Dismay, the owner operator of the only three Ben and Jerry's locations in Colorado with Scoop shops located in Fort Collins, Denver, and Boulder. Her father had a career in corporate franchising with a stop at Ben and Jerry's and made her aware of an opportunity in Boulder. She was a fresh college graduate, not very inclined to work at an ice cream shop, but a couple months later in March of 2002, she became part owner and operator of the Pearl Street, Ben and Jerry's location. 23 years later, Jessica has developed a three piece set of thriving locations on the Colorado front range, each with an empowered team. In 2024, she was named the operator of the year, and we explore her many lessons and learnings from along the journey. And she's a loco think tank member. Don't miss free Cone day April 8th at Ben and Jerry's locations around the nation and please enjoy as I did my conversation with Jessica Zing. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the Loco Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy. And through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Jessica Dizman. And Jessica is the owner of three local Ben and Jerry's shops. Correct. And, uh, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for, this is fun. My first time. First time on any podcast. First time on any podcast, first time in person. Yeah. Oh, well. Um, I promise to be gentle. I, wonderful would say 90% of my guests are first timers. All right. Honestly.'cause they're just inspiring business people, but that isn't like who's on the podcast or necessarily unless they're topically engaged. Right, right. Yep. Yeah. Well, and you're extra smart about a lot of things. I would hope. I like to think so. I don't know. Yeah. Well, we all like to think so. Even dumb people think they're smart. I like to surround myself with smart people. Yes. Is that a smart thing to do? Yes. Always. Always. Um, so I guess let's just start off with, uh, let's just kinda give a recap. You've got the Fort Collins, Denver, and Boulder. Is that true? Correct. Yep. Those three shops. And I started with Boulder in 2002, so I just celebrated 23 years of doing this. Um, yeah. Single store for a really, really long time. Uh, and then had the opportunity to pick up stores in Denver in 2019. Okay. There were two of them at the time. One in Park Meadows Mall and one by the DU campus. Okay. Uh, that was lovingly, uh, about eight months prior to Covid starting. Oh, perfect. And so, yeah, that was perfect. Did you, and so did you pay the full price and then It was pretty close. So we closed one store, so the shop that was in Park Meadows Mall, we decided to close, uh, in November of that year. And so kept the Denver location. And then in 22, got really lucky and was able to purchase the shop here in Fort Collins. And you live here in northern Colorado? Windsor, Windsor. Live in Windsor. And did you then, or, and you went down there or did you move up here after you got to Fort Collins? Nope. I have lived in Windsor basically since I moved here, so Oh, wow. Moved here in 2002. Again, same, same kind of time period as the Boulder shop. Uh, met my husband about two days after I moved here. Okay. And he was born and raised in Windsor. Oh. So we, we, I moved up here. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Cool. Any, uh, draw to try to move closer to those two locations or the first one in Boulder? No. You were like, eh, I like Windsor a lot. I liked Windsor a lot. Yeah. We like it up here. Um, boulder's too expensive for actually afford to buy a home, especially when you just had one ice cream store. Right. Um, and yeah, no, I, I, we love it up here. And it was his hometown. We weren't going anywhere. I would imagine there's a lot of difference between, I'm guessing it's a little bit like a subway shop. Not really, but like where if you have one subway, you pretty much have to be an owner, manager and work in the shop all the time. When you get to three, you kind of. Have to not be the manager as much anymore or how has that transition been for you? I think so, yeah. I think most people, franchisees in our system, I think, yes, if they own one shop, they are owner operators for the most part, right? They're scoop ice cream regular, they're scoop ice cream. Um, I would say that that's sort of what I did. I would say I kind of tag myself as what I call the glorified shift manager for about the first seven years that I had that shop. I was young, I was only 23 years old when I, when I took over that store, had absolutely no experience, had no idea what it meant to own a business, didn't know anything about it, had never worked in an ice cream store, was basically like here was an opportunity, jumped at it and was kind of thrown into it. Yeah. And so I didn't have any idea what I was doing and so I really just sort of learned how to do the day-to-day stuff. I had no idea what it meant to run a business or lead people very well. You know, I knew how to. Delegate. Um, but I, but I didn't know how to, I didn't know how to run an organization and so it took me a really long time to, to kind of move out of that. We kind of say getting your head out of a dip case, and so we, okay. It took me a really long time to do that. Was it all bumping along on your own or did you start to seek like education, reading books, listening? Well, they weren't even really podcasts at that time, right? No, it was really bumping along on my own. Yeah. Um, it was, it was, that was, that's a good description of it. Um, I like to tease with local think tank. It's nice to learn from other people's mistakes Once in a while. Yes. Instead of just your own. Had I known'em at Local Think Tank, I think it's funny, I was reading, uh, I was engaging with somebody through a LinkedIn post actually just this past week, and they were talking about peer groups and I had mentioned that I had, you know, I've been a part of this for the last year or so, not quite. And she was mentioning how it would be great if there was something for new, new entrepreneurs, new people starting this. And my response was if you could get new entrepreneurs doing that, you know, out of the business and into doing that. Yeah. I think that that's a challenge for brand new people who are just entering the, that work type of work. Yeah, totally. I mean, you wanna just throw yourself into it. You're in what we call our thinkers chapters, which is kind of the mid sizers and the builders is kind of that solopreneurs up to, you know, maybe three or four employees, kind of. Mm-hmm. But you're still pedaling a lot. Yep. Um. Part of the rule. It's, it's not just a startup, you know, you have to have customers, you gotta have some things figured out.'cause otherwise, if you're in pure startup mode and God bless them, but you're just too much of a dumpster fire kind of, for, you can't, we can't allow that much disruption into our chapters. You're just so into it. I mean, your head, that's where your soul focus is going into your business. Yeah. And I think even with franchises or with groups, with businesses like mine, I think when you only have one, you're not really making enough money very often. Um, especially with pricing and inflation these days. You just, if you're not working in the shop all the time, you're just, there's no way to actually make it financially sound. Yeah. Well, especially as labor rates have gone up and stuff like that. You're like, uh, yeah, I gotta pay$20 an hour or something. And I've been paying myself seven. Yeah. You know, ish. Well, and salaries right now is$60,000 in Colorado. Yeah. So if you ask have a salaried employee, you're paying them$60,000. Oh, is that right? Mm-hmm. That is a huge burden. It's it's a lot for a small business. Yeah. Which leaves them forced to rely on hourly employees and people to rely on up and down incomes and things like that. So you can't really create this stable environment'cause. Sorry, but I can only only pay about 40 for this position. Well, I mean, we've, we've made it work. Yeah. Um, and so I do have a general manager at all three of my locations. Um, I think the goal right now would be to potentially still know, don't know what the future holds. Right. But is to add, is to add more locations and actually spread that responsibility out amongst those three people. That's Yeah. They wanna grow. They want that. So, um, so that's, you, you're on a growth path. You would like to Yeah. Have nine locations with each of those three amazing managers. Nine sounds like a lot, but Yeah. Maybe five or six. Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. With those same three people helping me lead it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I Is there other Ben and Jerry's in Colorado? Do you have rights, do you have to acquire rights? How's that work for your organization? So, I'm the only franchisee in the state of Colorado. That's crazy. Yeah. There's, um, there's a shop in the airport, but that's a license agreement, so I'm not, I'm not eligible for that one and not sure that I would want it. Right. Not, I dunno anything about their financials or what that shop looks like or anything like that. But, um, so yeah, no, it is, it's, and you get about a two block radius, so there is, there is nothing. Oh, really? Like if you can build it, you can have it. Yeah. Basically. Interesting. But they also, I mean, I've talked to corporate, our corporate offices and Denver is an area that they'd be interested in growing. I would have basically first right to, to say yes or no. If I wanted a location. They don't find locations for us. Right. So that is something that we have to do if you wanna work on it. Yeah. Well it seems like go where the people are, I'm sure like. Out east, there's probably a lot of towns of 10, 20, 30,000 where there's a Ben juries. I think so I don't, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. The demographics. There's, there are a lot of community shops out on the east coast. Right. Um, more community. I would say our driving factor in Colorado is tourism. So we wanna be in an area that has a lot of tourism. Yep, yep. Um, that has kind of people with luxury dollars and they're on vacation and they're spending money. Yep. Yep. That seems to be our sweet spot. Like a Breckenridge or something might be. Pro Street. Pro Street's a really good example. Yep, yep. You know, we have from Memorial Day to Labor Day, we have kind of different set of eyes on our shop every single day. Yeah. Um, and that, that helps a lot. Theoretically, Estes Park, but there's such a bias toward local, locally owned kind of operations up there. If you did a, can you do a, could you do a non Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop in Estes Park? Not, and sell Ben and Jerry's. No. Yeah, I've looked at Estes. There's, yeah. If I could get a spot in Estes, I probably would do it. Um, like you probably learned about, enough about the ice cream business to buy some other good ice cream maybe, right? Yeah. Not, not give Ben and Jerry's their 9% or whatever. They're actually a really great franchisor to work for. And I think part of, part of having Ben and Jerry's is, is the brand name. Right. Obviously where it works, at least where it works. Um, the brand name is great. Um, we're known for, you know, very specific things, uh, ice cream being one of them. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and that helps in certain communities. Expand on that. Uh, yeah, I think it, most people know how Ben and Jerry's is very socially driven. Yeah. Very, um, very progressive company. Corporate responsibility is the first word that flashed in my Yeah. Thing. Or social responsibility kind of. Yeah. You know, business has a responsibility to give back to the community that, uh, which it draws its support, I think is the exact quote from, from Jerry. Yeah. Um, and we take that to heart. Oh. So you get some customers that are like, oh, like in Boulder, maybe even, even they're little, I mean, vort Collins is a fairly liberal town as well, but Boulder's even more so. So they're like, we're buying ice cream and we're buying it from Ben and Jerry's. I think there's a lot of people who, who do that. And I think just So there's a lot of brand value in general value. There's a lot of brand value in that. Yeah. Um, I was actually just at, I don't know, little plug, but founded in Foco. Yeah. And I was at one of the sessions, um, a marketing session on storytelling, and she said, in order for your message to work, you have to have lovers and haters. And I, I actually like highlighted it in my notes because Interesting. That is how Ben and Jerry's, because if you have haters and you put out a message, people are gonna, they're gonna complain about it. Yeah. Yeah. But then your supporters and your lovers are gonna back you and they're gonna actually make, make them more loyal. So I wonder how, I was just talking with, uh, with a guy, um, about the Tesla phenomenon right now. And like my friends with Tesla's getting hate notes under their windshield wipers and stuff like that, and dealerships getting firebomb and stuff five times this year. And it's like. I don't know how, where that goes. I, um, I don't either. And, you know, just two years ago, Musk was like the man of the year or something. I know, right? And so talk about a changing, uh, brand persona. No kidding. And it, but it, I mean, it just goes to show, I mean, our, our country's 50% divided right now. Right? Right. And so, um, and so it doesn't really matter what you do, there's gonna be 50% of your, of your audience that potentially hates what you say or what you do. Yeah. And so, um, and so that's fine, as long as you know that, and you can message them to the people who are your customer. Yeah. And make sure that your values are clear and that, and that's what they're gonna buy for. Go well and not drive away. Like when I think about Ben and Jerry's, like, I think of like, from a conservative person's perspective, I, I think those kind of hippie ice cream guys Right. But their ice cream is really good. Yeah. And they come up with clever names. Yeah. And so there's not, there's nothing there for me to like boycott Ben and Jerry's. Oh, there's a lot for a lot some people. Fair enough, fair enough. There's, there's a lot for some people. And that's fine. They're entitled to their opinion also. Yeah. As long as it's, you know, a a 5%, you know, a noisy 5%. Yeah. And then the rest of'em are still ice cream buyers or whatever. I think that that's a big part of our community in general, is that there's a loud minority, right? Oh yeah. Well, something like, like 95% of the Twitter traffic is the same. 500 people. Yeah. You know? Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that. I don't know if that's really true, but probably pre, maybe it's 10,000 people are Right. Right. It's certainly not the 2 billion that are, have an account or whatever. Right. Yeah. Most of the people are lurkers. Yeah. Um, and people that say something are usually on the more frenzy side. Yeah. So that's an interesting thing. Um, so you can kind of build however many Ben and Jerry's, you can figure out how to make profitable. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Depending on where you're at. Yep. Sure can. Okay. Mm-hmm. Fair enough. So that's kind of your strategic vision, right? Like the, the, the managers are in place, seems like you think they're all pretty awesome. Yep. And so now you gotta set about probably learning some expertise about traffic patterns, real estate opportunities where you can get high traffic without paying$47 triple nets. Yeah. That's where I'm spending my time right now is, is looking for different locations. Um, I think it's really interesting and it's been cool to see my kind of career path and, you know, going from where I said glorified shift manager to now there being days where it's like, what exactly is my job? Yeah. Um, I have, I have this great leadership team, all female leadership team. I have female general managers at all three of my stores. Um, they're wonderful. Do you wanna shout'em out? They've want Yeah. Alexis and Boulder Racey here in Fort Collins. Reyna down in Denver. Um, they've all been with me for a really long time. That's cool. Um, I, I guess five years plus on all three of'em. Awesome. Um. And they want, they want to grow and they wanna be successful within Ben, the Benning Jerry's organization as much as I do. Yeah. And so they're really driving me right now almost in, in kind of where we, where we go with this and sort of the why not us mentality. