Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Finding Healing Through Gratitude: Terces Engelhart's Remarkable Journey | Restaurants & Franchises Series

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Finding Healing Through Gratitude: Terces Engelhart's Remarkable Journey | Restaurants & Franchises Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:07
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:09
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:12
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:15
  today's guest is Tiercy Englehart.
• 0:17
  She is the founder or Co founder of several businesses including
• 0:22
  Cafe Gratitude, a vegan restaurant founded in 2004 and
• 0:26
  dedicated to creating a healthier, more vibrant world
• 0:30
  through plant based eating, Wellness, community and
• 0:32
  connection. Cafe Gratitude provides fresh,
• 0:35
  organic and locally sourced meals striving to make
• 0:38
  nourishing food accessible to everyone.
• 0:41
  Now, under her guidance, the organization has been recognized
• 0:43
  as a Socially Responsible business and won the Do Good
• 0:47
  Doesn't Award at Yellow Co in 2019.
• 0:50
  TRC is the author of I Am Grateful, a book that reveals
• 0:54
  how gratitude can shape business and life for the better.
• 0:58
  Over her career, she has LED workshops, written multiple
• 1:01
  books and openly shared her personal recovery journey from
• 1:05
  addiction, abuse and an eating disorder that has inspired
• 1:09
  countless individuals to embrace hope.
• 1:11
  She's the host of the unreasonably grateful podcast
• 1:15
  and she also Co founded Gracias Madre, further spreading her
• 1:18
  passion for plant based living and she is the founder of
• 1:22
  Mountain Cloud Creamery. With her focus on Wellness and
• 1:26
  community, Tier C continues to demonstrate the transformative
• 1:29
  power of gratitude. Now before we get into all that
• 1:32
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:35
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  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 2:00
  Add Back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the
• 2:04
  founder of Cafe Gratitude TRC. I appreciate you making the time
• 2:07
  to Share your story today. Thanks, Anthony.
• 2:10
  Thank you for the invitation. Great to be here with you.
• 2:13
  All right. So Terci, I feel like we can't
• 2:16
  really tell the story of all of your, all your different
• 2:20
  businesses, all the different things that you're involved in
• 2:23
  without first going into your earlier struggles that kind of
• 2:28
  helped to inspire the start of these businesses.
• 2:32
  Where can we start there? Yeah, sure.
• 2:35
  Happy to SO. So take us back to to the
• 2:40
  beginning of that. OK, great.
• 2:41
  So so I'll just briefly go through like the childhood that
• 2:45
  led up to. So I'm the youngest of three
• 2:47
  girls. My father was a career military
• 2:49
  pilot and I became a competitive swimmer at a young age.
• 2:54
  And then I switched into synchronized swimming, which now
• 2:58
  I think it's called artistic swimming, before it was an
• 3:02
  Olympic sport. And, yeah.
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  And then when I was 16, I had moved away from home.
• 3:09
  I was living with another swimmer's family out of the area
• 3:15
  in order to have more opportunity with a better coach
• 3:18
  and a team. And at that point in my life, I
• 3:22
  was, you know, challenged to manage my weight so that it, you
• 3:28
  know, we all looked alike, which is a very common thing in sports
• 3:32
  where like gymnastics where you're looking at gymnastics,
• 3:35
  swimming, where you're looking at having all the team members
• 3:40
  look exactly the same anyway. And so I had, I didn't really
• 3:45
  have weight to lose. I had a lot of muscle.
• 3:47
  I was young and I tried to lose weight and couldn't and was
• 3:53
  accused of not trying. And that's just not who I am.
• 3:58
  And that kind of just triggered something to me.
• 4:01
  And so I quit eating in order to lose weight once again.
• 4:04
  Now we know all these years later how eating disorders work
• 4:08
  is if you stop eating, it's very hard to start again.
• 4:12
  And it just triggers something in in your brain.
• 4:16
  And so I was early on and anorexic, but there wasn't
• 4:20
  really a diagnosis for that back in the 60s.
• 4:24
  And my father was in the military, like I said.
• 4:26
  So eventually I was taken to a military doctor and one thing
• 4:32
  led to another. And of course, you know, I don't
• 4:36
  know how important all the details are, but you know, he, I
• 4:40
  ended up in an abusive situation with him, but I didn't tell
• 4:44
  anyone. And so when I finished, I was
• 4:48
  ended up eventually being hospitalized when I got out of
• 4:50
  the hospital. And you can read all of this in
• 4:53
  my book called Unreasonably Grateful if you want the whole
• 4:56
  story. And when I got out of the
• 4:59
  hospital, I basically joined the airlines and kind of stayed on
• 5:05
  the run. So I wasn't healed.
• 5:07
  I wasn't in recovery. There wasn't any acknowledgement
• 5:11
  of the addiction that's associated with eating
• 5:16
  disorders, anorexia, bulimia, all of those.
• 5:20
  And so I just lived the next 20 years of my life struggling with
• 5:25
  the addictive side of an eating disorder, and nobody knew.
• 5:29
  So I lived this kind of secret existence, which Anthony, you
• 5:33
  asked me earlier about my name. So 20 years later I was given
• 5:38
  this spiritual name Teresi, which is my name.
• 5:41
  My birth name was Marsha. And if you look at the way it's
• 5:45
  spelled, it spells, if you look at it backwards, it spells
• 5:49
  secret. And there was a moment in my
• 5:51
  life 20 years later when I was really pursuing more of a
• 5:56
  spiritual existence and no longer, you know, my daughter
• 5:59
  had actually my daughter. I had three children.
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  I had, I was anorexic through all of my births and had various
• 6:06
  experiences. And my daughter was starting to
• 6:13
  have similar. I saw in her the experience of
• 6:18
  her learning to not trust herself.
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  And that was for me, just kind of the line in the sand.
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  I was like, I'm not going to pass this on to her.
• 6:28
  And that was where I had this spiritual awakening.
• 6:31
  And I can't tell people how you get there and how it happens,
• 6:35
  but you hear people say you hit bottom or there's lots of other
• 6:39
  ways. But what there was this moment
• 6:41
  where how I can describe it as it felt like there was a crack
• 6:44
  in the facade. So I I was definitely living
• 6:47
  inside of a facade because still no one knew that I was dealing
• 6:52
  with an eating disorder. And yet I was public, a public
• 6:56
  figure, and I was driving a pink Cadillac.
• 6:58
  I was an executive sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics.
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  I lived on a military base. I was married with three kids.
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  But my life looked one way. But that was not my experience
• 7:10
  of my life. And so there was this crack in
• 7:13
  the facade, and I heard. So it was an audible experience
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  of tell the truth. So I was kind of like, who even
• 7:23
  cares? 20 years later, I actually am
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  living on the military base where the abuse happened 20
• 7:29
  years earlier, married to somebody who is now in the
• 7:32
  military. And so I did.
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  And some people believe me, some people didn't.
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  And that began my journey. And over the course of the next
• 7:46
  five years or so, those first five years of recovery, I had
• 7:50
  these 4 insights or these four spiritual messages that I
• 7:55
  received. One of them was tell the truth.
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  The second one was stay in the moment.
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  The third one was face your fears.
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  And the fourth one was open up to love.
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  So if you look at those, it's telling the truth is the first
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  step. And even today, if something
• 8:12
  happens and I feel like I'm drifting or I'm less present
• 8:17
  than I'm committed to being, I look and I can probably find
• 8:20
  some place where I'm either not being completely honest or just
• 8:25
  not speaking up at all, just letting things slip by even
• 8:28
  though I have a thought or an opinion or a disagreement.
