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

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This week, I was pleased to bejoined by Jessica Dismay, the

(00:02):
owner operator of the only threeBen and Jerry's locations in
Colorado with Scoop shopslocated in Fort Collins, Denver,
and Boulder.
Her father had a career incorporate franchising with a
stop at Ben and Jerry's and madeher aware of an opportunity in
Boulder.
She was a fresh collegegraduate, not very inclined to
work at an ice cream shop, but acouple months later in March of

(00:22):
2002, she became part owner andoperator of the Pearl Street,
Ben and Jerry's location.
23 years later, Jessica hasdeveloped a three piece set of
thriving locations on theColorado front range, each with
an empowered team.
In 2024, she was named theoperator of the year, and we
explore her many lessons andlearnings from along the
journey.
And she's a loco think tankmember.

(00:44):
Don't miss free Cone day April8th at Ben and Jerry's locations
around the nation and pleaseenjoy as I did my conversation
with Jessica Zing.
Let's have some fun.
Welcome to the Loco ExperiencePodcast.

(01:04):
On this show, you'll get to knowbusiness and community leaders
from all around NorthernColorado and beyond.
Our guests share their stories,business stories, life stories,
stories of triumph and oftragedy.
And through it all, you'll beinspired and entertained.
These conversations are real andraw, and no topics are off
limits.
So pop in a breath mint and getready to meet our latest guest.

(01:30):
Welcome back to the LocoExperience Podcast.
My guest today is JessicaDizman.
And Jessica is the owner ofthree local Ben and Jerry's
shops.
Correct.
And, uh, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Thanks for, this is fun.
My first time.
First time on any podcast.
First time on any podcast, firsttime in person.
Yeah.
Oh, well.
Um, I promise to be gentle.
I, wonderful would say 90% of myguests are first timers.

(01:51):
All right.
Honestly.
'cause they're just inspiringbusiness people, but that isn't
like who's on the podcast ornecessarily unless they're
topically engaged.
Right, right.
Yep.
Yeah.
Well, and you're extra smartabout a lot of things.
I would hope.
I like to think so.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, we all like to think so.
Even dumb people think they'resmart.
I like to surround myself withsmart people.
Yes.
Is that a smart thing to do?
Yes.

(02:11):
Always.
Always.
Um, so I guess let's just startoff with, uh, let's just kinda
give a recap.
You've got the Fort Collins,Denver, and Boulder.
Is that true?
Correct.
Yep.
Those three shops.
And I started with Boulder in2002, so I just celebrated 23
years of doing this.
Um, yeah.
Single store for a really,really long time.

(02:31):
Uh, and then had the opportunityto pick up stores in Denver in
2019.
Okay.
There were two of them at thetime.
One in Park Meadows Mall and oneby the DU campus.
Okay.
Uh, that was lovingly, uh, abouteight months prior to Covid
starting.
Oh, perfect.
And so, yeah, that was perfect.
Did you, and so did you pay thefull price and then It was
pretty close.

(02:51):
So we closed one store, so theshop that was in Park Meadows
Mall, we decided to close, uh,in November of that year.
And so kept the Denver location.
And then in 22, got really luckyand was able to purchase the
shop here in Fort Collins.
And you live here in northernColorado?
Windsor, Windsor.
Live in Windsor.
And did you then, or, and youwent down there or did you move
up here after you got to FortCollins?
Nope.
I have lived in Windsorbasically since I moved here, so

(03:14):
Oh, wow.
Moved here in 2002.
Again, same, same kind of timeperiod as the Boulder shop.
Uh, met my husband about twodays after I moved here.
Okay.
And he was born and raised inWindsor.
Oh.
So we, we, I moved up here.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
Any, uh, draw to try to movecloser to those two locations or
the first one in Boulder?
No.
You were like, eh, I likeWindsor a lot.
I liked Windsor a lot.

(03:35):
Yeah.
We like it up here.
Um, boulder's too expensive foractually afford to buy a home,
especially when you just had oneice cream store.
Right.
Um, and yeah, no, I, I, we loveit up here.
And it was his hometown.
We weren't going anywhere.
I would imagine there's a lot ofdifference between, I'm guessing
it's a little bit like a subwayshop.
Not really, but like where ifyou have one subway, you pretty

(03:56):
much have to be an owner,manager and work in the shop all
the time.
When you get to three, you kindof.
Have to not be the manager asmuch anymore or how has that
transition been for you?
I think so, yeah.
I think most people, franchiseesin our system, I think, yes, if
they own one shop, they areowner operators for the most
part, right?
They're scoop ice cream regular,they're scoop ice cream.
Um, I would say that that's sortof what I did.

(04:20):
I would say I kind of tag myselfas what I call the glorified
shift manager for about thefirst seven years that I had
that shop.
I was young, I was only 23 yearsold when I, when I took over
that store, had absolutely noexperience, had no idea what it
meant to own a business, didn'tknow anything about it, had
never worked in an ice creamstore, was basically like here
was an opportunity, jumped at itand was kind of thrown into it.

(04:40):
Yeah.
And so I didn't have any ideawhat I was doing and so I really
just sort of learned how to dothe day-to-day stuff.
I had no idea what it meant torun a business or lead people
very well.
You know, I knew how to.
Delegate.
Um, but I, but I didn't know howto, I didn't know how to run an
organization and so it took me areally long time to, to kind of
move out of that.
We kind of say getting your headout of a dip case, and so we,

(05:02):
okay.
It took me a really long time todo that.
Was it all bumping along on yourown or did you start to seek
like education, reading books,listening?
Well, they weren't even reallypodcasts at that time, right?
No, it was really bumping alongon my own.
Yeah.
Um, it was, it was, that was,that's a good description of it.
Um, I like to tease with localthink tank.
It's nice to learn from otherpeople's mistakes Once in a
while.

(05:22):
Yes.
Instead of just your own.
Had I known'em at Local ThinkTank, I think it's funny, I was
reading, uh, I was engaging withsomebody through a LinkedIn post
actually just this past week,and they were talking about peer
groups and I had mentioned thatI had, you know, I've been a
part of this for the last yearor so, not quite.
And she was mentioning how itwould be great if there was
something for new, newentrepreneurs, new people
starting this.

(05:43):
And my response was if you couldget new entrepreneurs doing
that, you know, out of thebusiness and into doing that.
Yeah.
I think that that's a challengefor brand new people who are
just entering the, that worktype of work.
Yeah, totally.
I mean, you wanna just throwyourself into it.
You're in what we call ourthinkers chapters, which is kind
of the mid sizers and thebuilders is kind of that
solopreneurs up to, you know,maybe three or four employees,

(06:04):
kind of.
Mm-hmm.
But you're still pedaling a lot.
Yep.
Um.
Part of the rule.
It's, it's not just a startup,you know, you have to have
customers, you gotta have somethings figured out.
'cause otherwise, if you're inpure startup mode and God bless
them, but you're just too muchof a dumpster fire kind of, for,
you can't, we can't allow thatmuch disruption into our
chapters.
You're just so into it.

(06:25):
I mean, your head, that's whereyour soul focus is going into
your business.
Yeah.
And I think even with franchisesor with groups, with businesses
like mine, I think when you onlyhave one, you're not really
making enough money very often.
Um, especially with pricing andinflation these days.
You just, if you're not workingin the shop all the time, you're
just, there's no way to actuallymake it financially sound.

(06:46):
Yeah.
Well, especially as labor rateshave gone up and stuff like
that.
You're like, uh, yeah, I gottapay$20 an hour or something.
And I've been paying myselfseven.
Yeah.
You know, ish.
Well, and salaries right now is$60,000 in Colorado.
Yeah.
So if you ask have a salariedemployee, you're paying them
$60,000.
Oh, is that right?
Mm-hmm.
That is a huge burden.

(07:08):
It's it's a lot for a smallbusiness.
Yeah.
Which leaves them forced to relyon hourly employees and people
to rely on up and down incomesand things like that.
So you can't really create thisstable environment'cause.
Sorry, but I can only only payabout 40 for this position.
Well, I mean, we've, we've madeit work.
Yeah.
Um, and so I do have a generalmanager at all three of my

(07:29):
locations.
Um, I think the goal right nowwould be to potentially still
know, don't know what the futureholds.
Right.
But is to add, is to add morelocations and actually spread
that responsibility out amongstthose three people.
That's Yeah.
They wanna grow.
They want that.
So, um, so that's, you, you'reon a growth path.
You would like to Yeah.
Have nine locations with each ofthose three amazing managers.

(07:51):
Nine sounds like a lot, butYeah.
Maybe five or six.
Yeah.
Yeah, fair enough.
With those same three peoplehelping me lead it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
I Is there other Ben and Jerry'sin Colorado?
Do you have rights, do you haveto acquire rights?
How's that work for yourorganization?
So, I'm the only franchisee inthe state of Colorado.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
There's, um, there's a shop inthe airport, but that's a

(08:11):
license agreement, so I'm not,I'm not eligible for that one
and not sure that I would wantit.
Right.
Not, I dunno anything abouttheir financials or what that
shop looks like or anything likethat.
But, um, so yeah, no, it is,it's, and you get about a two
block radius, so there is, thereis nothing.
Oh, really?
Like if you can build it, youcan have it.
Yeah.
Basically.
Interesting.
But they also, I mean, I'vetalked to corporate, our
corporate offices and Denver isan area that they'd be

(08:33):
interested in growing.
I would have basically firstright to, to say yes or no.
If I wanted a location.
They don't find locations forus.
Right.
So that is something that wehave to do if you wanna work on
it.
Yeah.
Well it seems like go where thepeople are, I'm sure like.
Out east, there's probably a lotof towns of 10, 20, 30,000 where
there's a Ben juries.
I think so I don't, I don'tknow.
Yeah.

(08:53):
I don't know.
The demographics.
There's, there are a lot ofcommunity shops out on the east
coast.
Right.
Um, more community.
I would say our driving factorin Colorado is tourism.
So we wanna be in an area thathas a lot of tourism.
Yep, yep.
Um, that has kind of people withluxury dollars and they're on
vacation and they're spendingmoney.
Yep.
Yep.
That seems to be our sweet spot.
Like a Breckenridge or somethingmight be.

(09:15):
Pro Street.
Pro Street's a really goodexample.
Yep, yep.
You know, we have from MemorialDay to Labor Day, we have kind
of different set of eyes on ourshop every single day.
Yeah.
Um, and that, that helps a lot.
Theoretically, Estes Park, butthere's such a bias toward
local, locally owned kind ofoperations up there.
If you did a, can you do a,could you do a non Ben and
Jerry's ice cream shop in EstesPark?

(09:36):
Not, and sell Ben and Jerry's.
No.
Yeah, I've looked at Estes.
There's, yeah.
If I could get a spot in Estes,I probably would do it.
Um, like you probably learnedabout, enough about the ice
cream business to buy some othergood ice cream maybe, right?
Yeah.
Not, not give Ben and Jerry'stheir 9% or whatever.
They're actually a really greatfranchisor to work for.
And I think part of, part ofhaving Ben and Jerry's is, is

(09:56):
the brand name.
Right.
Obviously where it works, atleast where it works.
Um, the brand name is great.
Um, we're known for, you know,very specific things, uh, ice
cream being one of them.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and, and that helps incertain communities.
Expand on that.
Uh, yeah, I think it, mostpeople know how Ben and Jerry's
is very socially driven.

(10:17):
Yeah.
Very, um, very progressivecompany.
Corporate responsibility is thefirst word that flashed in my
Yeah.
Thing.
Or social responsibility kindof.
Yeah.
You know, business has aresponsibility to give back to
the community that, uh, which itdraws its support, I think is
the exact quote from, fromJerry.
Yeah.
Um, and we take that to heart.
Oh.
So you get some customers thatare like, oh, like in Boulder,

(10:38):
maybe even, even they're little,I mean, vort Collins is a fairly
liberal town as well, butBoulder's even more so.
So they're like, we're buyingice cream and we're buying it
from Ben and Jerry's.
I think there's a lot of peoplewho, who do that.
And I think just So there's alot of brand value in general
value.
There's a lot of brand value inthat.
Yeah.
Um, I was actually just at, Idon't know, little plug, but
founded in Foco.
Yeah.
And I was at one of thesessions, um, a marketing

(11:00):
session on storytelling, and shesaid, in order for your message
to work, you have to have loversand haters.
And I, I actually likehighlighted it in my notes
because Interesting.
That is how Ben and Jerry's,because if you have haters and
you put out a message, peopleare gonna, they're gonna
complain about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But then your supporters andyour lovers are gonna back you
and they're gonna actually make,make them more loyal.
So I wonder how, I was justtalking with, uh, with a guy,

(11:23):
um, about the Tesla phenomenonright now.
And like my friends with Tesla'sgetting hate notes under their
windshield wipers and stuff likethat, and dealerships getting
firebomb and stuff five timesthis year.
And it's like.
I don't know how, where thatgoes.
I, um, I don't either.
And, you know, just two yearsago, Musk was like the man of

(11:45):
the year or something.
I know, right?
And so talk about a changing,uh, brand persona.
No kidding.
And it, but it, I mean, it justgoes to show, I mean, our, our
country's 50% divided right now.
Right?
Right.
And so, um, and so it doesn'treally matter what you do,
there's gonna be 50% of your, ofyour audience that potentially
hates what you say or what youdo.
Yeah.
And so, um, and so that's fine,as long as you know that, and

(12:07):
you can message them to thepeople who are your customer.
Yeah.
And make sure that your valuesare clear and that, and that's
what they're gonna buy for.
Go well and not drive away.
Like when I think about Ben andJerry's, like, I think of like,
from a conservative person'sperspective, I, I think those
kind of hippie ice cream guysRight.
But their ice cream is reallygood.

(12:28):
Yeah.
And they come up with clevernames.
Yeah.
And so there's not, there'snothing there for me to like
boycott Ben and Jerry's.
Oh, there's a lot for a lot somepeople.
Fair enough, fair enough.
There's, there's a lot for somepeople.
And that's fine.
They're entitled to theiropinion also.
Yeah.
As long as it's, you know, a a5%, you know, a noisy 5%.
Yeah.
And then the rest of'em arestill ice cream buyers or
whatever.

(12:49):
I think that that's a big partof our community in general, is
that there's a loud minority,right?
Oh yeah.
Well, something like, like 95%of the Twitter traffic is the
same.
500 people.
Yeah.
You know?
Oh, that's interesting.
I didn't know that.
I don't know if that's reallytrue, but probably pre, maybe
it's 10,000 people are Right.
Right.
It's certainly not the 2 billionthat are, have an account or

(13:09):
whatever.
Right.
Yeah.
Most of the people are lurkers.
Yeah.
Um, and people that saysomething are usually on the
more frenzy side.
Yeah.
So that's an interesting thing.
Um, so you can kind of buildhowever many Ben and Jerry's,
you can figure out how to makeprofitable.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Depending on where you're at.
Yep.
Sure can.
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Fair enough.
So that's kind of your strategicvision, right?

(13:32):
Like the, the, the managers arein place, seems like you think
they're all pretty awesome.
Yep.
And so now you gotta set aboutprobably learning some expertise
about traffic patterns, realestate opportunities where you
can get high traffic withoutpaying$47 triple nets.
Yeah.
That's where I'm spending mytime right now is, is looking
for different locations.
Um, I think it's reallyinteresting and it's been cool

(13:53):
to see my kind of career pathand, you know, going from where
I said glorified shift managerto now there being days where
it's like, what exactly is myjob?
Yeah.
Um, I have, I have this greatleadership team, all female
leadership team.
I have female general managersat all three of my stores.
Um, they're wonderful.
Do you wanna shout'em out?
They've want Yeah.
Alexis and Boulder Racey here inFort Collins.
Reyna down in Denver.

