May 9, 2023 • 47 mins
Michelle and Mignon are making life sweet! Mignon shares the origin story of how her multi-million dollar cupcake empire started with $5 and a lot of faith. She tells us how believing is the first step to success. CHECK IN to this episode if you need that sign to start your business now!
To order from The Cupcake Collection, visit: https://www.thecupcakecollection.com/
Follow Mignon on social media!
Instagram: @Mignon.Francois
Twitter: @MignonFrancois_
Make sure you’re following Michelle on social media!
Instagram: @MichelleWilliams
Twitter: @RealMichelleW
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hey, everybody, I want to
speak to someone that's feeling like, you know, they don't
(00:22):
have the resources they need to begin a company or
to get out of a situation. This episode is going
to be for you. I cannot wait for y'all to
hear this young lady's story that's coming up on this
next episode.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Of Checking In.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hey, everybody, I am so excited about this week's episode
because it is near and dear to my heart. Seeing
that you know, our guest specialty is something that I
love to indulge in. And I thought that I was
an expert in another culinary suite, but it seems like
(01:06):
I've got some competition.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
So let me tell y'all who she is.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
She is an award winning entrepreneur, speaker, community leader. She's
appeared on the Today Show as well as featured in
Southern Living, Entrepreneur and Business Insider, alumni of Xavier University.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Just we're going to get into all of that now.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
She's got a book that is out now, y'all that
is just absolutely incredible. It is called Made from Scratch,
Finding Success Without a recipe. Okay, please welcome Mignon Francois
to checking in.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Thank you for having me. You said so amazingly.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I imagine that you must speak a little bit of French.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I don't, but I got a feeling that I would
do well in it.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Really, I feel like I would do well.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I think you would do amazing You just learned your
first French word.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
But you know, I try to honor the roots of
a person's name, so I even want to try to
pronounce it, even in the dialect, even in the accent
of where it's from. So I hope I've majored you
and your mom proud.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You have made me proud, and I'm sure my mom
will be too.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Say when people mess up my name now, you know,
because my name, you know, I'm gonna get everybody else's name.
You know what people trying to do to me. They
usually say, I'm gonna give you a nickname.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
No, no, you're gonna say my name, and you're gonna
say it right. We don't make it easy over here,
although I'm guilty, I'm guilty of making it easy.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
My first name is Tanitra.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Michelle is my middle name, and no one could ever
pronounce to correctly. Really, we went to light on people
because I love when I go to the airport and
I give them my ID and they say t Niitra.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
They get it right the first time, and I was like,
don't let people.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Go easy on your name.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Yeah, I think, I think Tanietscha is an easy name
to say.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Thank you, Thank you so so much, mignon.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Where are you from? I am from New Orleans, honey,
and I truly believe there is no better place to
be from.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
But I live in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
You live in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
My niece took a trip to New Orleans for the
very first time over spring break, and all she posted
nothing but food and the swamps, and just I told
her the food there is amazing. And you cannot go
to New Orleans and just eat a ham and cheese sandwich.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
You cannot.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You got to eat You got to eat the food
that New Orleans is known for.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
And you can eat it at somebody's mama's house. You
could eat it in a hole in the wall. You
could eat I feel like a doctor Seusma and this
so gayish, so so good it is, which is why
I so desperately wanted to take the Cupcake Collection back
(04:21):
to New Orleans because after Katrina, we had gone down
there for a visit and I stumbled into this donut
shop that I found on social media, and their donuts
were so beautiful, and all the people that worked in
there looked like they were casting the movie to work
in the donut shop in New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Listen, now, you kind of you're kind of getting down
into my interview.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
But y'all, not only is she the author of Made
from Scratch, Finding Success without a Recipe, You're like, well,
why would she make.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
A book called Made from Scratch?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Well, because she is the founder and CEO of the
Cupcake Collection. It is in Nashville, Tennessee. And you have
a place in New.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Orleans as well called the Collection.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I do, y'all.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Looked at the menu. It's amazing, honey.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
She got sweep potato cupcakes, studie, she got zesty lemon
or lemon lemon limon. Come on, somebody, how amazing? And
we are going to get into that. But since you
mentioned donuts, you noted, how are you a donut OFFICI
and me?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Do you love doughnuts.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Oh my gosh, we are about to be friends.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
I love donuts. Get it from I get it.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
From the midderal search for the best donut in the world. Now,
there are some good donuts in New Orleans. My son
seems to think that the best donuts are right here
in Nashville, Tennessee. But there are some really good donuts
in New Orleans. And I have had some really good
donuts in LA. And you know, I'm told I need
(06:04):
to go to Voodoo Donuts in what Washington?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I think it's Seattle or really okay?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And I don't mean to be rude, but why do
I feel like you need to try Hero Donuts. I
believe they have opened up a Hero Donuts in Nashville.
Finally what There's only like four locations, but I do
believe Nashville is one of them.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Well, I'm gonna need to Charlotte Avenue.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
What And I did not know that brand new because
they just opened like a day ago.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Little because I was saying, I've been sleeping under a
rock if I did not know that there were new
donuts in Nashville.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
They make them there like they don't get them from
any They make them there.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I'm happy to get me one.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Okay. The burger is incredible, Oh, y'all.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I don't want to waste her time, y'all, because see
you see how we got on a rabbit trail, because
your story is so incredible. I love how you Yes,
you have a degree, and I love how you know.
On your bio it says, but you have a master's
from Hard Knocks. Yes, but you are actually getting a master's.
Did you ever to receive it or no?
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I was so busy doing the things that I was
working to get the masters for I had to kind
of drop it. I now serve at the university on
the board in the School of Business where I was
seeking that degree. But I'd done so much in the city,
you know. It was just something I wanted to have,
(07:39):
okay myself.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
So let's get into it for real.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
At one point in time, you were drowning in debt,
raising six children, living in a broken hand, abusive marriage. Yeah,
where you ended up having to leverage the only five
dollars you had to feed your family, y'all.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And she has turned it.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Into a ten million dollar cupcake empire. I'm sure by
the time we get through talking, it's probably gonna be
twenty million dollars.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
God, we thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
God, Yes, God, we thank you, and we receive it.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Listen, yes we do. But it wasn't as quick as
what I just said.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
No. I think that people always think that overnight success
happens overnight, and overnight success takes ten years. And while
a lot of people are seeing me on lots of
things right now, it took me seventeen years of working
every day at this to end up at this table,
(08:45):
or on this podcast, or with this book in my hand,
trying to tell other people what they could do if
they believe.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Wait a minute, if you want, if you believe, so
just believe, not money.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, this is all about faith for me.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I believe that faith has a higher return on investment
than money has, and that I coined a term called
faith currency. I believe that faith will work for you
just like money does, and that faith and money have
similar properties. But if you invest in faith, you get
more than with money. How many times you know, do
(09:29):
you have a bill that needs to be paid. As
long as there's something that needs to be paid, you
looking for money to get to it, right, But a
lot of times, what I learned is that we have
to faith through it. And God showed me something major
in the process of doing this.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
He didn't want me to do this in fear. He
wanted me to do this in faith.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And so as I, you know, a people are talking about, oh,
do it afraid, do it scared? I learned not to
do anything scared. Even if I was scared, I was
going to keep moving forward. But God didn't give me
a spirit of fear.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I was just about to say, wait a minute, I'm
guilty of saying that term. So you mean to tell
me I need to do something with the spirit of fear,
because fear is a spirit.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yes, fear is a spirit that does not come from God.
And that's not what he wants you to have, he says,
trust me. And so I was just telling this story
last night about my daughter and a bully she had
when she was five. I was gonna get that five
year old bully together, right, but she was so scared
of that bully and she's like, Mommy, she's too big
(10:33):
for you.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
She's five. I'm mommy, and you.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Think this bully is too big for me. And that's
the same thing we do with God. We tell him
that the problems that we have are the bullies that
we have. The situations that we have are too big
for him. And God is like, but I'm God impossible.
The whole nothing is impossible. That's a whole Another thing
(11:00):
that we tackle in the book about the very word
itself is I am possible, and the I am makes it.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Possible, makes it possible?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Come on, come on.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I love that my podcast gets an array of folks,
and I love speaking specifically to people who may feel
broken alone, who are like, wait a minute, I might
be down to my last five dollars, and so I'm
praying that they feel so so encouraged about how to
(11:37):
build a successful business without an abundance of resources.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
So we've got faith.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
But then you got the works, right, So what was
that journey like for you? If you can, y'all? And
I know it's in her book, so and guess what
you're gonna go get the book. But just to tickle
someone's ears was one of the first steps that you
did to build a business without the abundance.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
The first thing that I was doing, I was sitting
in the back of my house with no electricity. And
I love that you spoke out to the people who
might be sitting in the same position that I was
sitting in. I didn't have any electricity. I was going
to the grocery store and buying bottled water to fill
up the bathtub because our water was often cut off,
and having the baby go first because he was the cleanest.
