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Erica Rankin: Baking Bold Dreams into Reality · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or douse along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Erica Rankin.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: She is the founder and chief everything officer of Brodo and also has amassed 300,000 followers across all her socials.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: So I'm excited to kind of jump into your bold story, and we'll start with your definition of bold.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: How would you define bold?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I think bold to me is living your truth and ignoring all outside, like environmental factors, like people, circumstances, whatever it may be, doing things that you've always wanted to do and stepping into something and living your truth.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: And that's what I would define bold as.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's a great definition.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: When do you remember or when do you feel that you started living that definition or have an example of that definition in your life?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I think the first time I was truly bold was in 2018.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I was working my nine to five job and started listening to entrepreneurship podcasts at my desk and got exposed to a lifestyle that I never really knew anything about, and I decided to quit my job and book a no backpacking trip to Southeast Asia on a win, and just decided that I didn't any longer want to work at that university that I worked at.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I was working two other jobs.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I wanted more for myself, and I guess that was the first time that I really stepped into something uncomfortable and something that I always wanted to do.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So how popular was that with your friends and family when you said I'm just going to stop what I'm doing now and go Southeast Asia backpacking?
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Did it matter or did it come into your thought process as you made that bold decision?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I guess it did.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I thought because I went to university, I got my degree and I'm very grateful that my parents paid for my education and the whole idea was I would work for a year and then go back to school to get my masters and I decided I don't want to do this.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I want more for my life.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I'm not happy in the field that I'm in.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I majored in psychology and I remember telling my parents I'm going to Thailand and you know, indonesia and Malaysia for three months and they were not happy with me and they were confused and I was spending all my savings on this trip and then my friends my friends supported me and they thought it was, you know, good because they had traveled before.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: So I did get support from them, but my parents were not so impressed with that decision.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think we grow up.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I know we're much older than you, I'm pretty sure, but I think we grow up with this expectation of some order of how we're supposed to do things, like you go to high school, then you go to university, then you get your master's, then you get your PhD, whatever it may be then you have your job and then you count down the days to retire At least that's how you know, like how I was brought up in the sense of having something stable, having something that you know has a 401k and all that jazz, and I think that's why, for a very long time, I didn't really realize I could be an entrepreneur, until August 48.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And when did you have this revelation?
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: How old were you in 2018?
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So I'm 20,.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I'm almost 29 now.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I think I was 23, 23 maybe yeah.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, so early 20s made the decision.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: And then why did you pick to go to Southeast Asia?
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Was that just to kind of explore and see other cultures, or why did you pick that particular area?
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never really left my small town of 25,000 people and I felt very privileged in a way and I wanted to just immerse myself in a different culture and I thought about going like Europe would have been cool, but Asia was affordable and I have friends that went and they have really good experiences and I just wanted to see Thailand.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: It was always on my list of places to go and I actually ended up staying a lot longer than I intended to.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I basically stayed until I ran out of money because I was having such a good time, but and then you went by yourself, right.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: So you went to another country just with your savings basically in hand in your backpack and you stayed in Thailand.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And what did you learn about yourself during that time that you were exploring and kind of being on your own?