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  And so I go back to just being completely transparent and
• 8:36
  honest about what my experience is, not assuming that it's
• 8:40
  anybody else's. And then staying in the moment
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  is what happens. For what happened for me in
• 8:46
  early recovery is you look far ahead and you're kind of
• 8:49
  paralyzed and you look behind and you're regretful of the loss
• 8:54
  and the pain and the suffering that I've experienced and that
• 8:56
  I've caused other people. And so staying in the moment is
• 9:00
  the only place really where life is.
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  And it's not easy to be there. And so one of the ways you get
• 9:09
  there is you face what you're afraid of.
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  And that was the next insight was just whatever I'm afraid of,
• 9:17
  walk right into that, be honest, stay present, face it, walk
• 9:23
  through it. And then the last one was open
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  up to love, which was, you know, loving myself, loving other
• 9:29
  people, forgiving people, forgiving myself.
• 9:32
  And that's how I've continued to recovery.
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  And this is my 39th year of recovery.
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  So from 16 to 36, I lived an addictive lifestyle.
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  And during that time I had my children.
• 9:43
  And from 36 to 75, this year has been my years of recovery.
• 9:48
  And in my years of recovery, while the first part of it was
• 9:52
  probably pretty messy because you're not that you're not.
• 9:55
  I wasn't. I can't say you're not.
• 9:57
  I wasn't that, yeah, either mature or aware or wise or
• 10:05
  whatever it is. You're just fumbling.
• 10:07
  You're just trying to survive the next day, the next day, the
• 10:09
  next meal. Food's an interesting addiction
• 10:12
  because, you know, my personal opinion is we have a society
• 10:16
  that's addicted to food. And I remember, I remember
• 10:19
  having this epiphany early on about what now people are aware
• 10:24
  of as the conventional diet, the industrial food complex, you
• 10:29
  know, all of that. I had that epiphany back in the
• 10:32
  early years and, you know, people thought I was crazy.
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  So now all these years later, that's not true.
• 10:39
  People actually recognize that there's poison in our food and
• 10:43
  we're poisoning ourselves and but how do you, how do you
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  communicate that in a way that doesn't?
• 10:49
  Doesn't make you sound like a conspiracy theorist.
• 10:52
  Yeah. Or just people resist it, right?
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  People just resist you. So that's been, you know, the
• 10:58
  softening, the softening over the years.
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  And Cafe Gratitude was my give back.
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  It was, you know, when we hung out the shingle for Cafe
• 11:06
  Gratitude, it was really, wow, what if people, what if we could
• 11:10
  take people, you know, in the city of San Francisco, young
• 11:14
  people, many of them not well employed or well employable and
• 11:21
  train them in just keeping their attention on being grateful no
• 11:24
  matter what was going on in their life, what would happen.
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  And then, you know, for those of you that are familiar with that,
• 11:29
  that took off and we expanded and expanded.
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  And anyway, that's the early years.
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  So that's what led. To thank you for opening up
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  about all that Chair. See, there's a, a few things I
• 11:41
  want to unpack there. First, this, you know, this
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  notion of anorexia being an addiction, you know, for people
• 11:51
  who haven't experienced it themselves or haven't had
• 11:55
  someone close to them go through it, it, it may sound at first a
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  little counterintuitive that it's an addiction because it's
• 12:04
  typically you think of an addiction as it's something I
• 12:06
  need more of, right? So help us kind of wrap our
• 12:11
  heads around anorexia as an addiction kind of well, talk us
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  through. That well, first of all, if you
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  stay straight anorexic, you'll die, right?
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  You just die. You'll starve to death.
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  And so most people who struggle with anorexia balance it out
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  with bulimia, right? So then you either eat and you,
• 12:29
  so it's that balance between it. You don't eat, you don't eat,
• 12:32
  you don't eat, you binge, you don't eat, you don't eat, you
• 12:36
  binge exercise. You eat and you binge exercise,
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  which you know can be construed as healthy.
• 12:42
  You, you don't eat, you don't eat, you eat.
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  And then you use laxatives or whatever, right?
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  It's, it's, it's that it's kind of an inability to receive and
• 12:54
  to be worthy of receiving and being healthy.
• 12:58
  And it's a, it's a mental strategy, that of manipulation.
• 13:06
  You're manipulating yourself, the people around you.
• 13:12
  Yeah, you're probably lying there.
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  Was someone and it. Has all the characteristics of
• 13:17
  an addiction. You lie, you hide, you cheat,
• 13:19
  you steal. Yeah.
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  You're addicted to sort of this self-destructive process.
• 13:26
  Absolutely. And you can't stop.
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  You want to stop, but you can't stop.
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  That's where I say it's an addiction.
• 13:32
  You can't you can't stop it, you know, and sure, there's lots of
• 13:36
  lots more information now about, you know, your body system, the
• 13:40
  chemistry of your systems out of whack, which impacts your
• 13:43
  ability to think straight. You know you have this love hate
• 13:48
  relationship with food and with. People, you made the point that
• 13:55
  back in the 60s there really wasn't a diagnosis for this.
• 13:59
  No, there wasn't. So you probably on some level
• 14:03
  understood that you were really struggling with something, but
• 14:06
  without there being a diagnosis or a name or a way to sort of
• 14:10
  categorize it, I have to imagine that made it all the more
• 14:12
  confusing for you. Very confusing.
• 14:15
  And it wasn't until I can't remember the show, but there was
• 14:18
  some sitcom when I already had children and my kids were
• 14:22
  watching sitcoms. There was some sitcom where
• 14:26
  People magazine did an article about the actress and defined it
• 14:31
  as an eating disorder. And I heard it.
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  And that was the first time I was like, oh, that's what this
• 14:39
  is. You know, I, you know, I had all
• 14:42
  kinds of crazy notions. I thought I was an evil person.
• 14:46
  I thought there was something wrong with me.
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  I thought, yeah, I I just lived, like you said.
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  It was confusing and painful and isolating and lonely and I felt
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  misunderstood. And I was always masking or
• 15:06
  covering it up. And then on top of this, when
• 15:10
  you're taken to a doctor to try to get some help, how you find
• 15:14
  yourself in this abusive position, this abusive
• 15:18
  relationship. And so you've got all this other
• 15:21
  confusing stuff going on now you've piled on a whole other
• 15:25
  set of you don't even know what to call it. the IT, it sounds
• 15:29
  like catastrophic sort of like colliding these these two things
• 15:34
  together. And for so many years, you just
• 15:37
  carried that with you and sort of stuffed it down inside and
• 15:41
  let it eat away at your insides. Yep, Yep.
• 15:45
  And always felt guilty and yeah, exactly.
• 15:50
  That's how it was. It was very isolating.
• 15:52
  I I told someone once that someone I was coaching or
• 15:57
  working with who was dealing with a loved one who had an
• 16:00
  eating disorder. And I said, it's like there's
• 16:02
  those kitchen doors that swing in and out and you have to be
• 16:09
  able, if someone outside of you can actually infiltrate the the
• 16:16
  barrier, you know, it gives you an opportunity to step out.
• 16:22
  And the only way they can infiltrate that barrier is to be
• 16:27
  completely authentic and honest with you.
• 16:30
  And most people aren't, you know, everybody's, everybody has
• 16:36
  some version of shame that they hide.
• 16:42
  And as long as that's happening, they can't penetrate because
• 16:50
  you're, you're already living in that shame bubble and you can
• 16:55
  see it in other people. And so it really takes somebody
• 17:00
  being completely transparent and honest with you from their
• 17:05
  perspective, not about you. And you know, I don't know how,
• 17:09
  you know, that was my situation where it was secret and hidden.