(12:28):
When my neighbor knocked on the door and asked me
to make cupcakes. But the problem is I'm in here
without electricity, she asked me. While I was in the dark.
I was like, cause I'm meditating dump and so she
doesn't like question me. But I'm in the dark because
I don't have electricity. I'm living in what is becoming
(12:50):
an affluent neighborhood all the way around me, but nobody
else is struggling like I'm struggling. So my cars are
being repossessed. When she comes and asked me to to
make cupcakes for so simially, what she's asking me to
do is take all that I have and go and
spend it to make a deposit on an order that
she wants to get for me. She sees the perplexity
(13:12):
in my face and says, you know what, listen, you can't,
you know, get them all made at once, and if
you know, when you get finished, I'll pay you. And
sometimes you know, people meet ish, you know, they don't
mean I'm gonna pay you right now. I need my
money as soon as I.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Turn yeah, yeah, because the grocery store needs the money
to get these ingredients nownight.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
And if I take this five dollars, we're not eating tonight.
But like she said, she paid me when I turned
in some of the cupcakes and turned that five into
sixty that day. And I took that fifty five because
if I burn everything, I need the five that I
started with. And I turned that fifty five into six
hundred by the end of the week. And I've been
(13:52):
flipping that same money for the last seventeen years. I
did it with no debt, no credit, no knowledge of
the business, and a lot of people don't even know that.
When I started the business, I didn't even know how
to bake, not even out of a box. But I
was believing God who said to me that day, because
when I shut the door, I told the lady, Okay, Joni,
(14:14):
I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Make cupcakes if you didn't bak well.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Because I was practicing, so I would go around the neighborhood.
I was listening to this guy in the radio who's
telling people they could get out of debt by having a.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Bake sale or a garage sale.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
We couldn't have a garage sale because we sold everything
that we had to get to Nashville in the first place.
And we were not a family that complained about our situation, right,
so people.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I was just actively trying to dig us out, and
so I thought, Okay, well, it's gonna be a bake
sale because we don't have anything that we can sell.
And so when I accepted her order, I had been
practicing around the neighborhood. The whole neighborhood knew where to
come and get cupcakes from. They I did this one
(15:00):
let me cupcake at the time. It's about the size
of a quarter and they were cooked, and so she thought,
I'm going to give these everybody for the holidays. And
so when she came knocking, I didn't even have electricity,
and I was just trying to reconcile.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
What am I gonna do.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
I don't have any money to pay any of these bills,
but I am stuffing money into envelopes trying to.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Save to pay bills. Or to save up for bills.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
When I realized, oh God, I haven't even fed the
kids yet, and all I have is five dollars, I
decided to take her.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Up on her offer. I closed the door, and I
have come to Jesus moment with God.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
I said, God, really, how do you give me this
opportunity when I don't have any money.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
To take it?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
And God said, I feed birds, they don't toil, they
don't store up in barns. How much more will I
give you who looks like me? I was like, okay, cool.
And one of the things I did learn to do
was try God in see if he would not open
up a window of heaven and pour out so much
blessing that will be room enough to receive it.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And the thing about for me was he never said
gonna open up the and give you a lot, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He said, I'll.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Open up the window, will pour you out so much
blessing you know you won't have room for it. And
so I said, all right, God, let me see what
you're gonna do with this. Right, I'm like like, okay,
bet God. So I go around the corner and I
put on my shoes and I gamble the five dollars
at the grocery store, and just like she said she would,
(16:31):
she paid me. And I remember when that Friday came
and I was able to go to the SAMs and
buy myself a kitchen a mixer.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I was so excited because.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Now I don't have to hold the handheld electric mixer
in my hand anymore, and I can actually get the
products done faster.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You said so much, So you started, like you said,
with the handheld mixer with the five dollars, And you
also said something you were listening to someone who said
there are two ways you can get out of debt,
have a garage.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Cell or a bake sale. Now, what do you have
to say to people who know they in debt or
need a way out.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
But I don't want to do no bake sale. I
don't want to do no garage cell, the get rich
quicks things. What do you have to say to them?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
People?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
I love this, So if you can't do a bake sale,
you can't do a garage sell.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
No big deal.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
It brings me back to a story in the Bible
in Kings four and seventeen about a widow, and this
widow goes to the profit.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It says to him.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Listen, my husband has died and now they're coming to
take my children, as you know, to pay off the debt.
What am I supposed to do? And the prophet doesn't
give her an answer. The prophet asked her a question.
He says, what do you have in your house? And
so what she says is all I have? All I
have is a little bit of oil. Two things that
(18:04):
tells me all you have is all you need to
get you from where you are to where you.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Want to be.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
To stop calling what you have small, because in the
master's hand it can become much. The other thing I
learned from the story is stop telling people what you're
about to do. Go in your house and close the door,
because sometimes it's what's in your willhouse. It's not just
necessarily what's inside of your four walls, but what's inside
of your ability to do. I couldn't bake when I
(18:33):
started this, But there's so many people out here that
are gifted and talented that can sew that you know,
that understand business, who know how to sell, who understand tech.
I mean, you can learn tech.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Right now. My friend Anthony O'Neill is talking about this
all the.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Time, like all the time, shout out to Anthony by
the way, yes, Like I was.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Like, go to Bethel Tech and you know, and then
twelve months you're gonna be earning six figures.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I mean there, it's what is on the inside of you.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yea, and that is amazing. But you said something, it's
going to take twelve months. I think where I'm getting
at is. I told a friend of mine, I said,
who was great in organizing closets. This is before it
became what it is now. I told this person, I said, hey,
I'm gonna help you, and I said, within five years,
(19:26):
I promise you, I believe you'll have a six digit earning.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Well, I wouldn't say income. Your business is gonna make it.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
You have got.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Your business to earn one hundred thousand. You ain't earned
a hundred thousand yet, Boy, you will. It'll come.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
I would say within maybe seven years. I would think
as far as what you're gonna put in your pocket,
because y'all, what what I'm getting at is your business
can earn a certain amount, but after you paid employees,
equipment and all that stuff, that's not actually what you
are doing this. Yeah, So but I'm not saying, you
can't you know what I'm saying. So this person says.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Five years, they ain't got a five time. I was
like Mignon.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Within five years, closet organization has become a thing.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
They got television shows about.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Television shows on Netflix, they got their own line of
product in Walmart and other places. They surpassed six digits.
They're seven probably eight.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, So what I'm trying to say is because you
said it takes time twelve months, like don't give up.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Consistency and persistence wins.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So say, at that time, when you were getting out
of the abusive and rocky marriage, did you ever have.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Those thoughts like it's gonna take too long.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah. I always say this.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
If I'm gonna quit on anything, I'm gonna quit on
myself before I quit anybody else. But for me, my
children were involved, and I love these people with everything
that I have on the inside of me. So I
had to I didn't have to stop being a quitter. Essentially,
I had to quit quitting. And so I had to
quit quitting so that they could win.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And my children were.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Going to school, Michelle, they didn't know what we were
gonna eat when we came home at the end of
the day. We're from New Orleans, so red bes and
rice is gonna be on the menu. And when you
don't have any money, I mean that goes. You could
five dollars a feed the family of eight. Real good,
you know what I'm saying. And you know, I learned
(21:49):
that I needed to be regimented for them.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And I think that people have to have a reason.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
You have to have something that's gonna give you a
reason to keep on going to get up in the
middle of the night. But for me, the thing that
changed it all was I was afraid of God who
unpacked that I was being awakened every morning at three seventeen,
like an alarm clock was going off. I would wake
up and look over and it was three seventeen. And
(22:18):
one day I decided just to get up because I
couldn't go back to sleep, and sit on the sofa
and turn on the television. And there was a man
on the TV saying, the morning Breeze has something to
tell you, do not go back to sleep.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And I'm just like, Okay, I don't know what, mom,
but you're getting off.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
By on television right now. But by the third time,
that he said it. He said, God is trying to
talk to you, and this is the only time you'll
be silent. And so you think you're getting up to
check your stove and to check your doors and to
see about the children, like this man is ftching me,
and you know that's not what it's for. God wants
to speak, and so it'll take you about a week.
