The Hydration Entrepreneur, Katie Gillberg - CEO of Hydrate IV Bar - The Dave Crenshaw Success Show

Episode Transcript
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Katie Gillberg (00:00):
So aside from dancing, you're on one of the
biggest stages and platforms.
And so today getting on stage todo public speaking. You know, a
couple 100 people seem likenothing compared to 75,000
people. Yeah, the

Dave Crenshaw (00:15):
camera passes by.
There you are millions of peoplewatching the game. That happens
many times in the season. Inthis episode, you'll get to know
Katie Gillberg, the hydrationentrepreneur, and you'll hear
the story of how she went frombeing a Denver Broncos
cheerleader to becoming afranchise creating leader in the
IV hydration industry. I'm DaveCrenshaw, and this is my success

(00:37):
show Welcome back, friends, tothe Dave Crenshaw Success Show.
This is where I speak to some ofthe most successful people I've
met in my life's journey. I'm ona mission to look for universal
principles of success to helpboth my family and you succeed,
no matter what your career is,in case it's your first time

(01:01):
here and you're not familiarwith me. I'm a best selling
author. I speak around the worldto Fortune 500 companies, and
I've taught millions of peoplehow to be successful through my
online courses, particularly mycourses on LinkedIn. Learning
with this show, I wanted to dosomething a little different,
something that well, I wasinspired with the idea of
helping my kids succeed, so Iwanted to talk to some of the

(01:23):
amazing people that I've met.
And then I thought, Well, whywouldn't everyone want to hear
this? So I share theseinterviews with you. I'm looking
in particular for people like myguests today who have
multifaceted success. So notjust career, not just financial
success, but they love life.
They spend time with loved ones,and they live a rich, full life,

(01:44):
in addition to the careersuccess that they've had. And by
the way, if you think of someonewho you think would make a great
guest for this show, you cansend that suggestion to guest at
success dot show now as youlisten to today's episode, I
always ask you to look for onething in particular. I want you

(02:05):
to listen for an action you cantake today or this week, to make
my guest success story a part ofyour success story. And my guest
today, she's remarkable. KatieGilberg is the founder and CEO
of hydrate IV bar. Her passionfor health and wellness inspired
first a career in medical sales,which then led to her creating

(02:29):
an IV therapy business. Born andraised in Denver, Colorado,
Katie also fulfilled a lifelongdream by becoming a Denver
Broncos cheerleader for twoseasons, she serves on the board
of the Cherry Creek Chamber ofCommerce, the Highland Merchants
Association and the butterflyChildren Fund. In her spare

(02:50):
time, she likes to travel withher family, stay active and
enjoy the Colorado outdoors. Shesnowboards in the winter camps
in the summer, and, of course,as always, getting an ivy in
between. Katie, thank you somuch for being on the show. I'm
excited

to talk to you.
I am as well. Thank you so muchfor having me.

Yeah. And I especially love talking to
entrepreneurs, people who arebuilding their own business.
It's always such a fascinatingpath, and we're going to learn
so much from you as we gothrough this. So thank you for
being here to share your wisdomwith us.

Thank you.

I always like to start these interviews with a
question that we used to getasked. We don't get asked as
many times these days, but thequestion is, when you were
young, what did you want to bewhen you grew up?

Actually, when I was young, I wanted to be a
doctor. I've always had apassion for helping people and
being nurturing. Obviously, wentthe Business Route, but I think
it's interesting how it kind ofcame full circle. And although
I'm not our doctor, I amsurrounding myself with amazing
medical professionals. Oh,

that is, that is cool how that turned out, and
probably very unexpectedly. I'mguessing you didn't think there
was a point where you stoppedthinking you were going to be a
doctor, right?

I went from doctor to being a Broadway
dancer to being a veterinarian.
I love animals, so I've kind ofbounced all over.

So I know that dance and cheerleading is a part
of your story, so I'm assumingthat's something that happened
early on. That's something thathappened in high school, that
sort of thing. Yes,

I grew up dancing my whole life, ballet,
tap, jazz. Then went to collegeand I started cheerleading. I
went to Arizona StateUniversity, and after college,
moved back to Denver, and that'swhen I tried out for the Denver
Broncos cheerleaders and madethe team, and so I was able to
continue my dance careerthroughout my 20s, which is

(04:51):
sometimes rare at that age.