• 17:13
  But you know, I've read lots of things about now people deal
• 17:16
  with eating disorders and it's like people know and it's and
• 17:21
  that's another experience. You still, but you still have to
• 17:24
  be willing to every you know, it's, it's part of a whole
• 17:29
  system. You're the person who has it,
• 17:32
  but all the other people in your circle or family of origin play
• 17:38
  a part in that. And that's why people go to
• 17:43
  recovery homes maybe and heal a bit, but then they return to the
• 17:47
  same environment and relapse you.
• 17:51
  Everybody has to do their part, Everybody.
• 17:53
  Has to. So for somebody who has a loved
• 17:56
  one that is dealing with or recovering from an anorexic
• 18:01
  bulimic addiction, what advice can you give them?
• 18:06
  How to support that person? How to get through to them?
• 18:10
  How to be there for them? Well, so first of all, you don't
• 18:13
  ever stop loving them. And, you know, I think the
• 18:18
  hardest part is if there's been this broken trust, if you know,
• 18:23
  they're lying or cheating or stealing and there's been this
• 18:26
  broken trust, you have to be willing to trust them again.
• 18:35
  You have to be willing. Because if we live, Anthony,
• 18:37
  like if I live at like, I don't trust you, you'll eventually be
• 18:42
  mistrustful. You just will, because I'm
• 18:44
  creating that atmosphere for you to live in.
• 18:46
  So you have to be willing to do that.
• 18:48
  But that takes this person doing a lot of work over here to
• 18:52
  trust. And sure, yeah, they may.
• 18:54
  They may, they may blow it again.
• 18:56
  But So what you're committed to being somebody who trusts.
• 19:01
  Now, that doesn't mean you also have to be completely honest and
• 19:05
  you have to be completely honest about your experience.
• 19:08
  So speaking in the first person, my experience, what you're
• 19:12
  afraid of, what you're dealing with, what it's like for you
• 19:15
  over there, not so much projecting it onto the other
• 19:18
  person, but that sort of transparency yourself is vital,
• 19:23
  necessary in order to even reach that person.
• 19:27
  And then, you know, I'm a I'm a person, I'm a Christian.
• 19:30
  So you have to pray. You have to believe that there
• 19:34
  is a power working greater than you that has that best interest
• 19:39
  of that person and at heart. And I don't know how to you have
• 19:45
  to be willing, you have to be willing to believe that this
• 19:49
  person will will get through this and.
• 19:54
  So for your TRC, it sounds like part of sort of your tipping
• 19:58
  point came when you started to notice some behaviors in your
• 20:03
  daughter where she wasn't trusting herself.
• 20:06
  And there was something in that that kind of awakened something
• 20:11
  in you to say. What?
• 20:13
  That's not gonna happen. Yeah.
• 20:15
  Yeah. Because see, if I had, if I had
• 20:18
  completely trusted, if I'd felt like I was completely trusted, I
• 20:23
  would have said something about the abuse.
• 20:25
  But I didn't because I was still taking care of him and his
• 20:30
  needs. You know, it's like he, he had a
• 20:34
  family to protect. He, he was a professional, he
• 20:37
  was a male. He, I mean, all these things.
• 20:39
  Why would anybody believe me? So not raising a child to not
• 20:45
  trust their own internal wisdom was like, I'm not going to do
• 20:53
  that. I'm not going to do that.
• 20:56
  And that was, you know, I probably saw in her that part of
• 21:00
  me that had been and not believed.
• 21:03
  And so I it was, it was just the, IT was the impetus that
• 21:09
  created the opening for. And how long after you sort of
• 21:13
  had that thought of that realization did you hear that
• 21:16
  first voice? Oh, right, right.
• 21:19
  Then I went. Up right at that moment.
• 21:20
  Went upstairs, took a shower, heard the voice.
• 21:22
  And then that was the beginning. I I did some crazy things.
• 21:26
  I took all the furniture out of the house.
• 21:27
  My husband was deployed to the Indian Ocean at the time.
• 21:31
  I took the furniture out of the house.
• 21:32
  I bought a little Walkman, started jogging.
• 21:36
  I, you know, I just That was the beginning of those tornadoes.
• 21:40
  Now 39 years of recovery. What was the furniture?
• 21:43
  Why? Why did you take the?
• 21:44
  Furniture out because I just because I had this thing like I
• 21:47
  don't want anything in the house that I don't choose that I don't
• 21:50
  want. And if you think about that, you
• 21:52
  know, symbolic of life, right, of my Life, OK, I'm not.
• 21:56
  I had to learn how to I had to learn how to feel full.
• 21:59
  Had to learn how to feel hungry. I had to learn how to prepare
• 22:02
  food for myself. I had because I was so used to,
• 22:07
  you know, an abusive relationship with those things.
• 22:10
  So I had to kind of start all over.
• 22:12
  What did the voice sound like? You know, I still hear it.
• 22:16
  So it's, it's like an impression.
• 22:19
  It's like, you know, so you always know that it's this, you
• 22:24
  know, for me, it's, it's God, it's Jesus.
• 22:26
  But you always know that because I always know that, because I
• 22:31
  know what they're, I know what's being said and I know that's
• 22:37
  what I'm supposed to do when I don't want to.
• 22:39
  So it there's always that defining line of, yeah, I get
• 22:45
  it. I know that and I don't want to
• 22:48
  and yet that's what I push up against is and I, and I already
• 22:52
  know I'm going to, it's like that lineup.
• 22:55
  I don't want to and I know I'm going to.
• 22:57
  That's the, you know, I, I mean, I, I've obviously studied and
• 23:02
  read a lot more since then. And I've heard, I've heard it
• 23:06
  said that, you know, that that divine guidance will always move
• 23:15
  you in the direction of, you know, growth and love and
• 23:19
  healing. And it always move you in that
• 23:22
  direction. But it doesn't necessarily look
• 23:25
  like it at the time because you're, you're going to have to
• 23:27
  just walk through something, you're going to have to confront
• 23:30
  something. But there's this, there's this
• 23:34
  kindness and gentleness and grace that goes with it.
• 23:38
  And so it's easy, it's easy to tell, it's easy to identify what
• 23:43
  that is now after all these years.
• 23:46
  From the time that you heard the voice the first time, when did
• 23:49
  those additional messages come through?
• 23:51
  Face your fears. People have asked me that, but I
• 23:53
  would say, you know, I definitely worked at Tell Me the
• 23:56
  Truth for over a year, so. Was it like you had to you had
• 24:01
  to attain the first one before you got sort of the second?
• 24:06
  'Cause it wasn't like linear time like that for me, it was,
• 24:08
  it wasn't like I knew there was even gonna be a second or I knew
• 24:11
  there was gonna be 1/3. So I was just working on telling
• 24:15
  the truth. I was just continually working
• 24:17
  on telling the truth. And at some point I heard it.
• 24:23
  I heard it again. And you know, so and I didn't
• 24:26
  know there'd be 1/3 or 1/4. You know, I didn't know.
• 24:29
  I didn't know those things. I was just committed to, you
• 24:36
  know, getting healthy. I was just committed to healing.
• 24:40
  So, OK, when did you first decide to start Cafe Gratitude?
• 24:44
  Then you talked a little bit about what you wanted it to be.
• 24:47
  Yeah, Cafe Gratitude started years later.
• 24:49
  So, and let's see here. I met my, I met my current
• 24:54
  husband in 2000 and we got married in 2002 and in 2004 we
• 25:04
  started Cafe Gratitude. And before that I, I had AI was,
• 25:09
  I had an inspirational greeting card company.
• 25:11
  I've done a lot of different things.
• 25:12
  I was a, a registration manager, registration manager for
• 25:18
  Landmark Education. That's where I met my husband.
• 25:21
  And so I was 52 when we got married in 54 when we started
• 25:26
  Cafe Gratitude and we didn't start it as a restaurant.