(14:14):
Um, they've all been with me fora really long time.
That's cool.
Um, I, I guess five years pluson all three of'em.
Awesome.
Um.
And they want, they want to growand they wanna be successful
within Ben, the Benning Jerry'sorganization as much as I do.
Yeah.
And so they're really driving meright now almost in, in kind of
where we, where we go with thisand sort of the why not us
mentality.

(14:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, I think it was reallyfun this past January we were at
our annual meeting and they,they do an award ceremony on, on
the Friday night of our, of ourannual meeting.
Um, RISI here in Fort Collinswas honored with the manager of
the year award.
Oh wow.
Um, all three of them have wonit now, um, within the years
past.
Um, but, but I was, won ouroperator of the year for 2024,

(14:57):
which was really, really,really, really amazing.
Like, that was not somethingthat I had on my Bingo card for
this year or any other yearreally.
That's awesome.
Um, but it kind of shows thatwe're doing something right and
we're building, we're buildingsomething out here that Yeah.
Yeah.
That is awesome.
And also replicable then, sothat we have the, we have the
processes in place.
We have the people in place.

(15:17):
We're, we're also working EOSright now a little bit.
Mm.
Um, self implementing that andso kind of Right people, right
seats.
Yeah.
And, and five year plans and oneyear plans and all of that kind
of stuff.
It is that, that hasn't turnedup.
Any concerns?
You love those managers evenmore, they're in the right spot
for you and stuff.
I think so.
Yeah.
That's great.
I think so.
That's super cool.
Yeah.
I was thinking to myself as youwere unfolding that story even

(15:38):
before you started, actually Iwas thinking, I bet her operator
of the year award acceptancespeech, uh, mentioned heavily
her.
Uh, key team leads.
I did not make an acceptancespeech, but, um, nope.
We just went up and, andcelebrated on stage.
Okay.
But, but I brought them with me.
Yeah, that's, that says it, thatsays it.
Frankly.
I brought them with me.
Yeah, they, they, I would nothave walked across that stage by

(15:59):
myself.
That is for darn sure.
That's really cool.
Well, congratulations.
That's a high praise.
And how do they, how do theycriteria that?
Is it like, there's judges, theycould see who's making the most
money, like how do they know?
You know, it's not, it's notwho's making the most money?
'cause that was not me lastyear.
Um, I, I don't know, to be quitehonest with you, I do know that
I've, I have heard that I.

(16:19):
The kind of nomination and the,and the selection process for
those awards are kind of aknockdown, drag out between
field reps and, and some of thehighest on the leadership team
at corporate.
Okay.
Um, in the end, I think therewas only five or six people
throughout the entire companywho even knows who wins.
Um, and so until, until theyannounced it that night.
Cool.
And so it's kept a pretty bigsecret.

(16:41):
I there's not a huge crowd,crowd of people who kind of make
that decision, so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I, I can guarantee you ourfield rep, uh, Amy is, was a
huge part.
I had to that in nominating usand, and pushing for it.
And she's been part of our org.
Um, she's been leading my teamin our, um, Colorado area, uh,
probably for at least the lastfive years.

(17:01):
Okay.
Um, but she's been withorganization too long time.
It's almost a franchise esupport.
Yeah.
It's where she's helping youfigure out how to train and hire
better and whatever else.
We kind of run it by ourselvesout here in Colorado, but yes.
That is their, that is theirrole.
They are kind of our contact,our liaison to corporate.
Yeah.
Um, they come out, they doevaluations for us, you know.
Yeah.
Once a year, twice a year if youdon't do very well, but, so once

(17:23):
a year for us for the lastseveral years.
Right.
Um, and they just make sure thatwe're in compliance with what
we're selling and how we'reselling it.
Yeah.
Um.
But they're, but they'revaluable.
You do your marketing things andstuff.
We do most of like great flyers,posters.
We do that here.
Okay.
Yeah.
We do all of that locally and wecan kind of create that.
We have some, we have materialsthat we can use Sure.
And send off and, and use that.
But yeah, I mean, she'll come,it's not as flavorful as the ice

(17:45):
creams.
No.
No it's not.
She'll, but Amy comes out abouttwice a year, sometimes, maybe
only once a year.
And we sit down and have eitherquarterly meetings.
She was at our retreat lastyear.
I started doing retreats withour general managers.
Yeah.
Um, we've done three of themnow.
So we go to Colorado Springs forthree or four days and really
work on the business.
Yeah.
That's really neat.
That's, I impressed you spendthat much time intentionally

(18:06):
working on it.
You know, that's, and is thatfor the little solo shop
operators and everybody?
I, you know, it's not what I didwhen I was by myself.
Okay.
Um, and so I don't know, Idon't, I don't know what the
solo people do.
Yeah.
I mean, they have, some of'emhave general managers.
I don't know.
I think that that probably isone of the reasons why, why we
were honored with that awardfrom this past year.

(18:26):
Um, I spend a lot of time ondevelopment and personal growth
of both myself and our team.
Yeah.
So, um, we have, you know,leadership meetings once a week,
uh, during the off season whenwe're a little bit slower and
we're kind of in more planningmode.
We actually add in a book club.
So we do leadership book club,um, oh, cool.
And, and we alternate those thenwith those leadership meetings.

(18:48):
And so we read personaldevelopment books, we've read
Atomic Habits and we've readgood one.
You know, we read a lot of booksthat can kind of.
Better ourselves.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, and then have conversationsabout how then they relate to us
as, as in the jobs that we'redoing also, how can we take
those back and put them in, intoimplementation in our stores?
And so that's really where I'vekind of found my passion is

(19:08):
leading those girls.
Like they are amazing humans whowant to do good in this world.
And they, uh, they lead withempathy in their stores and in
their communities, and Icouldn't be more thrilled to
have them on my side.
That's really cool.
Mm-hmm.
Um, have you read Anti-Fragile,by the way?
I think I have it on my shelf,but I haven't read it.
I was listening to apresentation this morning at,

(19:29):
found it in Foco, and the, thepresenter was talking about how
like when a tree gets.
Uh, threatened by wind andalmost gets knocked down.
It if, if it doesn't, assumingit doesn't, its response is to
grow its roots deeper.
Mm-hmm.
And to actually become stronger.
And he said it was resilienceand I was like, actually the
word you're looking there forthere is anti-fragile it'cause

(19:51):
resilience.
You go back to where you wereuhhuh, you recover your, but
anti-fragile is when you'retested, you actually get
stronger as a result of thattesting.
That is that I'll to put that onmy list because I so it's really
cool book.
I actually think it's on myshelf.
Yeah, no, I think you wouldresonate with it as Yeah.
Uh, for sure.
So anyway, yeah.
I mean when it came down towhen, when we ended up with
three stores and a generalmanager at all three stores, it

(20:12):
came down to like what is, whatis now my job?
Yeah.
If I'm not working in the shop,if I'm not, you're not a shift
manager at all anymore.
Right.
If I'm not a shift manager atall anymore and I still do all
of our own, all of ourbookkeeping.
So I still do that for all threestores.
Um, I work pretty closely withRena down in Denver, does all of
our catering management also.
So I work pretty closely withher trying to figure out how to
build the catering side of ourbusiness.
Um, and networking.

(20:33):
I've started doing the lastcouple of years I've really
gotten more into networking.
Yeah.
Which I never was before.
Just being out in the community.
And has that been fulfilling toyou?
I love it.
Awesome.
I love it in so many ways.
Not from the networking side.
Yeah.
I honestly haven't built mybusiness yet at all from it.
Um, with the exception of sayingI think it's just made me a
better person I think.
Um, like I said before,surrounding myself with smarter

(20:55):
people than I am.
Um.
There's something to be saidabout the whole, you know, you
are the, the five top people youspend your time with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and there's, there'ssomething to be said about that.
And so I just needed to getaround peers and like-minded
people.
Um, more business oriented,business growth type people.
Yeah.
And it, and it took me a littlewhile to find'em, but I'm, I'm

(21:16):
on my way.
Well, I'm honored to be part ofthat in your journey.
And, uh, yeah, we just, uh, ourexchange student had to watch
Goodwill Hunting for a class, some and Jill and Lenny watched
Goodwill Hunting the othernight, and that's kind of the
core of that whole story.
You know, he was like the supersmart kid hanging out with, you
know, he was the hero to all hisfriends, and that's a lovely
place to be, but it doesn'tpropel him much forward, you

(21:38):
know?
Yeah.
And same for all of us.
Uh, not that I'm a hero to allmy friends.
You, you know who you're Well,I'm looking forward to seeing
how that expands.
What's the, the ice creamenvironment?
Uh, I'm, I was thinking aboutlike Bask and Robbins.
There used to be a lot more likefroyo shops and stuff.
Consumer habits and trends havechanged a lot.

(21:59):
Is there more or fewer Ben andJerry's than there was five
years ago?
We have constricted a littlebit.
Okay.
Um, but not much.
I think there's still 225 in thecountry.
Okay.
Um, and.
There were some problems, we hadsome development agreements.
I think there were some badstores that probably opened
because they were kind oflocked, people were locked into
development agreements at, at atime.

(22:20):
I think Ben and Jerry's had adifferent strategy for growth
and maybe it wasn't necessarilythe right one.
Yep.
Um, and so I think we've gotgreat ones now.
I think we are still, we arelooking now to grow in certain
areas, the brand.
Um, ultimately I think it comesdown to people, if you're going
to have a treat, you wanna havea really good treat for the most
part.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mean there are people who enjoytheir frozen yogurt and they're

(22:40):
frat free and their low fat andall that kind of stuff.
Sure.
Yeah.
We have, um, Ben and Jerry's hasgone into different markets in
terms of frozen yogurt than wehad Greek frozen yogurt.
You know, we had, we tried themall.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then ultimately we backedoff of all of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, the one that is reallysticking in, Ben and Jerry's is
becoming a really big player inthe market, and forgive me for
not having all the exactinformation, but is the

(23:01):
non-dairy line.
Mm.
And we have a really, reallygood non-dairy line.
There's a lot of flavors.
Um, I think we'll have three inscoop shops this year.
Okay.
Um, is it coconut based or is itUm, it is almond, it is oat milk
now.
Oat milk.
Milk.
So, yep.
We just reformulate all of them.
So we have, that's my favoriteof the fake milks generally is
oak milk, depending on sometimescoconut, but Yeah.

(23:25):
Well we started with an almondbutter one and then we had a
sunflower butter one.
Oh, interesting.
Um, and then just for ease ofmanufacturing, they were like,
we need to have just one base.
Yeah.
Um, they did a lot of researchand they came up with this oat
milk and it's really good.
Good.
It's really good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, and that is just growing,that, that segment of the
industry is just really growing.
I was just thinking it might becontroversial in today's world,

(23:48):
but uh, doing like, uh, a rawmilk ice cream would be an
interesting thing.
Uh, you know, label it the, uh,RFK special or something like
that.
I dunno.
Um, I don't wanna try that.
I don't think, might not, mightnot fit quite exactly with the,
uh, cultural times.
Yeah.
Maybe not, but uh, yeah.

(24:10):
That's interesting.
None the west, right?
Well, it is.
And well, because I imaginethat's gonna be a headwind for
Ben and Jerry's the, you know,make America healthy again, kind
of notion.
Um, and.
Yeah.
What I think you just said iskind of the nullify to that.
Like if you're gonna have atreat, which, which we all are
gonna from time to time, have atreat, make it a really good

(24:31):
one.
Yeah.
And, and kind of a relativelywholesome one and Yeah.
And, and splurge.
And I think that's also whatpeople are doing right now is
really buying with theirdollars, right?
Yeah.
I think people are really, arespending their money with
companies that they align withYeah.
Their values.
And I think it's one of thereasons Ben and Jerry's has been
so successful.
I think it is kind of the, theproven model of, um, you know,

(24:55):
we can do good things and we canbe socially conscious and also
make money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and I think it's kind ofbeen sort of the textbook case
for, for how to do that.
Yeah.
And I think in today's, I'm kindof excited for our shops for
this next year actually.
Um, kind of recession andinflation aside dependent.
Yes.
Um, it's, it will be interestingto see how customers respond to

(25:19):
a company like ours that is sooutspoken on how they want the
world to kind of go.
Yeah.
Well, I think what's reallyinteresting, not to, to flash
forward to politics, but we'vekind of been brushing against
it, but like the Bernie Sanderskind of populist movement from
the left and the, and the Trumppopulist movement from the
right.
Both have that populous kind ofexpression.

(25:41):
And, and that's ultimately likeif you can get the population
excited around socialresponsibility.
Yep.
And.
And, and that's one of thechallenges of the current time
with the, with the Doge andstuff.
And you got all these fakedollars floating around and all
this seeming graft of sorts, youknow, NGOs founded by senators,

(26:02):
sister-in-laws that get hugegrants a year after they were
founded and stuff like that.
It's like, okay.
Um, but that's not sociallyresponsible either.
No.
Right.
And, and spending and having agovernment that spends random
things in random places all thetime is not socially
responsible.
No.
Nor ethical.
Right, right, right.
You know, I think that that's ahard part about where we're at

(26:23):
as a society right now.
It's like, it seems like atleast 90% of the people agree on
where we want to be and what isactually the right percent, the
right end goal, but for somereason there's this disconnect
on how we get there.
Yeah.
And uh, and like, man, if youcould be a fly on the wall or
whoever can figure out how tobridge that gap right now, um,

(26:44):
would be wonderful.
You know, the scene might be seta little bit, you know, and
maybe, you know, you can hate meif you'd want to about Trump,
but he is probably the singularfigure that could confront the
Republican side of the uni partyand the apparatus and beat it
and then kind of come backaround, get thrown all kinds of

(27:04):
stuff at him.
And now basically he made theDemocratic party self-destruct
itself by being only focused onOrange Man.
Bad for, yeah, I a while, Imean, it feels like both parties
have self-destructed, to behonest.
Yeah.
So they're both kind of in astate of.
Upheaval, upheaval.
And so, but maybe we're betteras a society to have at least we

(27:25):
should have two organized sidesnow that we don't even know.
I know.
I, it does feel like both sidesare definitely unified in their
sides.
Kind of, I don't know.
Every si every, but it doesn'tmake logical sense where, where
it's ordered in some ways now.
No, it doesn't.
And what doesn't make logical,like Democrats, like Democrats
were always the people who wereconcerned about corporate
responsibility and differentthings like that a while back.

(27:45):
Yeah.
Now they're not, you know?
Yeah.
The war party has shifted fromthe Republicans to the, I guess
the, just a few of theRepublicans, the Democrats now,
uh, who knows.
Who knows.
And that's part of the problemis can you trust what anybody's
saying anymore?
No.
So that's the biggest problem.
That's the biggest problem.
Right.
And so, I digress.
I yeah.
I mean, I, I don't, but being abrand that stands for something
and stands for people Yeah.

(28:07):
And good causes and empathy andcompassion and just like
equality, right?
Yeah.
Like, it's, it's not a hardthing to, it doesn't seem like a
hard thing to be, to be for.
Does a, uh, does a a sharp youngman have a chance of progressing
in your, uh, female dominatedleader leadership team?
Of course, yes, of course.
That sort of just happened by,by accident.
But, um, of course we did havea, we did have a.

(28:30):
We did have a gentleman, um,assistant manager for a little
while at one of the shops, andyeah.
We're, we're not, you're notthat bad.
No.
I'm teasing a little bit.
No, I've worked in, uh, well, itis a different power structure,
but the start of my career, Iworked in banking and like at my
second job in Worthington,Minnesota, it was me and the
bank president and one otherdude and 27 ladies, you know,

(28:54):
but all the, all the high paidpeople, maybe it was four dudes,
I think, but all the high paidpeople were the dudes and all
the low paid people were theladies.
Yep.
And I don't know, it was a, Idon't know, I, it was over time
I really enjoyed seeing bankingdevelop into a more par mm-hmm.
Industry.
Mm-hmm.