(22:54):
Put your feet on the floor and show back up
here and wait for God. I didn't know what that meant,
know what it meant to wait for God or to
hear God speak, But I learned it at three seventeen
in those mornings, and God was waking. God began to
wake me up for several weeks, like six or eight weeks.
I was waking up at three seventeen to come and
(23:16):
sit and talk with God and hear what he had
to say to me. And so when I first ended up,
you know, at the table to talk to God, I
was like, okay, God, look, I mean, I know you
want to talk, but please don't talk because I don't
want to really.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Run about of here right now by hear your boys.
I'm not ready for that.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
But I saw a Bible underneath my table and I
picked the Bible up and I just dropped it open.
It fell to chapter three in a particular book, and
I went down the verse seventeen and I got my
first set of instructures where God was telling me that
he loved me so much and he was about to
show me. And as I went back and forth through
(23:55):
the Bible, reading the entire thing, starting at chapter three
of five every book, and just going through until wouldn't
make sense anymore. And I would bring the sun up
every day, and I was feverishly writing everything down in
a journal. And when I got finished, I want the
Last Days of God woke me up. I ended up
in Deuteronomy and in Joshua think it was Deuteronomy thirty,
(24:18):
and Joshua won, and God said, I set before you
life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that
you and your family will live. And do not change
anything that I've told you to do, because if you do,
You're gonna die. I had been given so many ideas.
(24:39):
I had so many business ideas, and I would always start,
but I would never finish. And God was saying to me,
I'm done. I've done giving you stuff, and you over
here crying about you need money or you don't have
to filter your money, and I've given you opportunities that
you can build. And I was just like, Okay, God,
I understood that this was it. I was at the
crossroad of life and death, and so choosing life meant
(25:04):
to follow these instructions that God gave me over those
six or eight weeks that we were getting up every morning,
and it was all of the instructures to the Cupcake Collection.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Y'all. This is incredible.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
When you hear testimonies like this, I hope that it
convicts you.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
When I mean convict you.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Prayerfully, you are reflecting like, okay, there was an idea,
and you kept getting little teasers here and there, this
is what I'm supposed to be doing, but you let
fear or you're thinking you didn't have the resources needed.
But what they say where God gives vision, he gives
pro vision. And these aren't just cliche sayings. These are real, tested,
(25:49):
tried and true. So CEO of the Cupcake Collection, Mion Francois,
is here to tell you. Now, I love how you
share in your.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Book, how you choose to find joy.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
You choose joy in the hard times and how that
choice can propel you towards an abundant life.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
People like to get a call to action or a
how how are you choosing joy or finding joy?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
I think that actually just got to answer, but.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Okay, give me yours.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Well, it was in the question how do you choose joy?
Speaker 4 (26:35):
It's a choice, I was gonna say. Sometimes it is
a matter of standing in the mirror when you don't
feel like it.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You know, sometimes I write.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
It on shirts like this shirt that I have on
today says smile more. What it causes people to do
is smile more. And when when people when you're smiling
at someone else, that smile comes right back at you.
You know, they're just saying that says when you smile,
the whole world smiles back at you.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
It's because it's coming out of the inside of your spirit.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
And sometimes it's I have smashed joy across T shirts
and you know, write it on mirrors in my house
or my business, because sometimes it's just about saying it
until I believe it. Me and my brother we used
to play a thumb war when we were kids, and
it was like one, two, three four, I declare thumb war.
(27:35):
And I started realizing you can declare whatever you want.
You can declare war. You can also declare joy. And
so I decided to declare joy. And so every morning
when I get up, even when I don't feel it,
I declare joy. And if it matters, if it means that,
I'm gonna stand in the mirror and keep saying it
until I feel it, until I believe it, until it's settled.
(27:59):
Then that's what I'm going to do. Because I want
to choose to have joy.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Choose to have joy, because we will have whatever it
is we say. So when you wake up like, oh
my gosh, I know my boss at work gonna try
to he oh he gonna try me today.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Get he gonna try you today, because you can have
what you say. Or you know what, when I go.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
To work, albeit maybe challenging, but I'm gonna have divine
strategy on how to overcome this, right, because life is
going to life. Let's not act like it's gonna all
be peaches. If yeah, but when we when you wake
up like, oh my gosh, when I get on this plan,
I'm sure the flight attend is gonna have an attitude,
is gonna have attitude, you know, things like that. So
(28:47):
I am glad that we are just letting this conversation flow.
You know, I believe the way it is supposed to.
But I also want to respect your business and your
book because you share something in incredible about your book.
You share some personal family history about the fact that
your descendants of people who were enslaved on a sugar
(29:09):
cane plantation. You're own a business whose main ingredient is sugar.
How did you find out about your ancestors?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So, I love this question.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
It's just because a lot of times we believe that
we're so far removed from enslavement, right, And maybe individually
we're far removed from enslavement, but generationally we are not
far removed from it. And so my father was born
on a sugar cane plantation, My father was born on
(29:42):
a sugar cane plantation.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
My father father likes far removed yesterday.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Yeah, my daddy was born wow, raised on the sugar
cane plantation.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
And I think it's amazing that we get to now
have free enterprise in the industry where they didn't get
to use their own skill set the way that they
chose to use it. Though their labor was used, they
didn't really have any say so over it. And so
it has been my goal and my journey now to
bring a face and a name to our family so
(30:24):
that while you may not know their names, you will
experience them because you will know my name. And that
was one of the things that was important to me
in going back to New Orleans and teaching it to
my sisters, just because I didn't want to be over
here in Nashville and growing wealth and helping people get
out of debt and graduating people from college and helping
them finish when my sisters needed it in New Orleans,
(30:47):
and so I wanted to make sure that we were
giving back to the people and into the soil that
made us who.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
We are, y'all. She's the og queen Sugar.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
I love best.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Did you did it make you think of your family?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yes? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
And I listened to the whole podcast, and I think
it was called like sixteen nineteen and where they visited
some sugarcane farmer and just talked about the disparities in
lending and all this kind of stuff. I was just like,
I believe that I am a part of the first
generation of African Americans with access to opportunity and ways
(31:29):
my parents did not have it and take it.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
We gotta graduate and run.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yes, and my children will be the first generation as
a collective of African Americans with access to wealth transfers
outside of an insurance policy. So businesses and land will
be passed on to my children. But it is their children, Okay,
So I believe will have privilege.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Did you pass down that recipe?
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Apparently you got some amazing cake recipe in the batter?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yes? What matter?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
An extract?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
What is it?
Speaker 4 (32:05):
My children are running the business, now, come on, so
they you know I mostly answer to them, I said, God,
I went from answer to my mam and to answer
to my husband and answer to my children.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I need to answer to myself. Right. Wait, So the.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Young lady that was helping is she your daughter?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
No, she's not. She's one of my biological children. Bro.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
She has been with me since she was nineteen years old,
and she's one of the longest standing employees at the
Cupcake Collection. So I think, you know, just like you
start looking like your husband, like people who when you
start looking like you?
Speaker 3 (32:41):
What's her name? I shut her out?
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Her name?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Thank you so much for sticking That is like really
really big someone to stick beside.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
You, especially in this day, and it speaks to who.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
You are as a leader.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
I think, especially in this day name because you know,
they don't they don't stick around for more than a
year or two.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And she's been with me for almost eleven years.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
They don't stick around.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
It's like they it's like or they stick around you
long enough to get your formula and then try to
take everything. But I'm so excited for you that you've
got some folks who were with you pretty much from
the beginning beginning. I'm so inspired because you founded this
business in faith. The book writing process. I love the
(33:32):
book writing process. What were one of the most incredible
things that happened for you while writing this book for us?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
That is so good, Michelle, that is the list.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Thank you Lord.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Oh my gosh, that was so good.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I believe that everything that's happening to you is actually
happening for you. But I learned in the process. First
of all, I think everybody should write a book. Even
if you do, I don't ever plan to publish it.
You find so much out about yourself, and I thought
writing this story was gonna be easy. It was not
(34:10):
easy to write my own story, and I've been living
in it. Took me two years to write actively write
it down, but I learned that my father, who I
never thought he liked me very much. I definitely didn't
think my daddy loved me. But I found out my
father's love for me in writing this story. As I
(34:31):
was writing the different parts, I had some aha, full
circle moments, and I saw how I was doing some
of the same things my parents were doing. And I
got some healing for Mignon in here when I was
writing this story. I believe everybody should have that kind
of experience. I found out I was my Daddy's girl.