• 25:31
  We we were both working in the world of transformation and
• 25:35
  healing. And he kind of came through the
• 25:38
  avenue of a hippie from the East Coast.
• 25:41
  I was not a hippie. And when we met, I had a
• 25:45
  boyfriend, he had a girlfriend and then we were just friends.
• 25:49
  And then at some point he said, I, I really get, I want to be
• 25:53
  more than friends with you. And so when we when we got
• 25:58
  together as a partner, as a couple, when we got married, we
• 26:03
  were like, OK, what are we gonna do with our life?
• 26:06
  We what are we gonna do? And it kind of came that we got
• 26:12
  this voice, this insight that said, create a board game.
• 26:17
  And we were like, we don't even play board games.
• 26:20
  Like, we don't even own a board game.
• 26:23
  I don't even necessarily like board games.
• 26:25
  And so we started looking around because we knew we were in the
• 26:28
  world of transformation, which is, you know, creating something
• 26:32
  is possible that you didn't think was possible before.
• 26:36
  And so we sat down every day. We had a big blank canvas and I
• 26:41
  think we collected a couple pebbles and we made a little
• 26:43
  spinner. Things that you associate with
• 26:45
  board games. And we had this big blank canvas
• 26:49
  and we just for a year we said OK, it's your turn what are you
• 26:52
  going to do and then he'd go it's your turn what are you
• 26:55
  going to do? We invented a board game called
• 26:57
  the Abounding River and you can still get it on eBay and we I
• 27:02
  don't know how many copies we printed eventually, I don't
• 27:06
  know, 5000 we printed a bunch so we had all these board games and
• 27:10
  we were like well what are we going to do with these board
• 27:12
  games? How are we going to get these
• 27:13
  board games to people? And we had this idea like, well,
• 27:19
  let's you know, Matthew likes coffee.
• 27:22
  I'm I'm a really good Baker. We lived in San Francisco.
• 27:25
  Maybe let's create a little cafe where people come in and play
• 27:29
  the board game and I'll make pastries and you can get the
• 27:33
  best coffee. And so that was the idea.
• 27:36
  And then we just kind of started looking around, well, where
• 27:40
  would we put it? And then we went to Hawaii and I
• 27:45
  kind of got chewed into the plant based diet and we came
• 27:49
  back and we actually started the Cafe as a raw food plant based.
• 27:54
  And we got super inspired by that.
• 27:56
  We were already like doing yoga every day and riding our bikes
• 28:01
  everywhere. And so, so I started making all
• 28:05
  this, you know, raw food. And so then we thought, well, it
• 28:09
  started making food for our friends.
• 28:11
  And then our friends were like, well, when are you going to open
• 28:13
  up a Cafe? And we were like, I don't know
• 28:15
  when we when we get the message to or whatever.
• 28:18
  And then one day we were on our way back from the farmers market
• 28:22
  and we saw a sign over a building that said restaurant
• 28:25
  available. And we went home.
• 28:27
  We looked it up online. And that ended up being the
• 28:30
  first Cafe Gratitude. And so we were like, well, what
• 28:32
  are we going to call it? And you know, for me, gratitude
• 28:38
  was a big part of my healing practice.
• 28:40
  Gratitude was a part of his life.
• 28:43
  And it's kind of the basis of all transformation, right?
• 28:48
  It's, I mean, there wasn't even a thing like there weren't
• 28:52
  gratitude journals or gratitude. There wasn't anything like that.
• 28:55
  There was no almond milk commercial.
• 28:58
  There was no iced coffee or there was none of that in two O
• 29:02
  4. And that's how we opened the
• 29:04
  restaurant we had, we were squeezing, hand squeezing almond
• 29:08
  milk and Brazil nut milk. And anyway, we started this very
• 29:13
  funky social experiment called Cafe Gratitude with, you know,
• 29:17
  11 people. My son, my oldest son came and
• 29:21
  helped U.S. Open it.
• 29:23
  And it just took off. We we asked everybody, what are
• 29:27
  you grateful for? And people were like, you mean
• 29:29
  like right now? Or we mean like.
• 29:33
  What a strange question to ask. Yeah, like when we went to City
• 29:36
  Hall to get our business license, the girl was like, Oh
• 29:40
  my gosh, imagine if we asked ourselves that every day here at
• 29:43
  the City Hall. It'd be a completely different
• 29:46
  environment. And and that was all we did.
• 29:48
  We had this question of the day in the cafe and we asked people
• 29:52
  the question of the day. And the only question of the day
• 29:54
  was, what are you grateful for? Now there's, I don't know,
• 29:57
  hundreds of them, but anyway, we had the board game on every
• 30:01
  table and we kind of created bowls instead of plates, which
• 30:05
  bowls are a thing now. And it was only because you
• 30:09
  could fit the bowl in the border of the board game.
• 30:12
  And eventually, you know, we added rice and quinoa and that
• 30:17
  kind of started us moving into some cooked food, rice and
• 30:20
  quinoa and Mizo. And then eventually we and then
• 30:25
  we started drinking coffee and then it became more plant based,
• 30:30
  but not raw. And then yeah, that's.
• 30:33
  You said it took off right from the beginning.
• 30:35
  Like did it truly? Like did you, did you actually
• 30:37
  like when was the point where you're like, oh, like this can
• 30:40
  be a business. Like we can make a living from
• 30:42
  this and open. Up more we had one Cafe, then we
• 30:45
  opened a second and I think we opened a third, then we opened a
• 30:48
  Gracias Madre and Gracias Madre was just we did a lot of work in
• 30:52
  Mexico. So at the same time we have a
• 30:54
  book called the Bounding River, which is a practice in keeping
• 30:59
  your attention on, you know, being grateful, being that
• 31:02
  you're the source of your experience, that whatever you're
• 31:05
  experiencing, you're creating it, being abundant, being
• 31:10
  generous. So the qualities besides
• 31:13
  gratitude. And we, we did that book and we
• 31:16
  LED workshops and we LED a lot of workshops and we LED
• 31:20
  workshops in Mexico and we had a connection with a woman in
• 31:23
  Mexico who kind of brought us into all sorts of we worked with
• 31:29
  Maristas and the Catholic Church and schools and public
• 31:33
  workshops. And so we did workshops and.
• 31:37
  What were these workshops about? Pardon, they were all the
• 31:41
  workshops were all about keeping your attention on qualities,
• 31:46
  qualities that have you have a great life.
• 31:49
  And then we also developed other workshops.
• 31:51
  We have a wrote a book called Kindred Spirit and those
• 31:53
  workshops are about relationship.
• 31:55
  And then we wrote Sacred Commerce, which is about our
• 31:58
  model of business. And so when we were in Mexico, I
• 32:02
  was just so moved by the generosity of the Mexican
• 32:07
  mother, just the, the, the kindness, the sacrifice, the the
• 32:12
  way they serve. They're, they're just, it's
• 32:15
  stunning. And so Gracias Madre was opened
• 32:18
  originally to really honor the, the Latino female.
• 32:24
  And it was all about thank you, mother.
• 32:27
  And we had pictures of all the mothers of our employees and it
• 32:33
  was this whole wall of acknowledging them.
• 32:35
  And we opened it in San Francisco and now there's a big
• 32:40
  beautiful one in Los Angeles still still there.
• 32:42
  We, we've closed the one that was in Newport.
• 32:45
  But anyway, so I mean, it was, I don't think we ever thought
• 32:51
  like, I guess we thought business, but it was more the
• 32:55
  social experiment of training people using the restaurant as a
• 33:03
  format because service is a key to every spiritual path.
• 33:06
  And so it was all about service and teamwork and communication.
• 33:13
  And we kept leading workshops and.