Yeah, and I want to talk to you about the Denver
Broncos in a moment. I want totalk. About a little bit about
college. So you were studying atArizona State. What were you
studying while you were there atArizona State,

I was studying business and communications, and
that was really recommended bymy father. He's a businessman,
and first of all, he'll say it'sthe sales pitch I gave him to
let me go out of state forcollege. My parents were trying
hard. I'm the oldest of fivechildren, and so for me to be
the first one to leave the nest,they were really hoping I would

(05:29):
stay in Colorado, and the salespitch I gave him was, if I stay
in town, I'll likely want tomove out of college. I'll move
and I'll meet someone, and I'llget married, and I'll never come
home. That's how dramatic itwas. And I said, but if I go out
of state for college, I'll getto experience that. And then

(05:52):
Colorado is my home, and I loveit here. And don't worry, Dad,
I'll come back. And he brings upthat story all the time, but
jokes too, that I've always beenoutgoing. I'm extroverted, and
so when I was, you know,considering careers, he said,
You really should considerbusiness, sales and then

(06:13):
communications. You can't gowrong.

And I want to pause here for a second for
those who are keeping score athome who have listened to the
other interviews. We haveanother person who has studied
business and Katie. I'memphasizing that because the
original idea behind creatingthis show was to uncover
universal principles of successthat would help my kids succeed.

(06:38):
And one of the things that we'veseen a pattern is that most of
the people that I've interviewedstudied business in some way, in
some form, throughout theirdevelopment of their career. Can
you talk to us a little bitabout what you gained from that
degree that helped set you upfor future success? Absolutely.

I mean, a business degree is so valuable,
not only for your personal life.
I mean, you're learning how toread financial statements and
budgeting, aside from abusiness, these are values that
will help you personally for alifetime, communications, public
speaking, negotiation,marketing, learning about
brands. All of us spend money.

(07:20):
We're all consumers, and sobusiness has such a wide range
of fantastic topics that arevaluable, I think about even
earlier on. I mean, I was justdriven and so between lemonade
stands or I would host sportscamps in my neighborhood, I
would go down to our publicpark, and I would charge our

(07:41):
neighbors to essentially watchtheir kids, and we would just
play games in the park. And Imade it this, like athletic
summer camp. So early on, I wasan entrepreneur without really
recognizing it. And thenbusiness and learning some of
those foundations really helpedlaunch that,

yeah, well, and what I'm catching from the story
too, is the influence of sportsin that story and how now what
you do is also very sportsinformed. Certainly with IV
hydration, a lot of people aredoing it just because they want
to feel better and they havethey're not involved in sports.
But there's another category,which is understanding that and

(08:22):
understanding the science behindit that drives the hydration
that you do now, right with yourbusinesses?

Absolutely, you know, as an athlete and someone
who's always been passionateabout health and wellness and
performance and recovery, andwith my passion with medicine,
you know, getting into medicalsales after college was was a
great opportunity to for me toget, kind of my foot in the door
and have the business degree,plus the medical experience and

(08:52):
what I learned from that job atthat time, in particularly, as
you know, I was Working in painmanagement, and it's a very
special specialty. There's aneed for it, absolutely, but
it's heavy. It's depressing.
You're working with people whoare in pain, who've had horrible
accidents. Ultimately, even atthat time, I knew this is not a

(09:13):
space that is motivating me orfulfilling me, and I wanted to
look for other options. So notonly was I excited to, you know,
for the option, the potential towork for myself, but I just knew
that I needed to shift and anddo something that was more
aligned with my goals and how Ivalue wellness. That

job in medical sales was that taking place at
the same time you were acheerleader for the Broncos.

Yes, and yeah, talk about burning the candle at
both ends.

Yeah? Because that's not a full time job,
right? That, or is it? Should itbe treated as such? It should

be treated as such. And a lot has changed
since. Yes, I was a cheerleader,but it was a very full time,
part time gig. You did itbecause you loved it. You were
passionate about it. I mean,being a Broncos cheerleader was
one of the best experiences,hands down, of my life. I also,

(10:17):
you know, through thatorganization, people see the
cheerleaders, we dance, we'rebring the energy. It's exciting.
It's game day. But really,there's so much more behind the
scenes with that organizationthat has also really helped me
with where I'm at today.

Yeah, and I want to ask you about that, because
that is certainly a uniquebackstory of people that I've
interviewed. I doubt I'm goingto have many people who have
been NFL cheerleaders. So talkto me a little bit. I'm looking
for two two things here. Numberone, what is that like? What is
what is doing that as a fulltime, part time career like? And

(10:57):
then, more importantly, whatlessons did you learn from that
that inform the work that you dotoday and help you be successful
as an entrepreneur.