(34:53):
I just didn't even just.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Didn't know it.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
It's so interesting what's in us really is from our parents,
some learned experience with.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
That DNA there. It's their traits, yes.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
And all these things I've been fighting against that I
didn't want were the best.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Of both of them.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
And it wasn't until the day we buried my father
that I really got to see that for sure. He
was such a giving and generous man, and that was
why we didn't get to see him because he was
always giving himself away, always giving himself away.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Is that something that you've had to kind of.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Brain absolutely, and I think it has been people like
Tanisha and my children, Dusilla and Dylan in xhavior, like
just them being around me to protect me from you know,
like they'll say, Mom, lay down somewhere, we.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Know what we're doing over here. We can really handle this.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
And so I get a chance to actually do this.
I promised God, Michelle that if you would make me successful,
I would tell anybody who would listen about what they
could do if they believe. And having the opportunity to
write this book allows me to be with them wherever
they are in their three seventeen. We got a message
(36:18):
last night from a lady in the UK and I
just almost just burst into tears listening to the things
that she was saying. I'm like, I am you, I
am with you, I was you, and you don't have
to be there. And I was just so proud and
happy that I had something, a resource that I could
send her and say, get this book, read it and
(36:40):
do the things that will ever makes sense in it
for you. Do the things when you will see yourself
and you will find yourself, and you will know that
you are not alone because isn't that what we all
need to know that we are not alone?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Not alone?
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Nobody, hold your hand and say me too.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Come on, y'all, listen, made from scratch, finding success without
a recipe.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
You've got everything you need.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
On the inside of you, Mignon. I am so grateful
for you. I'm pumped up, I'm inspired. I'm expecting to
see more books from you.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Television, y'all.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Her personality is so infectious. All of that you taking YouTube,
whatever it is by storm, as far as whatever it
is that you want to do merch honey, come on,
cupcake mix in these stores.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
Come on, I'm so excited. And yet she has vegan
and gluten free and they're.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Good options for those who can't have sugar or the gluten.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
She's got something for you.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, before we wrap it up, now we got something
where Listen, she says, she's like this donut expert.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I think I'm the donut expert.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Now, who are you?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Country, country, Country I live in at who you think
that the best donuts in the country?
Speaker 4 (38:08):
Oo, the best donuts in the country. My son is
gonna kill me for this right now.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
But there is okay, just okay, hear me. Out.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
It's one of two places to me. Okay, in New
Orleans there is a bakery call doesen't you need to
get up at five o'clock in the morning and get
in the line to get your sick Yes, I even
bought the T shirt and so I will work out
(38:38):
for donuts. Don't doesn't in New Orleans that to me,
they are one of the best. However, there's another place,
also in New Orleans, and it's called Tasty. Now Tasty
is I think a chain or used to be a chain,
but in.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
New Orleans it don't work like that.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
So you can go in there and you can get
you can get a meal to donuts. When I get
off the plane, I gotta go to the Tasty Donuts
that is in Kenner, oh Lousiana, right by the Louis
Armstrong Airport, and Honey, you can get a cinema roll
the size of your face. You could have, you could
(39:18):
have hot glazed donuts. You could get I mean all day,
twenty four hours. But the donut, the donut that lets
me know I'm home is we have what's called a
buttermilk drop. It is like a fry cake donut. It's
a ball and honey, when I go to New Orleans,
(39:38):
I gotta bring them home to Nashville because they're like,
I know you.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Didn't come home empty, honey.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
I know you didn't.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
That's why we have talked about faith. We've talked about fear.
We've talked about so much. Is there anything that anything
else you throw down in the kitchen on besides sweets?
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Ooh, I am very good at lasagna.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Come on.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
I don't know what, why, or where. I guess I
got it. I got that from my mama. My grandmother
taught me how to cook over the phone when I
was seventeen years old, and spending a lot of time
in the kitchen with my grandmother made me a really
good cook because I just didn't want to wash the dishes.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
So my mom had this deal, like if you do
the cooking.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
I washed the dishes because she didn't want to cook
and I didn't want to wash dishes. So I would say,
I am the queen of lasagna. That will bring my
children home. I don't have to tell them I'm making lasagna.
It's like their noses know that Mammy is making lasagna.
It would be either that or oh, stuffing a pot
roast with some garlic and Holy Trinity, and like, I'm
(40:50):
this the thing that I miss about about being a
meat eater because I recently became a vegetarian, I'm transitioning
to being a vegan and it's just like, oh.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
My godness, you go eat no dear.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
You know, it was just it was a decision to
choose life right. I had. I had gotten sick, and
I had learned that if I gave up all of
those things, I could be well. And I decided I
wanted to live more than I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Eat gumbo, y'all plant based vegan.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
And honey. They got some people. They got some people
in New Orleans that can do.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
That because it's all in the spices. I'm assuming that, Yeah, yeah,
it's I.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Think Nola Vegan is such an amazed I mean she's
so good.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I mean you could take a mushroom and shred that
thing up.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
The brown Like, which have you met her yet?
Speaker 4 (41:56):
I ran into Tap of the Brown in a store
in l Me and my best friend, her name is Karima.
We were in LA because she was going to be
singing and we run it.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
She said, girl, is that donna?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
I love it? Come on, because y'all stories.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
You know, she has built her empire just off an
active obedience. She said God told her to get her
phone out and start recording, you know, and how you
had to obey the signs of getting up in the
morning and putting that faith to work.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
So I love hearing stories like this, y'all.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Her book Made from Scratch, Finding Success Without a Recipe
is available now.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
We want to say.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Congratulations to the best selling books ever.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Oh, I receive it, receip.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yes, yes, and we're looking forward to more. I cannot
wait till when I walk into a store and we're
going to see your.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Name and faith oh so much. I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
I don't think God brought you this far to be like, yeah,
it ends at a book, it ends at two cupcake stores, it.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Don't end there.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So I'm so excited for you. Thank you for being here,
thank you for sharing. And we pray that someone listening
has been encouraged. Because some people feel like I'm not valuable,
I'm broken, I made bad decisions, or I don't have family.
We're not going to say that anymore because you have
everything on the inside of you. And Mignon Francois was
(43:34):
here to show us and tell us on how to
get it.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Amen, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Of course, anytime you can. You are welcome to check
in anytime.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
We're so happy for you.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Listen, my youngest sister heard that I was coming on
to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
She's like, oh my god, she's my favorite. Tell her.
I said, hello, what's her name? Her name is Alisa Terrio,
al Terryo.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
We love you so much.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
All right, we gotta bring up.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
We gotta bring the whole family back on checking in Alsa.
You come on on all right.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, honey go, that is gonna make her. She was like,
because she has followed everything. She was like she was
doing a choir show and I was watching that thing.
Thank you, thank you so much for shouting her out.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
She's gonna probably pass out. Now, it's all right.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
She's gonna pass out. Honey, just eat a cupcakes. Child.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
You come on back, Come on back to life, Come
on back, it's life giving cupcakes.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Come.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
I love it, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
What about I gotta let you go. I'm thinking I
just see your stuff on, like pancake mix and stuff.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
Yes, I love it. I received all of it. We
speaking when we seek till we see it.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Honey, we can have.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
What we say. If you want pancake, you want to
take over, you take over. Y'all gotta go?
Speaker 5 (44:59):
All right, Wait a minute, are y'all as pumped up
as I am?
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Like?
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I literally could talk to this woman all day. Mignon
Francois brought it all, amg And it's nothing like hearing
this from someone that's walked through pain, an abusive marriage,
raising six children on her own, and has come out
(45:33):
with a multimillion.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Dollar company from.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Using five dollars. Y'all, I don't have any excuse. I
don't have any excuse to go after those things that
I believe are in my heart that I am purposed
and called to do. So I hope y'all leave this
(45:58):
episode in curve. And even if you leave like man,
I'm guilty because I haven't stewarded the resources that I
already have. That's okay, Let's get up, Let's keep trying,
let's keep going, let's keep building, be consistent and persistent,
because no one can work as hard for you as you.
All Right, I'm so excited, I keep saying every few episodes,
(46:21):
like the testimonies from the by the end of this year,
I am excited to hear how you guys have begun
to move and shake in your purpose and your calling.