• 33:16
  Were there particular pathways for you finding the folks that
• 33:20
  you wanted to come work with you?
• 33:22
  Did we have trouble finding you? Know were the particular ways
• 33:25
  that you found these folks. It sounds like you were looking
• 33:27
  for a specific type of. Person bad idea.
• 33:29
  We usually tell people it's a bad idea to work for us.
• 33:33
  And we, you know, we had silly questions like not silly, but
• 33:37
  different. How do you get in your own way?
• 33:39
  And yeah, what's your greatest achievement?
• 33:43
  We had a unique application process and then our other, our
• 33:50
  two other sons came to work with us.
• 33:52
  And then we ended up with people that wanted to help us move to
• 33:56
  LA and they became our partners. They're still our partners and
• 34:02
  they took on the LA expansion and our kids went down to open
• 34:07
  that expansion and one of them is still there.
• 34:09
  One of them has since gone to our daughter's farm in Texas and
• 34:14
  he started, I mean there it's a he started a whole another
• 34:17
  business called Just the Ground, which is AI mean there's movies
• 34:22
  and yeah, it's a wild story anyway.
• 34:26
  What is kiss the ground real quick?
• 34:27
  I I want to keep it about you, but now I got to know what's
• 34:29
  kiss the. Ground is a nonprofit
• 34:31
  organization that's promoting regenerative farming.
• 34:35
  OK. And he's definitely a leader in
• 34:37
  that element, which is now associated with Robert Kennedy
• 34:42
  and Maha, which he's a part of. And yeah, so and then our other
• 34:46
  son has since left our company, but he has his own restaurants
• 34:51
  in Los Angeles. He has highly likely and he's
• 34:55
  now opening up in Ojai. And then our daughter, one of
• 34:57
  our daughters has a 200 acre retreat center outside of Austin
• 35:02
  and Bandera and that's called Sovereignty Ranch.
• 35:07
  And yeah, and then one son's in Santa Cruz and that's where we
• 35:11
  had the restaurant that. 11 seat all of these other.
• 35:14
  Sort of. Yeah, now branches have sprouted
• 35:16
  off the. Tree Coffee Roasters and her
• 35:17
  other daughter's a mom in Oakdale, the Central Valley in
• 35:22
  California. So tell us what cafe gratitude
• 35:24
  is today? Pardon, somebody.
• 35:26
  Tell us what cafe gratitude is today.
• 35:28
  Somebody Cafe. Gratitude today is still, I
• 35:30
  mean, we're actually hoping that there's kind of a resurgence
• 35:34
  because of this awareness of how important healthy food is and
• 35:39
  how destructive the conventional industrial food system is to
• 35:45
  both the planet and our own Biome, our own gut flora.
• 35:49
  So we're hoping that there's kind of a resurgence, but we
• 35:52
  have the three original Southern California.
• 35:55
  So Venice Beach Cafe Gratitude, Larchmont Cafe Gratitude and
• 36:01
  Hollywood West Hollywood, Gracias Madre are the three
• 36:04
  restaurants that belong to our our our group called Love Serve,
• 36:09
  remember in Los Angeles. And they're great.
• 36:12
  They're hanging in there. They're serving a lot of people.
• 36:16
  It's not the big huge blow out that it once was, but maybe
• 36:21
  there'll be another breath of fresh air.
• 36:23
  Who? Knows did COVID kind of affect
• 36:25
  the the trajectory of what was going on in the way?
• 36:28
  Horribly. We, Yeah, horribly.
• 36:32
  We because because our restaurants were so much about
• 36:37
  people and not just food, and because it was about an
• 36:42
  interactive experience, they were horribly affected because
• 36:47
  COVID had everybody step away from each other, get 6 feet
• 36:51
  away, wear a mask, don't wear a mask, come in.
• 36:53
  Don't come in. I mean, horrible hospitality.
• 36:57
  I mean, there are more closed restaurants.
• 37:00
  We left San Francisco just because it was so crime ridden
• 37:05
  and not clean and not safe. And yeah, it's.
• 37:10
  But you see a path to maybe some of these, probably not the same
• 37:13
  exact physical locations, but maybe being able to open up some
• 37:18
  new locations. Now, I really think that we need
• 37:22
  to go out of state, we need to get out of California.
• 37:24
  But we're also all, you know, we're also all, we're 20 years
• 37:29
  in, our partners are 10 years in.
• 37:31
  We're also all all right, we're ready for the energy to do that.
• 37:35
  So, you know, we're looking for some partners that are
• 37:38
  interested in that kind of expansion because it takes a
• 37:40
  lot, You know, we don't want to travel like that anymore.
• 37:43
  And you know, we know you have to have boots on the ground and
• 37:46
  we're looking for the right people to partner with us and
• 37:49
  take the restaurants out of state.
• 37:52
  Any particular states that you think would make a good
• 37:54
  expansion? I mean, there's been lots of
• 37:56
  conversation about places where there isn't that availability,
• 38:01
  where there is a need for good healthy food.
• 38:04
  And there obviously has to be a large enough population.
• 38:07
  So it's going to be in some metropolitan or, you know, some
• 38:10
  areas surrounding a city. But we've talked about, you
• 38:14
  know, Dallas and Houston and Miami and we've talked about
• 38:18
  different places, But we'll see. We'll see.
• 38:22
  I want to ask you about one of your books.
• 38:23
  You know, you mentioned a few of them.
• 38:26
  Abounding River, Kindred Spirit, Sacred Commerce.
• 38:29
  You said this is how you approach business.
• 38:32
  What is this? So it's a business, it's a it's
• 38:35
  a book about the culture of our business and it's how we treat
• 38:39
  people, the skills and the tools that we utilize to to grow a
• 38:45
  really strong, healthy community.
• 38:48
  You know, our people really stay connected and helpful.
• 38:54
  Those original people that open to that first Cafe gratitude are
• 38:58
  still a very tight knit group of people.
• 39:00
  And you know, if somebody's in trouble, we all pitch in and
• 39:03
  help. And how that got created were
• 39:06
  those tools that are in sacred commerce.
• 39:09
  And that's the workshop that we we ended up leading that
• 39:13
  workshop probably, we probably LED kindred spirit more
• 39:15
  relationship, which is where people mostly struggle.
• 39:20
  But yeah, it's a business. It's about our business model.
• 39:23
  You you mentioned you've got some unusual interview questions
• 39:27
  that you ask when people are coming up.
• 39:29
  What kind of person are you looking for?
• 39:32
  I think we were always looking for someone who one was like,
• 39:38
  was willing to serve, was willing to be trained, was, you
• 39:42
  know, that that had a passion for growth and developing their
• 39:47
  potential. Someone who wanted to be part of
• 39:51
  a community, someone who saw an opportunity in learning to put
• 39:57
  service first. Yeah.
• 40:03
  So a few years ago you left the state of California.
• 40:07
  You moved to Idaho to start something new.
• 40:11
  What is that? Yeah.
• 40:12
  Well, we had built this really beautiful farm in outside of San
• 40:17
  Francisco, between San Francisco and Sacramento.
• 40:19
  We had a beautiful farm and we ran a hospitality business, say
• 40:23
  a farm hospitality business, and we didn't think we were ever
• 40:30
  going to move. We'd built a home and our family
• 40:34
  gathered every year, a couple times a year, and we had room
• 40:37
  for everybody. And then we heard about this
• 40:42
  farm. The person who is running the
• 40:45
  vegetable business, Emma, she worked with us and she left and
• 40:49
  then she did a couple of other internships and one of them was
• 40:52
  here. And I remember looking online
• 40:55
  and going, wow, that is so beautiful.
• 40:58
  And then she came back two years later and said the people that
• 41:01
  owned it were selling it. And I was like, really?