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I think the one thing I learned is that there are good people in the world.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Because I grew up very introverted.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Because I am an introvert, I lost a lot of friends in high school, because I'm very this is something I'm working on I'm very hard on myself and I'm hard on others, and if people hurt me, I'm really it's really hard for me to forget them.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I've gotten better.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: So I think I was surrounding myself with not the best people growing up and I kind of kept to myself and I had this perception that all people you know are out to get you and they're you know, they're all for themselves and I had like a hard time making friendships.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And then, on this trip, I met a lot of really good people and to this day, some of them are still my friends, and this one girl that I met.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: We were so similar and we became really good friends and I found out that we had the same birthday, which was super weird.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: But I met really awesome people who were supportive and a lot of them were entrepreneurs and that's kind of what sparked this whole idea of starting my business.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: The one thing that I really learned when I talked to people who were running their own businesses is that their face would light up when they talked about what they did and they were excited, they were passionate and that was something I'd never seen before.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: You know, everyone lives for the weekend.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: They get the Sunday scaries.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: It's like the nine to five life come home, unwind, whatnot.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: And I didn't want that for myself.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: And I think when I saw this other side of like what work could look like I remember feeling in my like, in my bones when I was having conversations.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I'm like I want that, whatever they have, I want it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it'll be, but I want to have what they're living Right.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you were open to trying something.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: You didn't know if it would fail or succeed, but you knew you would learn.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: So what made you step into that Because sometimes that's the hardest thing for people to do, honestly is that one bold, tiny step which is I'm going to do something different.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I'm going to first, you know, leave the role that I had after everyone had a plan for me and I even had a plan for myself, right, I mean, because that was your plan up until it wasn't.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And you decided to kind of do your thing.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: And now you know you're ready to do something different, which is establish your own company, which is Brodo.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So we'll talk about kind of how that came out.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: But, like, it's not easy for some people to step into that and some people say, oh well, you didn't have a family, or you didn't have a this or that, but regardless of those things, I think if I would say to someone, well, you don't have those responsibilities, I wonder if they would still take that step.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm just interested in what inside of you made you want to do something that you knew it could fail.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: I think I, because I knew what I didn't want.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I didn't want to work that nine to five job that I had.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to go back to school and be in student debt.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: You know, for up until like my 40s it wasn't as scary to me, because the graph looks greener on the other side, right?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I'm like you know what that's scary?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: But it's more scary staying where I am, and that was what scared me the most.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: I remember sitting at my desk and being like is this it, is this the end for me?
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: And I was surrounded by people who are not, they're like in their fifties or sixties and working there for years and years and years, and I just didn't want that for myself.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Also, like listening to so many podcasts, my perception of failure really changed even before I got started, because successful entrepreneurs they didn't.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like hitting a pinata their first swing, they didn't get it.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Their second swing, they didn't get it.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It took like many swings for them to get it and get the candy.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: And I thought, okay, even if I don't get it on my first swing, like at least I'm going to learn a lot and I can take those skills and whatever I learn, I can apply it to whatever next thing I do, and that's kind of how I perceived failure throughout the whole, like four years that I've been pursuing entrepreneurship, and I think you have to think that way when you're in it.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely a different.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I mean it's still the same word, but I think for me, like it has a different definition.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: It's.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: It's just never been the end, honestly, even when I was in the corporate setting.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: But I think for some people failure equals kind of that fixed mindset, meaning I didn't do well, I'm not good enough, I'm not skilled enough, I'm not expert enough, I can't be successful, and I think for me it means, hey, I got to try a different route.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe that wasn't a good idea, maybe I need more help, maybe I shouldn't have done this, I should do this first, like instead of.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Those are the things that kind of percolate when, as an entrepreneur, you know you fail.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: It may also happen in the corporate world too, because I think you can have an entrepreneurial mindset and be in a different role in a setting, as long as it lets you kind of do the things that you need to do.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And for the most part of my career the longest part of it I was able to do that, I think, when it got just to the point where you would bump against some of the barriers or kind of the bumpers that you couldn't break through.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I think that was probably where it got a little bumpy, yeah.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: So when you think about creating your company like, where did, where did it start to grow?
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Where did the idea start?
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: How did you start to nurture it?
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And then what was startup?
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: What did it look like?
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: So I guess, so Brodo itself.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I remember when I got home from my trip, I sat down on my mom's carpet in her living room and I thought, okay, what am I passionate about?