(29:14):
And I was, it was definitelyprogressing as I got there.
And even when I, when I startedmy career, the lady bankers were
like, Kurt, you're such not amisogynist.
Like, how did you get into thisindustry?
Um, but it's really changed alot.
And so, like, even just theother day, Nicole Stodinger, uh,
yesterday won the mostinfluential, uh, business leader

(29:34):
in the finance category.
Wow.
Um, and I don't know that name.
Sorry.
Uh, she's the boss lady at FirstBank.
Okay.
Like over basically everythingnorth of Denver.
Okay.
And, uh, she and I were both inthe 30, under 30, uh, about 20
years ago.
Congratulations, uh, Nicole.
Congrats on your prize from BizWest last night.
Yeah.
Uh, if you're listening to this,but, so the, maybe it's not

(29:55):
quite equal, but there'sdefinitely, I would say.
Among the business lenders inthe marketplace today, it's
probably 35 to 40%.
Ladies.
Now, you know, I don't, I'm notsure of that number.
I was at a meeting last week,um, with a woman who's in the
financial sector and she wasjust introducing herself.
And so she only had about 30seconds to speak.

(30:16):
And if I heard her correctly, Ibelieve she said that about$35
trillion in, in wealth is goingto be changing hands to females
Yeah.
In the next decade.
Yes.
That's, and they will, so theywill become the most wealthy
segment of people For sure.
On the planet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, in the next decade.
So that's, I mean, it'ssignificant, but I'm not sure
it's relevant because I thinkthat women have been making most

(30:38):
of the buying decisions for along time anyway, possibly from
the consumer economy standpoint.
Possibly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But now, but now that, yeah, nowthey have the money to actually
make that and Yeah.
Are they gonna put it intostocks or are they gonna buy
bitcoins?
Right.
That's a big questions mark forthe stock market.
'cause you know, 10 years ago,like there wasn't any place for
the stock market to go but upbecause all these retirees were

(31:00):
dumping their assets and thebaby boomers were coming to be
that age.
Yep.
And now it's like, okay, wellwhere do you put your money?
Well, yeah.
And not just from the females,but from the millennials who are
starting to come up.
Right.
For sure.
Are they, are they just kind oftaking their money and hoarding
their money and going to like,travel the world or Right.
What are they gonna do with it?

(31:20):
Right.
Well, and because, you know, itwasn't that long ago.
Five, or maybe call it 15 yearsago.
Maybe six months salary couldgive you a down payment for a
house.
Not anymore.
Now it's like a year and a half.
Yeah.
Or something of one person'snormal salary and then you got a
good down payment.
Right.
Um, and so it's, yeah, it'suntenable.

(31:41):
And so I guess, yeah.
I might as well screw around andtravel the world.
It's gonna be such aninteresting combination of
forces as money, like what moneyis.
Um, you know, and we got the,the reserve currency here in the
United States and, and Bitcoinand gold is up over$3,000 an
ounce now, I think.
Right.
I don't know.
It, it's pretty, that's high.

(32:02):
It's pretty high.
Yeah.
And so, like, what is money?
Right, right.
Especially with di I mean I, thewhole Bitcoin and crypto, like,
I don't understand at all.
So I don't either.
I can't even, but you basicallygo get it with energy, you have
to gotta mine it.
You gotta like run computers.
It's basically just like goldmining.
Yeah.
But with gold mining, you dig itout of the dirt, you have
something physical.

(32:22):
Yeah.
You have a physical thing.
Yeah.
But with bitcoin, you, you haveyour computer go dig it out of
the, the ethos.
Yeah.
No, I don't.
And so we have all these datacenters and like things and
spinning just so people can godig bitcoins outta the imaginary
universe.
Right.
So that doesn't make a lot ofsense for me either.
Yeah.
It doesn't, it doesn't computein my head.
I digress.
Um, so you've got kind of a, amaybe a five year plan to get up

(32:47):
to four, then five, then sixstores kind of.
Is that a fair Yeah.
A five year plan is to have fivestores and a thriving catering
business.
That's okay.
That's the plan for.
Uh, yeah.
Five years from this pastcatering being Ice Cream
Catering.
Yep.
Okay.
Yeah.
So we, we you're not gonna makehot dogs or Nope.
You know, do anything else butNope.
Ice cream catering.
So yeah, we, we go to your placeand scoop cups and cones.

(33:11):
We have par, uh, Sunday parties,deluxe Sunday parties.
We bring cookies and brownies.
Oh.
Um, I might want to hire youfor, uh, April 24th at the
Hutch, uh, Hutch Home Co.
Okay.
The former Green Cycle.
Yeah.
Um, it's one of our members innext level and we're gonna do a
local social Awesome.
And, uh, so it seems like wemight as well have some ice
cream since you're likeliterally a hundred yards away

(33:33):
from his location.
Awesome.
That sounds great.
I'll even walk over and carry itover with you or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, it's so, yeah.
Easy peasy.
We do, I mean, we've done eventsfrom five to over 3000 so far.
Okay.
And we could do more than that,so yeah.
We're excited about buildingthat business.
Okay, cool.
Imagine that's, it's just alittle cooler, right.
'cause you can't put all the icecream out right away'cause then
you got cold milk.

(33:54):
Yeah.
You know, I mean, we definitelytry and limit the timelines on
them.
Yeah.
So, especially during the summertimes.
Um, but yeah, for the most part,the way we do it is we just do
it at our, at our coolers.
Yeah.
Um, put some more ice creams upand Yeah.
Let start getting low.
We put some more up.
Yeah.
There's some, there's some shopsthat are, that do, you know,
they bring kind of a much biggersetup and they have either
trailers, some, a lot of storesdo trailers or, or vans and

(34:16):
they'll mm-hmm.
So they do it outside.
Um, some places do have kind ofcarts that they'll scoop out of
the cart.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Um.
We try and keep it as simple aspossible.
Yeah.
Why?
It allows us also to get intomore places.
Right.
We can be inside, we can beoutside, and it just seems a
little bit easier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why not?
Yeah.
I love it.
Okay.
Well, I will, uh, yeah, you got,you got a gig already.
All right.
Just right here.

(34:37):
Sounds good.
Oh, and well, should we talkabout, while we're thinking
about it right now, the, uh,national Free Ice Cream Scoop
Day or whatever is coming upFree Cone Day.
Yeah.
So Free Cone Day is on Tuesday,April 8th.
Yep.
Um, this is an annual thing.
They've been doing it since1979.
We missed, um, 2020 and 2021from Covid and then from a
supply standpoint in 21.

(34:57):
Okay.
Um, and so, oh, just couldn'tget enough ice cream cones kind
of thing?
I, yeah.
Ice cream cones, every,everything, everything.
Like, it was just still kind ofa Yeah.
Those are the only two yearssince 1979 we've missed.
Okay.
Um, and it really is kind of,when we're talking about that
socially social mission sideside of it, it's really is a way
for us to give back to thecommunity.
Yeah.
That supports us all year long.

(35:17):
That was why it was started.
Um, Ben and Jerry did it, it wason their one year anniversary.
Oh, wow.
From when they, so they openedin an abandoned gas station in
1978.
They always said, if we make itone year, we're scooping ice
cream for everybody in the town.
And so they did that and it, westill are doing it today.
How fun.
And so, yep.
So this year, Tuesday, uh, April8th, it's from 12 to eight.

(35:38):
Um, and so we open late, weclose early, but we're doing
free ice cream for eight hoursthat day.
I love it.
Um, we partner with thenonprofit.
That's sort of the way that wedo, can come through the line
more than once.
You sure can.
You just have to wait in line,but you can come through as many
times as you want to.
All right.
All right.
Um, and we collect donations fora local non-air nonprofit.
Okay.
And so we align with differentorganizations every single year.

(35:59):
Typically, the way it's been isall three shops have kind of.
Organ or partnered with a kind,coalesce, coalesce its own.
Yeah.
Well, in the past they've donetheir own organizations.
All right.
Um, more local.
This year, all three shops areworking with Planned Parenthood
of Rocky Mountain.
Okay.
And so, yeah.
So all three shops will beworking with Planned Parenthood.
So all of the donations thatcome in that day will then be,

(36:19):
go back to them.
Okay.
We also ask whoever is ournonprofit, we actually ask that
they come in and do thescooping.
So we have signup sheets andthey actually come in and scoop
for the entire day.
Oh, well that's nice.
Wait for them to engage with thecommunity.
Yeah.
It's really about buildingawareness for them as well as,
you know, the financial side ofit is, is the financial side of
it.
We try and do the best we canand getting as much money as we
can, but whoever we partnerwith, we just really wanna raise

(36:41):
awareness for what they'redoing.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and this podcast willactually come out on April 5th.
Wonderful.
So for those of you that, uh,listen to the first three days
of its release, you will knowabout the frequent day.
Yes.
If not, you'll know about itnext year.
Yes.
Yes.
Typically in April, Tuesday andApril.
First Tuesday usually everyyear.
Tuesday, not, it's not the firstTuesday, it's just a Tuesday in

(37:02):
April.
The date is usually because ofholidays in April around the
world.
Yeah.
Don't put it on Easter kind of,and what stuff like that.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of, and it's aworldwide event, so we do it at
Scoop shops across the world.
And so there's a lot oforganizing in terms of what date
you do it on.
Oh, is it just been and Jerry'sor is this for, okay.
Is it how many Ben and Jerry'saround the world?
I don't know that.
Okay.
I don't know the answer.
You said there's 230 orsomething around here?

(37:23):
Yeah, something like that.
225, 230 here in the UnitedStates.
Okay.
But yeah, six, it's significantmore than a hundred.
Yes.
So Ri London, all those kind offancy places.
Australia.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
I guess every place everybodylikes, uh, ice cream, frozen ice
cream.
Preet.
Yeah.
Or non ice cream or dairy.
Yeah.
Non-dairy.
Nondairy dessert.
Non-dairy.
Frozen dessert.
I like it.

(37:43):
Um, well that's exciting.
Yes.
Um, I will, uh, mark it on mycalendar.
Ava, remind me after this showhere to put free Cone Day.
It's our favorite day of theyear.
If I, if I put 90 minutes aside,can I come through at least
twice, do you think?
Usually, yeah.
We, maybe three times.
We have a really good plan.
Okay.
We have it, we have it down pat.
We've had, we've had people tellus before, like, this is the
fastest I've ever been throughfree Cone day line.

(38:05):
And I've been through free Coneday lines across the country.
I know we know how to do it.
We get through people quickly.
We got a lot of volunteers.
We have a lot of volunteers.
I like it.
Yep.
Um, should we flash back tothose like early, like just
before you started the businesstime a little bit before we jump
all the way back?
Ah.
Or do you wanna jump, jump allthe way back?
Let's just jump all the wayback.

(38:25):
Okay.
Because I know you had a familyconnection, I'm remembering from
when we first got acquainted tothe Ben and Jerry's
organization.
So let's just zoom back to youas three years old or five years
old, or whenever you startremembering things.
Hmm.
Yeah.
So I grew up on Long Island.
Okay.
Uh, I was a pretty competitiveathlete.
I played soccer all throughcollege.

(38:45):
Okay.
Um, ran, um, track and trackthrough high school.
Um, and so, but where did youland as a 5-year-old?
Like, what was yourcircumstance?
You were born, born and raisedthere.
Born, uh, born in Minnesota.
Moved to Chicago when I was sixmonths old.
Moved to Long Island when I wasthree.
So about Long Island's, all youremember.
Oh, long Island's.
All I remember.
Okay.
Um, I have an older brother, uh,Paul.

(39:07):
He's eight years older than me.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
And me and his family liveoutside of Nashville.
Okay.
And I have a sister who is sixyears older than me.
She and her family, well theylive outside of Boston.
Her kids are actually grown now,and one's outta college, one's
at American University.
Okay.
Um, so yeah, I was kind of thebaby.
Um, yeah.
Were were you an Oopsie?
No, I was very much planned.
Okay.
All right.
My parents were young when theyhad my brother and sister and

(39:29):
they're like, Hey, let's haveone more.
My dad was in the Army.
Um, my brother and sister wereactually born in Germany while
he was, while he was stationedover there.
Um.
And so I think that they went,once they kind of moved home and
got settled with a real, he gotsettled a real job.
They were from there.
He was from there.
Um, they decided, yeah, theywanted to do it without all of

(39:49):
this chaos of war and army andall of that stuff.
Sure.
So, I mean, and having a littlebit more time on their hands
too, or not time on their hands,but age wise.
Um, so yeah, no, I was not anoopsie.
I was definitely planned.
Um, sorry to ask that question,but No, I, it's a legitimate
question for sure.
I, I've asked my, uh, I, I wasfirst and then my brother's two

(40:11):
years, my sisters five years,and then another five years
before my last brother Uhhuh.
And he was an oopsie.
He was an Yeah.
Yeah.
He was an acknowledged oopsieright from the start, you know?
Yeah.
No, and I, I shared with ourkids, if there's another kid,
it's an oopsie.
Just so you know, if you listen,see this an future, there's an
oopsie.
Um, yeah.
Uh, I don't, it was your dad in.
In Ben and Jerry's organizationalready?

(40:32):
No, no, he was, he was workingfor Weight Watchers at the time.
Oh, interesting.
That's actually what brought usfrom Chicago to New York.
Oh, interesting.
He works for the Hez company andwho owned Weight Watchers, and
so he was, he's always was onthe franchisor side.
Okay.
So he was in kind of in chargeof, uh, weight.
That's a franchise too.
Yeah.
So he was in charge of theweight washers franchises for a
while.
Okay.
Um, so that's what took us likea district manager or kind of a

(40:55):
big No, he was the di, like thedirector of retail operations
for Oh wow.
I think that was his title.
I don't know if that was theexact title, but something along
those lines.
How did he like, he was just amilitary guy like six years
before He was a really smartguy.
Yeah.
Uh, he was a really smart guy.
Uh, he is a really smart guy,so, um, yeah, he was, he he just

(41:15):
picks things up.
Yeah.
He just knows.
I mean, when, so he actually, heunderstands things.
Enlisted, my dad enlisted in theArmy because he didn't wanna be
drafted and then be told wherehe, where he had to go and, and
what he was gonna do.
So he enlisted to try inVietnam.
Vietnam, yeah.
So he enlisted my dad was like amonth away from enlisting
because he wanted the same.
Yep.

(41:35):
And then they ended, you know,they, they stopped the draft.
Yeah.
So and so that's why I was bornor something.
Yeah.
So he enlisted, so he had alittle bit of a say in where he
could go.
Yeah.
And he ended up taking alinguistics test and passed it
with like flying colors, whichhe had no.
Education in that space.
He didn't have anything.
Yeah.
And so he became a Russianlinguist.

(41:55):
Oh, wow.
And so they moved out toCalifornia when they got first
got married and he went tolinguistic school.
Um, and, and yeah, learnedRussian, um, beside, you know,
the special agents who were likelearning basically how to kill
people in six weeks and beingshipped off to who knows if they
came home.
And so that's what he did.
And then that's, he, they wentto Germany and he listened to,

(42:19):
uh, whatever he listened to.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't exactly know what he didover there.
I know he had a red, he had oneof the red phones to the
president.
Okay.
Like that's, he didn't, but his,his office did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he's was just a really,really smart guy.
People picked up on hissmartness right away and, and
probably his dedication as well,or whatever.
So yeah, we've had conversationsabout, um, about his time in the
military and leaving.
And he kind of, you know, hadhe, had he done it differently,

(42:42):
he probably would've stayed inthe military longer or been
liked to have been an officer inthe, in the military, but he
didn't, so he got out.
Yeah.
And then kind of where he landedand how he got where he was.
But eventually the, yeah,eventually he got into kind of
leading franchise organizationsand, you know, he was not the
president of Weight Watchers oranything, but he had a good job
and Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, he had, he worked alot.