Being a Broncos cheerleader, not only did I
fulfill my passion for dance, wewould have practices two to
three times a week, usually atnight, so I would work my
regular job during the day, andthen from about seven to 10pm we
would have rehearsals at thestadium. Then Saturdays, we only

(11:28):
performed at the home games. Soanytime there was a home game
throughout the season, you know,that is a full game day
experience. You're going to thestadium early, hair, makeup
rehearsal, and then you'reyou're out, you're with the
fans, you're going to tailgates,you're promoting the whole
pregame experience. So youpretty much have a full day

(11:50):
before the game even starts.
Then you have the game, theenergy. It's just unbelievable.
I still get chills thinkingabout being on that field in
front of that sort of audience.
Do

you still go to games?

I do. I still go to games. But what's really
great about the organization toois we still are very connected
as the alumni network. So everynow and then, I still will
participate in halftime shows orhelping coach the junior
program. So it's really fun. Imean, even though I've been out
of the system for a while now,there's still a lot of

(12:23):
opportunities that I get to be apart of.

So what did you gain from that? That maybe
lessons that you would neverhave gotten anywhere else, that
make you a more successfulbusiness owner and leader?
Absolutely

So aside from dancing, really having
confidence, confidence inyourself. You're on one of the
biggest stages and platforms,and so today, getting on stage
to do public speaking. You know,a couple 100 people seem like
nothing compared to 75,000people.

Yeah, the camera passes by. There you are,
millions of people watching thegame. That happens many times in
the

season, absolutely, even with the media,
there's bad press, there'sscrutiny, there's opinions, and
so it really helped you one wealways were very cognizant about
how we represented ourselves,how we represented the
organization in a professionalmanner. Also, you know,
teamwork, leadership,communication skills, high

(13:27):
integrity. I mean, there's,there's so many values that we
practice daily. And the coachthat I had, you know, she was
incredible at driving a lot ofthese values into these young
women. We were all, you know,early 20s, I was 2122 when I was
on the team. And so these weresome really valuable life
experiences that I learned.

What did that look like? You said driving. She
was driving the values into you.
How did she do that? What wasthe process that she used to
instill the values in you?

Yeah, well, actually, it goes back to even
the interview process. So whenyou're auditioning, only about a
third is actually judged on howyou dance, how you perform. Some
of the judges at the audition,they are executives in the sales
and marketing team. They knownothing about dance, but they
want to know how you're going tointerview. You know, if you're

(14:20):
in a tailgate and the news comesup, how confident are you to
speak on behalf of theorganization? How professional
can you carry yourself? So a lotof it was practicing
communication, poise, bodylanguage. We practiced this
early on. I mean, even part ofthe audition was we took a
football test. We had to knoweverything about the game, we

(14:41):
had to know interesting currentplayers and coaches. I mean,
they, and I can't speak forevery organization, this was the
Denver Broncos cheerleaderorganization, and it's always
been attributed to one of thetop programs in the nation, but
just the seriousness that theytook it from day one really
helped set. The bar, and thatstriving for excellence is

(15:04):
something that I carry with meevery day.

So I grew up around media. I was not an NFL
cheerleader. I know that'sdisappointing for you to hear,
but I did learn being aroundradio. My father was a radio
host. The importance of researchand preparation, and like you
said, body language and how youpresent yourself. And I think
now, especially in the world ofYouTube and Instagram and

(15:28):
Tiktok, these are now survivalskills. Absolutely,

we

need to get comfortable with these things
and get comfortable with beingon camera and being in front of
a microphone in a way that it'snever been in in the history of
the world?

Absolutely, I think about it too. With
business, founding the company,being an entrepreneur, building
a brand, you are your brand asmuch as you know you want to
disconnect, or try anddisconnect and not be your your
brand all day, every day, youare. And so that's something
too. You know, we talked to ourfranchise owners about that,

(16:01):
that attention, and you know,attention to detail and striving
for excellence, and how youcarry yourself and everyone that
you hire. I mean, it mattersAbsolutely, how they're they're
all a representation of you. Sothat's something too, that you
know, our brand, our image as acheerleader, was just ingrained
in us, and I think as a businessowner, that's so important to be

(16:24):
reminded of.