You're thriving in business, you're thriving in school, You're thriving
in relationships. I'm telling y'all, this is the time to
(46:42):
do it. This is the time to improve yourself. This
is the time to go and get it.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Come on, y'all, Come on, y'all, you got this. I
love you so much. Take care.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio
and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hey, everybody, I want to
speak to someone that's feeling like, you know, they don't
(00:22):
have the resources they need to begin a company or
to get out of a situation. This episode is going
to be for you. I cannot wait for y'all to
hear this young lady's story that's coming up on this
next episode.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Of Checking In.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hey, everybody, I am so excited about this week's episode
because it is near and dear to my heart. Seeing
that you know, our guest specialty is something that I
love to indulge in. And I thought that I was
an expert in another culinary suite, but it seems like
(01:06):
I've got some competition.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
So let me tell y'all who she is.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
She is an award winning entrepreneur, speaker, community leader. She's
appeared on the Today Show as well as featured in
Southern Living, Entrepreneur and Business Insider, alumni of Xavier University.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Just we're going to get into all of that now.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
She's got a book that is out now, y'all that
is just absolutely incredible. It is called Made from Scratch,
Finding Success Without a recipe. Okay, please welcome Mignon Francois
to checking in.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Thank you for having me. You said so amazingly.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I imagine that you must speak a little bit of French.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I don't, but I got a feeling that I would
do well in it.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Really, I feel like I would do well.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
I think you would do amazing You just learned your
first French word.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
But you know, I try to honor the roots of
a person's name, so I even want to try to
pronounce it, even in the dialect, even in the accent
of where it's from. So I hope I've majored you
and your mom proud.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You have made me proud, and I'm sure my mom
will be too.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Say when people mess up my name now, you know,
because my name, you know, I'm gonna get everybody else's name.
You know what people trying to do to me. They
usually say, I'm gonna give you a nickname.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
No, no, you're gonna say my name, and you're gonna
say it right. We don't make it easy over here,
although I'm guilty, I'm guilty of making it easy.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
My first name is Tanitra.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Michelle is my middle name, and no one could ever
pronounce to correctly. Really, we went to light on people
because I love when I go to the airport and
I give them my ID and they say t Niitra.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
They get it right the first time, and I was like,
don't let people.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Go easy on your name.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Yeah, I think, I think Tanietscha is an easy name
to say.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Thank you, Thank you so so much, mignon.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Where are you from? I am from New Orleans, honey,
and I truly believe there is no better place to
be from.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
But I live in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
You live in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
My niece took a trip to New Orleans for the
very first time over spring break, and all she posted
nothing but food and the swamps, and just I told
her the food there is amazing. And you cannot go
to New Orleans and just eat a ham and cheese sandwich.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
You cannot.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
You got to eat You got to eat the food
that New Orleans is known for.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
And you can eat it at somebody's mama's house. You
could eat it in a hole in the wall. You
could eat I feel like a doctor Seusma and this
so gayish, so so good it is, which is why
I so desperately wanted to take the Cupcake Collection back
(04:21):
to New Orleans because after Katrina, we had gone down
there for a visit and I stumbled into this donut
shop that I found on social media, and their donuts
were so beautiful, and all the people that worked in
there looked like they were casting the movie to work
in the donut shop in New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Listen, now, you kind of you're kind of getting down
into my interview.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
But y'all, not only is she the author of Made
from Scratch, Finding Success without a Recipe, You're like, well,
why would she make.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
A book called Made from Scratch?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Well, because she is the founder and CEO of the
Cupcake Collection. It is in Nashville, Tennessee. And you have
a place in New.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Orleans as well called the Collection.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I do, y'all.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Looked at the menu. It's amazing, honey.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
She got sweep potato cupcakes, studie, she got zesty lemon
or lemon lemon limon. Come on, somebody, how amazing? And
we are going to get into that. But since you
mentioned donuts, you noted, how are you a donut OFFICI
and me?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Do you love doughnuts.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Oh my gosh, we are about to be friends.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
I love donuts. Get it from I get it.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
From the midderal search for the best donut in the world. Now,
there are some good donuts in New Orleans. My son
seems to think that the best donuts are right here
in Nashville, Tennessee. But there are some really good donuts
in New Orleans. And I have had some really good
donuts in LA. And you know, I'm told I need
(06:04):
to go to Voodoo Donuts in what Washington?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I think it's Seattle or really okay?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And I don't mean to be rude, but why do
I feel like you need to try Hero Donuts. I
believe they have opened up a Hero Donuts in Nashville.
Finally what There's only like four locations, but I do
believe Nashville is one of them.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Well, I'm gonna need to Charlotte Avenue.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
What And I did not know that brand new because
they just opened like a day ago.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Little because I was saying, I've been sleeping under a
rock if I did not know that there were new
donuts in Nashville.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
They make them there like they don't get them from
any They make them there.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I'm happy to get me one.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Okay. The burger is incredible, Oh, y'all.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I don't want to waste her time, y'all, because see
you see how we got on a rabbit trail, because
your story is so incredible. I love how you Yes,
you have a degree, and I love how you know.
On your bio it says, but you have a master's
from Hard Knocks. Yes, but you are actually getting a master's.
Did you ever to receive it or no?
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I was so busy doing the things that I was
working to get the masters for I had to kind
of drop it. I now serve at the university on
the board in the School of Business where I was
seeking that degree. But I'd done so much in the city,
you know. It was just something I wanted to have,
(07:39):
okay myself.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
So let's get into it for real.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
At one point in time, you were drowning in debt,
raising six children, living in a broken hand, abusive marriage. Yeah,
where you ended up having to leverage the only five
dollars you had to feed your family, y'all.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And she has turned it.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Into a ten million dollar cupcake empire. I'm sure by
the time we get through talking, it's probably gonna be
twenty million dollars.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
God, we thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
God, Yes, God, we thank you, and we receive it.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Listen, yes we do. But it wasn't as quick as
what I just said.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
No. I think that people always think that overnight success
happens overnight, and overnight success takes ten years. And while
a lot of people are seeing me on lots of
things right now, it took me seventeen years of working
every day at this to end up at this table,
(08:45):
or on this podcast, or with this book in my hand,
trying to tell other people what they could do if
they believe.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Wait a minute, if you want, if you believe, so
just believe, not money.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, this is all about faith for me.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I believe that faith has a higher return on investment
than money has, and that I coined a term called
faith currency. I believe that faith will work for you
just like money does, and that faith and money have
similar properties. But if you invest in faith, you get
more than with money. How many times you know, do
(09:29):
you have a bill that needs to be paid. As
long as there's something that needs to be paid, you
looking for money to get to it, right, But a
lot of times, what I learned is that we have
to faith through it. And God showed me something major
in the process of doing this.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
He didn't want me to do this in fear. He
wanted me to do this in faith.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And so as I, you know, a people are talking about, oh,
do it afraid, do it scared? I learned not to
do anything scared. Even if I was scared, I was
going to keep moving forward. But God didn't give me
a spirit of fear.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I was just about to say, wait a minute, I'm
guilty of saying that term. So you mean to tell
me I need to do something with the spirit of fear,
because fear is a spirit.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yes, fear is a spirit that does not come from God.
And that's not what he wants you to have, he says,
trust me. And so I was just telling this story
last night about my daughter and a bully she had
when she was five. I was gonna get that five
year old bully together, right, but she was so scared
of that bully and she's like, Mommy, she's too big
(10:33):
for you.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
She's five. I'm mommy, and you.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Think this bully is too big for me. And that's
the same thing we do with God. We tell him
that the problems that we have are the bullies that
we have. The situations that we have are too big
for him. And God is like, but I'm God impossible.
The whole nothing is impossible. That's a whole Another thing
(11:00):
that we tackle in the book about the very word
itself is I am possible, and the I am makes it.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Possible, makes it possible?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Come on, come on.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I love that my podcast gets an array of folks,
and I love speaking specifically to people who may feel
broken alone, who are like, wait a minute, I might
be down to my last five dollars, and so I'm
praying that they feel so so encouraged about how to
(11:37):
build a successful business without an abundance of resources.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
So we've got faith.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
But then you got the works, right, So what was
that journey like for you? If you can, y'all? And
I know it's in her book, so and guess what
you're gonna go get the book. But just to tickle
someone's ears was one of the first steps that you
did to build a business without the abundance.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
The first thing that I was doing, I was sitting
in the back of my house with no electricity. And
I love that you spoke out to the people who
might be sitting in the same position that I was
sitting in. I didn't have any electricity. I was going
to the grocery store and buying bottled water to fill
up the bathtub because our water was often cut off,
and having the baby go first because he was the cleanest.