(43:03):
We had a good childhood.
Mom was probably able to notwork, or she wanted to.
She did.
She wanted, she did she, yeah.
She kind of had side jobs, youknow, receptionist type jobs.
Yeah.
My whole life.
Um, yeah, she worked in a coupledifferent companies.
Um, yeah, she, no, she workedtoo.
Um.
I, I think the sports part of itwas, was kind of created the
leadership part of me.

(43:24):
Like I, I learned how to, well,first of all, I learned they had
to work really hard, first ofall.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you wanna be a, a high endathlete yeah.
You have to work really, reallyhard.
Um, but what I learned too wasjust to lead by example through
that, you know, that, that, youknow, the best way to get people
to kind of follow you is to bethe hardest worker.
Mm.
Um, and so I, yeah, I mean, Idid that.

(43:47):
I was, you know, captains and Iplayed varsity all four years of
high school and then went on andwe created kind of a really
competitive club team.
Oh.
I went to the University ofMichigan, so, okay.
Um, which didn't have a, youdidn't, they had a club team
that was not very wellorganized.
Okay.
Um, and so same, I, I sort ofhad chance meetings that led to

(44:09):
really great things.
So I met somebody on my firstnight that I was on campus who I
had said something about playingsoccer and he was like, I'm the
assistant coach for the clubsoccer team tryouts.
Like, do you wanna try outtomorrow?
Yeah.
So what was cool about that wasthere was about six or seven
freshmen that were playing thatyear that really wanted
something more than just kind ofa club rec league.

(44:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who wanted to play competitivesoccer and we're at the
University of Michigan, I mean.
Yeah.
You know, like you had the five,fab Five was, uh, yeah, I guess
it was five or 10 years laterprobably.
But maybe not, maybe it was notour time.
No, they were, they were alittle bit earlier than me.
I think it was.
Okay.
I thought so.
They were for me, they, I, yeah,yeah.
I was there 96 to 2000.
Fab Five was probably the earlynineties.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they, they this example of abunch of freshmen coming in and

(44:51):
I don't know if they won thechampionship, but they went to
the Final Four.
They did?
Yeah.
I don't know if they, yeah.
Um, but it really was also like.
Uh, just we want, we wanted tobe com we wanted to compete and,
and we're at this huge schoolthat, of course, aside from the
varsity team, that there's goingto be some really good other
soccer players.
Right, right.
Like, like, we're not all gonnabe playing varsity sp sports.

(45:13):
So, um, we, so we ended upactually kind of hiring coaches
and, um, from the time that Iwas a freshman to my senior
year, we went to nationals.
We came in second.
Whoa.
In national, is that my fir my,by my senior year.
And then the club team actuallywent on and they, they won
nationals like the next two orthree years in a row.
Wow.
So we really built thisfoundation team.

(45:33):
Well, you reformed it fromwithin.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
It was great.
It was a cool experience.
Have you done the Enneagram testthing?
I have.
But you're not a reformer.
It feels like you're a reformer.
Yes.
I think that, like, you see, youwanna make it better.
Yes.
I think that is my, I thinkthat's exactly who I am.
I also am starting doing humandesign work.
Okay.
And I, my human design is verymuch that I see problems and I,

(45:55):
and I know what needs to be doneto fix it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I dig it.
Yeah.
Is that like kind of part ofyour superpower even within,
like, once you got your head outof the The dip case?
The dip case, yeah.
Yes.
I wanted the right terminologythere.
Yeah.
Um.
Like seeing and looking aroundand being like, okay, now I can
do this and I can do that.
I can, I think so I think it'staken me a little while to get

(46:17):
there.
Yeah.
But yes, I think now having a,having this great leadership
team, I think it's easier for meto guide them in the, in where,
where they should be spendingtheir time.
Yeah.
We talk a lot about how theywanna be leading and managing
their teams, but it starts withtime management.
It starts with, you know, whatare their goals?
And so we set, we talk a lotabout goals and I can mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And sometimes they're hardconversations, you know, and

(46:38):
it's not just business goals,right.
Like it's personal goals too,showing up all the way.
Yeah.
No, we talk a lot about, aboutthe worklife balance, which I
kind of hate that word, but alsolike, that's the best way to
describe it.
Um, I want to make sure thatthey are getting away from work
and I am like, I am clear aboutlike, go away this weekend and
shut off your phone.
Yeah.
Like, don't, it's okay.
It's okay.

(46:58):
And I want them to be able to dothat.
And so, yeah.
We have a lot of thoseconversations.
I like it.
Yeah.
I like it.
So we were, you were clubteaming it up.
Oh.
What did you go to school for?
I got my BA in, um,organizational studies.
Okay.
Graduated in 2000.
Alright.
Um, moved back home to LongIsland.
Um,'cause no job and no moneyand no place to live.

(47:20):
You tried to find a job andtried to figure it out, but
there wasn't really a thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I had no idea what my majorwas gonna allow me to do.
Yeah.
Like, I didn't, I I was, youknow, a glorified liberal arts
degree is the best descriptionof it.
Um, and so I started applyingand, um.
For jobs in Manhattan and endedup getting something at this
private hedge fund.

(47:42):
Okay.
Um, and so I commuted for thefirst, I don't know, four or
five months or so until I founda doing Yeah.
Doing nothing of significance,to be quite honest with you.
They had no idea what theywanted to hire me for.
So it was this like a hundredmillion dollars hedge fund.
Okay.
That was owned by like a 27 or28-year-old maybe.
Okay.
And then his partner wasprobably 42 maybe.

(48:04):
And, um, the 42-year-old Jeff,um, great guy.
He for some reason decided heneeded somebody to go through
all of their emails on all ofthe companies that they
potentially might be titratingand have them all filed away.
So they hired me to do that.
Okay.
To print off like every singleemail they ever got and file it

(48:26):
away again.
This is like 2000.
Right.
So we're like, we're still kindof the tech on the verge of the
technological bubble.
Yeah.
And so filing cabinets in Manilafolders and like that, that's
what they wanted you to do.
And about six weeks into doingthat, I was.
You are never ever going to lookat one of these emails ever.

(48:47):
Right.
Ever.
It was never gonna happen.
And see what these things are.
They're called folders so youcould just put it in there.
Yeah.
And so it was really silly.
And so I sort of became just theoffice.
Like go-to person, goer.
Yeah.
Just sort of, they, they wantedme around, they liked me, but
they didn't really have anythingfor me to do.
And so it sort of kind ofevolved into different things.
And so finally the back officeperson, you're like, why did you

(49:10):
get that job?
Uh, I will tell you why I gotthat job.
I mean, you're really prettystill.
Uh, but I've, they just want apretty girl in the office kind.
I got that job because Jeff sawon my resume, okay, again, and
remember I was 21 or 22 yearsold, right.
I was brand new.
Like I had had jobs, I hadworked since I was in high
school.
But you know, nothing ofsignificance.

(49:32):
Um.
I had done a dance marathon atthe University of Michigan where
we were, it was a fundraiser for36 hours.
Okay.
Where no sleep and no sittingdown and no, whatever you danced
for 36 hours.
I mean, I was on my feet for 36hours.
Wow.
And Jeff thought that that wasthe coolest thing he had ever
heard in his entire life.

(49:52):
I love it.
And so literally out of theentire interview, that was what
he picked out.
And he was like, you're hiredbecause, tell me more.
That's the coolest thing.
And so, you know, I have to saythat, that um, one of our, one
of our members at Loco is the,the part of the band that made
our, makes our lead in music Abrothers Fountain Uhhuh.
And they did a, a fundraiser forthe homeless cause in, uh, Fort

(50:15):
Collins, but, and they did 24hours in the old town main
stage.
Yeah.
Where somebody was making musicfor 24 hours in a row.
How awesome is that?
And uh, when I heard that, I waslike, well, you're qualified to
be in Lookout thing, think,want, you're cool.
Yeah.
Like, so kudos to like havingthe pa Can we back up?
Yeah.
Like what was so driving that,that was worthy cause for you at

(50:36):
that time?
I'm not gonna lie, I actuallydon't remember.
It probably was a children'shospital.
Okay.
Um, was, I think was the, wasthe grantee of that.
Um, and.
I, you know, like why not?
Why not?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, you know, again, I wasprobably 20 years old.
Yeah.
Why?
That sounds tough.
It was more about with no, noconstraints.
Probably more of social thing,you know, let's do this.

(50:59):
Let's, yeah, let's raise somemoney and go have some fun.
I dig it.
Um, I don't know if there wasany real conviction other than
that, to be quite honest withyou.
Probably a nice fly job, but itgot me a job.
Levered you into some otheropportunities it sounds like.
Well, that job actually reallytaught me what I didn't want.
I will be flat out, honest withyou, to work for a hedge fund.
To work for a hedge fund.
Um, I think I was making$28,000a year.

(51:20):
Okay.
Um, one of my tasks was to, um,was to catalog the wine order
that the 28-year-old owner hadbought from France.
Okay.
And it was totaled more moneythan my salary did.
Right.
And it so that, so that waspretty disappointing.
And then, um, and so then I gotinto doing the back office

(51:40):
stuff.
So I was, I had a job basicallyin the morning before the bell
opened and after the bellclosed.
And it was all about reconcilingthe accounts and making sure
that everybody that the tradeswent through properly that what
we thought we bought is what thebroker thought we bought, making
sure all that stuff kind ofcoalesced.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and then in the morning itwas, well that whole culture of
hedge funds is, we're just alittle smarter than most of
their people.

(52:01):
So, yeah, act accordingly.
Yeah.
And so, um, so I, so I had tothen reconcile the accounts in
the morning and make sure thathow much money was in the bank
was actually how much money wehad.
Um, but then during the day Ididn't really have a whole lot
to do because my job really wasafter the bell rang and making
sure that everything wassubmitting everything to our
broker, because again, it wasn'ttech.

(52:22):
I faxed it, it was all like, Iwas faxing information.
Right, right.
Um, and so during the middle ofthe day, then I started sitting
with the owner of the company.
We called, I kept his blotter.
His blotter was a piece ofpaper, a handwritten piece of
paper of what he bought, what hesold, how much, and at what
price, and then calculate howmuch you made or made or loss

(52:43):
that day.
Okay.
And so I was, I was sitting nextto him and he was basically sort
of then teaching me how to do itand what he was looking for and
what he was paying attention to,and why he was doing what he was
doing, which was cool.
Um, what I learned though wasthat those guys made more money
than I could have ever imaginedin my entire life.
And, um, they were miserable,right?

(53:04):
They hated their lives, theyhated their jobs, they hated
their spouses.
They just were not happy.
How fulfilling is that?
Like, basically gambling withpeople's money all the time?
I don't, it doesn't make anysense to me.
And I just, I got to the pointwhere I realized I need to leave
before I'm making that muchmoney that I don't feel like I
can leave.
Right.
Yeah.
And so, um, so at this point, Iwas living in Manhattan,

(53:26):
Manhattan at the time too.
So living and working inManhattan.
Um, in a bedroom that wasseriously half the size of this.
I mean, you couldn't open mydoor all the way with a
full-size bed in it.
I, I mean, it was tiny.
Um, third floor walk up, noelevator, no.
You know, it's kind of theclassic Long Island lifestyle.
Very classic.
Yeah.
Eventually, yeah.
And so I had told my company,you know, look, I am, I'm done.

(53:50):
Like, I'm leaving.
I don't really have a plan, butI know that I'm not staying here
for very much longer.
And they, they were great.
They were like, that's fine.
Just, you know, when you have acouple weeks and when you know
a, a couple weeks out, just,just give us a heads up.
That's cool.
And I called my friend.
I had, I had my best friend fromcollege from Michigan was
getting her master's degree hereat CSU.
Okay.
And so I called her up and Isaid, make room on your couch.

(54:11):
I'm moving to Colorado.
No job, no place to live.
I'm just, I'm just gonna make achange.
And about two weeks after I hadthis set in my mind was nine 11.
Oh.
And there I was living andworking in Manhattan, in the
financial Wow.
Industry.
Not in downtown.
We were, we were not, you know,we were in Times Square, our
office was in Times Square.
Um, and.
Was like, yeah.

(54:31):
That was a nail in the coffinfor I'm, yeah.
Here New York is not where Iwanna be.
Yeah.
And so I left.
And why Colorado?
Seriously.
Only because Courtney was here.
That was the only reason.
Knew it was like someplace kindof cool that I got a really good
friend.
Yep.
I knew I wanted to leave NewYork.
Yeah.
Um, there was nothing about theEast Coast that really like,
kept me there.
There was no reason why I neededto stay there.

(54:51):
Yeah.
Um, when I was in college, I wasthinking I wanted to go to San
Francisco, but I, same thing.
Like I couldn't get a jobwithout having a place to live
and I couldn't have a place tolive Right.
Without getting a job.
That's how I ended up back athome.
Well, you live in San Franciscowithout a bunch of money.
Yeah.
Especially these days.
But even back then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was even back then.
So that's how I ended up backhome.
And so I knew I wanted to gosomewhere.
I mean, even, you know, I wasliving in, in New York, went to

(55:14):
Michigan for college.
Like it, I wanted to beelsewhere.
Yeah.
I didn't want to be on the Eastcoast.
I didn't wanna be on LongIsland.
That's not where I wanted tospend my life.
And um, so that was how I pickedColorado.
Like literally was just, I knowone person there, so that's
where I'm gonna go.
Um, so you landed here sightunseen too, basically.
Basically.
Or maybe you visited once beforeor?
I had been once when I was akid.

(55:35):
Right.
We went skiing, I think forspring break one time.
But for this, for thissituation, you were just like,
sight unen.
Okay.
Moving into the great unknown.
Yeah.
That's really how it happened.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so.
Um, and it's just weeks afternine 11, kind of weeks after
nine 11.
So I left that job Thanksgivingweek of 2002.
2001.
One.
Yep.
Yep.
Thanksgiving week of 2001.

(55:55):
I left that.
Um, and so then kind of how Benand Jerry's happened, just
because it all happened at thatsame time then, so, um, so my
dad at that time then, so fromWeight Watchers, he again, we're
kind of yeah.
Years later, jumping around ontime.
We don't have to hit every spoton his timeline.
Uh, but he, so, but he went toBaskin Robbins eventually.
He ended up at, at Ben andJerry's.

(56:16):
Okay.
So he was the director of retailoperations for Ben and Jerry's
back in the late nineties.
Um, he, Ben and Jerry's sold toUnilever in 1999.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so he was there for thattransition.
Um, and you know, kind of likemost corporate people on a big
transition like that, you stayfor 18 months or something after
that.
Right, right.
So he left corporate Ben andJerry's at the same time that I

(56:37):
left my job.
So we were both jobless Okay.
In November of 2001.
And we decided to take across-country trip from New York
to California and kind of rightbefore we were getting ready to
leave and he just left the joband he said, Hey, so there's a
shop in Boulder that's for sale.
And he had been the franchisor,so obviously becoming a
franchisee was, you know,different.