So I'm going to put you on the spot here. Okay,
my background, for many years,was an entrepreneurship coach. I
would help businesses get to thepoint where they could sell,
where they could franchise, thatsort of thing. So I'm going to
put you on the spot. Do you havea training program? Do you have
a system for training yourfranchisees how to be solid on
camera. We

have a media training kit, and this is
something that our marketingdirector, you know early on, and
by default, I look at videos ofmyself. I mean one I am still
not perfect, and stillpracticing every day and still
learning, and I look at myselfcompared to eight years ago and
some of these interviews that Idid, and there's time, don't,

(17:07):
don't google them all please,because there's some I see, and
the news would show up in ourbusiness, and all the lessons
like in my head just out thewindow. I was so excited and so
and, you know, we haveattention, and they're here to
talk about us. And when you havethe opportunity to prepare for
something like this, take itseriously. Prepare. You're going

(17:29):
to set yourself up for successwhen you're doing live or when
someone catches you off guard alittle bit more challenging, no
matter how much you've practicedor rehearsed. You know our
franchise owners now we givethem examples of here's what
Katie did that we wouldn't doagain, and use me as the
example. Nothing is horrible,but it's on the internet. It's

(17:53):
essentially there forever. Andso that's something too, that we
talk to our owners about.

Well, it is an evolutionary process, and yes,
please do not try to find videosof me 14 years ago, when I first
started, like in 2010 puttingthis stuff up. And I look at it,
and I was like, Oh my gosh,okay, it's shifting gears. I
want to talk to you about sales.
Sales is clearly an importantpart of what you do now. It was
part of the cheerleading, it waspart of your medical sales. So
I'm going to start by asking youthis question, what does the

(18:20):
word sales mean to you?

Sales, to me, is relationships. It's not just
what can you do for me? It'swhat can I do for you? And I
have never loved when salesfeels super transactional. There
needs to be, in my opinion, andin my success, more depth to

(18:45):
that. And so even with our teamright now, I mean, I have nurses
who are emergency room nurses,and if I tell them that they
need to sell a membership, theyimmediately have a response to
it. They don't like that, eventhough we may be upselling a
product or selling a membership,for us, it's always been, what

(19:08):
is your need? How can we solveit? So that, to me, is the sales
process. It's aboutrelationships people and
listening to what is the needthat you can solve.

Yeah, I love that. That's a great definition,
and it harmonizes how I thinkabout sales, which is simply
helping people make gooddecisions. I love that sometimes
that decision isn't your productor service, but often it is, and
you want to help them move pastthe objections that they have so
that, for instance, in yourcase, if IV therapy is the right

(19:44):
thing for them, you want to helpthem through the sales process
make a good decision,absolutely.

And you know, fortunate enough if you can find
your play, find yourself in aplace where you're passionate
about what you're selling.
Because then you're speakingfrom experience, you're speaking
from a place of truly caring,and that makes it, you know, so
much easier at hydrate IV bar.

(20:12):
This to me, I mean, it's a nobrainer, because I see people
every single day, and I see thatinstant gratification, and then
we're making people feel better.
And I see the referrals, and Isee the word of mouth, and so
something like that. If you'relucky enough, or if you're able
to position yourself in a placethat you're really passionate
about what you're selling, thenkudos to you. The sky's the

(20:35):
limit.

What's something that you learned to not do in
the sales process. A mistake

that I've made is being too focused on maybe
the quota or what I need out ofthe sale versus what they need.
And as soon as someone may feellike this is not for their
benefit, this is because youneed something right now, I
think it'll totally go sideways.
And so that's a lesson that I'velearned. Yeah, that's

a great point.
Okay, so now let's talk aboutwhere the idea first started
coming into your head, about IVtherapy. But more importantly,
I'm going to start a business.
I'm going to become a businessowner around this. What was the
genesis of that moment?

So I was working in medical sales, as you know,
and I was transferred fromDenver to Las Vegas. So living
in Las Vegas, working in thehospitals, there a little bit
different, unique settings. Andthis is when IV therapy was
becoming super popular forhangovers, and really the brands
at the time. I mean, you you seetraditional functional medicine

(21:47):
clinics, and then you had thismobile concierge, these hangover
brands, and that's what I wasseeing in Las Vegas. I didn't
think much more of it until Imoved back to Denver. Denver is
a very functional alternativewellness. It's an active
community. There's just veryhealth conscious people. And I

(22:09):
started learning more aboutMyers cocktail, which is the
kitchen sink of vitamin therapy.
So it really there was kind of alight bulb that went off in my
head at one just super curiousas a consumer. I'm always
looking for other modalitiesthat I could do for my own
wellness. I know a lot of theseathletes, they were getting IV
therapy. So there were athletes,there's, you know, the general

(22:32):
wellness, there's the hangoverportion. And at the time, it was
a passion project I was thinkingabout as a consumer, what is the
experience that I would want,and why is this not more
accessible to the general publicat the time, eight years ago in
Denver, or nine years ago, whenI started, it took about a year

(22:52):
to put the business plan inplace and to open my doors. You
could either go to a traditionaldoctor's office Monday through
Friday. Here's an appointment.
You're going to be put in asingle room, white walls, no tea
and blankets and essential oilsand all the other soft touches
that we provide now. Or we'regoing to come to your house.