(12:28):
When my neighbor knocked on the door and asked me
to make cupcakes. But the problem is I'm in here
without electricity, she asked me. While I was in the dark.
I was like, cause I'm meditating dump and so she
doesn't like question me. But I'm in the dark because
I don't have electricity. I'm living in what is becoming
(12:50):
an affluent neighborhood all the way around me, but nobody
else is struggling like I'm struggling. So my cars are
being repossessed. When she comes and asked me to to
make cupcakes for so simially, what she's asking me to
do is take all that I have and go and
spend it to make a deposit on an order that
she wants to get for me. She sees the perplexity
(13:12):
in my face and says, you know what, listen, you can't,
you know, get them all made at once, and if
you know, when you get finished, I'll pay you. And
sometimes you know, people meet ish, you know, they don't
mean I'm gonna pay you right now. I need my
money as soon as I.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Turn yeah, yeah, because the grocery store needs the money
to get these ingredients nownight.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
And if I take this five dollars, we're not eating tonight.
But like she said, she paid me when I turned
in some of the cupcakes and turned that five into
sixty that day. And I took that fifty five because
if I burn everything, I need the five that I
started with. And I turned that fifty five into six
hundred by the end of the week. And I've been
(13:52):
flipping that same money for the last seventeen years. I
did it with no debt, no credit, no knowledge of
the business, and a lot of people don't even know that.
When I started the business, I didn't even know how
to bake, not even out of a box. But I
was believing God who said to me that day, because
when I shut the door, I told the lady, Okay, Joni,
(14:14):
I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Make cupcakes if you didn't bak well.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Because I was practicing, so I would go around the neighborhood.
I was listening to this guy in the radio who's
telling people they could get out of debt by having a.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Bake sale or a garage sale.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
We couldn't have a garage sale because we sold everything
that we had to get to Nashville in the first place.
And we were not a family that complained about our situation, right,
so people.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I was just actively trying to dig us out, and
so I thought, Okay, well, it's gonna be a bake
sale because we don't have anything that we can sell.
And so when I accepted her order, I had been
practicing around the neighborhood. The whole neighborhood knew where to
come and get cupcakes from. They I did this one
(15:00):
let me cupcake at the time. It's about the size
of a quarter and they were cooked, and so she thought,
I'm going to give these everybody for the holidays. And
so when she came knocking, I didn't even have electricity,
and I was just trying to reconcile.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
What am I gonna do.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
I don't have any money to pay any of these bills,
but I am stuffing money into envelopes trying to.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Save to pay bills. Or to save up for bills.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
When I realized, oh God, I haven't even fed the
kids yet, and all I have is five dollars, I
decided to take her.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Up on her offer. I closed the door, and I
have come to Jesus moment with God.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
I said, God, really, how do you give me this
opportunity when I don't have any money.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
To take it?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
And God said, I feed birds, they don't toil, they
don't store up in barns. How much more will I
give you who looks like me? I was like, okay, cool.
And one of the things I did learn to do
was try God in see if he would not open
up a window of heaven and pour out so much
blessing that will be room enough to receive it.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
And the thing about for me was he never said
gonna open up the and give you a lot, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
He said, I'll.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Open up the window, will pour you out so much
blessing you know you won't have room for it. And
so I said, all right, God, let me see what
you're gonna do with this. Right, I'm like like, okay,
bet God. So I go around the corner and I
put on my shoes and I gamble the five dollars
at the grocery store, and just like she said she would,
(16:31):
she paid me. And I remember when that Friday came
and I was able to go to the SAMs and
buy myself a kitchen a mixer.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I was so excited because.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Now I don't have to hold the handheld electric mixer
in my hand anymore, and I can actually get the
products done faster.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
You said so much, So you started, like you said,
with the handheld mixer with the five dollars, And you
also said something you were listening to someone who said
there are two ways you can get out of debt,
have a garage.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Cell or a bake sale. Now, what do you have
to say to people who know they in debt or
need a way out.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
But I don't want to do no bake sale. I
don't want to do no garage cell, the get rich
quicks things. What do you have to say to them?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
People?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
I love this, So if you can't do a bake sale,
you can't do a garage sell.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
No big deal.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
It brings me back to a story in the Bible
in Kings four and seventeen about a widow, and this
widow goes to the profit.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It says to him.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Listen, my husband has died and now they're coming to
take my children, as you know, to pay off the debt.
What am I supposed to do? And the prophet doesn't
give her an answer. The prophet asked her a question.
He says, what do you have in your house? And
so what she says is all I have? All I
have is a little bit of oil. Two things that
(18:04):
tells me all you have is all you need to
get you from where you are to where you.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Want to be.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
To stop calling what you have small, because in the
master's hand it can become much. The other thing I
learned from the story is stop telling people what you're
about to do. Go in your house and close the door,
because sometimes it's what's in your willhouse. It's not just
necessarily what's inside of your four walls, but what's inside
of your ability to do. I couldn't bake when I
(18:33):
started this, But there's so many people out here that
are gifted and talented that can sew that you know,
that understand business, who know how to sell, who understand tech.
I mean, you can learn tech.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Right now. My friend Anthony O'Neill is talking about this
all the.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Time, like all the time, shout out to Anthony by
the way, yes, Like I was.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
Like, go to Bethel Tech and you know, and then
twelve months you're gonna be earning six figures.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I mean there, it's what is on the inside of you.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yea, and that is amazing. But you said something, it's
going to take twelve months. I think where I'm getting
at is. I told a friend of mine, I said,
who was great in organizing closets. This is before it
became what it is now. I told this person, I said, hey,
I'm gonna help you, and I said, within five years,
(19:26):
I promise you, I believe you'll have a six digit earning.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Well, I wouldn't say income. Your business is gonna make it.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
You have got.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Your business to earn one hundred thousand. You ain't earned
a hundred thousand yet, Boy, you will. It'll come.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
I would say within maybe seven years. I would think
as far as what you're gonna put in your pocket,
because y'all, what what I'm getting at is your business
can earn a certain amount, but after you paid employees,
equipment and all that stuff, that's not actually what you
are doing this. Yeah, So but I'm not saying, you
can't you know what I'm saying. So this person says.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Five years, they ain't got a five time. I was
like Mignon.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Within five years, closet organization has become a thing.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
They got television shows about.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Television shows on Netflix, they got their own line of
product in Walmart and other places. They surpassed six digits.
They're seven probably eight.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, So what I'm trying to say is because you
said it takes time twelve months, like don't give up.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Consistency and persistence wins.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So say, at that time, when you were getting out
of the abusive and rocky marriage, did you ever have.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Those thoughts like it's gonna take too long.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah. I always say this.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
If I'm gonna quit on anything, I'm gonna quit on
myself before I quit anybody else. But for me, my
children were involved, and I love these people with everything
that I have on the inside of me. So I
had to I didn't have to stop being a quitter. Essentially,
I had to quit quitting. And so I had to
quit quitting so that they could win.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And my children were.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Going to school, Michelle, they didn't know what we were
gonna eat when we came home at the end of
the day. We're from New Orleans, so red bes and
rice is gonna be on the menu. And when you
don't have any money, I mean that goes. You could
five dollars a feed the family of eight. Real good,
you know what I'm saying. And you know, I learned
(21:49):
that I needed to be regimented for them.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And I think that people have to have a reason.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
You have to have something that's gonna give you a
reason to keep on going to get up in the
middle of the night. But for me, the thing that
changed it all was I was afraid of God who
unpacked that I was being awakened every morning at three seventeen,
like an alarm clock was going off. I would wake
up and look over and it was three seventeen. And
(22:18):
one day I decided just to get up because I
couldn't go back to sleep, and sit on the sofa
and turn on the television. And there was a man
on the TV saying, the morning Breeze has something to
tell you, do not go back to sleep.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And I'm just like, Okay, I don't know what, mom,
but you're getting off.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
By on television right now. But by the third time,
that he said it. He said, God is trying to
talk to you, and this is the only time you'll
be silent. And so you think you're getting up to
check your stove and to check your doors and to
see about the children, like this man is ftching me,
and you know that's not what it's for. God wants
to speak, and so it'll take you about a week.
(22:54):
Put your feet on the floor and show back up
here and wait for God. I didn't know what that meant,
know what it meant to wait for God or to
hear God speak, But I learned it at three seventeen
in those mornings, and God was waking. God began to
wake me up for several weeks, like six or eight weeks.