• 41:04
  And at the time, the restaurants hadn't recovered like we'd hoped
• 41:08
  they would post COVID. And so my husband and I were
• 41:12
  thinking about, well, maybe the next thing we'll do is
• 41:14
  destination hospitality on farms.
• 41:17
  And our daughter had bought 200 acres in Texas and we had our
• 41:21
  farm in Vacaville. And so I said, well, let's go
• 41:24
  take a look at this and maybe we'll add a northern location
• 41:28
  where there's snow and fishing and all that.
• 41:33
  So we came up to look and then we loved it.
• 41:39
  And on the way back, we stopped in, but we drove a camper.
• 41:42
  And on the way back, we stopped in Bend, OR, and again we had
• 41:47
  the epiphany or the insight that our mission was done in
• 41:50
  California, that we had healed the land, we'd built a beautiful
• 41:54
  community, and it was done. And we were being given a new
• 41:59
  mission. And we were like, really OK.
• 42:03
  And over that we started taking the steps.
• 42:07
  And within a year we were actually here building and we
• 42:12
  had someone take our farm and we took this farm and it's been our
• 42:20
  big project. And we've built a sauna and a
• 42:23
  cold plunge and a barn and a dairy.
• 42:25
  And we live in a kind of small cabin that we, it was very much
• 42:30
  a tear down and we gutted and fixed it and we fixed a
• 42:33
  farmhouse for Emma. And now we're going to build an
• 42:37
  outdoor kitchen and remodel the container.
• 42:39
  We moved in and Yep, new project.
• 42:44
  So is the goal still to turn this?
• 42:46
  Is the goal still to turn this into some sort of a like a
• 42:49
  destination like for? I don't think we're going to do
• 42:51
  like commercial hospitality. I think we'll do a few cabins
• 42:55
  that have a short term stay and then with with 16 grandkids and
• 43:02
  five kids, there's kind of people's cycling through and
• 43:07
  we'll have place for them to stay because there's not really
• 43:10
  the room in where we're living right now.
• 43:11
  We had a big house in California and yeah.
• 43:15
  And up here raw dairy is legal. And I make cheese, and I'm a
• 43:20
  cheese maker and I love it. So I want to talk more about raw
• 43:24
  dairy, but first I want to go back to Bend OR where you got
• 43:27
  the message that there was a new mission.
• 43:30
  What does that message look or sound or feel like?
• 43:34
  How do you know that there's a a new mission for you?
• 43:38
  It's that same thing again. Like you're like, you must be
• 43:42
  kidding at the same time that you're saying you must be
• 43:46
  kidding. You actually already know that
• 43:50
  that's what's gonna happen. Was it another voice from
• 43:52
  outside? Yeah, yeah, another.
• 43:56
  All right, OK. All right.
• 43:58
  I hear you. I get it.
• 44:00
  And then you're not. And then you're dealing with
• 44:02
  yourself. I mean, we had a beautiful farm.
• 44:06
  Like beautiful. So much food.
• 44:08
  Pecans, walnuts, grapes. We were wine makers.
• 44:12
  We made wine. We had cows, we had chicken.
• 44:16
  I mean, we had pond. We had.
• 44:18
  It was so beautiful and. You know, I Terci, I got to tell
• 44:24
  you, I know a lot of people who get stuck in their lives that
• 44:27
  wish they would hear a voice that would like, hey, like what?
• 44:31
  What's supposed to be next? I don't know.
• 44:33
  Am I supposed to go right or left or completely different
• 44:36
  direction? I'm not even but is there any
• 44:39
  way to like trigger this that like Hey, I I want to hear the
• 44:43
  voice. Anthony, what I would say is, I
• 44:47
  mean, I suppose it's based in you're just, you're available,
• 44:50
  you're willing. And the more obviously, I think
• 44:54
  the more you take steps towards the guidance you get, the
• 44:58
  stronger the guidance gets. Like why?
• 45:00
  Why would guidance continue to guide you if you're never moving
• 45:03
  in the direction that it points you?
• 45:07
  And, you know, fortunately, my husband and I have always been
• 45:11
  willing to follow that, even though, you know, it doesn't
• 45:17
  make sense sometimes just believing there's a wisdom wiser
• 45:22
  than you. So there's a certain amount of
• 45:26
  surrender and to it all. I mean, it was a big surrender.
• 45:30
  We left, we left our farm. We, our, our realtor said, I've
• 45:34
  never seen anybody do that. We left our farm completely
• 45:37
  furnished with linens and towels and salt and pepper and ketchup
• 45:40
  and mustard and furniture. The people could walk in and
• 45:45
  take right, take over everything, you know, things
• 45:47
  that we loved and liked and we, we brought stuff with us, but
• 45:52
  most of the stuff we brought with us was like the couch.
• 45:55
  So the dogs would still feel like they knew where we were
• 45:57
  going. And photographs.
• 45:59
  And it was an amazing experience.
• 46:02
  I, I went through everything I had, every photograph,
• 46:07
  everything I had and either gave it away, you know, don't.
• 46:12
  This was like a cleansing of the soul kind of a thing.
• 46:14
  Like a like hit the reset button.
• 46:17
  Amazing to do it, Yeah, One of my grandkids said.
• 46:20
  You're not dying, are you, Grandma?
• 46:22
  And I go, no, but at least now I've passed things on while I'm
• 46:26
  still here and aware and can tell you the story of it, and
• 46:30
  you're not digging through my stuff after I'm no longer here.
• 46:33
  So. Was that part of the thinking
• 46:36
  why to do that? Kind of sort of purging them?
• 46:38
  Yeah. It was just, yeah, it was like
• 46:40
  just let go. I mean, it was a whole new Yep,
• 46:43
  just let go kind of started over.
• 46:45
  OK, so let's talk about raw milk.
• 46:49
  America, probably many other countries have been pasteurizing
• 46:52
  their milk for a long time. Before we talk about pro raw
• 46:56
  milk, tell me, why have we been pasteurizing our milk for so
• 47:01
  long? Well, you know, I mean, I don't
• 47:03
  know, I can tell you my views on it.
• 47:05
  I don't, I don't know the details, but I think the reason
• 47:08
  that we pasteurize milk is because there's it's part of the
• 47:13
  industrial food system. It's like it's part of, you
• 47:18
  know, not trusting good bacteria and sanitizing everything and.
• 47:27
  Did people used to get sick from drinking raw milk?
• 47:29
  Was that part of the problem? Didn't.
• 47:31
  No, they didn't. And there still aren't people
• 47:33
  getting sick from it. I mean, I'm sure people would
• 47:36
  argue with that, but I mean, I know people would argue with
• 47:38
  that. But your grandmother, my
• 47:40
  grandmother, their grandmother, those people were all drinking
• 47:43
  raw dairy. So the difference is raw dairy
• 47:46
  has all the bacteria in it, good and bad, right?
• 47:50
  But it also has all the enzymes necessary to digest it and.
• 47:55
  So wait, are you telling me that as a a lactose intolerant person
• 47:59
  I may be able to drink raw milk? Yeah, yeah.
• 48:02
  OK, continue. Yeah, and part of people being
• 48:06
  lactose intolerant is you've only ever been exposed to
• 48:09
  pasteurized dairy and so. So you haven't had to digest,
• 48:15
  you know. Yeah, and some.
• 48:17
  And we always tell people if you're lactose intolerant, start
• 48:20
  with small amounts and build up, test it, see how you do and see
• 48:25
  what happens. But raw dairy has so many
• 48:29
  benefits. But again, if you know, if the
• 48:33
  government's controlling our food system, it's not really in
• 48:37
  their best interest that we're the healthiest beings that we.