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I think it was really fun this past January we were at our annual meeting and they, they do an award ceremony on, on the Friday night of our, of our annual meeting. Um, RISI here in Fort Collins was honored with the manager of the year award. Oh wow. Um, all three of them have won it now, um, within the years past. Um, but, but I was, won our operator of the year for 2024, which was really, really, really, really amazing. Like, that was not something that I had on my Bingo card for this year or any other year really. That's awesome. Um, but it kind of shows that we're doing something right and we're building, we're building something out here that Yeah. Yeah. That is awesome. And also replicable then, so that we have the, we have the processes in place. We have the people in place. We're, we're also working EOS right now a little bit. Mm. Um, self implementing that and so kind of Right people, right seats. Yeah. And, and five year plans and one year plans and all of that kind of stuff. It is that, that hasn't turned up. Any concerns? You love those managers even more, they're in the right spot for you and stuff. I think so. Yeah. That's great. I think so. That's super cool. Yeah. I was thinking to myself as you were unfolding that story even before you started, actually I was thinking, I bet her operator of the year award acceptance speech, uh, mentioned heavily her. Uh, key team leads. I did not make an acceptance speech, but, um, nope. We just went up and, and celebrated on stage. Okay. But, but I brought them with me. Yeah, that's, that says it, that says it. Frankly. I brought them with me. Yeah, they, they, I would not have walked across that stage by myself. That is for darn sure. That's really cool. Well, congratulations. That's a high praise. And how do they, how do they criteria that? Is it like, there's judges, they could see who's making the most money, like how do they know? You know, it's not, it's not who's making the most money?'cause that was not me last year. Um, I, I don't know, to be quite honest with you, I do know that I've, I have heard that I. The kind of nomination and the, and the selection process for those awards are kind of a knockdown, drag out between field reps and, and some of the highest on the leadership team at corporate. Okay. Um, in the end, I think there was only five or six people throughout the entire company who even knows who wins. Um, and so until, until they announced it that night. Cool. And so it's kept a pretty big secret. I there's not a huge crowd, crowd of people who kind of make that decision, so. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, I can guarantee you our field rep, uh, Amy is, was a huge part. I had to that in nominating us and, and pushing for it. And she's been part of our org. Um, she's been leading my team in our, um, Colorado area, uh, probably for at least the last five years. Okay. Um, but she's been with organization too long time. It's almost a franchise e support. Yeah. It's where she's helping you figure out how to train and hire better and whatever else. We kind of run it by ourselves out here in Colorado, but yes. That is their, that is their role. They are kind of our contact, our liaison to corporate. Yeah. Um, they come out, they do evaluations for us, you know. Yeah. Once a year, twice a year if you don't do very well, but, so once a year for us for the last several years. Right. Um, and they just make sure that we're in compliance with what we're selling and how we're selling it. Yeah. Um. But they're, but they're valuable. You do your marketing things and stuff. We do most of like great flyers, posters. We do that here. Okay. Yeah. We do all of that locally and we can kind of create that. We have some, we have materials that we can use Sure. And send off and, and use that. But yeah, I mean, she'll come, it's not as flavorful as the ice creams. No. No it's not. She'll, but Amy comes out about twice a year, sometimes, maybe only once a year. And we sit down and have either quarterly meetings. She was at our retreat last year. I started doing retreats with our general managers. Yeah. Um, we've done three of them now. So we go to Colorado Springs for three or four days and really work on the business. Yeah. That's really neat. That's, I impressed you spend that much time intentionally working on it. You know, that's, and is that for the little solo shop operators and everybody? I, you know, it's not what I did when I was by myself. Okay. Um, and so I don't know, I don't, I don't know what the solo people do. Yeah. I mean, they have, some of'em have general managers. I don't know. I think that that probably is one of the reasons why, why we were honored with that award from this past year. Um, I spend a lot of time on development and personal growth of both myself and our team. Yeah. So, um, we have, you know, leadership meetings once a week, uh, during the off season when we're a little bit slower and we're kind of in more planning mode. We actually add in a book club. So we do leadership book club, um, oh, cool. And, and we alternate those then with those leadership meetings. And so we read personal development books, we've read Atomic Habits and we've read good one. You know, we read a lot of books that can kind of. Better ourselves. Yeah, yeah. Um, and then have conversations about how then they relate to us as, as in the jobs that we're doing also, how can we take those back and put them in, into implementation in our stores? And so that's really where I've kind of found my passion is leading those girls. Like they are amazing humans who want to do good in this world. And they, uh, they lead with empathy in their stores and in their communities, and I couldn't be more thrilled to have them on my side. That's really cool. Mm-hmm. Um, have you read Anti-Fragile, by the way? I think I have it on my shelf, but I haven't read it. I was listening to a presentation this morning at, found it in Foco, and the, the presenter was talking about how like when a tree gets. Uh, threatened by wind and almost gets knocked down. It if, if it doesn't, assuming it doesn't, its response is to grow its roots deeper. Mm-hmm. And to actually become stronger. And he said it was resilience and I was like, actually the word you're looking there for there is anti-fragile it'cause resilience. You go back to where you were uhhuh, you recover your, but anti-fragile is when you're tested, you actually get stronger as a result of that testing. That is that I'll to put that on my list because I so it's really cool book. I actually think it's on my shelf. Yeah, no, I think you would resonate with it as Yeah. Uh, for sure. So anyway, yeah. I mean when it came down to when, when we ended up with three stores and a general manager at all three stores, it came down to like what is, what is now my job? Yeah. If I'm not working in the shop, if I'm not, you're not a shift manager at all anymore. Right. If I'm not a shift manager at all anymore and I still do all of our own, all of our bookkeeping. So I still do that for all three stores. Um, I work pretty closely with Rena down in Denver, does all of our catering management also. So I work pretty closely with her trying to figure out how to build the catering side of our business. Um, and networking. I've started doing the last couple of years I've really gotten more into networking. Yeah. Which I never was before. Just being out in the community. And has that been fulfilling to you? I love it. Awesome. I love it in so many ways. Not from the networking side. Yeah. I honestly haven't built my business yet at all from it. Um, with the exception of saying I think it's just made me a better person I think. Um, like I said before, surrounding myself with smarter people than I am. Um. There's something to be said about the whole, you know, you are the, the five top people you spend your time with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and there's, there's something to be said about that. And so I just needed to get around peers and like-minded people. Um, more business oriented, business growth type people. Yeah. And it, and it took me a little while to find'em, but I'm, I'm on my way. Well, I'm honored to be part of that in your journey. And, uh, yeah, we just, uh, our exchange student had to watch Goodwill Hunting for a class, so me and Jill and Lenny watched Goodwill Hunting the other night, and that's kind of the core of that whole story. You know, he was like the super smart kid hanging out with, you know, he was the hero to all his friends, and that's a lovely place to be, but it doesn't propel him much forward, you know? Yeah. And same for all of us. Uh, not that I'm a hero to all my friends. You, you know who you're Well, I'm looking forward to seeing how that expands. What's the, the ice cream environment? Uh, I'm, I was thinking about like Bask and Robbins. There used to be a lot more like froyo shops and stuff. Consumer habits and trends have changed a lot. Is there more or fewer Ben and Jerry's than there was five years ago? We have constricted a little bit. Okay. Um, but not much. I think there's still 225 in the country. Okay. Um, and. There were some problems, we had some development agreements. I think there were some bad stores that probably opened because they were kind of locked, people were locked into development agreements at, at a time. I think Ben and Jerry's had a different strategy for growth and maybe it wasn't necessarily the right one. Yep. Um, and so I think we've got great ones now. I think we are still, we are looking now to grow in certain areas, the brand. Um, ultimately I think it comes down to people, if you're going to have a treat, you wanna have a really good treat for the most part. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mean there are people who enjoy their frozen yogurt and they're frat free and their low fat and all that kind of stuff. Sure. Yeah. We have, um, Ben and Jerry's has gone into different markets in terms of frozen yogurt than we had Greek frozen yogurt. You know, we had, we tried them all. Yeah. Yeah. And then ultimately we backed off of all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the one that is really sticking in, Ben and Jerry's is becoming a really big player in the market, and forgive me for not having all the exact information, but is the non-dairy line. Mm. And we have a really, really good non-dairy line. There's a lot of flavors. Um, I think we'll have three in scoop shops this year. Okay. Um, is it coconut based or is it Um, it is almond, it is oat milk now. Oat milk. Milk. So, yep. We just reformulate all of them. So we have, that's my favorite of the fake milks generally is oak milk, depending on sometimes coconut, but Yeah. Well we started with an almond butter one and then we had a sunflower butter one. Oh, interesting. Um, and then just for ease of manufacturing, they were like, we need to have just one base. Yeah. Um, they did a lot of research and they came up with this oat milk and it's really good. Good. It's really good. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that is just growing, that, that segment of the industry is just really growing. I was just thinking it might be controversial in today's world, but uh, doing like, uh, a raw milk ice cream would be an interesting thing. Uh, you know, label it the, uh, RFK special or something like that. I dunno. Um, I don't wanna try that. I don't think, might not, might not fit quite exactly with the, uh, cultural times. Yeah. Maybe not, but uh, yeah. That's interesting. None the west, right? Well, it is. And well, because I imagine that's gonna be a headwind for Ben and Jerry's the, you know, make America healthy again, kind of notion. Um, and. Yeah. What I think you just said is kind of the nullify to that. Like if you're gonna have a treat, which, which we all are gonna from time to time, have a treat, make it a really good one. Yeah. And, and kind of a relatively wholesome one and Yeah. And, and splurge. And I think that's also what people are doing right now is really buying with their dollars, right? Yeah. I think people are really, are spending their money with companies that they align with Yeah. Their values. And I think it's one of the reasons Ben and Jerry's has been so successful. I think it is kind of the, the proven model of, um, you know, we can do good things and we can be socially conscious and also make money. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think it's kind of been sort of the textbook case for, for how to do that. Yeah. And I think in today's, I'm kind of excited for our shops for this next year actually. Um, kind of recession and inflation aside dependent. Yes. Um, it's, it will be interesting to see how customers respond to a company like ours that is so outspoken on how they want the world to kind of go. Yeah. Well, I think what's really interesting, not to, to flash forward to politics, but we've kind of been brushing against it, but like the Bernie Sanders kind of populist movement from the left and the, and the Trump populist movement from the right. Both have that populous kind of expression. And, and that's ultimately like if you can get the population excited around social responsibility. Yep. And. And, and that's one of the challenges of the current time with the, with the Doge and stuff. And you got all these fake dollars floating around and all this seeming graft of sorts, you know, NGOs founded by senators, sister-in-laws that get huge grants a year after they were founded and stuff like that. It's like, okay. Um, but that's not socially responsible either. No. Right. And, and spending and having a government that spends random things in random places all the time is not socially responsible. No. Nor ethical. Right, right, right. You know, I think that that's a hard part about where we're at as a society right now. It's like, it seems like at least 90% of the people agree on where we want to be and what is actually the right percent, the right end goal, but for some reason there's this disconnect on how we get there. Yeah. And uh, and like, man, if you could be a fly on the wall or whoever can figure out how to bridge that gap right now, um, would be wonderful. You know, the scene might be set a little bit, you know, and maybe, you know, you can hate me if you'd want to about Trump, but he is probably the singular figure that could confront the Republican side of the uni party and the apparatus and beat it and then kind of come back around, get thrown all kinds of stuff at him. And now basically he made the Democratic party self-destruct itself by being only focused on Orange Man. Bad for, yeah, I a while, I mean, it feels like both parties have self-destructed, to be honest. Yeah. So they're both kind of in a state of. Upheaval, upheaval. And so, but maybe we're better as a society to have at least we should have two organized sides now that we don't even know. I know. I, it does feel like both sides are definitely unified in their sides. Kind of, I don't know. Every si every, but it doesn't make logical sense where, where it's ordered in some ways now. No, it doesn't. And what doesn't make logical, like Democrats, like Democrats were always the people who were concerned about corporate responsibility and different things like that a while back. Yeah. Now they're not, you know? Yeah. The war party has shifted from the Republicans to the, I guess the, just a few of the Republicans, the Democrats now, uh, who knows. Who knows. And that's part of the problem is can you trust what anybody's saying anymore? No. So that's the biggest problem. That's the biggest problem. Right. And so, I digress. I yeah. I mean, I, I don't, but being a brand that stands for something and stands for people Yeah. And good causes and empathy and compassion and just like equality, right? Yeah. Like, it's, it's not a hard thing to, it doesn't seem like a hard thing to be, to be for. Does a, uh, does a a sharp young man have a chance of progressing in your, uh, female dominated leader leadership team? Of course, yes, of course. That sort of just happened by, by accident. But, um, of course we did have a, we did have a. We did have a gentleman, um, assistant