I was waking up at three seventeen to come and
(23:16):
sit and talk with God and hear what he had
to say to me. And so when I first ended up,
you know, at the table to talk to God, I
was like, okay, God, look, I mean, I know you
want to talk, but please don't talk because I don't
want to really.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Run about of here right now by hear your boys.
I'm not ready for that.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
But I saw a Bible underneath my table and I
picked the Bible up and I just dropped it open.
It fell to chapter three in a particular book, and
I went down the verse seventeen and I got my
first set of instructures where God was telling me that
he loved me so much and he was about to
show me. And as I went back and forth through
(23:55):
the Bible, reading the entire thing, starting at chapter three
of five every book, and just going through until wouldn't
make sense anymore. And I would bring the sun up
every day, and I was feverishly writing everything down in
a journal. And when I got finished, I want the
Last Days of God woke me up. I ended up
in Deuteronomy and in Joshua think it was Deuteronomy thirty,
(24:18):
and Joshua won, and God said, I set before you
life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that
you and your family will live. And do not change
anything that I've told you to do, because if you do,
You're gonna die. I had been given so many ideas.
(24:39):
I had so many business ideas, and I would always start,
but I would never finish. And God was saying to me,
I'm done. I've done giving you stuff, and you over
here crying about you need money or you don't have
to filter your money, and I've given you opportunities that
you can build. And I was just like, Okay, God,
I understood that this was it. I was at the
crossroad of life and death, and so choosing life meant
(25:04):
to follow these instructions that God gave me over those
six or eight weeks that we were getting up every morning,
and it was all of the instructures to the Cupcake Collection.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Y'all. This is incredible.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
When you hear testimonies like this, I hope that it
convicts you.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
When I mean convict you.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Prayerfully, you are reflecting like, okay, there was an idea,
and you kept getting little teasers here and there, this
is what I'm supposed to be doing, but you let
fear or you're thinking you didn't have the resources needed.
But what they say where God gives vision, he gives
pro vision. And these aren't just cliche sayings. These are real, tested,
(25:49):
tried and true. So CEO of the Cupcake Collection, Mion Francois,
is here to tell you. Now, I love how you
share in your.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Book, how you choose to find joy.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
You choose joy in the hard times and how that
choice can propel you towards an abundant life.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
People like to get a call to action or a
how how are you choosing joy or finding joy?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
I think that actually just got to answer, but.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Okay, give me yours.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Well, it was in the question how do you choose joy?
Speaker 4 (26:35):
It's a choice, I was gonna say. Sometimes it is
a matter of standing in the mirror when you don't
feel like it.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
You know, sometimes I write.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
It on shirts like this shirt that I have on
today says smile more. What it causes people to do
is smile more. And when when people when you're smiling
at someone else, that smile comes right back at you.
You know, they're just saying that says when you smile,
the whole world smiles back at you.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
It's because it's coming out of the inside of your spirit.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
And sometimes it's I have smashed joy across T shirts
and you know, write it on mirrors in my house
or my business, because sometimes it's just about saying it
until I believe it. Me and my brother we used
to play a thumb war when we were kids, and
it was like one, two, three four, I declare thumb war.
(27:35):
And I started realizing you can declare whatever you want.
You can declare war. You can also declare joy. And
so I decided to declare joy. And so every morning
when I get up, even when I don't feel it,
I declare joy. And if it matters, if it means that,
I'm gonna stand in the mirror and keep saying it
until I feel it, until I believe it, until it's settled.
(27:59):
Then that's what I'm going to do. Because I want
to choose to have joy.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Choose to have joy, because we will have whatever it
is we say. So when you wake up like, oh
my gosh, I know my boss at work gonna try
to he oh he gonna try me today.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Get he gonna try you today, because you can have
what you say. Or you know what, when I go.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
To work, albeit maybe challenging, but I'm gonna have divine
strategy on how to overcome this, right, because life is
going to life. Let's not act like it's gonna all
be peaches. If yeah, but when we when you wake
up like, oh my gosh, when I get on this plan,
I'm sure the flight attend is gonna have an attitude,
is gonna have attitude, you know, things like that. So
(28:47):
I am glad that we are just letting this conversation flow.
You know, I believe the way it is supposed to.
But I also want to respect your business and your
book because you share something in incredible about your book.
You share some personal family history about the fact that
your descendants of people who were enslaved on a sugar
(29:09):
cane plantation. You're own a business whose main ingredient is sugar.
How did you find out about your ancestors?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So, I love this question.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
It's just because a lot of times we believe that
we're so far removed from enslavement, right, And maybe individually
we're far removed from enslavement, but generationally we are not
far removed from it. And so my father was born
on a sugar cane plantation, My father was born on
(29:42):
a sugar cane plantation.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
My father father likes far removed yesterday.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Yeah, my daddy was born wow, raised on the sugar
cane plantation.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
And I think it's amazing that we get to now
have free enterprise in the industry where they didn't get
to use their own skill set the way that they
chose to use it. Though their labor was used, they
didn't really have any say so over it. And so
it has been my goal and my journey now to
bring a face and a name to our family so
(30:24):
that while you may not know their names, you will
experience them because you will know my name. And that
was one of the things that was important to me
in going back to New Orleans and teaching it to
my sisters, just because I didn't want to be over
here in Nashville and growing wealth and helping people get
out of debt and graduating people from college and helping
them finish when my sisters needed it in New Orleans,
(30:47):
and so I wanted to make sure that we were
giving back to the people and into the soil that
made us who.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
We are, y'all. She's the og queen Sugar.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
I love best.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Did you did it make you think of your family?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yes? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
And I listened to the whole podcast, and I think
it was called like sixteen nineteen and where they visited
some sugarcane farmer and just talked about the disparities in
lending and all this kind of stuff. I was just like,
I believe that I am a part of the first
generation of African Americans with access to opportunity and ways
(31:29):
my parents did not have it and take it.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
We gotta graduate and run.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yes, and my children will be the first generation as
a collective of African Americans with access to wealth transfers
outside of an insurance policy. So businesses and land will
be passed on to my children. But it is their children, Okay,
So I believe will have privilege.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Did you pass down that recipe?
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Apparently you got some amazing cake recipe in the batter?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yes? What matter?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
An extract?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
What is it?
Speaker 4 (32:05):
My children are running the business, now, come on, so
they you know I mostly answer to them, I said, God,
I went from answer to my mam and to answer
to my husband and answer to my children.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I need to answer to myself. Right. Wait, So the.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Young lady that was helping is she your daughter?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
No, she's not. She's one of my biological children. Bro.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
She has been with me since she was nineteen years old,
and she's one of the longest standing employees at the
Cupcake Collection. So I think, you know, just like you
start looking like your husband, like people who when you
start looking like you?
Speaker 3 (32:41):
What's her name? I shut her out?
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Her name?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Thank you so much for sticking That is like really
really big someone to stick beside.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
You, especially in this day, and it speaks to who.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
You are as a leader.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
I think, especially in this day name because you know,
they don't they don't stick around for more than a
year or two.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And she's been with me for almost eleven years.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
They don't stick around.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
It's like they it's like or they stick around you
long enough to get your formula and then try to
take everything. But I'm so excited for you that you've
got some folks who were with you pretty much from
the beginning beginning. I'm so inspired because you founded this
business in faith. The book writing process. I love the
(33:32):
book writing process. What were one of the most incredible
things that happened for you while writing this book for us?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
That is so good, Michelle, that is the list.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Thank you Lord.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Oh my gosh, that was so good.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I believe that everything that's happening to you is actually
happening for you. But I learned in the process. First
of all, I think everybody should write a book. Even
if you do, I don't ever plan to publish it.
You find so much out about yourself, and I thought
writing this story was gonna be easy. It was not
(34:10):
easy to write my own story, and I've been living
in it. Took me two years to write actively write
it down, but I learned that my father, who I
never thought he liked me very much. I definitely didn't
think my daddy loved me. But I found out my
father's love for me in writing this story. As I
(34:31):
was writing the different parts, I had some aha, full
circle moments, and I saw how I was doing some
of the same things my parents were doing. And I
got some healing for Mignon in here when I was
writing this story. I believe everybody should have that kind
of experience. I found out I was my Daddy's girl.