(23:15):
It's going to be kind of weird,and we're only focusing on
hangovers. So I identified aneed, and so this was really
just, what can I do to kind offill this one need?

What did you do for funding in that first phase?
Was it self funded? Were yougetting loans? That's a hard
spot for many entrepreneurs.

I self funded all of it. I had one business
partner that I started thebusiness with. So we self
funded, and that was a littlebit of blessing of working in
medical sales. We it waslucrative. We were both doing
really well. We were saving ourmoney. I didn't have a mortgage.
I didn't have children. I was inmy early 20s. There were a lot

(23:57):
of big risks that I could takeback then that I probably
couldn't or wouldn't take rightnow, and so that was also part
of what motivated me, is I havethis opportunity. I kept my
medical sales job, by the way,so I worked full time on a
salary for that job for thefirst two years, while I founded

(24:19):
operated, ran this business, andbecause I had the ability to do
that, I didn't need to takemoney out of hydrate. I could
keep it in hydrate. So that wasthe luck of the timing.

And that highlights a philosophy, a
perspective, that some newbusiness owners need to decide
where they stand on. Forexample, what you were saying
was, you held on to another jobfor a while, while it was
growing. The other school ofthought is, I am going to drop

(24:52):
everything, and I'm going to100% devote my time and energy
higher risk, faster growth forthat. Yeah, and I don't think
one or the other is reallybetter. I know some people swear
by each of them, and the answeris, well, whatever worked for
you, right? So for you, itworked to do that, where you
were doing both at the sametime,

it did work. And I recognized that I was
fortunate that I was with acompany that as long as sales
were coming in, they weren'tmicromanaging me. They weren't
monitoring my daily schedule soI could work the front desk six
days a week, manage, operate,grow, hydrate, while still

(25:32):
servicing all of my business andhitting my quotas. And so that's
unique in the sense I would nothave been able to do that if I
was clocking in and out ofanother career, and it worked
for me, but it wasn'tsustainable forever, and that's
something that I didn't have onmy radar from the beginning, my
business plan was I know what myhard costs are, my fixed costs,

(25:56):
I need to pay a doctor and Ineed to pay a nurse to work with
me, who's going to administerthe services, and I will do
everything else. And I don'tcare if I don't sleep, I'm going
to do our marketing, I'm goingto do our bookkeeping, I'm going
to be our handyman. And I didit, but crashed pretty fast.

And that gets to the next thing I wanted to ask
you about, which is the point ofdelegation. There is always that
point in a truly successfulbusiness. I'm not talking about
someone who created one thatrequires them to show up every
day for work. That's not abusiness, that's a job, and you
just happen to be working for acrazy owner. Who is you? The key
here is that you did reach apoint where you started to

(26:37):
delegate. So talk to us abouthow you got past your objections
to trusting someone else to dothose things for you.

First of all, eight years later, it's still
hard for me to delegate. This isstill something that I practice.
One piece of advice that I wasgiven that I really lean into is
the importance of building yourteam, and now I hire for people
who are smarter than me thatknow skills that I don't know. I
mean higher higher up. And so assoon as I started shifting

(27:12):
towards people who could fillgaps that I didn't know, then
I'm learning from them, and thenit's not so much delegating,
because they're growing andimproving and evolving and
helping and so building a teamaround you that have these
skills that you enjoy workingwith, then it doesn't feel as

(27:34):
much like delegation. Now. Thereare still and and really
becoming the franchisor. Thatwas a big moment where it's
totally, you know, pulling yourhands off of your baby, that's
yours, your you know, somethingyou created, and trusting that
they are going to operate it andfollow brand standards and and

(27:56):
make you proud. And so that'ssomething that you know is
incredibly challenging, but youknow, if you're not
uncomfortable, you're notgrowing right?

I haven't interviewed many franchisors, so
for some people, they're hearingthis concept for the first time
as they're listening to thisinterview. Can you give me a
brief just, you know, fewsentence description of what
that means to be a franchisor.

As a franchisor, I have a proven business model
that we are able to share withothers. They essentially are the
business owners, but they areworking under our brand
standards, and it gives them theautonomy to run their own
business with their own clients,but they have us for ongoing
support and training,

and you're providing systems to them, right
processes to follow. How manylocations do you continue to
operate yourself, versus onesthat people have bought?