manager for a little while at one of the shops, and yeah. We're, we're not, you're not that bad. No. I'm teasing a little bit. No, I've worked in, uh, well, it is a different power structure, but the start of my career, I worked in banking and like at my second job in Worthington, Minnesota, it was me and the bank president and one other dude and 27 ladies, you know, but all the, all the high paid people, maybe it was four dudes, I think, but all the high paid people were the dudes and all the low paid people were the ladies. Yep. And I don't know, it was a, I don't know, I, it was over time I really enjoyed seeing banking develop into a more par mm-hmm. Industry. Mm-hmm. And I was, it was definitely progressing as I got there. And even when I, when I started my career, the lady bankers were like, Kurt, you're such not a misogynist. Like, how did you get into this industry? Um, but it's really changed a lot. And so, like, even just the other day, Nicole Stodinger, uh, yesterday won the most influential, uh, business leader in the finance category. Wow. Um, and I don't know that name. Sorry. Uh, she's the boss lady at First Bank. Okay. Like over basically everything north of Denver. Okay. And, uh, she and I were both in the 30, under 30, uh, about 20 years ago. Congratulations, uh, Nicole. Congrats on your prize from Biz West last night. Yeah. Uh, if you're listening to this, but, so the, maybe it's not quite equal, but there's definitely, I would say. Among the business lenders in the marketplace today, it's probably 35 to 40%. Ladies. Now, you know, I don't, I'm not sure of that number. I was at a meeting last week, um, with a woman who's in the financial sector and she was just introducing herself. And so she only had about 30 seconds to speak. And if I heard her correctly, I believe she said that about$35 trillion in, in wealth is going to be changing hands to females Yeah. In the next decade. Yes. That's, and they will, so they will become the most wealthy segment of people For sure. On the planet. Yeah. Yeah. Um, in the next decade. So that's, I mean, it's significant, but I'm not sure it's relevant because I think that women have been making most of the buying decisions for a long time anyway, possibly from the consumer economy standpoint. Possibly. Yeah. Yeah. But now, but now that, yeah, now they have the money to actually make that and Yeah. Are they gonna put it into stocks or are they gonna buy bitcoins? Right. That's a big questions mark for the stock market.'cause you know, 10 years ago, like there wasn't any place for the stock market to go but up because all these retirees were dumping their assets and the baby boomers were coming to be that age. Yep. And now it's like, okay, well where do you put your money? Well, yeah. And not just from the females, but from the millennials who are starting to come up. Right. For sure. Are they, are they just kind of taking their money and hoarding their money and going to like, travel the world or Right. What are they gonna do with it? Right. Well, and because, you know, it wasn't that long ago. Five, or maybe call it 15 years ago. Maybe six months salary could give you a down payment for a house. Not anymore. Now it's like a year and a half. Yeah. Or something of one person's normal salary and then you got a good down payment. Right. Um, and so it's, yeah, it's untenable. And so I guess, yeah. I might as well screw around and travel the world. It's gonna be such an interesting combination of forces as money, like what money is. Um, you know, and we got the, the reserve currency here in the United States and, and Bitcoin and gold is up over$3,000 an ounce now, I think. Right. I don't know. It, it's pretty, that's high. It's pretty high. Yeah. And so, like, what is money? Right, right. Especially with di I mean I, the whole Bitcoin and crypto, like, I don't understand at all. So I don't either. I can't even, but you basically go get it with energy, you have to gotta mine it. You gotta like run computers. It's basically just like gold mining. Yeah. But with gold mining, you dig it out of the dirt, you have something physical. Yeah. You have a physical thing. Yeah. But with bitcoin, you, you have your computer go dig it out of the, the ethos. Yeah. No, I don't. And so we have all these data centers and like things and spinning just so people can go dig bitcoins outta the imaginary universe. Right. So that doesn't make a lot of sense for me either. Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't compute in my head. I digress. Um, so you've got kind of a, a maybe a five year plan to get up to four, then five, then six stores kind of. Is that a fair Yeah. A five year plan is to have five stores and a thriving catering business. That's okay. That's the plan for. Uh, yeah. Five years from this past catering being Ice Cream Catering. Yep. Okay. Yeah. So we, we you're not gonna make hot dogs or Nope. You know, do anything else but Nope. Ice cream catering. So yeah, we, we go to your place and scoop cups and cones. We have par, uh, Sunday parties, deluxe Sunday parties. We bring cookies and brownies. Oh. Um, I might want to hire you for, uh, April 24th at the Hutch, uh, Hutch Home Co. Okay. The former Green Cycle. Yeah. Um, it's one of our members in next level and we're gonna do a local social Awesome. And, uh, so it seems like we might as well have some ice cream since you're like literally a hundred yards away from his location. Awesome. That sounds great. I'll even walk over and carry it over with you or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's so, yeah. Easy peasy. We do, I mean, we've done events from five to over 3000 so far. Okay. And we could do more than that, so yeah. We're excited about building that business. Okay, cool. Imagine that's, it's just a little cooler, right.'cause you can't put all the ice cream out right away'cause then you got cold milk. Yeah. You know, I mean, we definitely try and limit the timelines on them. Yeah. So, especially during the summer times. Um, but yeah, for the most part, the way we do it is we just do it at our, at our coolers. Yeah. Um, put some more ice creams up and Yeah. Let start getting low. We put some more up. Yeah. There's some, there's some shops that are, that do, you know, they bring kind of a much bigger setup and they have either trailers, some, a lot of stores do trailers or, or vans and they'll mm-hmm. So they do it outside. Um, some places do have kind of carts that they'll scoop out of the cart. Mm. Mm-hmm. Um. We try and keep it as simple as possible. Yeah. Why? It allows us also to get into more places. Right. We can be inside, we can be outside, and it just seems a little bit easier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Yeah. I love it. Okay. Well, I will, uh, yeah, you got, you got a gig already. All right. Just right here. Sounds good. Oh, and well, should we talk about, while we're thinking about it right now, the, uh, national Free Ice Cream Scoop Day or whatever is coming up Free Cone Day. Yeah. So Free Cone Day is on Tuesday, April 8th. Yep. Um, this is an annual thing. They've been doing it since 1979. We missed, um, 2020 and 2021 from Covid and then from a supply standpoint in 21. Okay. Um, and so, oh, just couldn't get enough ice cream cones kind of thing? I, yeah. Ice cream cones, every, everything, everything. Like, it was just still kind of a Yeah. Those are the only two years since 1979 we've missed. Okay. Um, and it really is kind of, when we're talking about that socially social mission side side of it, it's really is a way for us to give back to the community. Yeah. That supports us all year long. That was why it was started. Um, Ben and Jerry did it, it was on their one year anniversary. Oh, wow. From when they, so they opened in an abandoned gas station in 1978. They always said, if we make it one year, we're scooping ice cream for everybody in the town. And so they did that and it, we still are doing it today. How fun. And so, yep. So this year, Tuesday, uh, April 8th, it's from 12 to eight. Um, and so we open late, we close early, but we're doing free ice cream for eight hours that day. I love it. Um, we partner with the nonprofit. That's sort of the way that we do, can come through the line more than once. You sure can. You just have to wait in line, but you can come through as many times as you want to. All right. All right. Um, and we collect donations for a local non-air nonprofit. Okay. And so we align with different organizations every single year. Typically, the way it's been is all three shops have kind of. Organ or partnered with a kind, coalesce, coalesce its own. Yeah. Well, in the past they've done their own organizations. All right. Um, more local. This year, all three shops are working with Planned Parenthood of Rocky Mountain. Okay. And so, yeah. So all three shops will be working with Planned Parenthood. So all of the donations that come in that day will then be, go back to them. Okay. We also ask whoever is our nonprofit, we actually ask that they come in and do the scooping. So we have signup sheets and they actually come in and scoop for the entire day. Oh, well that's nice. Wait for them to engage with the community. Yeah. It's really about building awareness for them as well as, you know, the financial side of it is, is the financial side of it. We try and do the best we can and getting as much money as we can, but whoever we partner with, we just really wanna raise awareness for what they're doing. Yeah. Fair enough. Mm-hmm. Um, and this podcast will actually come out on April 5th. Wonderful. So for those of you that, uh, listen to the first three days of its release, you will know about the frequent day. Yes. If not, you'll know about it next year. Yes. Yes. Typically in April, Tuesday and April. First Tuesday usually every year. Tuesday, not, it's not the first Tuesday, it's just a Tuesday in April. The date is usually because of holidays in April around the world. Yeah. Don't put it on Easter kind of, and what stuff like that. Yeah. And there's a lot of, and it's a worldwide event, so we do it at Scoop shops across the world. And so there's a lot of organizing in terms of what date you do it on. Oh, is it just been and Jerry's or is this for, okay. Is it how many Ben and Jerry's around the world? I don't know that. Okay. I don't know the answer. You said there's 230 or something around here? Yeah, something like that. 225, 230 here in the United States. Okay. But yeah, six, it's significant more than a hundred. Yes. So Ri London, all those kind of fancy places. Australia. Yeah. Interesting. Mm-hmm. Okay. I guess every place everybody likes, uh, ice cream, frozen ice cream. Preet. Yeah. Or non ice cream or dairy. Yeah. Non-dairy. Nondairy dessert. Non-dairy. Frozen dessert. I like it. Um, well that's exciting. Yes. Um, I will, uh, mark it on my calendar. Ava, remind me after this show here to put free Cone Day. It's our favorite day of the year. If I, if I put 90 minutes aside, can I come through at least twice, do you think? Usually, yeah. We, maybe three times. We have a really good plan. Okay. We have it, we have it down pat. We've had, we've had people tell us before, like, this is the fastest I've ever been through free Cone day line. And I've been through free Cone day lines across the country. I know we know how to do it. We get through people quickly. We got a lot of volunteers. We have a lot of volunteers. I like it. Yep. Um, should we flash back to those like early, like just before you started the business time a little bit before we jump all the way back? Ah. Or do you wanna jump, jump all the way back? Let's just jump all the way back. Okay. Because I know you had a family connection, I'm remembering from when we first got acquainted to the Ben and Jerry's organization. So let's just zoom back to you as three years old or five years old, or whenever you start remembering things. Hmm. Yeah. So I grew up on Long Island. Okay. Uh, I was a pretty competitive athlete. I played soccer all through college. Okay. Um, ran, um, track and track through high school. Um, and so, but where did you land as a 5-year-old? Like, what was your circumstance? You were born, born and raised there. Born, uh, born in Minnesota. Moved to Chicago when I was six months old. Moved to Long Island when I was three. So about Long Island's, all you remember. Oh, long Island's. All I remember. Okay. Um, I have an older brother, uh, Paul. He's eight years older than me. Oh, wow. Okay. And me and his family live outside of Nashville. Okay. And I have a sister who is six years older than me. She and her family, well they live outside of Boston. Her kids are actually grown now, and one's outta college, one's at American University. Okay. Um, so yeah, I was kind of the baby. Um, yeah. Were were you an Oopsie? No, I was very much planned. Okay. All right. My parents were young when they had my brother and sister and they're like, Hey, let's have one more. My dad was in the Army. Um, my brother and sister were actually born in Germany while he was, while he was stationed over there. Um. And so I think that they went, once they kind of moved home and got settled with a real, he got settled a real job. They were from there. He was from there. Um, they decided, yeah, they wanted to do it without all of this chaos of war and army and all of that stuff. Sure. So, I mean, and having a little bit more time on their hands too, or not time on their hands, but age wise. Um, so yeah, no, I was not an oopsie. I was definitely planned. Um, sorry to ask that question, but No, I, it's a legitimate question for sure. I, I've asked my, uh, I, I was first and then my brother's two years, my sisters five years, and then another five years before my last brother Uhhuh. And he was an oopsie. He was an Yeah. Yeah. He was an acknowledged oopsie right from the start, you know? Yeah. No, and I, I shared with our kids, if there's another kid, it's an oopsie. Just so you know, if you listen, see this an future, there's an oopsie. Um, yeah. Uh, I don't, it was your dad in. In Ben and Jerry's organization already? No, no, he was, he was working for Weight Watchers at the time. Oh, interesting. That's actually what brought us from Chicago to New York. Oh, interesting. He works for the Hez company and who owned Weight Watchers, and so he was, he's always was on the franchisor side. Okay. So he was in kind of in charge of, uh, weight. That's a franchise too. Yeah. So he was in charge of the weight washers franchises for a while. Okay. Um, so that's what took us like a district manager or kind of a big No, he was the di, like the director of retail operations for Oh wow. I think that was his title. I don't know if that was the exact title, but something along those lines. How did he like, he was just a military guy like six years before He was a really smart guy. Yeah. Uh, he was a really smart guy. Uh, he is a really smart guy, so, um, yeah, he was, he he just picks things up. Yeah. He just knows. I mean, when, so he actually, he understands things. Enlisted, my dad enlisted in the Army because he didn't wanna be drafted and then be told where he, where he had to go and, and what he was gonna do. So he enlisted to try in Vietnam. Vietnam, yeah. So he enlisted my dad was like a month away from enlisting because he wanted the same. Yep. And then they ended, you know, they, they stopped the draft. Yeah. So and so that's why I was born or something. Yeah. So he enlisted, so he had a little bit of a say in where he could go. Yeah. And he ended up taking a linguistics test and passed it with like flying colors, which he had no. Education in that space. He didn't have anything. Yeah. And so he became a Russian linguist. Oh, wow. And so they moved out to California when they got first got married and he went to linguistic school. Um, and, and yeah, learned Russian, um, beside, you know, the special agents who were like learning basically how to kill people in six weeks and being shipped off to who knows if they came home. And so that's what he did. And then that's, he, they went to Germany and he listened to, uh, whatever he listened to. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't exactly know what he did over there. I know he had a red, he had one of the red phones to the president. Okay. Like that's, he didn't, but his, his office did. Yeah. Yeah. So he's was just a really, really smart guy. People picked up on his smartness right away and, and probably his dedication as well, or whatever. So yeah, we've had conversations about, um, about his time in the military and leaving. And he kind of, you know, had he, had he done it differently, he probably would've stayed in the military longer or been liked to have been an officer in the, in the military, but he didn't, so he got out. Yeah. And then kind of where he landed and how he got where he was. But eventually the, yeah, eventually he got into kind of leading franchise organizations and, you know, he was not the president of Weight Watchers or anything, but he had a good job and Yeah. Yeah. You know, he had, he worked a lot. We had a good childhood. Mom was probably able to not work, or she wanted to. She did. She wanted, she did she, yeah. She kind of had side jobs, you know, receptionist type jobs. Yeah. My whole life. Um, yeah, she worked in a couple different companies. Um, yeah, she, no, she worked too. Um. I, I think the sports part of it was, was kind of created the leadership part of me. Like I, I learned how to, well, first of all, I learned they had to work really hard, first of all. Yeah. Yeah. If you wanna be a, a high end athlete yeah. You have to work really, really hard. Um, but what I learned too was just to lead by example through that, you know, that, that, you know, the best way to get people to kind of follow you is to be the hardest worker. Mm. Um, and so I, yeah, I mean, I did that. I was, you know, captains and I played varsity all four years of high school and then went on and we created kind of a really competitive club team. Oh. I went to the University of Michigan, so, okay. Um, which didn't have a, you didn't, they had a club team that was not very well organized. Okay. Um, and so same, I, I sort of had chance meetings that led to really great things. So I met somebody on my first night that I was on campus who I had said something about playing soccer and he was like, I'm the assistant coach for the club soccer team tryouts. Like, do you wanna try out tomorrow? Yeah. So what was cool about that was there was about six or seven freshmen that were playing that year that really wanted something more than just kind of a club rec league. Yeah. Yeah. Who wanted to play competitive soccer and we're at the University of Michigan, I mean. Yeah. You know, like you had the five, fab Five was, uh, yeah, I guess it was five or 10 years later probably. But maybe not, maybe it was not our time. No, they were, they were a little bit earlier than me. I think it was. Okay. I thought so. They were for me, they, I, yeah, yeah. I was there 96 to 2000. Fab Five was probably the early nineties. Yeah. Yeah. So they, they this example of a bunch of freshmen coming in and I don't know if they won the championship, but they went to the Final Four. They did? Yeah. I don't know if they, yeah. Um, but it really was also like. Uh, just we want, we wanted to be com we wanted to compete and, and we're at this huge school that, of course, aside from the varsity team, that there's going to be some really good other soccer players. Right, right. Like, like, we're not all gonna be playing varsity sp sports. So, um, we, so we ended up actually kind of hiring coaches and, um, from the time that I was a freshman to my senior year, we went to nationals. We came in second. Whoa. In national, is that my fir my, by my senior year. And then the club team actually went on and they, they won nationals like the next two or three years in a row. Wow. So we really built this foundation team. Well, you reformed it from within. Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. It was great. It was a cool experience. Have you done the Enneagram test thing? I have. But you're not a reformer. It feels like you're a reformer. Yes. I think that, like, you see, you wanna make it better. Yes. I think that is my, I think that's exactly who I am. I also am starting doing human design work. Okay. And I, my human design is very much that I see problems and I, and I know what needs to be done to fix it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I dig it. Yeah. Is that like kind of part of your superpower even within, like, once you got your head out of the The dip case? The dip case, yeah. Yes. I wanted the right terminology there. Yeah. Um. Like seeing and looking around and being like, okay, now I can do this and I can do that. I can, I think so I think it's taken me a little while to get there. Yeah. But yes, I think now having a, having this great leadership team, I think it's easier for me to guide them in the, in where, where they should be spending their time. Yeah. We talk a lot about how they wanna be leading and managing their teams, but it starts with time management. It starts with, you know, what are their goals? And so we set, we talk a lot about goals and I can mm-hmm. Yeah. And sometimes they're hard conversations, you know, and it's not just business goals, right. Like it's personal goals too, showing up all the way. Yeah. No, we talk a lot about, about the worklife balance, which I kind of hate that word, but also like, that's the best way to describe it. Um, I want to make sure that they are getting away from work and I am like, I am clear about like, go away this weekend and shut off your phone. Yeah. Like, don't, it's okay. It's okay. And I want them to be able to do that. And so, yeah. We have a lot of those conversations. I like it. Yeah. I like it. So we were, you were club teaming it up. Oh. What did you go to school for? I got my BA in, um, organizational studies. Okay. Graduated in 2000. Alright. Um, moved back home to Long Island. Um,'cause no job and no money and no place to live. You tried to find a job and tried to figure it out, but there wasn't really a thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I had no idea what my major was gonna allow me to do. Yeah. Like, I didn't, I I was, you know, a glorified liberal arts degree is the best description of it. Um, and so I started applying and, um. For jobs in Manhattan and ended up getting something at this private hedge fund. Okay. Um, and so I commuted for the first, I don't know, four or five months or so until I found a doing Yeah. Doing nothing of significance, to be quite honest with you. They had no idea what they wanted to hire me for. So it was this like a hundred million dollars hedge fund. Okay. That was owned by like a 27 or 28-year-old maybe. Okay. And then his partner was probably 42 maybe. And, um, the 42-year-old Jeff, um, great guy. He for some reason decided he needed somebody to go through all of their emails on all of the companies that they potentially might be titrating and have them all filed away. So they hired me to do that. Okay. To print off like every single email they ever got and file it away again. This is like 2000. Right. So we're like, we're still kind of the tech on the verge of the technological bubble. Yeah. And so filing cabinets in Manila folders and like that, that's what they wanted you to do. And about six weeks into doing that, I was. You are never ever going to look at one of these emails ever. Right. Ever. It was never gonna happen. And see what these things are. They're called folders so you could just put it in there. Yeah. And so it was really silly. And so I sort of became just the office. Like go-to person, goer. Yeah. Just sort of, they, they wanted me around, they liked me, but they didn't really have anything for me to do. And so it sort of kind of evolved into different things. And so finally the back office person, you're like, why did you get that job? Uh, I will tell you why I got that job. I mean, you're really pretty still. Uh, but I've, they just want a pretty girl in the office kind. I got that job because Jeff saw on my resume, okay, again, and remember I was 21 or 22 years old, right. I was brand new. Like I had had jobs, I had worked since I was in high school. But you know, nothing of significance. Um. I had done a dance marathon at the University of Michigan where we were, it was a fundraiser for 36 hours. Okay. Where no sleep and no sitting down and no, whatever you danced for 36 hours. I mean, I was on my feet for 36 hours. Wow. And Jeff thought that that was the coolest thing he had ever heard in his entire life. I love it. And so literally out of the entire interview, that was what he picked out. And he was like, you're hired because, tell me more. That's the coolest thing. And so, you know, I have to say that, that um, one of our, one of our members at Loco is the, the part of the band that made our, makes our lead in music A brothers Fountain Uhhuh. And they did a, a fundraiser for the homeless cause in, uh, Fort Collins, but, and they did 24 hours in the old town main stage. Yeah. Where somebody was making music for 24 hours in a row. How awesome is that? And uh, when I heard that, I was like, well, you're qualified to be in Lookout thing, think, want, you're cool. Yeah. Like, so kudos to like having the pa Can we back up? Yeah. Like what was so driving that, that was worthy cause for you at that time? I'm not gonna lie, I actually don't remember. It probably was a children's hospital. Okay. Um, was, I think was the, was the grantee of that. Um, and. I, you know, like why not? Why not? Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, again, I was probably 20 years old. Yeah. Why? That sounds tough. It was more about with no, no constraints. Probably more of social thing, you know, let's do this. Let's, yeah, let's raise some money and go have some fun. I dig it. Um, I don't know if there was any real conviction other than that, to be quite honest with you. Probably a nice fly job, but it got me a job. Levered you into some other opportunities it sounds like. Well, that job actually really taught me what I didn't want. I will be flat out, honest with you, to work for a hedge fund. To work for a hedge fund. Um, I think I was making$28,000 a year. Okay. Um, one of my tasks was to, um, was to catalog the wine order that the 28-year-old owner had bought from France. Okay. And it was totaled more money than my salary did. Right. And it so that, so that was pretty disappointing. And then, um, and so then I got into doing the back office stuff. So I was, I had a job basically in the morning before the bell opened and after the bell closed. And it was all about reconciling the accounts and making sure that everybody that the trades went through properly that what we thought we bought is what the broker thought we bought, making sure all that stuff kind of coalesced. Mm-hmm. Um, and then in the morning it was, well that whole culture of hedge funds is, we're just a little smarter than most of their people. So, yeah, act accordingly. Yeah. And so, um, so I, so I had to then reconcile the accounts in the morning and make sure that how much money was in the bank was actually how much money we had. Um, but then during the day I didn't really have a whole lot to do because my job really was after the bell rang and making sure that everything was submitting everything to our broker, because again, it wasn't tech. I faxed it, it was all like, I was faxing information. Right, right. Um, and so during the middle of the day, then I started sitting with the owner of the company. We called, I kept his blotter. His blotter was a piece of paper, a handwritten piece of paper of what he bought, what he sold, how much, and at what price, and then calculate how much you made or made or loss that day. Okay. And so I was, I was sitting next to him and he was basically sort of then teaching me how to do it and what he was looking for and what he was paying attention to, and why he was doing what he was doing, which was cool. Um, what I learned though was that those guys made more money than I could have ever imagined in my entire life. And, um, they were miserable, right? They hated their lives, they hated their jobs, they hated their spouses. They just were not happy. How fulfilling is that? Like, basically gambling with people's money all the time? I don't, it doesn't make any sense to me. And I just, I got to the point where I realized I need to leave before I'm making that much money that I don't feel like I can leave. Right. Yeah. And so, um, so at this point, I was living in Manhattan, Manhattan at the time too. So living and working in Manhattan. Um, in a bedroom that was seriously half the size of this. I mean, you couldn't open my door all the way with a full-size bed in it. I, I mean, it was tiny. Um, third floor walk up, no elevator, no. You know, it's kind of the classic Long Island lifestyle. Very classic. Yeah. Eventually, yeah. And so I had told my company, you know, look, I am, I'm done. Like, I'm leaving. I don't really have a plan, but I know that I'm not staying here for very much longer. And they, they were great. They were like, that's fine. Just, you know, when you have a couple weeks and when you know a, a couple weeks out, just, just give us a heads up. That's cool. And I called my friend. I had, I had my best friend from college from Michigan was getting her master's degree here at CSU. Okay. And so I called her up and I said, make room on your couch. I'm moving to Colorado. No job, no place to live. I'm just, I'm just gonna make a change. And about two weeks after I had this set in my mind was nine 11. Oh. And there I was living and working in Manhattan, in the financial Wow. Industry. Not in downtown. We were, we were not, you know, we were in Times Square, our office was in Times Square. Um, and. Was like, yeah. That was a nail in the coffin for I'm, yeah. Here New York is not where I wanna be. Yeah. And so I left. And why Colorado? Seriously. Only because Courtney was here. That was the only reason. Knew it was like someplace kind of cool that I got a really good friend. Yep. I knew I wanted to leave New York. Yeah. Um, there was nothing about the East Coast that really like, kept me there. There was no reason why I needed to stay there. Yeah. Um, when I was in college, I was thinking I wanted to go to San Francisco, but I, same thing. Like I couldn't get a job without having a place to live and I couldn't have a place to live Right. Without getting a job. That's how I ended up back at home. Well, you live in San Francisco without a bunch of money. Yeah. Especially these days. But even back then. Yeah. Yeah. That was even back then. So that's how I ended up back home. And so I knew I wanted to go somewhere. I mean, even, you know, I was living in, in New York, went to Michigan for college. Like it, I wanted to be elsewhere. Yeah. I didn't want to be on the East coast. I didn't wanna be on Long Island. That's not where I wanted to spend my life. And um, so that was how I picked Colorado. Like literally was just, I know one person there, so that's where I'm gonna go. Um, so you landed here sight unseen too, basically. Basically. Or maybe you visited once before or? I had been once when I was a kid. Right. We went skiing, I think for spring break one time. But for this, for this situation, you were just like, sight unen. Okay. Moving into the great unknown. Yeah. That's really how it happened. Okay. Yeah. And so. Um, and it's just weeks after nine 11, kind of weeks after nine 11. So I left that job Thanksgiving week of 2002. 2001. One. Yep. Yep. Thanksgiving week of 2001. I left that. Um, and so then kind of how Ben and Jerry's happened, just because it all happened at that same time then, so, um, so my dad at that time then, so from Weight Watchers, he again, we're kind of yeah. Years later, jumping around on time. We don't have to hit every spot on his timeline. Uh, but he, so, but he went to Baskin Robbins eventually. He ended up at, at Ben and Jerry's. Okay. So he was the director of retail operations for Ben and Jerry's back in the late nineties. Um, he, Ben and Jerry's sold to Unilever in 1999. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he was there for that transition. Um, and you know, kind of like most corporate people on a big transition like that, you stay for 18 months or something after that. Right, right. So he left corporate Ben and Jerry's at the same time that I left my job. So we were both jobless Okay. In November of 2001. And we decided to take a cross-country trip from New York to California and kind of right before we were getting ready to leave and he just left the job and he said, Hey, so there's a shop in Boulder that's for sale. And he had been the franchisor, so obviously becoming a franchisee was, you know, different. But he said, how would you feel about running an ice cream store? And I said, yeah, I don't have any interest in doing that. I didn't go to college for four years to work in an ice cream store. Again, not having any idea what it meant to be a small business owner. Yeah. Um, and. We were like, well, when we do our cross country trip, why don't we just swing through Boulder just to see what happens? And we did, and you went to Pearl Street and you're like, oh, this is pretty cool. And we went to Pearl Street and, uh, yeah. Three and a half months later, March 1st, 2002, I became part owner of this ice cream store that I had no idea what to do with part owner. So I, so you know, I was 22 or 23 years old. Right. I didn't have the funds to buy it. Yeah. And so my dad and his best friend from high school actually were the investors for it. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Um, but the way Ben and Jerry's works, they did then, I don't know if they still do. It was actually my dad's rule as a director of retail operations was. They wanted owner operators. Yeah. They didn't want people to just invest in the business and not be a part of it. Yep. And so whoever was running the shop on a day-to-day basis had to own at least 20% of the store. Oh. And so I was like, well, I don't have 20% of the store. So we built it into the contract and we got it. Okay. With corporate was that I was gonna earn that 20% over the first five years ing just basically through sweat equity. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how I, that's how I got started with the first 20% of it. Interesting. Um, and then did he not have loaned you the 20% or something like that? He probably could have, but we, we were able to work it around with, yeah. Guess so with corporate that guess that that's basically what he did, did finance it, sort of it in a way. Yeah. He did finance it, but then he basically, like our, his friend Jim, like everybody came on March 1st to sign all the documents. Jim left and never talked to him again about it. And my dad went on to Southern California for his last chapter of work. Okay. And I was left in Colorado with this store at 23 having no idea what I was supposed to do. Right. You got a small percentage of ownership and no idea what to do with it. Interesting. So I really, going back to what we said before, really trial and error. Yeah. Like, I just, I didn't have any other way to do it. Do you remember like some of the first big painful lessons? Oops. Yeah. Or maybe just one. We don't have to drag all of em too. Yeah. There were several. I think a lot of it was just learning how, and I'm still doing this learning. Uh, sometimes my tone is not the best with people. Okay. And so learning to how to have hard conversations with people. Okay. And not even necessarily my employees. I think a lot of times I'm really easy on my employees'cause I want them to like me and I don't want them to quit and I don't. But it was with, we had some issues with vendors at the time and, um, there was a summer that I wasn't getting any ice cream. Like they wouldn't deliver, like they weren't getting it. They weren't ordering it. They weren't delivering it. And um, yeah, I had some moments of like, how can I sell ice cream if I don't have ice cream? You know? Exactly. Something that's interesting. Um, in that, like, I don't suffer this, but, but some people that are really, really smart, like you and like your dad, they sometimes have a harder time like understanding normal people. I don't think I'm that smart. I'm not, I'm not definitely not that smart. I just, uh, I just know what I want. Yeah. And I, and I am very much like a. Why can't people just do their job? Yeah. Like if everybody just did their job, it would be really, really easy. Totally. It's, that's the blue type in Hallows actually. Uh, which I haven't taken you through yet. Uhuh, uh, we'll talk about that at, at another occasion, I suppose. But that, that kind of notion of if everybody just does the thing they're supposed to do, it'll all work out gray. Yeah. That's all you gotta do. Um, but unfortunately a lot of people like me are like, what's the purpose of this? Again, we get so flighty about do the thing, what the thing is. Yeah. That's fair. And I guess that that's part of the learning part is making sure that you're clear in what needs to be done. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's probably like, I expect people to read my mind Yeah. A a fair bit of time as well. Yeah. I think that happens in relationships also. Yeah. More so there for me especially. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, what would you say to a, maybe an aspiring Ben and Jerry's operator, uh, in a marketplace that hasn't been claimed or has opportunity? You know, I'm thinking, I don't know, is there one in Palm Springs? Must be. There is. Yep. That seems like a kind of a location That would be good, right? Yep. There is warm places that, especially warm places. It doesn't have to be warm, doesn't have to be. It works better if it's warm. Yeah. Warm. Those, those shops definitely do better, but we have, I mean, some of our best operators, I, one of the best operators I know is in Boston. Right. You know, so it's never warm in Boston? Hardly not actually. Yeah. I mean, so it's a matter of really building your business. I mean, it, it comes down to really having a hundred day war in those, that's what we call a hundred day war. Okay. Not to minimize, um, war, but Yeah. Like Memorial Day to Labor Day. Yeah. Like you have to maximize as much as you possibly can Yeah. During that time period. Yep. Yep. And like, do you make money some of the other months too? No, not really. Like you're hoping to stay. Yeah. It is all about cash management. Yeah. From Gotcha. From September, well, October. So you're like at the low point of the cycle A little bit right now. Oh yeah. It's like every day I am watching my bank account to make, remember to sell catering to make sure that there's enough money for payroll next week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's how, that's how this time of year definitely goes. And by end of May, you're like feeling a little better. Yeah. Uh, by the end of June you're like, oh yeah, we're feeling froggy. And, but you gotta remember goes Yep. In September, it's like, how is all this money gonna be gone again right now? Yeah. Yeah. It's kinda like a, a motorcycle dealership or something like that too. Probably. They run a kind of a similar cycle where they just. Gotta load up.'cause you're gonna lose money over the winter. Absolutely. And we have to teach our teams that too, because they don't understand, you know, we've get 16 or 17 year olds who come in and they only work for the summer months. Mm-hmm. And so all they see is this money coming in. You're you're printing money, they think Yeah. And they're like, well, where's the owner? Like, she must be on vacation this summer. Why I only making this much. Right. Exactly. And so we actually do, we try and have some education around how, how does that work? And so we, you know, some of the general managers will go through what we call a penny game. And so it kind of explains, you know, this Yeah. Out of a hundred pennies, this out of a hundred pennies, this is over already revenue. This is where all the pennies go and you take out 17 for this and you take out 20 for cents for this. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of it, it's like, how many pennies are left? And it's like, there's not, we're like, we still have five pennies to that we owe. Right. You know? Yeah. And so we try and teach them that just because we're making a lot of money for two or three months doesn't mean that we're making money. Doesn't mean we're buying yachts Right. In the off season. Right. Um, so yeah. Sorry, I kind of got sidetracked a little bit, but, so for that operator, I guess that's part of the game Yeah. Right. Is just recognizing it's gotta be a high season and cash management se Yeah. Seasonality. I, so I actually get called frequently for what we call discovery days. People who are looking to go into the system. Um, and, uh, the number one thing I tell people is to make sure that you're aligned with the values. Hmm. Because, um, I have seen people who are not aligned with the values. And I, and I wouldn't say I. I definitely didn't start this, this kind of rollercoaster of a career as a progressive. I would never, I've never labeled myself as a progressive or a liberal ever in my whole entire life. Um, but understanding that our, our brand will make statements that will piss you off. And so whether, whether you agree with it or you don't agree with it, yeah. Understand that it will happen at some point and that you are okay with it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so that's the number one thing I tell people is to really understand interesting the brand and look at the way that, look at some of their messaging, the past communications and all that. Make sure and see how sure you can live with it. Yep. Um, yeah. Yeah. Well, and honestly, I was, I had some self-reflection or some curiosity when you said Planned Parenthood was the, the first consolidated cause for the free scoop day. I was like, eh, pretty edgy, you know, easier to go with respite care or Yep. So Matthew's House or something like that. Right. Yeah. So I, you know, and I think that that is me growing in my convictions. Okay. Um, that is, and, and, and allowing my general managers to embrace the causes that they want to embrace in their local communities. Yeah. Um, I think when I, the very first time I ever protested in my entire life was when Roe v Wade was overturned. Okay. Um. And, but I would also tell you that when I was in college, I was on the other side. I was arguing for the other side of it. Interesting. Yeah. And as I've gotten older, I've recognized the importance of female decision making and body autonomy. And that's, and that's where I land with that. Yeah. Yeah. And I have three children and three daughters to, to boot. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and um, and I think for a long time, even with corporate messaging, I was the one who was, who was holding back and was saying, I don't agree. I either I don't agree with it or I might agree with it, but I'm not willing, willing, but I'm scared to, to push it out to my, to, to my customers. Yeah. And the older I'm getting, the more I'm recognizing that that is why our customers resonate with who we are is because we are willing to take a stand and is because we're willing to be vocal about what we want and, and how we, how we think we should get there. Yeah. I don't disagree that this is, that this is a challenge. Um, one of my general managers asked me, we were on a call and she said, um, somebody asked about safety on Fcon Day at our stores because of it. And that to me is mind boggling that we have to worry about safety because of an organization that we chose that is. That is a proponent for women's rights and reproductive health. Yeah. And it, not just abortions, but also, yeah. Cancer screenings and STD screenings and all these other things that parent Planned Parenthood does that isn't just abortions. And so, I would say, and I, I, I hear that, but I would say I'm not too freaked out.'cause even the people that were like, like that Trump pardoned over that stuff, they were nonviolent. You know? It hasn't, it's been a long time since there was violence against Planned Parenthood that I've seen. Yeah. You know, more of the political violence has come from the left than the right. In the last eight years in my perspective. I, you know, I think what I, you know, there's a lot of violent rhetoric. Yeah. And there's a lot of fear of violence. But I, hopefully, I don't know. Maybe not. I could, I don't, I mean, don't hesitate to have one of your big friends, uh, stand around that day. Here's what I said is, is we're, you know, we've had protestors out at Fcon Day Sure. Specifically down in Boulder for various reasons. Like we've had protesters in Boulder. Um, and ultimately is what I said is, if, if you guys are in alignment and these are the causes that you guys want to support, then, then you have to take a stand. Mm-hmm. And. Does that, does that put a target on our back? Possibly. Whether it's violent or not violent. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It, it still is going to, certainly there could be draw attention, be some number of people that won't buy ice cream there anymore. Exactly. Right. It could draw attention to, to, to us and our values. Your group catering might go down maybe, or, or won't go up. Yeah. Maybe. Right. There's risk there. Yeah. But I, I, I appreciate your boldness. Yeah. Um, if nothing else Yeah. And your embrace of what your team wants to do too. Yeah. I suppose. Yeah. So God's speed, that's, that's sort of where I'm landing now Yeah. Is, is that we have to lean into who we are. Um,'cause otherwise it's just kind of fak and inauthentic. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean that's, uh, there are, or I like to say confront the dragon, you know, everybody in all their lives is better served, confronting the dragon and approaching the things that they're scared of. Yep. Um, and not that many people do it very willingly. Yeah. So coaching that among your team and a greater community, I think is positive. Yeah. Um, I wanna take a break. Okay. And then we will come right back and do some other stuff. Sounds good. Alright. Cheers. We kind of got the advice to the somebody that might wanna do a new, new Ben and Jerry's, but I think I want to go back to, um, a young person that's just outta college trying to figure it out. And maybe small business is interesting. Like, I don't sense any regret not working for$180,000 a year and living in a one bedroom apartment for the last 15 years. None. And being single now, probably childless. Uh, yeah. Who knows? No, none. I can't, I can't thank what this job has given me for the last 23 years. Um, I, I think when I finally started to realize how to what I was doing, um, right. Started to get good at it and, and I wouldn't say that I actually even know what I'm doing quite yet, but, um, when I started to feel a little bit more comfortable in it was actually when I started having, having kids. Okay. Um, and I didn't really have any other choice. Mm-hmm. So I guess I can, yeah. You couldn't be there all the time. Yeah. I guess I can if, if you're head in the head in the tank. Right. So I guess I can kind of even go back a little bit further. So after about six or seven years of me. You know, six days a week, you know? Mm. Down in Boulder all the time. And doing what doing that. I got burned out and, and kind of tying in some of the soccer analogy I was used to, the harder you work, the more successful you are. Mm. And that was not necessarily the case in the ice cream world because weather or traffic or construction outside my door or recession, like I, we could a lot of factors outside your control. There were a lot of factors and, and, and I wasn't smart enough, nor am I now to necessarily know how to na navigate those challenges and, and pivot. I, you know, I wasn't, I was just trying to figure out how to run a store, forget how to pivot into something else, to kind of accommodate for those, those challenges. And so I got really burned out and, but the shop was not doing well. It wasn't worth anything to sell. I, you know, I had these investors that, you know, and so I felt terrible and so we tried to keep it. I had a girl who was working for me that was, that was really great. Um, so I promoted her into a general manager role, but I actually went and got another full-time job working at State Farm for again, like$32,000 a year. Okay. Or something like that. Yeah. Um, and you're married with littles at this time? I was married. No littles yet. No littles yet. Um, yeah. No littles yet, but we were married. Okay. And, um. But that was a giant colossal failure because I did it so wrong. I took this girl who Yeah, idea was a really good employee Sure. But had no idea how to be a general manager. And I didn't train her, I didn't teach her, I didn't guide her. I just was like, here, run the store. And I like taught her how to make a schedule and stuff. Right. Like, and here, this is how you place some orders for ice cream. Right. I, I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't teach her anything. And so it was no wonder that it was giant failure. And so about six months after that, we decided to part ways, um, mutually, like I didn't fire her. She didn't quit. Both of us were like, this just isn't working. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, I, and before kind of kind made that decision, I said, we either have to sell it or I have to recommit myself to being in the shop full time. Mm. And so I said, you know what, that's what I'll do. I'll go back in and I'll try and like build this business back up to what it should be. Um, and then eventually maybe sell it and go do something else. Well, about two weeks after I made that decision and Jody left, I found out I was pregnant with our first kid. Do Memorial Day weekend of 2009. Oh, shit. How, how do I do that? Yeah, exactly. How am I supposed to be in the shop all the time with an infant over the first summer? Yeah. So, um, this is really the transformation of you to a business owner Rea Absolutely. That was a business operator. It forced me into doing something different. And so over that winter, there was a young, young kid, his name is Drew. I'm still, he's still on my LinkedIn. I love Drew. Um, he was a part-time student at cu and so it wasn't a full-time job for him, but he was, he became my like right hand manager person and, but I was able to like work with him, not just like, be like, here. Yeah, yeah. Here, here are the keys to the shop and I'm peace out. Yeah. You mentored him almost. And we sort of, I mean, you know, we did, we, we more so than I did with Jody. Um, and he ended up actually being the one who hired my now manager, Alexis. She walked in one day. She had moved here from the east coast and she walked in looking for a job. He interviewed her on the spot and hired her right then. Wow. And, um, turned out to be right. So then the best decision that I ever had was having Drew in that role and doing that. Yeah. And, and so, excuse me. And so, um, from 2009 then until, um, COVID year mm-hmm. That shop increased in sales every single year, so 10 years straight. Wow. That shop increased in sales some years double digit percentages. Wow. And it was a matter of like. Figuring, figuring it out. Yeah. Just, just understanding how to, how to work with somebody, how to train them, how to mentor them, how to empower them to make decisions, how to hire, how to, all of that. Yeah. Um, and and part of it is that, you know, Alexis has been amazing to me and she's been loyal to me and she, and she wanted to learn and she wanted to grow. Yeah. Yeah. And so it provided both of us that opportunity. You really can't make somebody learn stuff. No. It's one of a hard thing. So you can set an environment where they can and the materials and the s ps and all that. Yep. But you can't really make'em learn. Yeah. Yeah. And so that, that's really, I would say I had no other choice but to learn how to actually delegate and empower somebody else to run that store. Yeah. The right way, or it was, or it was never gonna work. And so, yeah. So that's kind of how that my, my world evolved into where it is now. Now. Like no remorse. Like if you could have made$200,000 a year for the last 20 years working in Manhattan and. No, not working in Manhattan. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes I wonder, had I not gotten in the store and I just moved to Colorado, still in Colorado, got some corporate thing and got some corporate job, you know, where would I be? Yeah, sure. There's, there's, there's, there's always curiosity of what could have been. Yeah. Um, but ultimately I also know that this job gave me the flexibility to also, you know, be with my children more frequently. Sure. Um, when they were young. Yeah. Yeah. And I can still to this day, like if I need to be at something at school in the middle of the day, chances are I can do what I can to be there. Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, and having had a mother that became an entrepreneur, like maybe the girls will, maybe they won't, but that is such a, to me, historically, it's such an empowering thing to people whether they go into academia or corporate or other things. That kind of grit that comes from figuring it out. Figuring it out. Yeah. And yeah. And you know, I mean, I have two teenager, two teenage girls right now, so I'm not the coolest person on the planet to them right now, but, you know, I'm, I hope that we're teaching them some, some good life skills. Yeah. Yeah. For, for the way that we're running our, you know, running our lives and our businesses and. My oldest has worked in the Fort Collins shop the last two summers. Okay. Um, you know, just very part-time, but just to kind of get her feet wet. Um, she's realizing now she's about to get her driver's license. She's realizing like, oh, it's 25 minutes away and that's gonna be expensive in gas. Right. So she kind of wants to try something different and get a job closer to home. Yeah. And I go try that too. I want her to see, you know, how other businesses are run and how other leaders lead. And I want her to have a different experience than working for. Totally. And I was very clear that when she came to this shop, like, I am not your boss. Risi is your boss. Right. And you'll go through all the same training programs as every, as everybody else, and how the same expectations as everybody else. You don't come to me. Right. You go to and vice versa. Um, so it was very clear that, that I was not her boss. I signed her paycheck, but I was not her boss. What are the teams, uh, are there like a team of like five in the low season and 25 in the high season or something like it gotta go up and down quite a bit just to manage through. Pretty close. I mean, I don't know. I'm just guessing there, but Yeah. No, pretty darn close in, in season 20 to 25 in Fort Collins and Boulder Uhhuh. Um, during the winter. 10. Okay. Ish, but mostly part-timers. All part-timers. Yeah. So I, I had my general manager at the shops and then, um, and then yeah, every, almost everybody else is part-time. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Makes sense. I mean, and Denver's Denver's less five during the winter and maybe time's a little smaller operation. It's a quite a bit smaller. And the dem the, the. Boulder one is right on Pearl Street. Right. So the Denver one is on the campus or near the campus at the u Near campus. It's right on the corner of Evans and University. Okay. Next to Pete's Cafe, but just a little smaller space. Smaller footprint. Smaller footprint. Uh, yeah, smaller sales, smaller. It's just foot traffic is not there. Demographics isn't, it's not a touristy area. Oh right. So it's just, um, it's quite a bit. So it's really, and students have money, but it's mostly their parents' money and Yep. Do I wanna buy beer or do I wanna buy ice cream? Right. Beer usually wins kind of thing. Yep, exactly. Or wine or spritzers or whatever the kids are drinking these days. Yeah. That seems mushrooms, ecstasy. We also seem to be all that, we also seem to be right off, it seems to be that they walk a different street to campus and not go right in front of our store. So we're working on that being tied in there for a while or is changing the space a little bit of an option. I can't really afford to move that location and, and Denver's a hard area right now, so Denver right now has the highest minimum wage in the state. Yeah. Um, so that makes it really challenging. Well, and downtown isn't the tourist segment that used to be downtown. Yeah. I go down to 16th Street Mall about once every couple of months. I actually have a season tickets to the ell and so I try and get over to 16th Street Mall every time I go down just to check it out and see. I'd love to have a shop on 16th Street Mall. Yeah, I would, I would love to. If they can, and they're gonna have to fix it first. They can fix it before it's gonna work. Yep. Yep. And, and there's some promising things, you know, we were just down there not too long ago. I mean, the, the construction that they've done is really beautiful. It looks great. Um, there's just some other challenges that, I mean, public safety is first and foremost. Yeah. And unless they figure that out, yeah. Big dollars will stay away. Yeah. So there's not really any other place in Denver right now. Isn't that I'm looking. There isn't. So there isn't, like Rhino is cool, but it's not, doesn't get that kind of traffic. Yeah. How about like, could you put something, uh, I like Anthony's pizza, people were here and they did a deal with Red Rocks. Could you put a bit and Jerry's at Red Rocks? I don't know. I, I, I don't know. It would be nice to be able to, um, some of those have kind of licensing deals too with other companies. Mm-hmm. I haven't, I think somebody tried to reach out. One of my employees tried to reach out to Red Rocks at one point, but I, I don't know where that went, to be honest. Well, if you want an introduction to the, the local Anthony's pizza franchisor. Okay. Uh, he got a deal with Red Rock somehow. Awesome. Or at least as far as I know. So Yeah. That's, that's a good deal. Um, I can make an introduction there or we can talk offline. Yeah. I'm looking, um, at a space in Colorado Springs right now. Okay. Um, that would be pretty exciting. And then like downtown or west side over by New our city, there's a new soccer stadium down there called Wener Wener Field. Oh. And so, um, and I don't even have an l OI site. It's all theoretical right now. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very, very, the theoretical. Well, and it's kind of theoretical that they'll be able to develop traffic, right? Yeah. Like they may be able to or they may not be able to. Yeah. We went, my wife and I lived in Colorado Springs for like three years and, uh. There was a minor league baseball team that moved and while we were there, and it was actually really cool fun. Um, I love that area. Yeah, I know. It's, it's geographically it's amazing. Yeah. I love the area down there. So, um, you ready for the ping pong ball challenge? Oh, man. I don't know. Sure. You want to? Sure. Okay. So the, the, we're gonna choose one of these questions, um, and the winner that contacts us through Instagram via DM at the Loco Experience Podcast Instagram. I got a, a, a answer from somebody to my personal Instagram. I don't check that very often. So, to the lo Experience podcast, Instagram, give us the answer. So you're gonna pick three balls outta here and they're each tied to either an interesting business question or perhaps an awkward, weird question. Wonderful. Can't wait for this part. 28. What's your proudest achievement in your business? Oh, my leadership team. Yeah, that's an easy one. Yeah. My leadership team, uh, they have all won. Sorry, my mic is, yeah. They have all won Manager of the year, as we talked about before. Mm-hmm. Um, they have also all been. Hired in some for some sort of capacity from corporate for different roles, so Oh wow. Um, two of them now have served, um, in a traveling trainer capacity, which is a corporate run kind of thing where they actually go to other shops around the country. Yeah, yeah. Um, and, and, and corporate kind of subsidizes trying to get the Yep. Crappy operators fixed up a little bit. Exactly. And so either the less financially successful operators or, or brand new. So if like a store changed hands there go, so there's a new franchisee taking over. No coaching actually. They'll go in and help, help coach and work with their team. So two of them have served in that capacity and all three of them now Risi just got on, um, as a, on the manager advisory council. Oh wow. So all three of them have now sat on that council as well. That's really cool. Mm-hmm. I should probably introduce you to Jay Fayville sometime. Have you met Jay? I have not. Um, he will be a future podcast guest. He just started coming back to my Rotary club on a regular basis, but he was, he was one of a small number of franchisees for Dominoes that basically helped Dominoes, reinvigorate itself. Awesome. Um, and so, and he used to have like 28 stores or something around, mm-hmm. Around Colorado and stuff. 22 A lot. Yeah. In Wyoming. Uhhuh. Um, but he's, he's a really insightful guy and he really, he was one of the people that forced change. Up the chain on Domino. That's hard to do. Not that Ben and Jerry's needs it, I'm not saying you've criticized, but if there are ways that they can improve, like that's a really cool thing. I, I was really inspired by chatting with him about, I'd love to meet him. I love the, I love to And Dominoes clearly has. Yeah, right. Like they were high, they sucked. Now they're pretty strong again. Well, and I mean, being able to change corporate culture from a franchisee perspective is, would be inspiring to hear how, how we did that. Right. I'm actually not completely powerless in this way. Yeah. Yeah. Grab another ping pong ball. All right. Seven. Seven. How do you define happiness? Ooh, that's a great question. I've told my kids this, and this doesn't answer the question right, right away, but is when they teachers or anybody asks them, what do you wanna be when you grow up to answer with, I wanna be happy. And I said, you will throw them off because everybody will be looking for you to give them some sort of answer on what you're gonna do. Um, I like that. Actually, it reminds me of the first time I went to Aspen and went for a hike. Uh, there was an amazing, probably local Aspen lady there wearing a t-shirt that said, happiness is the new rich. Oh, I like it. Or, happy is the New Rich. Yeah. Like, you'd rather be happy than rich and Yeah. And all those hedge funds, guys that were miserable and all the billionaires that. Hate their lives Exactly. Right. Taught me something very, very important. Very early, um, to, but how do you get it? Yeah. To answer the question, right. How do you get it, man? How you define it. Yeah. Ah, fulfillment. I guess. Feeling, feeling like you are doing something good in the world. Yeah. Um, right. And both raising children and sort of raising a leadership team, I guess I, sure, I guess I can find, find that having,'cause you develop people, right? There's nothing in both ways. More grand in some ways. Yeah. Um, engaging with, you know, community and connection. I think that's, that's really important. Um, which I haven't really always done before, and I will be fully transparent, but I'm working with a business coach now and sort of my word for the year is joy because I, because I had, I had lost it. Mm-hmm. I, I think that there's a lot of times where we get so caught up in financial stressors and, you know, family stressors and business stressors and that sometimes it's hard to, to, you know, kind of see where that happiness and joy comes from or to, or to take the time to find it again. Um, and so I think, um, yeah. Well, and I, if I can, I'd observe that entrepreneurs especially are usually not where they wanted to be by now. You know, and so you, you're always frustrated with yourself, which can kill your joy a little bit. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think that that, there's part of that too. And I think, and you know, there's, there's challenges of running a small business, especially a small retail business right now that we didn't foresee five years ago. I think, you know, to say that we survived Covid, I kind of put that in air quotes because I think there's a lot of small businesses who don't know if they actually survived Covid yet. Yeah, we still are. Oh yeah. We're still paying loans back. We have, um, I mean, my loans from Covid are 30 year loans, right? Like yeah, who knows if I'm going to survive? Yeah, you probably got the PPP to help for some, but then yeah, but then you, you still got the SBA loans that sort of got us through. Um, and so that's stressful, you know, and say, yeah, I have three shops and there's some days where you're like, I own and run and manage, and I'm not an absent owner of these three stores. I mean, I'm an absent owner from my team member's perspective, but not from my general manager's perspective. Um, like why, why are we still struggling kind of personally on a financial level? And I think that there is part, part of that due, you know, why I work really, really hard and I have these businesses, and yet we still kind of live paycheck to paycheck. Um, we're, we're not also, you know, living in a shack on the side of the road. Like we have a nice home and we live very nicely. But, um, that it, it's, it can grind on you in terms of, in terms of that. And so, yeah, I've re I have reached out and like I said, hired a, a coach and kind of working through some of that. And in terms of. Making sure that you do take that time to step back and it gratefulness. Yep. Yep. Um, so I have my presently app on my phone and I've been doing a gratefulness post every single night. I love it. Um, for probably three years now. And so it's a matter of finding, finding the good. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think our society as a whole could be a whole lot better off if everybody concentrated on finding the good instead of finding the bad. Yeah. Have one grateful a day. It would do a lot of people Good for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, I guess that's where I find it. All right. I like it. Um, I, uh, and feel free to swing that out and grab another ball. I, uh, was gonna mention, we haven't known each other for that long, but I think November of 19, uh, my blog post was, uh, the balance between Contentment and Striving. Okay. Uh, I have to read it. And the answer was gratitude. Yeah. Like, if you're grateful, you can both be content in your heart, kind of have joy. Yep. Right. Have that con I can tell you're a very proud mom and all these things, and you still wanna strive. Right. You still wanna get better every day. Yes. You want your team to grow and change and develop and, and that somehow, that balance between there, there, there's some, some, some joy and gratitude and whatever else. I just finished a book not too long ago. It was called The Perfectionist Guy to Losing Control. Oh, I love it. And it was, it was eyeopening for me. I, because it really. I, I would consider my self a perfectionist and Yeah, but what it, but what it, how it explains it is, but that's okay. Like, it's okay to be a perfectionist, but, but it has to be an adaptive mentality as opposed to a maladaptive. Well, loosely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so let's take this thing that you know about yourself and let's use it for good. But part of that was then that there's nothing wrong with, and I would say a female, but it doesn't matter. Male, female who wants more. Yeah. Like, it's okay. And part of it kind of our society says, you know, men can always want more, and females have always been taught, like, if you want more, you're being greedy, you're being ungrateful, you're being all these things because you want more. But actually, no. Like, it's fine. Yeah. You can, you can be happy and content and all of that, but still want more. Yeah. That, that's an okay place to be. Oh yeah, for sure. Well, I think that's, that's why you still strive. Yeah. Because I want more. Yeah, exactly what you got. Number 11. 11. If you could time travel, would you visit the past or the future and why and when? Oh, that's a hard one. I know. Um, I think I would have to say I would visit the future and more so from a why, why not the past, right? Oh, done happened. Yeah. We already know what happened. I think. Um. To an extent, you know, how far, how far out? Oh, pro. Well, so where am I? Where am I? I'm 47, almost 47 years old. I mean, I feel like if I only go 50 years, I'm still, hopefully I might still be alive, but probably about 50 years. Well, you wouldn't even age. I'd be, I'd be, you would actually stay exactly the same age as you go up there. Id, I'd like to. I, you know, it'd be, it'd be cool to see where your, how your kids end up. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it'd be cool to see where we are as a community tech. I would love to see technology. So 30 years or 20 years or something. Yeah. Even 10, 40, 40, no. Like 40 or 50 years. Yeah. See where, where my kids are as adults in their lives with families and Yeah. Yeah. You know, um, see what the AI God is doing with us by then. Yeah. And, and just, yeah. That I, I mean the technology advancements would be, would be pretty darn to hard to understand, I'm sure. Yeah. Hard to understand. And pretty cool to see. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. All right. Are we living on Mars? Right? Like, I wanna know, right? A hundred percent. I dig it. I dig it. Um, so I am going to call the, um, the question, the answer to the question. The winner of the$20 Ben and Jerry's ice cream gift certificate. Okay. Uh, is gonna be the, uh, the proudest moment of having developed and help flourish such outstanding managers. Is that a fair Sure, fair statement. I love it. Yeah, I think that's the most concise answer. I love it. So, uh, so DM us to the local Experience podcast page on Instagram, uh, or to that same page on, uh, LinkedIn if you want to. Although we get less, less traffic. Instagram's better. And, uh, you can win that if you're the first to respond after you listen. Good luck. Yeah, good luck. Um, let's talk about this fella, uh, that you found somewhere not long after you moved to Boulder. Is that my, you remember my fellow? Yeah. Yeah, my fellow Brian. Um, yeah, Brian with a standard B-R-I-A-N or BRY standard B-R-I-A-N. Just checking it helps me to remember him. Yep. Um, yeah, Brian, I met him two days after I moved here. It was a blind date, so my friend Courtney, um, introduced me to Brian. Apparently I was supposed to meet Brian. Um. We met in January of 2002. Apparently I was supposed to meet him back in November when we did our CrossCountry trip, but I got violently ill after a restaurant experience. Okay. And, um, and didn't make it to breakfast the next morning. Oh, so this person that you knew already thought he was kind of Yes. Like right for you? Apparently she was, but I had no idea. I did not. Interesting. I did not know that was the plan. I didn't know he was supposed to be a breakfast. Um, and so, uh, yeah, so I got here on a Wednesday towards the end of January of 2002 and we went out on a blind date then two nights later. Okay. And we've been together ever since. No way. So we celebrate 20 years married in October. Oh, congratulations. Thanks. Are you doing something super special? No. Um, we talked about doing a couple of different things, but we have not, we have not settled on anything yet. I think right now we're leaning towards just going to the kind of the New England area and doing leaf peeping up there, which we've never done. Yeah. So I dig it. We're we're pretty casual. We went to Telluride for our honeymoon. All right. So that kind of like folly type Yeah. Place is kind of our jam. Are you adventurers together? Is that part of your thing? No, not that. No. You know? Yeah. What was it? It's going back to the whole joy question. Yeah. Like right now is just like we're in the middle of shit. Right? Like, it is like work and, you know, mid midlife kids and midlife like work and all, none of our kids drive yet. And so we have three kids going different. It's like, and they all stay in their bedroom until they walk outta their bedroom and say, say to go somewhere, say, mom, I need to go here. Yeah. Or I'm hungry, like right now. Right. Yeah. And so it feels like we spend very, very little time together these days. Yeah. Um, it's funny, you know, we, and what's, we laugh a lot, you know, that that was really kind of the thing. I mean, we, I was 23, 20, yeah. 22, 23 when I met. He's four years older than I am and we didn't start having kids until I was 30. So we had a, we had a long time. So you were dinks for a decade. Yeah, we, so we almost, we had a, we had a good time with friends, you know. Yeah. We, we had a, we like to go out and party and have people at our homes and I like to host and so, you know, kind of much to his chagrin, we have, we had a lot of parties as we've gotten older that's sort of died down of course. Sure. It's funny, we both sort of like. Not completely cut out, but really cut out booze since the first of the year. Okay. Not through any other reason than just like, why not? Yeah. Yeah. And, um, I mean, you look slimed a little bit. Is that Thanks. I, I don't know. A little bit. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, there's probably some calories going in from that. And so we, um, it's funny. So we actually went, I was just telling somebody we went, uh, on Sunday, we managed to scoot away from the kids for the day. And so we went up to, we went and had breakfast, which was like our thing when we were dating. Like, we would either the two of us or all of our friends, we'd meet for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We loved going out for breakfast. So we went out to Breakfast, Rocky Mountain Estes, we went and had a late lunch in Lions. Like we just, it was great. Yeah. And as you were walking through Estes, he kind of said to me, he goes, isn't it strange? He goes, we probably would've stopped at a couple of these places and had, you know, had a drink somewhere along a long our walk. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And he goes, we're we, neither one of us even care to do it right now. Yeah. And so it's been interesting trying to figure out like, how, how do you spend your time when that was kind of a big part of Yeah. How we spent our time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so that's, that's probably the biggest cultural change since 2020 in some ways. I mean, certainly a lot of people self-medicated a lot at home. Yes. And alcohol sales overall went up, but like the. Downtown bars and stuff. Like they might as well close at 10 a lot of times because everybody just goes home early now, you know, so I, or midnight. Yeah. So a guy at our, in my local think tank, actually Chad mentioned, uh, the other day in our last meeting, he said, alcohol sales have de decreased for four quarters in a row for the first time since prohibition. Wow. In, in 2024. They decrease every quarter. Yeah. And, you know, I think it'll keep going. I think so too. I mean, you used to always think that alcohol was kind of a recession proof industry. Right. And we're starting to see a change in a change in that. Well, and there's, you know, there's a, you know, weed is legal in a lot of places now. It has a lot less calories. Yep. You know? Yep. And it costs a lot less. Yep. Right. You can get high 10 times for 30 bucks. Yeah. Whereas you might get drunk one time for 30 bucks kind of thing. Mushrooms, at least in Denver, Colorado. Or you know, a lot. I know. Gosh, like when I was taking mushrooms back in college, I was one of like, you know, maybe two and a hundred people that would take mushrooms on an occasional basis. Yeah. For shows and this, that, whatever. Now, uh, like there's a lot of 40 something people microdosing mushrooms every week. I are saying the microdosing. Yeah. Regularly, or, you know, I've. It seems like microdosing sometimes is like, oh, that's microdosing. That seems like a lot. I don't know anything about it, but I, but yeah, I don't, I don't know either. I, but it seems like the, the, it's, there's definitely a shift, at least cultural change there. It's like very interesting. Well, and if, yeah, like if you go back to thinking about where this whole thing has been, like the, the Vietnam Right. That your dad was willing to sign up for, to choose his journey rather than get drafted and become a bullet stopper for some dumb ass that was high on heroin. Yep. Um, and then that kind of countercultural movement and the Nixon's ban on drugs and all that, and all the violence that's been created in Mexico and Central America for years. Right. And whatever. Yep. And even now with Trumpy being like, no, you gotta stop the fentanyl coming in from China. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Or something.'cause that's where it's coming from. Well, probably at least the core. Yeah. Um, but like, well, it's our demand here, our freaking drug obsessed culture. Oh. And then, well, I guess, I guess that's, that's probably the worst reason why is'cause there's too many people on drugs, like pharmaceuticals are taking market share away from alcohol probably. Yeah. I mean, that's a whole nother conversation with, you know, mental health. It's like a whole different, I digress. Yeah. I mean, yeah. But boo drugs just can't drink as much if you're on the, on the psychotropics. I know, I know. Yeah. I digress. No, yeah. But that, you're right. I mean, mental health, like I said, is completely different conversation. So what's Brian do with himself on a, on a weekly basis? So he worked at Vestus for about 15 years. Okay. Um, and then he left there about four years ago or so. Alright. Um, he works now for Tomar Pharmaceuticals. Okay. And so he is their site maintenance manager. So he is had kind of that corporate journey that he much more blue. You didn't more blue collar, but Yes. Yeah, for sure. But he's doing blue collar work, but in the corporate world. Yep. Doer stuff instead of thinker stuff, but Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So you've still seeing it kind of that a little bit, you know? Oh yeah. It's, it's different being in the office than in being in facilities. Right? Yes. But you also then see the way corporate does things and the way they treat their people and like, he comes home and not, not with his, he, you know, in, in the past he's come home and I'm like, this is exactly what not to do. Right. Or how to motivate people or how you want a company. Like, I, there are a couple times where I'm like, can I please just go in and talk to somebody there about I, sorry, you talked to your hr, like, this is not how it should be done. Yes. And so that gets, you know, frustrating. One of our challenges we like to do in the family segment is, uh, one word description for the children. Would you like to attempt that? Yeah. Um, you got three girls, is that what you said? Yep. So Elena is 15. Okay. Um, and she is, you can use a hyphen if you need it. Theatrical. Okay. I like it. Vivian is 13, uh, introvert. Hmm. Sort of. She's a, she's an anomaly. Uh, anomaly is more flattering, I would say. Yeah. Anomaly. We'll go with that. Okay. Uh, and Adeline is gonna be 11 in a few weeks. Crazy. I like it in all the good ways. Okay. Yeah. I like it Uhhuh. I like it. Um, so you spaced'em out pretty evenly there? Yeah. You're gonna have a nice, uh, so let's see, you've got basically whatever, seven years, yearsish years, eight years. Seven or eight years. Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere in there. And then you're gonna be empty nesting. Yeah. Are you guys excited about that time or like already looking ahead and regretting it? I am excited to have, I am excited. I, I'm excited to see what they do. Mm-hmm. Like, that's, I, Brian is definitely the one who's like, if they wanna come back and live in the house, like they have a room forever. And I'm like, no, they do not. And part of my reasoning on that is like, if they come back and live with us, and I. That we do our job. How would that be? Yeah. Kind of. And the, we didn't do our job, our job hundred percent is to raise, raise, you know, kids who are sustainable, su successful, kind, caring Yeah. Part participatory human beings in this society. Yeah. Yeah. And I really believe if, if, if they end up, and I'm not saying like if they hit a rough patch, they can come back home. Right. But like, they should be off living their lives. That's what they should be doing. Yeah. Yeah. And if they're not, then that's a measure of success for a parent ultimately. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, but yeah, I mean we, we've definitely, you know, our oldest will be gone in two years and there's definitely like, uh, how, how, how, how did that happen? Yeah. Um, and we will miss them immensely. But, but it's time. Yeah. But it's time. Let's talk about, uh, your mom and dad a little bit more if we may. We, we kind of flattered your dad by calling him extra smart and insightful earlier, kind of along that journey. But what did he go on to do from there? And, and they're still around, or he is at least both of, yeah, they're still around. Um, yeah, so my dad, his final chapter was in, was at Jenny Craig in Southern California and retired from there. Okay. Um, my, my mom always had jobs also, so, you know, she's good role model in terms of that. Um. She, when my dad went to California, she had a really hard time with leaving the house in, in New York. Mm. Um, she had some really good friends back there. Okay. And so it took her a couple years before she was willing to move, I think. Oh really? I think the weather finally was like, all right, it's time to go. Interesting. And so she finally moved to California with my dad. They were out there for a while until about 20, uh, 21. So Covid Really, they were still in pretty good health. Yeah. And, um, they'll both be 79 this year. Oh, wow. Um, but so, you know, they were still in good health. They were traveling to see myself and our family and my brother and sister's families a couple times a year. Yeah. And Covid kind of shut that down and they missed being able to see their grandkids. Um, and so, and they mo ended up moving here. Oh, cool. So they live in Timnath. Um, my dad, when he retired. I, he's probably been retired for about a decade now. When he retired, I was like, he's gonna have a job again in six months, because it's just who he was and he never did a thing afterwards. And he has been happier as a claim, happy as a cla Like he just, he is content in that he likes playing golf. He, he takes on projects. Um, so when he first retired and they were living in San Diego, he was on the board of the Boys and Girls Club, so he kind of kept himself busy with that. Um, when they moved out here, he got really big into genealogy. I, uh, when I tell you he probably spent the equivalent of a full-time job for a year doing genealogy stuff. He did that. So he traced us back to the Mayflower. I was gonna say, you look English potentially. Well, Disney Mang is my husband's name, so my we're fishers, my is my main name. Okay. And so, so that's where your English, uh, yes. English and Irish look like. And Irish, obviously English and Irish there is very Irish, English and Irish. Well, that's not natural. Um, um, and so, yeah, so he's always, he plays golf. He's always really kept himself busy. Um, my mom, uh, is now struggling. She has, um, Alzheimer's related dementia. Yeah. And so we've been kind of dealing with that for the last couple of years and trying to manage that and, and figure that out. My dad is so kind of full-time caregiver. She's still living at home and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But, um, you've engaged with like the Dementia Together organization and stuff like that? A little bit. Found an organization called People First. Okay. Um, and they offer, um. Classes and they offer support in home support and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, they've been good. That's nice. We're struggling with getting my dad on board with all of it. Yeah. You know, I think it's, that's a really hard, even accepting how real it is and stuff and how much and how much work it will become and Yeah. Starting to get that process now. So it's super hard. It's like the worst disease. And so, I'm sorry. My, my dad's mom, uh, suffered with that for like over five years. Yeah. Uh, before she passed. And it's just hard. Yeah. It's just really hard. And so we're starting to see, you know, she's getting a little bit more frail and she's, you know, wants to be home a lot. Yeah. Which is fine. Yeah. Um, but I think my dad's decided that getting a puppy is a good idea. So they're about to have a puppy. It probably is. Yeah. We'll see. You know, I mean, they're gonna be 79 with a puppy, so we'll see how that goes. Um, we'll send the, the crazy kid over and get some of her energy out there. You the puppy in next months, so, yeah. No, so that, but you know, we get to see them and so that's nice. That's cool. Um, yeah. That's who I, I meet a whole bunch of people who's moved here because their kids moved here and they're never moved back to where they were or whatever. Yeah. You know, and so. Yep. Um, that's neat. Yeah. Um, oh, we, you know, one thing we didn't talk about at all in, in this conversation so far, we often talk about faith. Okay. A little bit. And I suspect, um. That there may have been some of that in your deeper background being kind of a conservative college girl at the time, right? I don't know. I'm just guessing. Yeah. I mean, I, I, we grew up going to, I grew up gonna church. My dad was Lutheran and did not, um, did not attend. Okay. He was not religious at all. My mom grew up Catholic. Um, and, but you went to Lutheran church, you No, we didn't. No, we didn't. So we had nothing to do with the Lutheran side. Okay, gotcha. So my mom, so we went to Catholic church. Okay. So we did all of that, but not church school or anything like that. I, you know, I went through all the sacraments and I went to religion through, you know, middle school, whatever. But you went to public school as far as your regular education? Yes. Yep. All public school. Yeah. Um, yeah, it's not part of my life now. Yeah. Um, it, it has not been probably since I could make the choice to, to not go. All right. Um, your husband also the same, came from a nun or a Catholic, same, uh, Christian, not Catholic. Yeah. Christian. Um, but not Catholic. Uh, I don't, I don't know what, what denomination they were. Yeah. But, um, also I think we, you know, we got married and said we're, that's, it's just not who we are anymore. Yeah. It's not, it's not kind of the way that we want to be ourselves. Um. You know, is do I believe in some sort something, some creator force, something? Yeah. Yes. I also believe in evolution, you know, so, yeah. Yeah. Um, but we also have been really intentional about allowing our kids to explore it. So our oldest daughter actually had got baptized a couple years ago. Oh, wow. So she found some friends through a church that she really liked. Okay. And started going to some summer camps, a youth youth doing that. A youth group and this and that and Exactly. Yep. Yep. And so she was at summer camp a couple summers ago, and they, she called us in the middle of camp and said, can you guys come up early on Sunday for pickup and, and watch me get baptized and, and will you allow me to get baptized? Yeah. Yeah. And we said yes.'cause that, that's her deal. Now. Now we also told her in years prior, like, you can't get baptized this year, because we did want her to have, we didn't want her to go to summer camp. Yeah. Uh, you know, a we wanna know, she's got agencies, a reli, a religious summer camp and have fun for a week and then be like, oh, I'm gonna get baptized. So it needed to be, it needed to be intentional on her part. Yeah. Um, she needed to understand what she was doing and why. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so now that's kind of our, our 11-year-old, almost 11-year-old is now, like, if I go to camp, can I get baptized this year? And I said, no. You know, like interesting. You're not, you have not put in the work yet. And Elena was still 13? I think so. Sure. So I said, you haven't put in the work yet to get to the point where, where you understand that responsibility and why you're doing it. And so we're, we're definitely open to them exploring it. We're not, we're not. Insulating them. You're drawn, not drawn to it by them at all. Not in the least. Well, my last guest or the, the episode that came out a couple weeks ago, like when he was 15, his family moved from California up to South Fork. Mm-hmm. Colorado, which is, I dunno where that is, it's like, it's like a town of 300 just down the hill from Wolf Creek Pass. Okay. So it's in the boonies of Southern Colorado. Okay. Um, but he started going to church with this lady from their town that asked if they could take, she could take his kid to church, and then pretty soon all of his siblings and his parents started gonna church too. Interesting. Like within about a four year span, which was an interesting, I hadn't really heard that story before Uhhuh in that context. Um, but doesn't sound like you're there yet. It's not, you know, there are times where I, I mean, I know people who are very religious and it means a lot to them. And there are times where I can see the comfort and I can see Yeah. How it is guiding them in, leading them in their lives. And, and that I think is, is wonderful. I mean, that's a great kind of guiding light for them. Um, it's just not been something that I've been drawn to. Yeah. Yeah. As a cynical person and kind of a libertarian generally, I kind of, I resonate with the phrase, uh, if there is no God, then the state is the God. Okay. Uh, and so it's like, well gross, right? So I'll just go for Right. That other intangible thing that I can't really refine. I was just gonna say, what's option C? Right. And that's fair. That's fair. A hundred percent. So, um, I'm ready to go with the low co experience if you are. Okay. Uh, the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners could be a day, a moment, a near death experience, finding love on the slopes. I dunno. I spent a semester in college in Australia. Okay. And so, um, crazy. You're not crazy, but in the, during that, um, I was able to sky like second year, third year, it was my junior year. Okay. Um, had gotten broken up by a boy and was heartbroken and had to find, screw it, I go to Australia. Exactly. I had to like, sign my mom's name on some paperwork. I called her, but I was like, it's due tomorrow. And so I, like, I can't, it's already the mail, mail it. Right. Like, we're mailing things right. These days still. Right. Because I'm old. Um, so, uh, got her blessing and, and put in my paperwork and ended up in Australia in February of, yeah, 99. Okay. I think. Um, but so in that experience, um, it was just, you know, I mean, we just had well, so far away from everything you'd experienced before then. It was so far away. I mean, very, you know, I didn't have to learn another language. It was not, it was still very. Felt very American. Sure. And I was also, um, living with other Americans. Sure. So, so it wasn't, um, as kind of culturally immersive as, you know, you, you would like being an exchange student or whatever. Yeah. Right. Um, but, but it offered me, uh, we, you know, went camping. Did like a four-wheel camping trip for three days. We did a sail boating trip for three days. I went skydiving twice. I went bungee jumping, I climbed, I walked on a glacier. Wow. Like I did some all in one semester. Uh, between, yeah. So from February to then I, on my way home, the glacier one skydiving, actually one skydiving, the bungee jumping and the glacier were all in New Zealand on my way home. Oh, cool. So, um, but we did for spring break was when we did the three day camping and the three day parasailing, or not parasailing, but sailing excursion. So that was amazing. So, you know, koalas and lizards and, yeah. Like, well that's what I was thinking. Just so mind expanding. Like, you moved away to Michigan already, which was about as far as you could imagine at the time. At the time, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think I've always been open to those kinds of, you know, I've done a half iron man, I've climbed man two incline a couple times. Like I enjoy those kind of physical Yeah, yeah. Challenges and adventures. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I dig it. Yeah. Um, was there a highlight moment within that trip? Were you ever scared? What's the scaredest you've ever been? Oh, the bungee jumping? Yeah. In terms of like physical, like pet, I was petrified. I. I was petrified. Yeah. That's an experience. I will never, I would skydive again. I would never bungee jump. Really? Yes. Oh, I feel like skydiving is so much scarier. This is why, because until you like have done enough jumps, I'm not jumping by myself. So somebody else is actually jumping out of the responsibility. I'm just attached to them. When I bungee jumped, I had to physically throw myself off of a perfectly good platform. Fair. Fair. Yeah. No, I was petrified. I will not do that again. So, um, people that want to know more about, let's talk about your Fort Collins shop. It's right down in Old Town Square. Yep. So pop on down. You won't see Jessica there unless it's an emergency staffing wise. Right. Or if you come early in me and are having a meeting, I, I still have, you know, I have onsite meetings with them at least every other week or try to, um, yeah, we, so this summer we're gonna be doing movies in the Square again. So Good. We did, we tested'em out last year. We did three of them in the square last year. So we're, we're doing that. Um, we haven't finalized the dates with the DA yet, but it should be every Monday or Tuesday in July. Okay, cool. Um, so we've got four. That's great. We used go to do Belgium for movies that New Belgium, but Yeah. You know, so we'll have moving away from beer culture these days. Yeah. Ice cream culture's better. Yeah. So we're gonna do four of those this summer, um, through July, which we're super excited about doing again. Awesome. Um, we, yeah, we offer caterings, we offer cakes, um, that shop, specifically Fort Collins and only Fort Collins right now does in in shop birthday parties. Um, so we do those early in the morning on Saturdays, typically from like, you know, 10 or 10 30 to noon. Oh, that's fun. Um, so there's a couple different birthday party options there. Um, we're doing a lot of benefit nights right now. So Tuesday nights from five to seven, most of them are full, I think through April. Um, and then we'll take a break until next off season. Oh, we're, somebody gets 20% sale, so we partner with an organization, whatever. Yeah. Between 10 and 20% we'll go to the organization, um, based off of Yeah. Their kind of, their involvement in getting people in the door and how, how engaged and active they are in doing it. Um, so yeah, Tuesday nights from five to seven, there's different organizations. I just wanna shout out that's so thoughtful. It's like this isn't a gift If you can actually get a bunch of your friends and followers as a nonprofit to come on down and buy ice cream and hang out in the square. Yeah. We'll give you more. Yeah. Like, we want to have a participant, not just a beneficiary. That's exactly how that's, I love it. Exactly how we've seen it. I love it. Is, is. We're not here to just give money away. Right. We want to support and we want to engage, and we wanna build awareness. We wanna do all of those things. Yeah. I love it. But we don't wanna, we want you to be a part of it. Yeah. And if you're not a part of it, then we're not gonna give you as much. I was part of the, my wife actually was employee number seven at the Matthews House Uhhuh. Um, and, uh, I don't know how much you've heard about them or not, but it's a little bit, kind of a full, kind of a whole person approach to human services. Um, but their coaching for their, for their social workers early on was if you ever feel like you're working harder than your client is at their success, then you need to stop working so hard. Yeah. And they need, they need to step up. Yeah. You know, and that kind of philosophy, I think could be such a benefit if it permeated more of our culture. Like, I'll help you. Yeah. But you have to, you have to show up, step up, do the work. You still have to do some work too. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that that's the biggest lesson, right? Is like, success is never going to just be handed to you. Right. You can't, you know, there's all this kind of world around manifestation and imagination and all of that, and that's great. Yeah. You need that as this. You need to be able to visualize the end goal, but you still gotta, that's, you still gotta do the work. I think that's part of the bridge between that partisan divide a little bit is the Republicans have become like, at least their appearance is that they're just too cold and they don't wanna pay people's. Social Security and Medicaid and whatever, this and that and that. The Democrats are too tolerant of half-assed this and you gotta show up and do the work. Yeah. Right. There might be times when you need help and like, you know, Jesus said there will always be the poor. Yeah.'cause there's always gonna be the the slackers. Yeah. You know, but the people that want to succeed that come from a hard place, I, I think it's a great thing for Yeah. You and every company that wants to help. Yeah. Cheers. Thank you very much for having me. I hope you've enjoyed it. Yeah. This has been awesome. Okay, great. Cheers. Talk to you next time. Yeah.