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: What does the market need?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: And like, what do people want?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: And prior in 2018, I competed in bodybuilding and I used to like make so many healthy versions of my favorite treats, and one of them was like these little cookie dough bites, and I posted them on my Instagram page and they got tons of engagement.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: People would recreate them, people would ask me if I would ever sell them, and so I kind of thought back to that like I love baking, there's nothing like this in the market in Canada.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: And then people want it.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Right, there was a product market fit and I landed on Brodo because of the protein in it.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: And then the first thing I did was Google Business Workshop near me.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: I drove out to the closest business resource center and I learned how to write a business plan.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: I learned how to manage cash flow, how to market, brand, and then I went on like in Canada we have a, so it's kind of like Craigslist, but it's called Kijiji, and I found a roommate on there because I was like, okay, I live in this really small town and I want to start this business.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I need to find a kitchen.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: So I went on Kijiji and I moved to Ottawa.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: So I found this girl who lived in Ottawa and she was looking for a roommate.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Rent was super cheap.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I had never met her before.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: We had one phone call and I thought, okay, I'm going to move in with her.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: So I packed everything in my Jeep and I drove six hours to a city that I visited once and moved in with this girl who you'd never know.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, she was amazing, though, and she was a pilot, so she was training to become a pilot.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: So we lived very different lives.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: And I found this commercial kitchen where they had discounted rates, so I'd go in at night when it was like 30% cheaper and just make as much dough as I could, and then I would get pallets delivered to like our apartment and get them brought up to our living room, and eventually I moved into a one bedroom and kind of operated out of there.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: But that's kind of what the first year or so looked like, and so what was the first time that you realized I'm on the right path?
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Or was there a time where you thought this is a bad idea?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: All the time I thought it was a bad idea.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: All the time.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because, again, I have no food background.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about food science or shelf life or anything like that.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: So there was like a lot of learning curves and the moment where I realized, okay, like I have something is when I had my first video go viral on TikTok.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: I got like 150 orders and the span of 48 hours and that was just in Canada and it was crazy.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I remember texting my friend and I'm like want to come over and watch Netflix and pull boxes all weekend and she did so.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: We sat on my couch and just folded boxes and stocked them.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: So how did you continue to grow the business?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: So that was kind of like one of the first big moments your socials and your followers we connected on LinkedIn.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: So I think, from the perspective of getting out there and getting yourself out there, what was kind of the next milestone for you?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Because you started with and we talked a little bit before we started tabing with 10K, your savings right and you then kind of trial and error, those learnings along the way.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: What was after your TikTok moment, like what was the next milestone where you're like I think this can work?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I mean it wasn't pretty like that whole growth phase.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: I got to a point where I didn't know how to grow the business any further because I've never done this before and you know, I lived in a place where everyone worked for the government.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: All my friends work for the government and I couldn't really come to them and be like, hey, I have this problem, like how do I grow my cookie dough business?
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: They're like we don't know, we can't help you.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: So that's when I turned to LinkedIn and I initially went there to get mentorship and try to find people who have done what I'm trying to do.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: And I was writing my pantry, going through all the products that I consume on a regular basis, finding the CEOs and founders on LinkedIn, connecting with them.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Some of them were kind enough to get on a phone call with me and kind of guide me and mentor me and to this day some are still my mentors.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: But I hit a plateau and I couldn't grow, as you know, like you can't run a business on your own doing everything, you need to work on the business, not in the business.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: And I was working in the business for so long and my wheels were spinning and I really struggle with delegating.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: You know I think every founder does like they want to.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: You know you're the best at screwing the lids on, you're the best at posting on social media and whatever it may be, but you can't scale like that.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: So I think I realized, okay, I can't keep making dough in the kitchen anymore, I need to find a manufacturer.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And so I was learning all these things from different people on who I met through LinkedIn and started to outsource stuff and then realized, okay, I have something here, I have people who want to help me grow it, and I started letting go of pieces of the business and things were starting to come together so it could grow.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have to get support financially to do some of things as you grew?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Did you have to get VC money or anything to go through that process?