(56:59):
But he said, how would you feelabout running an ice cream
store?
And I said, yeah, I don't haveany interest in doing that.
I didn't go to college for fouryears to work in an ice cream
store.
Again, not having any idea whatit meant to be a small business
owner.
Yeah.
Um, and.
We were like, well, when we doour cross country trip, why
don't we just swing throughBoulder just to see what

(57:19):
happens?
And we did, and you went toPearl Street and you're like,
oh, this is pretty cool.
And we went to Pearl Street and,uh, yeah.
Three and a half months later,March 1st, 2002, I became part
owner of this ice cream storethat I had no idea what to do
with part owner.
So I, so you know, I was 22 or23 years old.
Right.
I didn't have the funds to buyit.
Yeah.
And so my dad and his bestfriend from high school actually

(57:42):
were the investors for it.
Oh, gotcha.
Gotcha.
Um, but the way Ben and Jerry'sworks, they did then, I don't
know if they still do.
It was actually my dad's rule asa director of retail operations
was.
They wanted owner operators.
Yeah.
They didn't want people to justinvest in the business and not
be a part of it.
Yep.
And so whoever was running theshop on a day-to-day basis had
to own at least 20% of thestore.
Oh.
And so I was like, well, I don'thave 20% of the store.

(58:04):
So we built it into the contractand we got it.
Okay.
With corporate was that I wasgonna earn that 20% over the
first five years ing justbasically through sweat equity.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's how I, that's how Igot started with the first 20%
of it.
Interesting.
Um, and then did he not haveloaned you the 20% or something
like that?
He probably could have, but we,we were able to work it around
with, yeah.
Guess so with corporate thatguess that that's basically what

(58:24):
he did, did finance it, sort ofit in a way.
Yeah.
He did finance it, but then hebasically, like our, his friend
Jim, like everybody came onMarch 1st to sign all the
documents.
Jim left and never talked to himagain about it.
And my dad went on to SouthernCalifornia for his last chapter
of work.
Okay.
And I was left in Colorado withthis store at 23 having no idea
what I was supposed to do.
Right.
You got a small percentage ofownership and no idea what to do

(58:46):
with it.
Interesting.
So I really, going back to whatwe said before, really trial and
error.
Yeah.
Like, I just, I didn't have anyother way to do it.
Do you remember like some of thefirst big painful lessons?
Oops.
Yeah.
Or maybe just one.
We don't have to drag all of emtoo.
Yeah.
There were several.
I think a lot of it was justlearning how, and I'm still

(59:06):
doing this learning.
Uh, sometimes my tone is not thebest with people.
Okay.
And so learning to how to havehard conversations with people.
Okay.
And not even necessarily myemployees.
I think a lot of times I'mreally easy on my employees
'cause I want them to like meand I don't want them to quit
and I don't.
But it was with, we had someissues with vendors at the time
and, um, there was a summer thatI wasn't getting any ice cream.

(59:29):
Like they wouldn't deliver, likethey weren't getting it.
They weren't ordering it.
They weren't delivering it.
And um, yeah, I had some momentsof like, how can I sell ice
cream if I don't have ice cream?
You know?
Exactly.
Something that's interesting.
Um, in that, like, I don'tsuffer this, but, but some
people that are really, reallysmart, like you and like your
dad, they sometimes have aharder time like understanding

(59:55):
normal people.
I don't think I'm that smart.
I'm not, I'm not definitely notthat smart.
I just, uh, I just know what Iwant.
Yeah.
And I, and I am very much likea.
Why can't people just do theirjob?
Yeah.
Like if everybody just did theirjob, it would be really, really
easy.
Totally.
It's, that's the blue type inHallows actually.
Uh, which I haven't taken youthrough yet.

(01:00:17):
Uhuh, uh, we'll talk about thatat, at another occasion, I
suppose.
But that, that kind of notion ofif everybody just does the thing
they're supposed to do, it'llall work out gray.
Yeah.
That's all you gotta do.
Um, but unfortunately a lot ofpeople like me are like, what's
the purpose of this?
Again, we get so flighty aboutdo the thing, what the thing is.
Yeah.

(01:00:38):
That's fair.
And I guess that that's part ofthe learning part is making sure
that you're clear in what needsto be done.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean that's probably like, Iexpect people to read my mind
Yeah.
A a fair bit of time as well.
Yeah.
I think that happens inrelationships also.
Yeah.
More so there for me especially.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, what would you say to a,maybe an aspiring Ben and

(01:01:02):
Jerry's operator, uh, in amarketplace that hasn't been
claimed or has opportunity?
You know, I'm thinking, I don'tknow, is there one in Palm
Springs?
Must be.
There is.
Yep.
That seems like a kind of alocation That would be good,
right?
Yep.
There is warm places that,especially warm places.
It doesn't have to be warm,doesn't have to be.
It works better if it's warm.
Yeah.
Warm.
Those, those shops definitely dobetter, but we have, I mean,

(01:01:24):
some of our best operators, I,one of the best operators I know
is in Boston.
Right.
You know, so it's never warm inBoston?
Hardly not actually.
Yeah.
I mean, so it's a matter ofreally building your business.
I mean, it, it comes down toreally having a hundred day war
in those, that's what we call ahundred day war.
Okay.
Not to minimize, um, war, butYeah.
Like Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Yeah.
Like you have to maximize asmuch as you possibly can Yeah.

(01:01:45):
During that time period.
Yep.
Yep.
And like, do you make money someof the other months too?
No, not really.
Like you're hoping to stay.
Yeah.
It is all about cash management.
Yeah.
From Gotcha.
From September, well, October.
So you're like at the low pointof the cycle A little bit right
now.
Oh yeah.
It's like every day I amwatching my bank account to
make, remember to sell cateringto make sure that there's enough

(01:02:06):
money for payroll next week.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
That's how, that's how this timeof year definitely goes.
And by end of May, you're likefeeling a little better.
Yeah.
Uh, by the end of June you'relike, oh yeah, we're feeling
froggy.
And, but you gotta remember goesYep.
In September, it's like, how isall this money gonna be gone
again right now?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's kinda like a, a motorcycledealership or something like
that too.
Probably.
They run a kind of a similarcycle where they just.

(01:02:28):
Gotta load up.
'cause you're gonna lose moneyover the winter.
Absolutely.
And we have to teach our teamsthat too, because they don't
understand, you know, we've get16 or 17 year olds who come in
and they only work for thesummer months.
Mm-hmm.
And so all they see is thismoney coming in.
You're you're printing money,they think Yeah.
And they're like, well, where'sthe owner?
Like, she must be on vacationthis summer.
Why I only making this much.
Right.
Exactly.
And so we actually do, we tryand have some education around

(01:02:50):
how, how does that work?
And so we, you know, some of thegeneral managers will go through
what we call a penny game.
And so it kind of explains, youknow, this Yeah.
Out of a hundred pennies, thisout of a hundred pennies, this
is over already revenue.
This is where all the pennies goand you take out 17 for this and
you take out 20 for cents forthis.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And at the end of it, it's like,how many pennies are left?
And it's like, there's not,we're like, we still have five

(01:03:10):
pennies to that we owe.
Right.
You know?
Yeah.
And so we try and teach themthat just because we're making a
lot of money for two or threemonths doesn't mean that we're
making money.
Doesn't mean we're buying yachtsRight.
In the off season.
Right.
Um, so yeah.
Sorry, I kind of got sidetrackeda little bit, but, so for that
operator, I guess that's part ofthe game Yeah.

(01:03:30):
Right.
Is just recognizing it's gottabe a high season and cash
management se Yeah.
Seasonality.
I, so I actually get calledfrequently for what we call
discovery days.
People who are looking to gointo the system.
Um, and, uh, the number onething I tell people is to make
sure that you're aligned withthe values.
Hmm.
Because, um, I have seen peoplewho are not aligned with the

(01:03:52):
values.
And I, and I wouldn't say I.
I definitely didn't start this,this kind of rollercoaster of a
career as a progressive.
I would never, I've neverlabeled myself as a progressive
or a liberal ever in my wholeentire life.
Um, but understanding that our,our brand will make statements
that will piss you off.

(01:04:14):
And so whether, whether youagree with it or you don't agree
with it, yeah.
Understand that it will happenat some point and that you are
okay with it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and so that's the number onething I tell people is to really
understand interesting the brandand look at the way that, look
at some of their messaging, thepast communications and all
that.
Make sure and see how sure youcan live with it.
Yep.
Um, yeah.

(01:04:34):
Yeah.
Well, and honestly, I was, I hadsome self-reflection or some
curiosity when you said PlannedParenthood was the, the first
consolidated cause for the freescoop day.
I was like, eh, pretty edgy, youknow, easier to go with respite
care or Yep.
So Matthew's House or somethinglike that.
Right.
Yeah.

(01:04:54):
So I, you know, and I think thatthat is me growing in my
convictions.
Okay.
Um, that is, and, and, andallowing my general managers to
embrace the causes that theywant to embrace in their local
communities.
Yeah.
Um, I think when I, the veryfirst time I ever protested in

(01:05:17):
my entire life was when Roe vWade was overturned.
Okay.
Um.
And, but I would also tell youthat when I was in college, I
was on the other side.
I was arguing for the other sideof it.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And as I've gotten older, I'verecognized the importance of
female decision making and bodyautonomy.
And that's, and that's where Iland with that.

(01:05:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I have three children andthree daughters to, to boot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and um, and I think for along time, even with corporate
messaging, I was the one whowas, who was holding back and
was saying, I don't agree.
I either I don't agree with itor I might agree with it, but
I'm not willing, willing, butI'm scared to, to push it out to
my, to, to my customers.

(01:05:59):
Yeah.
And the older I'm getting, themore I'm recognizing that that
is why our customers resonatewith who we are is because we
are willing to take a stand andis because we're willing to be
vocal about what we want and,and how we, how we think we
should get there.
Yeah.
I don't disagree that this is,that this is a challenge.

(01:06:20):
Um, one of my general managersasked me, we were on a call and
she said, um, somebody askedabout safety on Fcon Day at our
stores because of it.
And that to me is mind bogglingthat we have to worry about
safety because of anorganization that we chose that
is.
That is a proponent for women'srights and reproductive health.

(01:06:42):
Yeah.
And it, not just abortions, butalso, yeah.
Cancer screenings and STDscreenings and all these other
things that parent PlannedParenthood does that isn't just
abortions.
And so, I would say, and I, I, Ihear that, but I would say I'm
not too freaked out.
'cause even the people that werelike, like that Trump pardoned

(01:07:05):
over that stuff, they werenonviolent.
You know?
It hasn't, it's been a long timesince there was violence against
Planned Parenthood that I'veseen.
Yeah.
You know, more of the politicalviolence has come from the left
than the right.
In the last eight years in myperspective.
I, you know, I think what I, youknow, there's a lot of violent
rhetoric.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of fear ofviolence.

(01:07:25):
But I, hopefully, I don't know.
Maybe not.
I could, I don't, I mean, don'thesitate to have one of your big
friends, uh, stand around thatday.
Here's what I said is, is we're,you know, we've had protestors
out at Fcon Day Sure.
Specifically down in Boulder forvarious reasons.
Like we've had protesters inBoulder.
Um, and ultimately is what Isaid is, if, if you guys are in

(01:07:50):
alignment and these are thecauses that you guys want to
support, then, then you have totake a stand.
Mm-hmm.
And.
Does that, does that put atarget on our back?
Possibly.
Whether it's violent or notviolent.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It, it still is going to,certainly there could be draw
attention, be some number ofpeople that won't buy ice cream
there anymore.
Exactly.
Right.
It could draw attention to, to,to us and our values.

(01:08:13):
Your group catering might godown maybe, or, or won't go up.
Yeah.
Maybe.
Right.
There's risk there.
Yeah.
But I, I, I appreciate yourboldness.
Yeah.
Um, if nothing else Yeah.
And your embrace of what yourteam wants to do too.
Yeah.
I suppose.
Yeah.
So God's speed, that's, that'ssort of where I'm landing now
Yeah.
Is, is that we have to lean intowho we are.

(01:08:34):
Um,'cause otherwise it's justkind of fak and inauthentic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I mean that's, uh, thereare, or I like to say confront
the dragon, you know, everybodyin all their lives is better
served, confronting the dragonand approaching the things that
they're scared of.
Yep.
Um, and not that many people doit very willingly.
Yeah.
So coaching that among your teamand a greater community, I think

(01:08:56):
is positive.
Yeah.
Um, I wanna take a break.
Okay.
And then we will come right backand do some other stuff.
Sounds good.
Alright.
Cheers.

(01:09:54):
We kind of got the advice to thesomebody that might wanna do a
new, new Ben and Jerry's, but Ithink I want to go back to, um,
a young person that's just outtacollege trying to figure it out.
And maybe small business isinteresting.
Like, I don't sense any regretnot working for$180,000 a year

(01:10:16):
and living in a one bedroomapartment for the last 15 years.
None.
And being single now, probablychildless.
Uh, yeah.
Who knows?
No, none.
I can't, I can't thank what thisjob has given me for the last 23
years.
Um, I, I think when I finallystarted to realize how to what I

(01:10:36):
was doing, um, right.
Started to get good at it and,and I wouldn't say that I
actually even know what I'mdoing quite yet, but, um, when I
started to feel a little bitmore comfortable in it was
actually when I started having,having kids.
Okay.
Um, and I didn't really have anyother choice.
Mm-hmm.
So I guess I can, yeah.
You couldn't be there all thetime.
Yeah.
I guess I can if, if you're headin the head in the tank.
Right.
So I guess I can kind of even goback a little bit further.

(01:10:57):
So after about six or sevenyears of me.
You know, six days a week, youknow?
Mm.
Down in Boulder all the time.
And doing what doing that.
I got burned out and, and kindof tying in some of the soccer
analogy I was used to, theharder you work, the more
successful you are.
Mm.
And that was not necessarily thecase in the ice cream world
because weather or traffic orconstruction outside my door or

(01:11:22):
recession, like I, we could alot of factors outside your
control.
There were a lot of factors and,and, and I wasn't smart enough,
nor am I now to necessarily knowhow to na navigate those
challenges and, and pivot.
I, you know, I wasn't, I wasjust trying to figure out how to
run a store, forget how to pivotinto something else, to kind of
accommodate for those, thosechallenges.
And so I got really burned outand, but the shop was not doing

(01:11:47):
well.
It wasn't worth anything tosell.
I, you know, I had theseinvestors that, you know, and so
I felt terrible and so we triedto keep it.
I had a girl who was working forme that was, that was really
great.
Um, so I promoted her into ageneral manager role, but I
actually went and got anotherfull-time job working at State
Farm for again, like$32,000 ayear.
Okay.
Or something like that.
Yeah.

(01:12:07):
Um, and you're married withlittles at this time?
I was married.
No littles yet.
No littles yet.
Um, yeah.
No littles yet, but we weremarried.
Okay.
And, um.
But that was a giant colossalfailure because I did it so
wrong.
I took this girl who Yeah, ideawas a really good employee Sure.
But had no idea how to be ageneral manager.

(01:12:27):
And I didn't train her, I didn'tteach her, I didn't guide her.
I just was like, here, run thestore.
And I like taught her how tomake a schedule and stuff.
Right.
Like, and here, this is how youplace some orders for ice cream.
Right.
I, I didn't, I didn't know, Ididn't teach her anything.
And so it was no wonder that itwas giant failure.
And so about six months afterthat, we decided to part ways,
um, mutually, like I didn't fireher.

(01:12:49):
She didn't quit.
Both of us were like, this justisn't working.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I said, I, and before kindof kind made that decision, I
said, we either have to sell itor I have to recommit myself to
being in the shop full time.
Mm.
And so I said, you know what,that's what I'll do.
I'll go back in and I'll try andlike build this business back up
to what it should be.
Um, and then eventually maybesell it and go do something
else.
Well, about two weeks after Imade that decision and Jody

(01:13:11):
left, I found out I was pregnantwith our first kid.
Do Memorial Day weekend of 2009.
Oh, shit.
How, how do I do that?
Yeah, exactly.
How am I supposed to be in theshop all the time with an infant
over the first summer?
Yeah.
So, um, this is really thetransformation of you to a
business owner Rea Absolutely.
That was a business operator.
It forced me into doingsomething different.