Absolutely So to date, we have 12 operational
spas, two more that are openingin the next call it six weeks.
So almost 14. We have another 12in development. Wow. And of that
system, four of them arecorporately owned. So I opened
one a year for four years. Theywere always self funded. I

(29:18):
waited until one was profitable,and then chose a new market that
I wanted to go into, and thenopened a second one that was
just what worked for me. Andthen, after four years, four
profitable spas, that's when Ireally took the leap of faith to
go into franchising, because itis a whole new world, and it's

(29:39):
been unbelievable. It's given usan opportunity to scale the
businesses in ways that I wouldhave been restricted via capital
operational support. Otherwise.

I want to highlight something too for
people who are not familiar withthis. The interesting thing
about being a franchisor is thatbefore you. Were selling IVs to
customers the moment you becamea franchisor, what did you start
selling businesses?

Yes, and we still are navigating between the
two entities. We have our fourcorporate spas that deserve our
love and attention every singleday. And then we also are the
franchisor, which we operate,that separate entity, and that
entity, like you said, iscommunicating to entrepreneurs,

(30:32):
business professionals who owntheir own business, but they're
following our roadmap. And sohow do we speak to them and give
them the tools and resources. Soeverything from CRM to booking
systems to point of salesystems, we vet all of our
vendors and work on grouppurchasing orders. So we really

(30:54):
have to focus on the big pictureand how to identify all of these
other needs. Our heads are on aswivel every single day. I

think it really is a fascinating thing for
someone who's not familiar withthis to say, Okay, this is a
viable career path to not justbe an entrepreneur and have your
business, it's also to create amodel for other people to buy,
and that is another successfulmethod of expanding your
business as much as you're ableto is there a, is there a story

(31:28):
that you you've learned from yougo, I don't want to repeat that
ever again.

Oh, absolutely.
And, you know, I think it'simportant to note like I love, I
love sharing success stories. Ilove that people can, you know,
see our social media and ourwebsite and see these awards
that we're winning, and youknow, we're growing, and life
must be roses and butterfliesand so wonderful. And it is, I
am grateful and blessed everysingle day, and no one sees the

(31:55):
tears and the heartache and thefrustration and letting
employees go and begging a bankfor money. I mean, there are, it
is hard. And so I think, youknow, for me, there's a lot I
didn't know when I opened thebusiness, and a little bit of
that, you know, ignorance isbliss. It made me I had blinders

(32:18):
on. I was so determined and sofocused that from the beginning,
it was the culture that Icreating, the service that we
providing. There's no option.
This has to work. And we juststarted small, and because we
stayed laser focused, I thinkthat's really what has

(32:38):
attributed to our natural growthand progression. There are other
businesses that what works forthem is to shoot for the stars,
and they raise capitalimmediately, and they have
franchise. You know, they theybuild a business to franchise,
and that mindset needs differenttools and experience and
resources, but it is possible tostart small like myself, and

(33:01):
learn as you go. There's a lotof people that I talk to that
have better ideas than I had,and they get so stuck in all the
what ifs and the distractionsand competition that they just
never do it. And so I reallyjust encourage people, even if

(33:22):
you start small, if you havethis passion or if you have this
intuition. I mean, I remembertelling my parents back then I
signed the lease for my firstlocation before telling them
that I was going to start abusiness, and my dad was looking
at me like, What happens if thisfails. And I truly said, Well,

(33:45):
you and mom have a great house,a wonderful basement, I'll move
back in with you. I'll getanother job, and at least I
tried. And that was I mean, myparents thought, okay, there's
no stopping her. So if you justhave that, you know,
determination and grit andyou're willing to put in the
hard work, it will pay off

well. And you started fairly young. I mean,
you're still fairly young. Howold were you when you started
your first location?

I was 26 I think 27 by the time we, you know,
were operational,

yeah, yeah, I had several mentors who early on. I
mean, I started, I startedcoaching business owners, Katie
when I was 23 but when Istarted, I didn't know any
better that I couldn't do it.
And I did, honestly, I did fail.
The business failed the firsttime I attempted it after about
a year or two, but the failurewasn't as costly, because I took

(34:45):
the risk so early and had amentor say to us when we were in
college, you don't realize it,but you have the most freedom
now than you're ever going tohave in your life, because
everything's in front of you. SoI commend you for taking that
risk and for you. It's paid offquite well, and that's fun to
see that. I

also just think, for me, it was, if I don't take
opportunities that I have rightin front of me, the privilege
that I have, I can literallycreate an LLC on my own. There's
nothing stopping me fromstarting my own business. I
would be so crazy not to try.