(34:53):
I just didn't even just.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Didn't know it.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
It's so interesting what's in us really is from our parents,
some learned experience with.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
That DNA there. It's their traits, yes.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
And all these things I've been fighting against that I
didn't want were the best.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Of both of them.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
And it wasn't until the day we buried my father
that I really got to see that for sure. He
was such a giving and generous man, and that was
why we didn't get to see him because he was
always giving himself away, always giving himself away.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Is that something that you've had to kind of.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Brain absolutely, and I think it has been people like
Tanisha and my children, Dusilla and Dylan in xhavior, like
just them being around me to protect me from you know,
like they'll say, Mom, lay down somewhere, we.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Know what we're doing over here. We can really handle this.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
And so I get a chance to actually do this.
I promised God, Michelle that if you would make me successful,
I would tell anybody who would listen about what they
could do if they believe. And having the opportunity to
write this book allows me to be with them wherever
they are in their three seventeen. We got a message
(36:18):
last night from a lady in the UK and I
just almost just burst into tears listening to the things
that she was saying. I'm like, I am you, I
am with you, I was you, and you don't have
to be there. And I was just so proud and
happy that I had something, a resource that I could
send her and say, get this book, read it and
(36:40):
do the things that will ever makes sense in it
for you. Do the things when you will see yourself
and you will find yourself, and you will know that
you are not alone because isn't that what we all
need to know that we are not alone?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Not alone?
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Nobody, hold your hand and say me too.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Come on, y'all, listen, made from scratch, finding success without
a recipe.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
You've got everything you need.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
On the inside of you, Mignon. I am so grateful
for you. I'm pumped up, I'm inspired. I'm expecting to
see more books from you.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Television, y'all.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Her personality is so infectious. All of that you taking YouTube,
whatever it is by storm, as far as whatever it
is that you want to do merch honey, come on,
cupcake mix in these stores.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
Come on, I'm so excited. And yet she has vegan
and gluten free and they're.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Good options for those who can't have sugar or the gluten.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
She's got something for you.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, before we wrap it up, now we got something
where Listen, she says, she's like this donut expert.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I think I'm the donut expert.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
Now, who are you?
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Country, country, Country I live in at who you think
that the best donuts in the country?
Speaker 4 (38:08):
Oo, the best donuts in the country. My son is
gonna kill me for this right now.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
But there is okay, just okay, hear me. Out.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
It's one of two places to me. Okay, in New
Orleans there is a bakery call doesen't you need to
get up at five o'clock in the morning and get
in the line to get your sick Yes, I even
bought the T shirt and so I will work out
(38:38):
for donuts. Don't doesn't in New Orleans that to me,
they are one of the best. However, there's another place,
also in New Orleans, and it's called Tasty. Now Tasty
is I think a chain or used to be a chain,
but in.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
New Orleans it don't work like that.
Speaker 4 (38:57):
So you can go in there and you can get
you can get a meal to donuts. When I get
off the plane, I gotta go to the Tasty Donuts
that is in Kenner, oh Lousiana, right by the Louis
Armstrong Airport, and Honey, you can get a cinema roll
the size of your face. You could have, you could
(39:18):
have hot glazed donuts. You could get I mean all day,
twenty four hours. But the donut, the donut that lets
me know I'm home is we have what's called a
buttermilk drop. It is like a fry cake donut. It's
a ball and honey, when I go to New Orleans,
(39:38):
I gotta bring them home to Nashville because they're like,
I know you.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Didn't come home empty, honey.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
I know you didn't.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
That's why we have talked about faith. We've talked about fear.
We've talked about so much. Is there anything that anything
else you throw down in the kitchen on besides sweets?
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Ooh, I am very good at lasagna.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Come on.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
I don't know what, why, or where. I guess I
got it. I got that from my mama. My grandmother
taught me how to cook over the phone when I
was seventeen years old, and spending a lot of time
in the kitchen with my grandmother made me a really
good cook because I just didn't want to wash the dishes.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
So my mom had this deal, like if you do
the cooking.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
I washed the dishes because she didn't want to cook
and I didn't want to wash dishes. So I would say,
I am the queen of lasagna. That will bring my
children home. I don't have to tell them I'm making lasagna.
It's like their noses know that Mammy is making lasagna.
It would be either that or oh, stuffing a pot
roast with some garlic and Holy Trinity, and like, I'm
(40:50):
this the thing that I miss about about being a
meat eater because I recently became a vegetarian, I'm transitioning
to being a vegan and it's just like, oh.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
My godness, you go eat no dear.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
You know, it was just it was a decision to
choose life right. I had. I had gotten sick, and
I had learned that if I gave up all of
those things, I could be well. And I decided I
wanted to live more than I wanted to.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Eat gumbo, y'all plant based vegan.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
And honey. They got some people. They got some people
in New Orleans that can do.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
That because it's all in the spices. I'm assuming that, Yeah, yeah,
it's I.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Think Nola Vegan is such an amazed I mean she's
so good.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I mean you could take a mushroom and shred that
thing up.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
The brown Like, which have you met her yet?
Speaker 4 (41:56):
I ran into Tap of the Brown in a store
in l Me and my best friend, her name is Karima.
We were in LA because she was going to be
singing and we run it.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
She said, girl, is that donna?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
I love it? Come on, because y'all stories.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
You know, she has built her empire just off an
active obedience. She said God told her to get her
phone out and start recording, you know, and how you
had to obey the signs of getting up in the
morning and putting that faith to work.
Speaker 3 (42:28):
So I love hearing stories like this, y'all.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Her book Made from Scratch, Finding Success Without a Recipe
is available now.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
We want to say.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Congratulations to the best selling books ever.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Oh, I receive it, receip.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yes, yes, and we're looking forward to more. I cannot
wait till when I walk into a store and we're
going to see your.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Name and faith oh so much. I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
I don't think God brought you this far to be like, yeah,
it ends at a book, it ends at two cupcake stores, it.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Don't end there.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
So I'm so excited for you. Thank you for being here,
thank you for sharing. And we pray that someone listening
has been encouraged. Because some people feel like I'm not valuable,
I'm broken, I made bad decisions, or I don't have family.
We're not going to say that anymore because you have
everything on the inside of you. And Mignon Francois was
(43:34):
here to show us and tell us on how to
get it.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Amen, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Of course, anytime you can. You are welcome to check
in anytime.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
We're so happy for you.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Listen, my youngest sister heard that I was coming on
to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
She's like, oh my god, she's my favorite. Tell her.
I said, hello, what's her name? Her name is Alisa Terrio,
al Terryo.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
We love you so much.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
All right, we gotta bring up.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
We gotta bring the whole family back on checking in Alsa.
You come on on all right.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
Yeah, honey go, that is gonna make her. She was like,
because she has followed everything. She was like she was
doing a choir show and I was watching that thing.
Thank you, thank you so much for shouting her out.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
She's gonna probably pass out. Now, it's all right.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
She's gonna pass out. Honey, just eat a cupcakes. Child.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
You come on back, Come on back to life, Come
on back, it's life giving cupcakes.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Come.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
I love it, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
What about I gotta let you go. I'm thinking I
just see your stuff on, like pancake mix and stuff.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
Yes, I love it. I received all of it. We
speaking when we seek till we see it.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Honey, we can have.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
What we say. If you want pancake, you want to
take over, you take over. Y'all gotta go?
Speaker 5 (44:59):
All right, Wait a minute, are y'all as pumped up
as I am?
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Like?
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I literally could talk to this woman all day. Mignon
Francois brought it all, amg And it's nothing like hearing
this from someone that's walked through pain, an abusive marriage,
raising six children on her own, and has come out
(45:33):
with a multimillion.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Dollar company from.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Using five dollars. Y'all, I don't have any excuse. I
don't have any excuse to go after those things that
I believe are in my heart that I am purposed
and called to do. So I hope y'all leave this
(45:58):
episode in curve. And even if you leave like man,
I'm guilty because I haven't stewarded the resources that I
already have. That's okay, Let's get up, Let's keep trying,
let's keep going, let's keep building, be consistent and persistent,
because no one can work as hard for you as you.
All Right, I'm so excited, I keep saying every few episodes,
(46:21):
like the testimonies from the by the end of this year,
I am excited to hear how you guys have begun
to move and shake in your purpose and your calling.
You're thriving in business, you're thriving in school, You're thriving
in relationships. I'm telling y'all, this is the time to
(46:42):
do it. This is the time to improve yourself. This
is the time to go and get it.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Come on, y'all, Come on, y'all, you got this. I
love you so much. Take care.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio
and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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