(01:13:33):
And so over that winter, therewas a young, young kid, his name
is Drew.
I'm still, he's still on myLinkedIn.
I love Drew.
Um, he was a part-time studentat cu and so it wasn't a
full-time job for him, but hewas, he became my like right
hand manager person and, but Iwas able to like work with him,
not just like, be like, here.

(01:13:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Here, here are the keys to theshop and I'm peace out.
Yeah.
You mentored him almost.
And we sort of, I mean, youknow, we did, we, we more so
than I did with Jody.
Um, and he ended up actuallybeing the one who hired my now
manager, Alexis.
She walked in one day.
She had moved here from the eastcoast and she walked in looking
for a job.
He interviewed her on the spotand hired her right then.

(01:14:15):
Wow.
And, um, turned out to be right.
So then the best decision that Iever had was having Drew in that
role and doing that.
Yeah.
And, and so, excuse me.
And so, um, from 2009 thenuntil, um, COVID year mm-hmm.
That shop increased in salesevery single year, so 10 years

(01:14:36):
straight.
Wow.
That shop increased in salessome years double digit
percentages.
Wow.
And it was a matter of like.
Figuring, figuring it out.
Yeah.
Just, just understanding how to,how to work with somebody, how
to train them, how to mentorthem, how to empower them to
make decisions, how to hire, howto, all of that.

(01:14:58):
Yeah.
Um, and and part of it is that,you know, Alexis has been
amazing to me and she's beenloyal to me and she, and she
wanted to learn and she wantedto grow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it provided both of usthat opportunity.
You really can't make somebodylearn stuff.
No.
It's one of a hard thing.
So you can set an environmentwhere they can and the materials
and the s ps and all that.
Yep.

(01:15:18):
But you can't really make'emlearn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that, that's really, Iwould say I had no other choice
but to learn how to actuallydelegate and empower somebody
else to run that store.
Yeah.
The right way, or it was, or itwas never gonna work.
And so, yeah.
So that's kind of how that my,my world evolved into where it

(01:15:38):
is now.
Now.
Like no remorse.
Like if you could have made$200,000 a year for the last 20
years working in Manhattan and.
No, not working in Manhattan.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sometimes, sometimes I wonder,had I not gotten in the store
and I just moved to Colorado,still in Colorado, got some
corporate thing and got somecorporate job, you know, where

(01:15:59):
would I be?
Yeah, sure.
There's, there's, there's,there's always curiosity of what
could have been.
Yeah.
Um, but ultimately I also knowthat this job gave me the
flexibility to also, you know,be with my children more
frequently.
Sure.
Um, when they were young.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I can still to this day,like if I need to be at
something at school in themiddle of the day, chances are I

(01:16:19):
can do what I can to be there.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
Well, and having had a motherthat became an entrepreneur,
like maybe the girls will, maybethey won't, but that is such a,
to me, historically, it's suchan empowering thing to people
whether they go into academia orcorporate or other things.
That kind of grit that comesfrom figuring it out.

(01:16:40):
Figuring it out.
Yeah.
And yeah.
And you know, I mean, I have twoteenager, two teenage girls
right now, so I'm not thecoolest person on the planet to
them right now, but, you know,I'm, I hope that we're teaching
them some, some good lifeskills.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For, for the way that we'rerunning our, you know, running
our lives and our businessesand.
My oldest has worked in the FortCollins shop the last two
summers.

(01:17:00):
Okay.
Um, you know, just verypart-time, but just to kind of
get her feet wet.
Um, she's realizing now she'sabout to get her driver's
license.
She's realizing like, oh, it's25 minutes away and that's gonna
be expensive in gas.
Right.
So she kind of wants to trysomething different and get a
job closer to home.
Yeah.
And I go try that too.
I want her to see, you know, howother businesses are run and how

(01:17:21):
other leaders lead.
And I want her to have adifferent experience than
working for.
Totally.
And I was very clear that whenshe came to this shop, like, I
am not your boss.
Risi is your boss.
Right.
And you'll go through all thesame training programs as every,
as everybody else, and how thesame expectations as everybody
else.
You don't come to me.
Right.
You go to and vice versa.
Um, so it was very clear that,that I was not her boss.
I signed her paycheck, but I wasnot her boss.

(01:17:43):
What are the teams, uh, arethere like a team of like five
in the low season and 25 in thehigh season or something like it
gotta go up and down quite a bitjust to manage through.
Pretty close.
I mean, I don't know.
I'm just guessing there, butYeah.
No, pretty darn close in, inseason 20 to 25 in Fort Collins
and Boulder Uhhuh.
Um, during the winter.

(01:18:03):
10.
Okay.
Ish, but mostly part-timers.
All part-timers.
Yeah.
So I, I had my general managerat the shops and then, um, and
then yeah, every, almosteverybody else is part-time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Makes sense.
I mean, and Denver's Denver'sless five during the winter and
maybe time's a little smalleroperation.
It's a quite a bit smaller.
And the dem the, the.
Boulder one is right on PearlStreet.

(01:18:25):
Right.
So the Denver one is on thecampus or near the campus at the
u Near campus.
It's right on the corner ofEvans and University.
Okay.
Next to Pete's Cafe, but just alittle smaller space.
Smaller footprint.
Smaller footprint.
Uh, yeah, smaller sales,smaller.
It's just foot traffic is notthere.
Demographics isn't, it's not atouristy area.
Oh right.
So it's just, um, it's quite abit.

(01:18:46):
So it's really, and studentshave money, but it's mostly
their parents' money and Yep.
Do I wanna buy beer or do Iwanna buy ice cream?
Right.
Beer usually wins kind of thing.
Yep, exactly.
Or wine or spritzers or whateverthe kids are drinking these
days.
Yeah.
That seems mushrooms, ecstasy.
We also seem to be all that, wealso seem to be right off, it
seems to be that they walk adifferent street to campus and

(01:19:07):
not go right in front of ourstore.
So we're working on that beingtied in there for a while or is
changing the space a little bitof an option.
I can't really afford to movethat location and, and Denver's
a hard area right now, so Denverright now has the highest
minimum wage in the state.
Yeah.
Um, so that makes it reallychallenging.
Well, and downtown isn't thetourist segment that used to be

(01:19:27):
downtown.
Yeah.
I go down to 16th Street Mallabout once every couple of
months.
I actually have a season ticketsto the ell and so I try and get
over to 16th Street Mall everytime I go down just to check it
out and see.
I'd love to have a shop on 16thStreet Mall.
Yeah, I would, I would love to.
If they can, and they're gonnahave to fix it first.
They can fix it before it'sgonna work.
Yep.
Yep.
And, and there's some promisingthings, you know, we were just

(01:19:48):
down there not too long ago.
I mean, the, the constructionthat they've done is really
beautiful.
It looks great.
Um, there's just some otherchallenges that, I mean, public
safety is first and foremost.
Yeah.
And unless they figure that out,yeah.
Big dollars will stay away.
Yeah.
So there's not really any otherplace in Denver right now.
Isn't that I'm looking.
There isn't.
So there isn't, like Rhino iscool, but it's not, doesn't get

(01:20:08):
that kind of traffic.
Yeah.
How about like, could you putsomething, uh, I like Anthony's
pizza, people were here and theydid a deal with Red Rocks.
Could you put a bit and Jerry'sat Red Rocks?
I don't know.
I, I, I don't know.
It would be nice to be able to,um, some of those have kind of
licensing deals too with othercompanies.
Mm-hmm.
I haven't, I think somebodytried to reach out.
One of my employees tried toreach out to Red Rocks at one
point, but I, I don't know wherethat went, to be honest.

(01:20:29):
Well, if you want anintroduction to the, the local
Anthony's pizza franchisor.
Okay.
Uh, he got a deal with Red Rocksomehow.
Awesome.
Or at least as far as I know.
So Yeah.
That's, that's a good deal.
Um, I can make an introductionthere or we can talk offline.
Yeah.
I'm looking, um, at a space inColorado Springs right now.
Okay.
Um, that would be prettyexciting.
And then like downtown or westside over by New our city,
there's a new soccer stadiumdown there called Wener Wener

(01:20:52):
Field.
Oh.
And so, um, and I don't evenhave an l OI site.
It's all theoretical right now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very, very, very, thetheoretical.
Well, and it's kind oftheoretical that they'll be able
to develop traffic, right?
Yeah.
Like they may be able to or theymay not be able to.
Yeah.
We went, my wife and I lived inColorado Springs for like three
years and, uh.
There was a minor leaguebaseball team that moved and

(01:21:13):
while we were there, and it wasactually really cool fun.
Um, I love that area.
Yeah, I know.
It's, it's geographically it'samazing.
Yeah.
I love the area down there.
So, um, you ready for the pingpong ball challenge?
Oh, man.
I don't know.
Sure.
You want to?
Sure.
Okay.
So the, the, we're gonna chooseone of these questions, um, and

(01:21:33):
the winner that contacts usthrough Instagram via DM at the
Loco Experience PodcastInstagram.
I got a, a, a answer fromsomebody to my personal
Instagram.
I don't check that very often.
So, to the lo Experiencepodcast, Instagram, give us the
answer.
So you're gonna pick three ballsoutta here and they're each tied
to either an interestingbusiness question or perhaps an

(01:21:57):
awkward, weird question.
Wonderful.
Can't wait for this part.
28.
What's your proudest achievementin your business?
Oh, my leadership team.
Yeah, that's an easy one.
Yeah.
My leadership team, uh, theyhave all won.
Sorry, my mic is, yeah.
They have all won Manager of theyear, as we talked about before.

(01:22:18):
Mm-hmm.
Um, they have also all been.
Hired in some for some sort ofcapacity from corporate for
different roles, so Oh wow.
Um, two of them now have served,um, in a traveling trainer
capacity, which is a corporaterun kind of thing where they
actually go to other shopsaround the country.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, and, and, and corporate kindof subsidizes trying to get the

(01:22:39):
Yep.
Crappy operators fixed up alittle bit.
Exactly.
And so either the lessfinancially successful operators
or, or brand new.
So if like a store changed handsthere go, so there's a new
franchisee taking over.
No coaching actually.
They'll go in and help, helpcoach and work with their team.
So two of them have served inthat capacity and all three of
them now Risi just got on, um,as a, on the manager advisory
council.
Oh wow.

(01:22:59):
So all three of them have nowsat on that council as well.
That's really cool.
Mm-hmm.
I should probably introduce youto Jay Fayville sometime.
Have you met Jay?
I have not.
Um, he will be a future podcastguest.
He just started coming back tomy Rotary club on a regular
basis, but he was, he was one ofa small number of franchisees
for Dominoes that basicallyhelped Dominoes, reinvigorate

(01:23:20):
itself.
Awesome.
Um, and so, and he used to havelike 28 stores or something
around, mm-hmm.
Around Colorado and stuff.
22 A lot.
Yeah.
In Wyoming.
Uhhuh.
Um, but he's, he's a reallyinsightful guy and he really, he
was one of the people thatforced change.
Up the chain on Domino.
That's hard to do.
Not that Ben and Jerry's needsit, I'm not saying you've
criticized, but if there areways that they can improve, like

(01:23:43):
that's a really cool thing.
I, I was really inspired bychatting with him about, I'd
love to meet him.
I love the, I love to AndDominoes clearly has.
Yeah, right.
Like they were high, theysucked.
Now they're pretty strong again.
Well, and I mean, being able tochange corporate culture from a
franchisee perspective is, wouldbe inspiring to hear how, how we
did that.
Right.
I'm actually not completelypowerless in this way.

(01:24:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Grab another ping pong ball.
All right.
Seven.
Seven.
How do you define happiness?
Ooh, that's a great question.
I've told my kids this, and thisdoesn't answer the question
right, right away, but is whenthey teachers or anybody asks
them, what do you wanna be whenyou grow up to answer with, I
wanna be happy.

(01:24:24):
And I said, you will throw themoff because everybody will be
looking for you to give themsome sort of answer on what
you're gonna do.
Um, I like that.
Actually, it reminds me of thefirst time I went to Aspen and
went for a hike.
Uh, there was an amazing,probably local Aspen lady there
wearing a t-shirt that said,happiness is the new rich.

(01:24:47):
Oh, I like it.
Or, happy is the New Rich.
Yeah.
Like, you'd rather be happy thanrich and Yeah.
And all those hedge funds, guysthat were miserable and all the
billionaires that.
Hate their lives Exactly.
Right.
Taught me something very, veryimportant.
Very early, um, to, but how doyou get it?
Yeah.
To answer the question, right.
How do you get it, man?
How you define it.
Yeah.
Ah, fulfillment.

(01:25:10):
I guess.
Feeling, feeling like you aredoing something good in the
world.
Yeah.
Um, right.
And both raising children andsort of raising a leadership
team, I guess I, sure, I guess Ican find, find that having,
'cause you develop people,right?
There's nothing in both ways.
More grand in some ways.
Yeah.
Um, engaging with, you know,community and connection.
I think that's, that's reallyimportant.

(01:25:30):
Um, which I haven't reallyalways done before, and I will
be fully transparent, but I'mworking with a business coach
now and sort of my word for theyear is joy because I, because I
had, I had lost it.
Mm-hmm.
I, I think that there's a lot oftimes where we get so caught up
in financial stressors and, youknow, family stressors and
business stressors and thatsometimes it's hard to, to, you

(01:25:54):
know, kind of see where thathappiness and joy comes from or
to, or to take the time to findit again.
Um, and so I think, um, yeah.
Well, and I, if I can, I'dobserve that entrepreneurs
especially are usually not wherethey wanted to be by now.
You know, and so you, you'realways frustrated with yourself,

(01:26:15):
which can kill your joy a littlebit.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, I think that that,there's part of that too.
And I think, and you know,there's, there's challenges of
running a small business,especially a small retail
business right now that wedidn't foresee five years ago.
I think, you know, to say thatwe survived Covid, I kind of put
that in air quotes because Ithink there's a lot of small
businesses who don't know ifthey actually survived Covid

(01:26:35):
yet.
Yeah, we still are.
Oh yeah.
We're still paying loans back.
We have, um, I mean, my loansfrom Covid are 30 year loans,
right?
Like yeah, who knows if I'mgoing to survive?
Yeah, you probably got the PPPto help for some, but then yeah,
but then you, you still got theSBA loans that sort of got us
through.
Um, and so that's stressful, youknow, and say, yeah, I have

(01:26:56):
three shops and there's somedays where you're like, I own
and run and manage, and I'm notan absent owner of these three
stores.
I mean, I'm an absent owner frommy team member's perspective,
but not from my generalmanager's perspective.
Um, like why, why are we stillstruggling kind of personally on
a financial level?
And I think that there is part,part of that due, you know, why

(01:27:17):
I work really, really hard and Ihave these businesses, and yet
we still kind of live paycheckto paycheck.
Um, we're, we're not also, youknow, living in a shack on the
side of the road.
Like we have a nice home and welive very nicely.
But, um, that it, it's, it cangrind on you in terms of, in
terms of that.
And so, yeah, I've re I havereached out and like I said,
hired a, a coach and kind ofworking through some of that.