Yeah, love it.
Thank you for sharing that, thatstory and example with us. Let's
shift gears for a moment. I knowfamily's important to you. You
mentioned that you come from afamily of five children, and
right now you have how manychildren I

have, one daughter who's almost two years
old and a baby boy on the way.
Yeah, congratulations.

That's exciting.
Thank you so much. We'veestablished that you're driven.
We've established that you'reyou're a go getter, and you're
working hard on growing thisbusiness. So talk to us about
what you're doing to make surethat you maintain balance in
your marriage and with yourfamily in the midst of all of
this that you're creating. Thank

you so much for asking this and pointing it out,
because, you know, it'ssomething that needs a lot of
attention. And you know, myhusband is an entrepreneur as
well. He has founded asuccessful business and is still
in that right now. And so evenbefore we had children, these
were conversations that we eachhad. Of we cannot let these

(36:26):
businesses absorb usindividually, and we also need
to recognize when do we need tohold space for each other. So
communicating, the more you can,the better. I've never been shy,
and I don't think anyone shouldbe shy to reaching out to
counselors, therapists, mentors,someone that's not your spouse

(36:50):
or your mother or your coworker,that may not be appropriate to
talk to, to think that you cando it all, all the Time. Well, I
think is crazy. So set realisticexpectations. I've had to be
super disciplined with my time.
If it's not a hell yes, it's ahell no, I can't afford to
commit to things that are maybe,you know, if it doesn't fill my

(37:15):
cup and it's not something thatis going to bring me value, then
I'm not doing that to take meaway from my family. Oh,

that's a great lesson, right there. And of
course, I appreciate it as theauthor of The Myth of
Multitasking, yes, that's rightup my alley. And I do want to
emphasize something you said,and I learned this as a business
coach, there are universaltruths. It's lonely. At the top,
it's difficult to self correct.
You don't know what you don'tknow. These are things that came

(37:44):
from my mentor, but I added oneto to it, which is, your spouse
can't tell you anything. Itdoesn't work, even if you're
working together, even whenyou're both very gifted, it's so
much more helpful to havesomeone else say the hard
things, because there's justrelationships too complex to

(38:05):
hear that from other people. No,

I agree, and it's hard to take the emotion
out of it. It's the same even,you know, leading a team, if I
can get my employees torecommend something, or, you
know, work peer to peer, it'slikely going to be absorbed
better than the boss tellingthem. So you're right. I think

(38:30):
you know who you're having thoseconversations with really
matters. And a lot of what Ipractice and what I, you know,
talk to my franchise ownersabout, is you have to fill your
own cup. You have to take careof yourself. I mean, this is I
even tell my mom friends this. Imean, as a mom, you're
constantly giving to others, andyou know you're giving your

(38:51):
babies. You're givingeverything. You have to take the
time. It's not selfish topractice that self care. And you
know, if you're not servingyourself. You cannot serve
anyone else, so take that time,make it a priority.

And what do you do for self care? Katie

yoga. I love yoga. I love being outdoors. I
mean, even if it's taking abreath of fresh air,
disconnecting from technology,that's been one of the hardest
challenges for me as anentrepreneur, especially in the
beginning, I was always on. Icared about every like and every
follow, and I was constantly onsocial media, and I thought if I

(39:30):
wasn't paying attention to it atall times, then I was doing a
bad job or it wasn't workinghard enough. Now, the discipline
of waking up having a routinebefore ever looking at the
screen, and then same with goingto bed. So a lot of it is just
practicing mindfulness, gettingoutdoors, getting fresh air,

(39:50):
taking deep breaths, takingbreaks. Ultimately, it all goes
back for me to managing my ownstress. And anxiety,

and that's so critical to create boundaries,
especially when you're abusiness owner, because
otherwise it'll just stay withyou all the time. And you need
those breaks. You

need to be resilient. Every single day it's
there's super high highs andsuper low lows every single day.
You know, as a business owner, Imean, resilience is one of,
like, the biggest values that Icould say. And, you know, in
2020 we joked that our word waspivot, because you were throwing

(40:32):
curveballs every single day, andthere was no option. We didn't
even have time to sit back andthink about it or complain, or
this isn't fair, or what if itwas just okay? Here we go, one
step in front of the other, andwe still do that today. And so
another mentor of mine saidsomething that I think about

(40:54):
often, is lead with a smile andevery hard conversation, every
uncomfortable situation.
Whenever I am you know about toput myself in that position, I
lead with a smile, and itchanges the entire energy. So
that's something I recommend tolove

it, lead with a smile. So what I do at the end
of every episode Katie is I liketo wrap up with some action
items, some things that someonelistening to this can do because
they've heard your story,they're inspired by it. But the
question is, what are theyactually going to do about it?
Because action is more importantthan knowledge. So I'm going to