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: So I got a lot of loans, small business loans.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I got grants and then I have two investors now, so they came in and they helped me fund this next growth.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, because I only ask that?
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Because some people think they have to have that all figured out at the beginning, and I know there were some bumpy parts at the beginning of your business that you would probably not do again, right, I mean, I think that's how we learn.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: But sometimes I think, when people are limited by whatever they want to do, it could be starting a business, it could be trying something different, it could be how do I change even roles within the company I'm in?
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, it could be a multitude of things.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to always be entrepreneurial, but they think, or they think too much, about what they have to have lined up.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I have to have these things in place.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I have to have these things already and you know, we see this like a million times a day on LinkedIn Begin before you're ready.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: But it's true and I think that could be in any facet of anyone's life of just start taking the steps towards it.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So when you're thinking about that and kind of your business, was there a moment where you were taking the steps and truly unsure of what was next?
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: And you know what is next for Brodo now, compared to kind of where you thought it was going to be, maybe you know, two years ago.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you could never plan.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: I have a business plan and it's always been wrong.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Like it's always been wrong Like I don't know.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I think it's good to have like some sort of path, but just understand that you're going to like veer and go off the path Like it's inevitable.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Nothing goes to plan.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And an example of you know I thought I would be a lot further along than I am now.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I like I'm four years in.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yesterday I was at a grocery store giving out samples and I thought, oh wow, like when I get four years in, you know I'm going to be doing millions and I can outsource everything and I'm going to be high level managing things.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: And I'm still very much in the weeds, working in the business and on the business.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: So I think for me, I went through a lot of pivots with the company as well.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Like I had a product market fit issue and I launched a product into grocery stores last year that just didn't sell for a variety of reasons it was too expensive, some ingredients weren't too great, the serving size was too big, you know.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: There was just a bunch of things that were working against me.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: So I collected a bunch of data and launched a brand new version of the product this past summer which is now selling well and I'm very happy with it.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: But you know there's going to be things that come at you in all directions that you're not prepared for and you just have to kind of go with it and learn as you go.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It's like what do they say?
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Like it's like building a plane when it's flying.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: That's literally what entrepreneurship is like.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: You're not going to have everything figured out and built from when you take off.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and it may be a while till you even know.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: It's plain, honestly.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're building something and, like you know, you might not know what's working or what's going to hit.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Or you know, I know several times along my journey for the last two years things that I'm like, well, that's really not resonating with my audience.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: People aren't really engaged but they're not dropping off.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And then I go to do something and I hear from three or four or you know five people about how much this means to them and what they've done with it and how it's brought them through.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: You know really tough times.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like why can't stop doing that?
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: So it's like sometimes you don't even know who's watching or who's being inspired or who's connecting with your product as well as you, even though you're in it every day.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So that's something to note too, because you might not know what you're even building, but you know you're building something.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: So, when you think about advice or guidance anyone's giving you along the way, what's some of the best advice you've received?
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: I think one big thing is I have a mentor and he says we're best equipped to help the person we used to be and I really love that statement.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Just because you know, when you're going through things and everything's going wrong, you're like why is this happening to me?
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Like I worked so hard, why is this going wrong?
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: And then now I'm like you know what?
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: I'm really grateful Again.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Like tying into failures, I'm really grateful that I've gone through this because now I can help people who are going through that or help prevent them from making the same mistakes that I did.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: And then tying this into even the mental health aspect of it, like I've struggled with a lot of things like eating disorders and stuff, and I like talking about it openly on different platforms.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: And there are people who are exactly where I was four years ago and you know, dealing with things that I dealt with and while it sucks that I went through that, I'm grateful that I did because now I can support others in their journey and healing and recovery.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: So that one has been very helpful.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: And then, specifically to my industry in food and beverage don't get distracted by shiny objects, and I think you know it goes for any industry, like a lot of us.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: As entrepreneurs, you tend to want to do everything, and every opportunity comes and you're like, yes, I need to take that now.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: It'll never be available again.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: And then I think sometimes we bite off more than we can chew and then you know we don't.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: We don't execute in ways that we should, and I think it's okay to say no, like saying no is a superpower, and that's one thing that I've been really good at is choosing what opportunities to take and then understanding that they'll come back around when the timing is better.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things you said and it kind of came up a couple of times, is and even when we first started talking was you were hard on yourself.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: You were hard on yourself in high school.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: You're hard on yourself in your 20s, probably hard on yourself as you kind of enter your 30s in a little bit.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: But I think in that sense, like how does someone get better at that?