• 48:42
  Can So what are some of the benefits of raw milk?
• 48:45
  Well, it has all the probiotics that you need, and so probiotics
• 48:50
  is a very big industry. It's a huge industry.
• 48:54
  You wouldn't need that industry because Rod Dairy has all the
• 48:58
  probiotics. It's digestible.
• 49:01
  Pasteurized milk is actually not even really digestible.
• 49:04
  It's kind of a waste product. They add vitamins to it.
• 49:08
  To be able to say vitamin A and vitamin D added to it.
• 49:12
  The flavor is amazing. It's really good.
• 49:16
  It's a live food. So it's the same thing.
• 49:19
  It, it, it's a live food, like in raw foods, sprouted seeds,
• 49:24
  sprouted nuts, Those are live foods.
• 49:27
  So the more you can eat live foods, the more health and
• 49:32
  nutrition benefits there are because they have vitality to
• 49:37
  them. So I mean, just like in the egg
• 49:40
  world, right? A fertilized egg is much better
• 49:44
  than an unfertilized egg, and all the industrial eggs are not
• 49:49
  fertilized. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
• 49:51
  But a fertilized egg means that it's going to grow into a
• 49:54
  chicken, right? Only if somebody sits on it and
• 49:56
  keeps it warm for 21 days. OK, so this is something I've
• 50:00
  never heard of the the raw milk I'm a little bit familiar with.
• 50:03
  So the eggs that we're getting from the grocery store, they're
• 50:07
  unfertilized, but if I were to eat a fertilized egg, what's the
• 50:11
  difference? More nutrition, it's better
• 50:13
  nutrition. It's a seed, it's a, it's a
• 50:16
  whole food. It's, I mean, it has life
• 50:20
  potential, right? Because it's gonna create a
• 50:23
  chicken if somebody sits on it and keeps it warm for a chicken
• 50:26
  sits on it and keeps it warm for 21 days.
• 50:29
  So it has the potential of life, which is you're eating what has
• 50:35
  the potential of life, which is good food for you, healthy food
• 50:40
  for you, just like sprouted seeds, whole grains.
• 50:43
  You know, there's so many people that are gluten intolerant, but
• 50:47
  that's because we've manipulated our grains to the point where
• 50:51
  they're not edible, they're not digestible.
• 50:53
  So they develop an intolerance. But if they go to Europe and
• 50:57
  they eat their bread, they're like, well, I'm fine there
• 51:01
  because they they have heritage grains, They have whole grains
• 51:06
  that have all the benefits to help digest and to grow and to
• 51:11
  sprout. It's just a different world.
• 51:13
  It's a different, it's a different diet.
• 51:17
  So is there a way for someone to know if an egg has been
• 51:21
  fertilized before they eat it? Well, it would probably say on
• 51:26
  the carton, it would probably say or you go to farmers markets
• 51:29
  and you get eggs from the farmer.
• 51:31
  I mean, I would. And how did they know?
• 51:33
  I mean, obviously there's chickens run around, there's
• 51:35
  Roosters running around. Maybe this one got fertilized,
• 51:38
  maybe it didn't. If you have Roosters, your eggs
• 51:40
  are fertilized. There's there's no if there's a
• 51:43
  rooster and an egg running or a chicken a hen running around
• 51:46
  together, there's no chance that it wasn't fertilized.
• 51:48
  No, probably not because it's like 1 rooster to 50 or 60 hens.
• 51:53
  That's and and he's pretty busy. Yeah, he's busy.
• 51:56
  Yeah, OK. So I mean, I would say shop at
• 51:59
  farmers markets, shop at health food stores or natural food
• 52:04
  stores is a reason why they're called that.
• 52:06
  So shop there. Yeah, know your farmer, eat, get
• 52:10
  a little garden, grow a little garden.
• 52:14
  Yeah, eat food, Sprout. You could make sprouts in your
• 52:17
  kitchen. And yeah, eat food as close to
• 52:22
  nature created it as possible, all the way across the board.
• 52:26
  Everything. Your me, your air, all of it.
• 52:30
  And this is a big part of what you're trying to introduce in
• 52:33
  terms of the food at Cafe Gratitude as well.
• 52:36
  Well, Cafe Gratitude's still a plant based restaurant, right?
• 52:39
  And I still. Think.
• 52:40
  Oh, so you're not gonna get eggs or milk there, Obviously.
• 52:42
  I think plant based has a very big place in the marketplace
• 52:48
  because I think people who are transitioning from an industrial
• 52:53
  food diet or conventional food diet, it's an awesome step.
• 52:59
  And I think people do need to eat less meat.
• 53:03
  I do think less dairy, less meat and start and I think plant
• 53:07
  based is a wonderful bridge to that.
• 53:10
  I there aren't, I don't, I don't know, my husband's really good
• 53:13
  on statistics, but something like there aren't any third
• 53:15
  generation vegans. It's like we need, we need the
• 53:21
  full spectrum of a diet, of a omnivore diet.
• 53:25
  But you know, it's also a touchy subject because veganism is like
• 53:31
  a religion for some people. And we have to all be careful
• 53:34
  what we get attached to and what we create as an identity.
• 53:40
  You know, you're not your diet, you're not your job.
• 53:44
  That's not who you are. It's a part of who you are, but
• 53:47
  it's not all of who you are. And so I think as human beings,
• 53:51
  we have to always be careful about what we get attached to
• 53:57
  and are afraid or don't want to let go of.
• 54:00
  And I think sometimes we do it. I think we create identities in
• 54:03
  order to feel like we belong. And I think we probably need to
• 54:07
  look upward and not outward to do that.
• 54:11
  I want to go back to the first book that we talked about
• 54:15
  Unreasonably Grateful. And as I've heard your story,
• 54:19
  TRC, I have my own interpretation of why that title
• 54:24
  was chosen and and what it means.
• 54:26
  But I don't want to project. I want to hear it from you.
• 54:29
  Oh great. Well, that was another insight.
• 54:31
  I was like, I was working with a couple other women, good friends
• 54:35
  of mine, actually, the owner of Yellow Co who did the do good
• 54:39
  award. She that's How I Met her when I
• 54:41
  got that award. But I was working with Joanna
• 54:46
  and Elise and we were three women who were gonna who were
• 54:49
  writing books. And it's interesting, you know,
• 54:54
  I gratitude is kind of the core of everything.
• 54:57
  Gratitude leads to grace. Grace leads to God.
• 55:00
  It's like, and then I was taking the step beyond being grateful
• 55:09
  because. So there is being grateful
• 55:13
  because as like a response to something.
• 55:16
  But then there's beginning with being grateful for no reason,
• 55:22
  you know, like being grateful but not stimulated by any
• 55:27
  external stimulation or, and and then I just got, oh, that's like
• 55:33
  unreasonably grateful. There's no reason for the
• 55:35
  gratitude. It's not, it's not mental.
• 55:37
  It's not I'm reasoning myself into it.
• 55:39
  No, it's like being grateful as the starting place because
• 55:43
  that's who I am. And that's that's where that
• 55:46
  came from. Can I share with you kind of
• 55:48
  where my thought process was kind of even more extreme
• 55:52
  because of the severe challenges that you went through and for
• 55:57
  you to write a book about all of that and then entitle it
• 56:02
  unreasonably grateful. It is unreasonable for most
• 56:07
  people to sit here and think, Oh my goodness, what out of all of
• 56:11
  that would you could you possibly be grateful for?
• 56:14
  Oh wow. Oh, that's great.
• 56:15
  That's great. I hadn't seen that.