(41:32):
share three actionableprinciples that I heard from
this that suggest something thatsomeone can do today or this
week, not a month from now, nota year from now and then. What
I'd like you to do is, at theend, chime in with one
actionable principle. It can besomething you said or haven't
said that someone can do today,so they can make their your

(41:54):
success story part of theirsuccess story. Sound good.
Sounds good? Okay, the first onethat I listed, and we're going
to go all the way back to thethe Broncos cheerleader time,
which is to do something that'sa bit of a risk in order to gain
confidence. And I think it'sreally easy for all of us to

(42:17):
think small, to shrink in, tonot take risks, but the fact
that you kept appearing oncamera built confidence in you.
It built in you the ability todo any kind of interview, to
talk to any kind of person. Nowobviously not, not not anyone
listening to this is probablygoing to be on camera as an NFL

(42:39):
cheerleader, but you can extendyourself and go up to someone
and say, hello. You can try arisk that you haven't tried
before. Just just give it a go.
And the more you do littlethings like that, the more
you're going to gain confidencefor the future. The next one
that I want to highlight isassociating with people who are
smarter than you. You use thephrase higher up. If you are an

(43:02):
entrepreneur, you can make thatpart of your philosophy. If
you're hiring people, try tohire the smartest people that
you can. But what if you're nota business owner? How can you
use this principle? I wouldstill say, try to associate with
people who are smarter than you,who are more successful than
you, who have done somethingthat you want to accomplish, and

(43:24):
spend time with them. So makeone new friend, or go to a group
of people that are gatheringlike that, and start to
participate. And that's going tohelp you grow and be more
successful in the long run. Thelast one, I just want to
highlight that story of youjumping into entrepreneurship
without fully understanding theconsequences or all the work, I

(43:48):
should say that it's going totake to succeed with that. So
I'm encouraging someonelistening to this to not get
stuck in the what ifs. Instead,just ask, what's the next action
step to that dream that youhave, to that thing that you
think you're going toaccomplish? Don't think about
all the things that need to bedone. Just think about the next
action step. Maybe it's pickingup phone, making a call, maybe

(44:11):
it's writing something, whateverit is, do that, and then ask,
what's the next step? And if youdo that and you start stacking
those together, it can lead toamazing, wonderful
opportunities, like you've seenKatie have. What's one suggested
action you'd add to this Katie?

The other item that I just really can't stress
enough is being choosy with yourtime. If it's not a hell yes,
it's a hell no. So be verycognizant about what brings you
joy and if it fulfills you. Ifnot, is that what you should be
spending your time on?

That's a such a great principle. I absolutely
love it. I also phrase it aswhenever you say yes to one
thing, you're saying no tosomething else. So you need to
see. They know more often thanyou say yes. So fantastic.
Katie, thank you. Thank you somuch for being on the show. If
people want to continue tofollow your business, follow

(45:11):
you, where should we send themto do that absolutely

well. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you
taking the time to learn moreabout me and my story. I would
love for anyone that'sinterested to follow us on
social media. Instagram is oneof the best so at hydrate
underscore IV bar. Also ourwebsite is just hydrate IV
bar.com. Wonderful.

Please go check those out. Thank you again,
Katie for being on the show.

Thank you. I

appreciate it, and thank you everyone for
listening. Remember it's notjust about the inspiration that
you received or howknowledgeable you feel after
listening to Katie. It's aboutthe action that you take. So
make sure you do one thing todaybased on her story, and you'll
make that story a part of yoursuccess story. Thanks for

(46:01):
listening.

Darci Crenshaw (46:04):
You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw
Success Show, hosted by my dad,Dave Crenshaw, and produced by
invaluable incorporated researchand assistant production by
Victoria bidez, Sound Editing byNick Wright, voiceover by me
Darci Crenshaw, and the music isby Ryan Brady via Pon five

(46:25):
licensing, please subscribe tothe Dave Crenshaw success show
on Apple podcasts Spotify,wherever you like to get your
podcasts. If you have asuggestion for someone my dad
might like to interview, pleasesend it to guests at Dave
crenshaw.com and please don'tforget to leave us a pleasure
view. See you next time you.

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The Hydration Entrepreneur, Katie Gillberg - CEO of Hydrate IV Bar

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Hydration Entrepreneur, Katie Gillberg - CEO of Hydrate IV Bar