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Because I'd love to learn that myself.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: You know, what do you do, or what are some of the steps you've taken to kind of lighten up on you.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I still it's really hard for me.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I am very hard on myself and I think it's good in a way, like it's good to live to a higher standard and set the bar high for yourself, but also don't punish yourself for not living up to that all the time.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: And I meditate now, I do yoga, I journal.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Like even last night I had a really hard time sleeping and my you know, I have my earplugs in.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I was like under the covers with my eyes closed and then I'm like I need to journal right now and I turn all the lights and then I just started writing because I just had so much going on in my head.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think, just kind of like I did therapy therapy really helped me and just kind of rewiring thoughts because you know, the way you talk to yourself reflects how you think about yourself as well, and if you're always speaking negatively or putting yourself down or you know, not having positive thoughts go on in your head, then it's going to reflect and transition over to a regular habit.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: So I think for me it's like recognizing that and being like okay, why am I being so mean to myself?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: I'm taking a rest today because I'm tired and I don't feel well and that's okay.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: You know, and I think that's a big thing too is hustle.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Culture is so promoted oftentimes in social media and entrepreneurship, and people are always saying like go, go, go, wake up at 5am, go to bed at 2am.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: You know, cold plunge and read and meditate and, you know, do all the things.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: It's really.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: It gets really bossy on social media.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: You know you do you right like however it works for you.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: However, you know want to wake up at 10 and work till one, do it.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: You know, if you want to wake up at 5, go for it.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you just do what you want and need to do versus what everybody else.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: But there's this comparison.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Definitely they come up with social media, which I didn't have to deal with as much as when I was younger, but certainly, being an entrepreneur like you look in, it's hard sometimes to not compare yourself to someone else, whether it's an entrepreneur, whether it's in your corporate roles, like, oh, I should have been here by now.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: For me, actually, I actually got to a high level by my early 40s and then there was really like, where do I go next?
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: And I think that was also some of my frustration, because you're digging in your digging.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: In your digging.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You're like, okay, I'm at the top of the mountain and like, okay, this is cool, but I don't want to stay here.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it's like.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: So the what's next to, I think, got old for me, because I just wanted to be present, I just wanted to be joyful where I was.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to enjoy life, and I don't mean like I'm not trying to do things better and bigger and all that.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: But it isn't like this daily grind where I'm looking for someone else to tell me what my worth is right.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the difference for me, kind of from an entrepreneurial perspective, is like I'm digging and I am hard on myself.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I move the goalposts.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever done that to yourself, like, oh, I wanted to be here.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, no, I got there early.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Let me just always moving.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: It always moves and you're never helping.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: So I think you know, from the perspective of people listening, just be easy on yourself and whether it's getting professional help or talking to a friend, or a journal or a meditation, you know, try them all like, start to work on it until you feel like it starts to take effect, because if you're thinking you need to do something about it, you do, you know, and it's hard to get better or be able to get those kind of thoughts that either been planted by your experiences or by others about how you were treated, or just by you know how things have landed in your life.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: You know you can work through them and you can continue to to be working through them.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: At the same time you're building a successful business or a successful career.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: So just want people to realize that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: So, if you are going to give someone advice, whether they're in a role now that they'd like to, you know, elevate to the next level, or whether they're thinking about maybe this isn't for me what would be your guidance and advice for someone who's ready to kind of take that next step?