(01:27:39):
And in terms of.
Making sure that you do takethat time to step back and it
gratefulness.
Yep.
Yep.
Um, so I have my presently appon my phone and I've been doing
a gratefulness post every singlenight.
I love it.
Um, for probably three yearsnow.
And so it's a matter of finding,finding the good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think, I think our societyas a whole could be a whole lot

(01:28:01):
better off if everybodyconcentrated on finding the good
instead of finding the bad.
Yeah.
Have one grateful a day.
It would do a lot of people Goodfor sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's, I guess that's whereI find it.
All right.
I like it.
Um, I, uh, and feel free toswing that out and grab another
ball.
I, uh, was gonna mention, wehaven't known each other for
that long, but I think Novemberof 19, uh, my blog post was, uh,

(01:28:23):
the balance between Contentmentand Striving.
Okay.
Uh, I have to read it.
And the answer was gratitude.
Yeah.
Like, if you're grateful, youcan both be content in your
heart, kind of have joy.
Yep.
Right.
Have that con I can tell you'rea very proud mom and all these
things, and you still wannastrive.
Right.
You still wanna get better everyday.

(01:28:44):
Yes.
You want your team to grow andchange and develop and, and that
somehow, that balance betweenthere, there, there's some,
some, some joy and gratitude andwhatever else.
I just finished a book not toolong ago.
It was called The PerfectionistGuy to Losing Control.
Oh, I love it.
And it was, it was eyeopeningfor me.
I, because it really.

(01:29:05):
I, I would consider my self aperfectionist and Yeah, but what
it, but what it, how it explainsit is, but that's okay.
Like, it's okay to be aperfectionist, but, but it has
to be an adaptive mentality asopposed to a maladaptive.
Well, loosely.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And so let's take this thingthat you know about yourself and
let's use it for good.
But part of that was then thatthere's nothing wrong with, and

(01:29:29):
I would say a female, but itdoesn't matter.
Male, female who wants more.
Yeah.
Like, it's okay.
And part of it kind of oursociety says, you know, men can
always want more, and femaleshave always been taught, like,
if you want more, you're beinggreedy, you're being ungrateful,
you're being all these thingsbecause you want more.
But actually, no.
Like, it's fine.
Yeah.
You can, you can be happy andcontent and all of that, but

(01:29:51):
still want more.
Yeah.
That, that's an okay place tobe.
Oh yeah, for sure.
Well, I think that's, that's whyyou still strive.
Yeah.
Because I want more.
Yeah, exactly what you got.
Number 11.
11.
If you could time travel, wouldyou visit the past or the future
and why and when?

(01:30:11):
Oh, that's a hard one.
I know.
Um, I think I would have to sayI would visit the future and
more so from a why, why not thepast, right?
Oh, done happened.
Yeah.
We already know what happened.

(01:30:32):
I think.
Um.
To an extent, you know, how far,how far out?
Oh, pro.
Well, so where am I?
Where am I?
I'm 47, almost 47 years old.
I mean, I feel like if I only go50 years, I'm still, hopefully I
might still be alive, butprobably about 50 years.
Well, you wouldn't even age.
I'd be, I'd be, you wouldactually stay exactly the same
age as you go up there.
Id, I'd like to.
I, you know, it'd be, it'd becool to see where your, how your

(01:30:53):
kids end up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, it'd be cool to see where weare as a community tech.
I would love to see technology.
So 30 years or 20 years orsomething.
Yeah.
Even 10, 40, 40, no.
Like 40 or 50 years.
Yeah.
See where, where my kids are asadults in their lives with
families and Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, um, see what the AIGod is doing with us by then.
Yeah.
And, and just, yeah.

(01:31:14):
That I, I mean the technologyadvancements would be, would be
pretty darn to hard tounderstand, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Hard to understand.
And pretty cool to see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Agreed.
Yeah.
All right.
Are we living on Mars?
Right?
Like, I wanna know, right?
A hundred percent.
I dig it.
I dig it.
Um, so I am going to call the,um, the question, the answer to

(01:31:35):
the question.
The winner of the$20 Ben andJerry's ice cream gift
certificate.
Okay.
Uh, is gonna be the, uh, theproudest moment of having
developed and help flourish suchoutstanding managers.
Is that a fair Sure, fairstatement.
I love it.
Yeah, I think that's the mostconcise answer.

(01:31:56):
I love it.
So, uh, so DM us to the localExperience podcast page on
Instagram, uh, or to that samepage on, uh, LinkedIn if you
want to.
Although we get less, lesstraffic.
Instagram's better.
And, uh, you can win that ifyou're the first to respond
after you listen.
Good luck.
Yeah, good luck.
Um, let's talk about this fella,uh, that you found somewhere not

(01:32:18):
long after you moved to Boulder.
Is that my, you remember myfellow?
Yeah.
Yeah, my fellow Brian.
Um, yeah, Brian with a standardB-R-I-A-N or BRY standard
B-R-I-A-N.
Just checking it helps me toremember him.
Yep.
Um, yeah, Brian, I met him twodays after I moved here.
It was a blind date, so myfriend Courtney, um, introduced
me to Brian.

(01:32:38):
Apparently I was supposed tomeet Brian.
Um.
We met in January of 2002.
Apparently I was supposed tomeet him back in November when
we did our CrossCountry trip,but I got violently ill after a
restaurant experience.
Okay.
And, um, and didn't make it tobreakfast the next morning.
Oh, so this person that you knewalready thought he was kind of
Yes.
Like right for you?
Apparently she was, but I had noidea.

(01:32:59):
I did not.
Interesting.
I did not know that was theplan.
I didn't know he was supposed tobe a breakfast.
Um, and so, uh, yeah, so I gothere on a Wednesday towards the
end of January of 2002 and wewent out on a blind date then
two nights later.
Okay.
And we've been together eversince.
No way.
So we celebrate 20 years marriedin October.

(01:33:19):
Oh, congratulations.
Thanks.
Are you doing something superspecial?
No.
Um, we talked about doing acouple of different things, but
we have not, we have not settledon anything yet.
I think right now we're leaningtowards just going to the kind
of the New England area anddoing leaf peeping up there,
which we've never done.
Yeah.
So I dig it.
We're we're pretty casual.
We went to Telluride for ourhoneymoon.
All right.

(01:33:40):
So that kind of like folly typeYeah.
Place is kind of our jam.
Are you adventurers together?
Is that part of your thing?
No, not that.
No.
You know?
Yeah.
What was it?
It's going back to the whole joyquestion.
Yeah.
Like right now is just likewe're in the middle of shit.
Right?
Like, it is like work and, youknow, mid midlife kids and

(01:34:00):
midlife like work and all, noneof our kids drive yet.
And so we have three kids goingdifferent.
It's like, and they all stay intheir bedroom until they walk
outta their bedroom and say, sayto go somewhere, say, mom, I
need to go here.
Yeah.
Or I'm hungry, like right now.
Right.
Yeah.
And so it feels like we spendvery, very little time together
these days.
Yeah.
Um, it's funny, you know, we,and what's, we laugh a lot, you

(01:34:22):
know, that that was really kindof the thing.
I mean, we, I was 23, 20, yeah.
22, 23 when I met.
He's four years older than I amand we didn't start having kids
until I was 30.
So we had a, we had a long time.
So you were dinks for a decade.
Yeah, we, so we almost, we hada, we had a good time with
friends, you know.
Yeah.
We, we had a, we like to go outand party and have people at our

(01:34:45):
homes and I like to host and so,you know, kind of much to his
chagrin, we have, we had a lotof parties as we've gotten older
that's sort of died down ofcourse.
Sure.
It's funny, we both sort oflike.
Not completely cut out, butreally cut out booze since the
first of the year.
Okay.
Not through any other reasonthan just like, why not?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, um, I mean, you look slimeda little bit.

(01:35:05):
Is that Thanks.
I, I don't know.
A little bit.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Yeah.
I mean, there's probably somecalories going in from that.
And so we, um, it's funny.
So we actually went, I was justtelling somebody we went, uh, on
Sunday, we managed to scoot awayfrom the kids for the day.
And so we went up to, we wentand had breakfast, which was
like our thing when we weredating.
Like, we would either the two ofus or all of our friends, we'd

(01:35:27):
meet for breakfast on Saturdayand Sunday mornings.
We loved going out forbreakfast.
So we went out to Breakfast,Rocky Mountain Estes, we went
and had a late lunch in Lions.
Like we just, it was great.
Yeah.
And as you were walking throughEstes, he kind of said to me, he
goes, isn't it strange?
He goes, we probably would'vestopped at a couple of these
places and had, you know, had adrink somewhere along a long our
walk.

(01:35:47):
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he goes, we're we, neitherone of us even care to do it
right now.
Yeah.
And so it's been interestingtrying to figure out like, how,
how do you spend your time whenthat was kind of a big part of
Yeah.
How we spent our time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and so that's, that'sprobably the biggest cultural
change since 2020 in some ways.
I mean, certainly a lot ofpeople self-medicated a lot at

(01:36:08):
home.
Yes.
And alcohol sales overall wentup, but like the.
Downtown bars and stuff.
Like they might as well close at10 a lot of times because
everybody just goes home earlynow, you know, so I, or
midnight.
Yeah.
So a guy at our, in my localthink tank, actually Chad
mentioned, uh, the other day inour last meeting, he said,

(01:36:30):
alcohol sales have de decreasedfor four quarters in a row for
the first time sinceprohibition.
Wow.
In, in 2024.
They decrease every quarter.
Yeah.
And, you know, I think it'llkeep going.
I think so too.
I mean, you used to always thinkthat alcohol was kind of a
recession proof industry.
Right.
And we're starting to see achange in a change in that.
Well, and there's, you know,there's a, you know, weed is

(01:36:53):
legal in a lot of places now.
It has a lot less calories.
Yep.
You know?
Yep.
And it costs a lot less.
Yep.
Right.
You can get high 10 times for 30bucks.
Yeah.
Whereas you might get drunk onetime for 30 bucks kind of thing.
Mushrooms, at least in Denver,Colorado.
Or you know, a lot.
I know.
Gosh, like when I was takingmushrooms back in college, I was

(01:37:14):
one of like, you know, maybe twoand a hundred people that would
take mushrooms on an occasionalbasis.
Yeah.
For shows and this, that,whatever.
Now, uh, like there's a lot of40 something people microdosing
mushrooms every week.
I are saying the microdosing.
Yeah.
Regularly, or, you know, I've.
It seems like microdosingsometimes is like, oh, that's

(01:37:35):
microdosing.
That seems like a lot.
I don't know anything about it,but I, but yeah, I don't, I
don't know either.
I, but it seems like the, the,it's, there's definitely a
shift, at least cultural changethere.
It's like very interesting.
Well, and if, yeah, like if yougo back to thinking about where
this whole thing has been, likethe, the Vietnam Right.
That your dad was willing tosign up for, to choose his

(01:37:57):
journey rather than get draftedand become a bullet stopper for
some dumb ass that was high onheroin.
Yep.
Um, and then that kind ofcountercultural movement and the
Nixon's ban on drugs and allthat, and all the violence
that's been created in Mexicoand Central America for years.
Right.
And whatever.
Yep.

(01:38:17):
And even now with Trumpy beinglike, no, you gotta stop the
fentanyl coming in from China.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Or something.
'cause that's where it's comingfrom.
Well, probably at least thecore.
Yeah.
Um, but like, well, it's ourdemand here, our freaking drug
obsessed culture.

(01:38:38):
Oh.
And then, well, I guess, I guessthat's, that's probably the
worst reason why is'causethere's too many people on
drugs, like pharmaceuticals aretaking market share away from
alcohol probably.
Yeah.
I mean, that's a whole notherconversation with, you know,
mental health.
It's like a whole different, Idigress.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
But boo drugs just can't drinkas much if you're on the, on the

(01:39:01):
psychotropics.
I know, I know.
Yeah.
I digress.
No, yeah.
But that, you're right.
I mean, mental health, like Isaid, is completely different
conversation.
So what's Brian do with himselfon a, on a weekly basis?
So he worked at Vestus for about15 years.
Okay.
Um, and then he left there aboutfour years ago or so.
Alright.
Um, he works now for TomarPharmaceuticals.
Okay.
And so he is their sitemaintenance manager.

(01:39:23):
So he is had kind of thatcorporate journey that he much
more blue.
You didn't more blue collar, butYes.
Yeah, for sure.
But he's doing blue collar work,but in the corporate world.
Yep.
Doer stuff instead of thinkerstuff, but Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yep.
So you've still seeing it kindof that a little bit, you know?
Oh yeah.
It's, it's different being inthe office than in being in
facilities.
Right?
Yes.
But you also then see the waycorporate does things and the

(01:39:45):
way they treat their people andlike, he comes home and not, not
with his, he, you know, in, inthe past he's come home and I'm
like, this is exactly what notto do.
Right.
Or how to motivate people or howyou want a company.
Like, I, there are a coupletimes where I'm like, can I
please just go in and talk tosomebody there about I, sorry,
you talked to your hr, like,this is not how it should be
done.

(01:40:05):
Yes.
And so that gets, you know,frustrating.
One of our challenges we like todo in the family segment is, uh,
one word description for thechildren.
Would you like to attempt that?

(01:40:59):
Yeah.
Um, you got three girls, is thatwhat you said?
Yep.
So Elena is 15.
Okay.
Um, and she is, you can use ahyphen if you need it.
Theatrical.
Okay.
I like it.
Vivian is 13, uh, introvert.

(01:41:20):
Hmm.
Sort of.
She's a, she's an anomaly.
Uh, anomaly is more flattering,I would say.
Yeah.
Anomaly.
We'll go with that.
Okay.
Uh, and Adeline is gonna be 11in a few weeks.
Crazy.
I like it in all the good ways.
Okay.
Yeah.
I like it Uhhuh.

(01:41:40):
I like it.
Um, so you spaced'em out prettyevenly there?
Yeah.
You're gonna have a nice, uh, solet's see, you've got basically
whatever, seven years, yearsishyears, eight years.
Seven or eight years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Somewhere in there.
And then you're gonna be emptynesting.
Yeah.
Are you guys excited about thattime or like already looking
ahead and regretting it?
I am excited to have, I amexcited.

(01:42:01):
I, I'm excited to see what theydo.
Mm-hmm.
Like, that's, I, Brian isdefinitely the one who's like,
if they wanna come back and livein the house, like they have a
room forever.
And I'm like, no, they do not.
And part of my reasoning on thatis like, if they come back and
live with us, and I.
That we do our job.
How would that be?
Yeah.
Kind of.
And the, we didn't do our job,our job hundred percent is to

(01:42:22):
raise, raise, you know, kids whoare sustainable, su successful,
kind, caring Yeah.
Part participatory human beingsin this society.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I really believe if, if, ifthey end up, and I'm not saying
like if they hit a rough patch,they can come back home.
Right.
But like, they should be offliving their lives.

(01:42:42):
That's what they should bedoing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And if they're not, then that'sa measure of success for a
parent ultimately.
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, um, but yeah, I mean we,we've definitely, you know, our
oldest will be gone in two yearsand there's definitely like, uh,
how, how, how, how did thathappen?
Yeah.
Um, and we will miss themimmensely.

(01:43:03):
But, but it's time.
Yeah.
But it's time.
Let's talk about, uh, your momand dad a little bit more if we
may.
We, we kind of flattered yourdad by calling him extra smart
and insightful earlier, kind ofalong that journey.
But what did he go on to do fromthere?
And, and they're still around,or he is at least both of, yeah,
they're still around.
Um, yeah, so my dad, his finalchapter was in, was at Jenny

(01:43:25):
Craig in Southern California andretired from there.
Okay.
Um, my, my mom always had jobsalso, so, you know, she's good
role model in terms of that.
Um.
She, when my dad went toCalifornia, she had a really
hard time with leaving the housein, in New York.
Mm.
Um, she had some really goodfriends back there.
Okay.
And so it took her a coupleyears before she was willing to

(01:43:48):
move, I think.
Oh really?
I think the weather finally waslike, all right, it's time to
go.
Interesting.
And so she finally moved toCalifornia with my dad.
They were out there for a whileuntil about 20, uh, 21.
So Covid Really, they were stillin pretty good health.
Yeah.
And, um, they'll both be 79 thisyear.
Oh, wow.
Um, but so, you know, they werestill in good health.