• 56:17
  And then I've got I've got the title of the next book, which is
• 56:23
  Aged Gracefully. And that's actually gonna be
• 56:27
  about, I've started it, but that's gonna be about my
• 56:31
  personal aging and cheese. So cheese is, you know, cheese
• 56:36
  isn't aged. The longer it ages, the more
• 56:38
  valuable it is. Like you're gonna pay more for a
• 56:42
  six year cheddar than a three-year cheddar and then a
• 56:45
  one year cheddar. So yeah, Aged Gracefully is
• 56:49
  gonna be the next book and I I just haven't dedicated enough
• 56:53
  to. I've started it, but I haven't
• 56:54
  done that. I'm doing that this year yet so.
• 56:57
  I thought you were going to say aged gratefully, which would
• 57:01
  also fit within your theme, but I'll I'll be curious to see that
• 57:05
  book. Grateful and grace are actually
• 57:07
  the same etymology. It's the same base word.
• 57:10
  OK, something else I learned today.
• 57:14
  So tell us about the Do Good Award TRC.
• 57:16
  Oh that was so sweet. So I didn't even know about
• 57:19
  Yellow Co and and then I got this announcement that said I
• 57:25
  was gonna be up for this do good award.
• 57:27
  Anyway, that's the first time I went to their convention and I
• 57:30
  met Joanna and it was sweet. It was so sweet and it was about
• 57:36
  it was people business owners who yellow organization for
• 57:43
  women who utilize their business platform to make a positive
• 57:49
  difference or impact in the world.
• 57:51
  Beautiful group of people. And yeah, I I got, I got that
• 57:57
  award, which was amazing. I loved it and and I loved the
• 58:02
  group. I loved the people I met and the
• 58:04
  group and I've been involved. It's no longer it's no longer.
• 58:07
  Joanna ended it this year and she started something else and I
• 58:13
  loved being a part of it. It was an amazing, an amazing
• 58:16
  model for a business and yeah, it was great.
• 58:19
  Tell us about your own podcast. But same name as the book we
• 58:22
  were just discussing the Unreasonably Grateful podcast.
• 58:25
  It's interesting because I only started that because we were cut
• 58:29
  off from each other during COVID.
• 58:32
  And I started it because people, I actually was at a Yellow Co
• 58:37
  conference or actually was a retreat at our farm and I sat in
• 58:42
  a circle with women and I had this experience of seeing how
• 58:50
  amazing and beautiful and talented these women were.
• 58:53
  And yet they were all struggling with their own view of
• 58:59
  themselves. And I was like, wow, people,
• 59:05
  they just need to, they need someone.
• 59:08
  They need someone who can reflect back to them who they
• 59:14
  really are 'cause I think probably we all have some self
• 59:18
  judgement, self criticism mechanism running inside of us
• 59:21
  and it doesn't allow us to see how great and grand we are.
• 59:29
  And so I had shared with this group of people and they were
• 59:33
  like, you should do this more. And so I started the podcast.
• 59:40
  It's like very short, it's like 5 to 10 minutes.
• 59:43
  It comes out every Sunday and it's tidbits of wisdom from my
• 59:48
  own journey of recovery. So it's little things that my
• 59:54
  some people may hear and it sparks something in them that
• 59:57
  just encourages and supports them in taking their next step,
• 1:00:00
  moving further along on their own path of.
• 1:00:04
  Discovering who they really are beyond their limited view of
• 1:00:08
  themselves. And then on Tuesdays, Ioffer
• 1:00:12
  individual sessions where it's just like 20 minutes, a few
• 1:00:17
  hours in the morning because that's what works for my
• 1:00:19
  schedule. And I have these one-on-one Zoom
• 1:00:24
  meetings. And really it's an opportunity
• 1:00:27
  to sit as an elder and just reflect back to people what I
• 1:00:32
  hear and what I see. And it always, always leaves
• 1:00:37
  them feeling inspired and encouraged and grateful.
• 1:00:43
  And so I keep doing that. And that kind of came from that
• 1:00:47
  last gathering of yellow coat, the Fila farm.
• 1:00:53
  So that's what I do and I love it.
• 1:00:56
  And like I shared with you before we started, I, I wasn't
• 1:00:59
  planning to do anything different with my podcast, but
• 1:01:02
  in 2025, I've moved it to sub stack and I can see I'm going to
• 1:01:08
  do a couple of different things, but it's just, it's just me.
• 1:01:11
  It's not like like this. It's not an interview style,
• 1:01:14
  this is just TRC trust. Me.
• 1:01:16
  And I, Sharon, Nuggets of wisdom.
• 1:01:18
  Yeah, I give you a little tidbits from my 39 years to help
• 1:01:25
  encourage and support you. And because I I learned from
• 1:01:28
  other people sharing. And so how stingy would it be
• 1:01:32
  for me to not share? You know what I've learned in
• 1:01:36
  the hopes that someone might hear something that supports
• 1:01:39
  them. Teresi, I've just got one more
• 1:01:42
  question for you. But before I ask it, I want to
• 1:01:44
  do 2 things. First of all, everyone listening
• 1:01:46
  today, I know that you love today's content.
• 1:01:48
  Teresi has been great. Please hit the share, like or
• 1:01:50
  subscribe button on your favorite podcast app.
• 1:01:53
  Teresi, I also want to let people know the best way to get
• 1:01:55
  in touch with you. What would that be?
• 1:01:56
  So I have a website itscalledteresienglehart.com.
• 1:02:02
  If you don't know how to spell Teresi, it's secret backwards.
• 1:02:04
  And then Englehart is just like ENGELHART and and then my
• 1:02:12
  podcast is unreasonably grateful.
• 1:02:13
  But you can connect to my podcast through my website
• 1:02:16
  aswellandthenterci@tercienglehart.com is also my e-mail address, so
• 1:02:22
  you can always e-mail me. And yeah, I'd love to hear from
• 1:02:27
  you. That's great.
• 1:02:28
  Last question for you, Teresi. Usually I ask this in more of
• 1:02:32
  like an industry perspective, but you got your hands in so
• 1:02:35
  many different things. I'm just going to ask what you
• 1:02:38
  think the future of Teresi looks like over the next couple of
• 1:02:42
  years. What are the new things, the new
• 1:02:44
  projects, the changes that are in front of us?
• 1:02:48
  Well, OK, so I'm learning how to jump rope this year.
• 1:02:52
  So I'm going to do like a little jump rope trick routine for my
• 1:02:55
  75th birthday. And I came here and said I want
• 1:02:59
  to be known as an artisan cheesemaker.
• 1:03:02
  I am now people know me in town and as an artisan cheesemaker
• 1:03:07
  and I want to be. I love being a mentor, a wise
• 1:03:13
  woman, you know, someone who's yeah, contributing to other
• 1:03:20
  people. I I have a picture that my
• 1:03:24
  daughter gave me that's, you know, like when my life's over,
• 1:03:28
  I want to be knowing that I loved.
• 1:03:29
  Well, in the next five years, I'm going to move from 75 to 80.
• 1:03:34
  So I'm committed to being healthy.
• 1:03:39
  Yeah, I want to. Yeah.
• 1:03:42
  Finish, finish building the homestead.
• 1:03:45
  I think gentle, soft, strong, kind, those all work.
• 1:03:52
  And yeah, just contributing, leaving a legacy for other
• 1:03:58
  people, that being a part of creating healthier, happier
• 1:04:05
  people in communities. That's all terrific, Terci.
• 1:04:08
  I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your
• 1:04:10
  time and your story with us today.
• 1:04:12
  I really appreciate it. It's so great, Anthony.
• 1:04:14
  Thank you for the invitation. I don't even know how you found
• 1:04:16
  me, but I'm. Grateful you did likewise,
• 1:04:20
  folks. That's a wrap on another episode
• 1:04:21
  of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:04:24
  today.