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: For me it was different because I kind of went all in.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I was just like screw this and I want to do this anymore.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: And I had a little bit of savings and my circumstances were different than a lot of other people's.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: But I've had people come to me who have families or they have things they have to pay for, they have a mortgage or whatever it may be.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: If you're not happy with where you are, just sit down with yourself and figure out what makes you happy, like what.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: What makes you happy, and then what will people pay for.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: And before going all into whatever it may be like, make sure there's a product market fit so you can maybe spend a few hours in the evenings building out your side hustle and tapping into that, not asking just family and friends what they think of it, but you know who actually might be your customer, going on and connecting with people who are in your industry, asking them questions, learning from them.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: One thing that I wish that I did sooner was just educate myself more about the industry that I'm in, because there are so many, so many there.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: You're not going to know everything and you're never going to feel ready.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I didn't feel ready when I launched my business, but there are so many things that I wish I knew and I'm here just so I could have been more prepared, like the shelf life testing, like a lot of the things that I did I could have prevented had I just had a few conversations with other founders in the food space.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: So I think, just like learning about the industry, making sure that whatever you're building out, you know people are gonna buy it and it's gonna be an effective business or business that works, and don't invest a lot of money into it at the beginning.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: I think that's huge because some people think they need the fancy website, they need the fancy branding and the logo and all of that, but really none of that's important.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: And I got my logo made off Fiverr for 50 bucks and used that for two and a half years and built my own Shopify website and took my own product photos.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: It didn't look pretty.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah you live in your learn.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's one thing that I share with people too is, like you could hear a lot of people like, oh, I have to have my thought leadership built and I have to my followers and I have to have my website looking beautiful and I think I'm on the third iteration of my website and everyone gets bigger and has more about it and those types of things.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: But, starting off, people aren't going, they're not going to wwwucom, they're gonna.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: You are, you are your brand, you are your website, you are the way that you sell things.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: So I think whatever you can do to focus in on that, which usually is lower budget than building something, and then, even if you want to do something like this, they don't have to have.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to have the $5,000 version, Like you said, Fiverr $50 version or $10 version or whatever it may be, canva on your own, Like.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: There's just so many ways that you could do things individually.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: But I think they hear things and they also like oh, if I don't have enough followers and this sounds like I didn't have any followers when I had 80 when I started and I have 15,000 now.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: So, in the sense of just thinking about that.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Don't let that limit you either.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I think is really important for people to hear Would you agree, Cause I don't know how many?
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: How many followers should you have when you first started?
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: out Gosh like none.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I think I had 12 connections on.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Linkedin in 2020 and TikTok I had I started in 2021.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: And then, Instagram.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I went on there and I pretended that I had thousands of followers and I think I had, like when I first started, maybe a couple hundred and I'm like, hey guys, we have a restock, we were sold out and maybe 10 people, 20 people are watching that story.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: So you know, you, just you, you pretend you're bigger than you are and it comes and you just have to build and put in the work daily.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: And it's like compounding interest right.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I read something yesterday.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: It was like someone they said the illusion becomes a reality, and I think it actually was Buster Rimes on the Direc podcast and he said, you know, I just he had so many doubters and he had a really hard life growing up and he just wanted to prove like he had a reason but he, like he was the best, he was going to be the greatest, like you know, and then the illusion that he had became the reality, you know, and that obviously for him led to some some negativity as well.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: But I think, in the sense of just the positive side of that is really I call that manifesting like I'm going to whatever it is inserted, you know I am going to be successful, I am going to build my business, I am going to grow, and I think those are all positive things that someone can say, regardless of what they're doing.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: So I really appreciate your time today for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: All the information about Brodo in Erica is below.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: If you want to join and learn more about her adventure on LinkedIn, Do connect with her on Instagram, Also, TikTok.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Thanks for having me.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.