(01:44:09):
They were traveling to seemyself and our family and my
brother and sister's families acouple times a year.
Yeah.
And Covid kind of shut that downand they missed being able to
see their grandkids.
Um, and so, and they mo ended upmoving here.
Oh, cool.
So they live in Timnath.
Um, my dad, when he retired.
I, he's probably been retiredfor about a decade now.

(01:44:30):
When he retired, I was like,he's gonna have a job again in
six months, because it's justwho he was and he never did a
thing afterwards.
And he has been happier as aclaim, happy as a cla Like he
just, he is content in that helikes playing golf.
He, he takes on projects.
Um, so when he first retired andthey were living in San Diego,

(01:44:51):
he was on the board of the Boysand Girls Club, so he kind of
kept himself busy with that.
Um, when they moved out here, hegot really big into genealogy.
I, uh, when I tell you heprobably spent the equivalent of
a full-time job for a year doinggenealogy stuff.
He did that.
So he traced us back to theMayflower.
I was gonna say, you lookEnglish potentially.
Well, Disney Mang is myhusband's name, so my we're

(01:45:11):
fishers, my is my main name.
Okay.
And so, so that's where yourEnglish, uh, yes.
English and Irish look like.
And Irish, obviously English andIrish there is very Irish,
English and Irish.
Well, that's not natural.
Um, um, and so, yeah, so he'salways, he plays golf.
He's always really kept himselfbusy.
Um, my mom, uh, is nowstruggling.

(01:45:33):
She has, um, Alzheimer's relateddementia.
Yeah.
And so we've been kind ofdealing with that for the last
couple of years and trying tomanage that and, and figure that
out.
My dad is so kind of full-timecaregiver.
She's still living at home and,you know, all that kind of
stuff.
But, um, you've engaged withlike the Dementia Together
organization and stuff likethat?
A little bit.
Found an organization calledPeople First.
Okay.
Um, and they offer, um.

(01:45:55):
Classes and they offer supportin home support and things like
that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, they've been good.
That's nice.
We're struggling with getting mydad on board with all of it.
Yeah.
You know, I think it's, that's areally hard, even accepting how
real it is and stuff and howmuch and how much work it will
become and Yeah.
Starting to get that processnow.
So it's super hard.
It's like the worst disease.
And so, I'm sorry.
My, my dad's mom, uh, sufferedwith that for like over five

(01:46:17):
years.
Yeah.
Uh, before she passed.
And it's just hard.
Yeah.
It's just really hard.
And so we're starting to see,you know, she's getting a little
bit more frail and she's, youknow, wants to be home a lot.
Yeah.
Which is fine.
Yeah.
Um, but I think my dad's decidedthat getting a puppy is a good
idea.
So they're about to have apuppy.
It probably is.
Yeah.
We'll see.
You know, I mean, they're gonnabe 79 with a puppy, so we'll see
how that goes.

(01:46:37):
Um, we'll send the, the crazykid over and get some of her
energy out there.
You the puppy in next months,so, yeah.
No, so that, but you know, weget to see them and so that's
nice.
That's cool.
Um, yeah.
That's who I, I meet a wholebunch of people who's moved here
because their kids moved hereand they're never moved back to
where they were or whatever.
Yeah.
You know, and so.
Yep.

(01:46:57):
Um, that's neat.
Yeah.
Um, oh, we, you know, one thingwe didn't talk about at all in,
in this conversation so far, weoften talk about faith.
Okay.
A little bit.
And I suspect, um.
That there may have been some ofthat in your deeper background
being kind of a conservativecollege girl at the time, right?
I don't know.
I'm just guessing.

(01:47:18):
Yeah.
I mean, I, I, we grew up goingto, I grew up gonna church.
My dad was Lutheran and did not,um, did not attend.
Okay.
He was not religious at all.
My mom grew up Catholic.
Um, and, but you went toLutheran church, you No, we
didn't.
No, we didn't.
So we had nothing to do with theLutheran side.
Okay, gotcha.
So my mom, so we went toCatholic church.
Okay.
So we did all of that, but notchurch school or anything like

(01:47:38):
that.
I, you know, I went through allthe sacraments and I went to
religion through, you know,middle school, whatever.
But you went to public school asfar as your regular education?
Yes.
Yep.
All public school.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, it's not part of mylife now.
Yeah.
Um, it, it has not been probablysince I could make the choice
to, to not go.
All right.
Um, your husband also the same,came from a nun or a Catholic,

(01:48:01):
same, uh, Christian, notCatholic.
Yeah.
Christian.
Um, but not Catholic.
Uh, I don't, I don't know what,what denomination they were.
Yeah.
But, um, also I think we, youknow, we got married and said
we're, that's, it's just not whowe are anymore.
Yeah.
It's not, it's not kind of theway that we want to be
ourselves.

(01:48:22):
Um.
You know, is do I believe insome sort something, some
creator force, something?
Yeah.
Yes.
I also believe in evolution, youknow, so, yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but we also have been reallyintentional about allowing our
kids to explore it.
So our oldest daughter actuallyhad got baptized a couple years
ago.
Oh, wow.
So she found some friendsthrough a church that she really

(01:48:44):
liked.
Okay.
And started going to some summercamps, a youth youth doing that.
A youth group and this and thatand Exactly.
Yep.
Yep.
And so she was at summer camp acouple summers ago, and they,
she called us in the middle ofcamp and said, can you guys come
up early on Sunday for pickupand, and watch me get baptized
and, and will you allow me toget baptized?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we said yes.
'cause that, that's her deal.
Now.
Now we also told her in yearsprior, like, you can't get

(01:49:07):
baptized this year, because wedid want her to have, we didn't
want her to go to summer camp.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, a we wanna know,she's got agencies, a reli, a
religious summer camp and havefun for a week and then be like,
oh, I'm gonna get baptized.
So it needed to be, it needed tobe intentional on her part.
Yeah.
Um, she needed to understandwhat she was doing and why.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and so now that's kind ofour, our 11-year-old, almost

(01:49:28):
11-year-old is now, like, if Igo to camp, can I get baptized
this year?
And I said, no.
You know, like interesting.
You're not, you have not put inthe work yet.
And Elena was still 13?
I think so.
Sure.
So I said, you haven't put inthe work yet to get to the point
where, where you understand thatresponsibility and why you're
doing it.
And so we're, we're definitelyopen to them exploring it.
We're not, we're not.

(01:49:49):
Insulating them.
You're drawn, not drawn to it bythem at all.
Not in the least.
Well, my last guest or the, theepisode that came out a couple
weeks ago, like when he was 15,his family moved from California
up to South Fork.
Mm-hmm.
Colorado, which is, I dunnowhere that is, it's like, it's
like a town of 300 just down thehill from Wolf Creek Pass.
Okay.
So it's in the boonies ofSouthern Colorado.

(01:50:09):
Okay.
Um, but he started going tochurch with this lady from their
town that asked if they couldtake, she could take his kid to
church, and then pretty soon allof his siblings and his parents
started gonna church too.
Interesting.
Like within about a four yearspan, which was an interesting,
I hadn't really heard that storybefore Uhhuh in that context.

(01:50:30):
Um, but doesn't sound likeyou're there yet.
It's not, you know, there aretimes where I, I mean, I know
people who are very religiousand it means a lot to them.
And there are times where I cansee the comfort and I can see
Yeah.
How it is guiding them in,leading them in their lives.
And, and that I think is, iswonderful.
I mean, that's a great kind ofguiding light for them.

(01:50:50):
Um, it's just not been somethingthat I've been drawn to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
As a cynical person and kind ofa libertarian generally, I kind
of, I resonate with the phrase,uh, if there is no God, then the
state is the God.
Okay.
Uh, and so it's like, wellgross, right?
So I'll just go for Right.
That other intangible thing thatI can't really refine.

(01:51:10):
I was just gonna say, what'soption C?
Right.
And that's fair.
That's fair.
A hundred percent.
So, um, I'm ready to go with thelow co experience if you are.
Okay.
Uh, the craziest experience ofyour lifetime that you're
willing to share with ourlisteners could be a day, a
moment, a near death experience,finding love on the slopes.

(01:51:31):
I dunno.
I spent a semester in college inAustralia.
Okay.
And so, um, crazy.
You're not crazy, but in the,during that, um, I was able to
sky like second year, thirdyear, it was my junior year.
Okay.
Um, had gotten broken up by aboy and was heartbroken and had
to find, screw it, I go toAustralia.

(01:51:52):
Exactly.
I had to like, sign my mom'sname on some paperwork.
I called her, but I was like,it's due tomorrow.
And so I, like, I can't, it'salready the mail, mail it.
Right.
Like, we're mailing thingsright.
These days still.
Right.
Because I'm old.
Um, so, uh, got her blessingand, and put in my paperwork and
ended up in Australia inFebruary of, yeah, 99.

(01:52:13):
Okay.
I think.
Um, but so in that experience,um, it was just, you know, I
mean, we just had well, so faraway from everything you'd
experienced before then.
It was so far away.
I mean, very, you know, I didn'thave to learn another language.
It was not, it was still very.
Felt very American.
Sure.
And I was also, um, living withother Americans.
Sure.
So, so it wasn't, um, as kind ofculturally immersive as, you

(01:52:36):
know, you, you would like beingan exchange student or whatever.
Yeah.
Right.
Um, but, but it offered me, uh,we, you know, went camping.
Did like a four-wheel campingtrip for three days.
We did a sail boating trip forthree days.
I went skydiving twice.
I went bungee jumping, Iclimbed, I walked on a glacier.
Wow.
Like I did some all in onesemester.

(01:52:57):
Uh, between, yeah.
So from February to then I, onmy way home, the glacier one
skydiving, actually oneskydiving, the bungee jumping
and the glacier were all in NewZealand on my way home.
Oh, cool.
So, um, but we did for springbreak was when we did the three
day camping and the three dayparasailing, or not parasailing,
but sailing excursion.
So that was amazing.

(01:53:17):
So, you know, koalas and lizardsand, yeah.
Like, well that's what I wasthinking.
Just so mind expanding.
Like, you moved away to Michiganalready, which was about as far
as you could imagine at thetime.
At the time, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think I've always been opento those kinds of, you know,
I've done a half iron man, I'veclimbed man two incline a couple
times.
Like I enjoy those kind ofphysical Yeah, yeah.

(01:53:40):
Challenges and adventures.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
I dig it.
Yeah.
Um, was there a highlight momentwithin that trip?
Were you ever scared?
What's the scaredest you've everbeen?
Oh, the bungee jumping?
Yeah.
In terms of like physical, likepet, I was petrified.
I.
I was petrified.
Yeah.
That's an experience.
I will never, I would skydiveagain.
I would never bungee jump.
Really?
Yes.

(01:54:00):
Oh, I feel like skydiving is somuch scarier.
This is why, because until youlike have done enough jumps, I'm
not jumping by myself.
So somebody else is actuallyjumping out of the
responsibility.
I'm just attached to them.
When I bungee jumped, I had tophysically throw myself off of a
perfectly good platform.
Fair.
Fair.
Yeah.
No, I was petrified.
I will not do that again.
So, um, people that want to knowmore about, let's talk about

(01:54:23):
your Fort Collins shop.
It's right down in Old TownSquare.
Yep.
So pop on down.
You won't see Jessica thereunless it's an emergency
staffing wise.
Right.
Or if you come early in me andare having a meeting, I, I still
have, you know, I have onsitemeetings with them at least
every other week or try to, um,yeah, we, so this summer we're
gonna be doing movies in theSquare again.

(01:54:44):
So Good.
We did, we tested'em out lastyear.
We did three of them in thesquare last year.
So we're, we're doing that.
Um, we haven't finalized thedates with the DA yet, but it
should be every Monday orTuesday in July.
Okay, cool.
Um, so we've got four.
That's great.
We used go to do Belgium formovies that New Belgium, but
Yeah.
You know, so we'll have movingaway from beer culture these
days.
Yeah.
Ice cream culture's better.
Yeah.
So we're gonna do four of thosethis summer, um, through July,

(01:55:05):
which we're super excited aboutdoing again.
Awesome.
Um, we, yeah, we offercaterings, we offer cakes, um,
that shop, specifically FortCollins and only Fort Collins
right now does in in shopbirthday parties.
Um, so we do those early in themorning on Saturdays, typically
from like, you know, 10 or 10 30to noon.
Oh, that's fun.
Um, so there's a coupledifferent birthday party options
there.
Um, we're doing a lot of benefitnights right now.

(01:55:28):
So Tuesday nights from five toseven, most of them are full, I
think through April.
Um, and then we'll take a breakuntil next off season.
Oh, we're, somebody gets 20%sale, so we partner with an
organization, whatever.
Yeah.
Between 10 and 20% we'll go tothe organization, um, based off
of Yeah.
Their kind of, their involvementin getting people in the door
and how, how engaged and activethey are in doing it.

(01:55:48):
Um, so yeah, Tuesday nights fromfive to seven, there's different
organizations.
I just wanna shout out that's sothoughtful.
It's like this isn't a gift Ifyou can actually get a bunch of
your friends and followers as anonprofit to come on down and
buy ice cream and hang out inthe square.
Yeah.
We'll give you more.
Yeah.
Like, we want to have aparticipant, not just a
beneficiary.
That's exactly how that's, Ilove it.
Exactly how we've seen it.
I love it.
Is, is.

(01:56:09):
We're not here to just givemoney away.
Right.
We want to support and we wantto engage, and we wanna build
awareness.
We wanna do all of those things.
Yeah.
I love it.
But we don't wanna, we want youto be a part of it.
Yeah.
And if you're not a part of it,then we're not gonna give you as
much.
I was part of the, my wifeactually was employee number
seven at the Matthews HouseUhhuh.
Um, and, uh, I don't know howmuch you've heard about them or
not, but it's a little bit, kindof a full, kind of a whole

(01:56:31):
person approach to humanservices.
Um, but their coaching fortheir, for their social workers
early on was if you ever feellike you're working harder than
your client is at their success,then you need to stop working so
hard.
Yeah.
And they need, they need to stepup.
Yeah.
You know, and that kind ofphilosophy, I think could be
such a benefit if it permeatedmore of our culture.

(01:56:53):
Like, I'll help you.
Yeah.
But you have to, you have toshow up, step up, do the work.
You still have to do some worktoo.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think that that's thebiggest lesson, right?
Is like, success is never goingto just be handed to you.
Right.
You can't, you know, there's allthis kind of world around
manifestation and imaginationand all of that, and that's
great.
Yeah.
You need that as this.

(01:57:13):
You need to be able to visualizethe end goal, but you still
gotta, that's, you still gottado the work.
I think that's part of thebridge between that partisan
divide a little bit is theRepublicans have become like, at
least their appearance is thatthey're just too cold and they
don't wanna pay people's.
Social Security and Medicaid andwhatever, this and that and
that.
The Democrats are too tolerantof half-assed this and you gotta

(01:57:36):
show up and do the work.
Yeah.
Right.
There might be times when youneed help and like, you know,
Jesus said there will always bethe poor.
Yeah.
'cause there's always gonna bethe the slackers.
Yeah.
You know, but the people thatwant to succeed that come from a
hard place, I, I think it's agreat thing for Yeah.
You and every company that wantsto help.
Yeah.

(01:57:56):
Cheers.
Thank you very much for havingme.
I hope you've enjoyed it.
Yeah.
This has been awesome.
Okay, great.
Cheers.
Talk to you next time.
Yeah.

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

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