May 11, 2024 • 32 mins
Legendary stories and family tradition can be simple and profound. Such is the case with Elf on the Shelf. Meet Chanda Bell, daughter of a magical Mom that created Elf on the Shelf. Together with her twin sister, they have created Lumistella, www.lumistella.com
Hear about faith, hope and love starting with every child. Through Elf on the Shelf and all the other Northpole characters, an extraordinary magic is preserved. This makes their company timeless and universal.
Visit the most inspiring Chanda at www.chandabell.com and start your Christmas/Holiday season early with an Elf on Your Shelf. It's a tradition that must be carried forward.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/legends-extraordinary-lives--5351541/support.
Hear about faith, hope and love starting with every child. Through Elf on the Shelf and all the other Northpole characters, an extraordinary magic is preserved. This makes their company timeless and universal.
Visit the most inspiring Chanda at www.chandabell.com and start your Christmas/Holiday season early with an Elf on Your Shelf. It's a tradition that must be carried forward.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/legends-extraordinary-lives--5351541/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hey, good morning. This issuccess made the last Legends. I'm Rick
TOKEENNI. Our very special guest todayis Shanda Belle just like Chandelier. I
love her first name, and youfolks probably know her as the co founder
of Loomis Della, the Santas storyteller, the inventor of Elf on the shelf.
(00:36):
The reason why we've got her ontoday's show is to celebrate her entire
career, but mostly to talk aboutwhere her life is going from a significance
perspective. It is an honor tohonor you today. Welcome. Oh,
thank you so much. Rick.That is such a kind introduction. I
appreciate that. Well you deserve it, and I want you to tell your
(00:59):
backs story to our listening audience sothey can fully understand what's happened since nineteen
seventy four right up to today.Well, thankfully I was not in business
in nineteen seventy four. That wasthe year that I was born. But
(01:22):
yeah, you know, our story, you know, does start in nineteen
seventy four with a tradition that mymom introduced to our family, and she
told my sister and my brother andI that there was an elf from the
north pole that was watching and listeningfor Santa Claus, and so she told
us, you know, that hewas going to go back and report back
(01:45):
all that we had been up toduring the holiday season, and we absolutely
fell in love with our elf.So it was an elf that she had
from her own childhood, and thatelf would sort of watch during the day
as we were told, and reportto Santa at night and in the morning,
before you know, we woke up, the elf would fly back from
the north pole and land in adifferent spot in the house. And so
(02:08):
we grew up with this beloved tradition. I remember talking to my elf,
telling my elf what I wanted forChristmas. So the product that people now
know as the Elf on the shelfwas really birthed from our own family tradition.
And so I know the magic thatthe tradition brings for families because I
(02:28):
lived at as a child, andso when I grew up, I taught
school. I graduated from college,taught school for six years reading language,
arts, social studies, and thenstayed home to have my son and be
a stay at home mom. Myhusband and I were absolutely broke. He
is a school teacher. I wasa school teacher, and so to go
(02:49):
to one school teacher salary and supporta family was definitely lean. So we
embraced that calling for me and Istarted working for my dad a couple days
a week, and that was reallyjust to make ends meet. And when
I did that, that's where myparents lived, roughly two hours two and
(03:15):
a half hours from where my husbandand I lived, and it was too
hard to make the drive with aninfant, so I would take my son
with me, work all day,spend the night with my parents, work
all the next day. And itwas during that time that my mom and
I decided to write a book,our story based on our experience with the
Elf on the Shelf. Then whenyou fast forward from there, we couldn't
(03:38):
get anyone to publish it. Weweren't famous, we were told it was
destined for the Damaged Goods. Beenour little idea. I think the publishing
world just didn't know what to dowith it, and so we ended up
having to start our own company,and the Loomis Stella Company. It was
originally called Cca and B the worstcompany name ever. There's a whole story
there. So anyway, we endedup having to start our own company.
(04:03):
You know, hoofing the streets,nickel and dining. You know, we
had no real money to start acompany, so we ended up starting it
on our credit cards, so thankfullywe had good credit. And now it's
kind of grown into an entire empire, right with several of the world's most
(04:24):
beloved Christmas brands under our umbrella ofthe Lunastella Company. So I get to
serve as co CEO and founder.I run the company with my sister,
and I handle all the creative functions, so all of the storytelling, whether
it's an animated special that people mightwatch on Netflix, or whether it is
a storybook or a new product,that all comes from my world. And
(04:45):
my sister does a great job ofrunning sort of the operations piece of the
company along with our president and ourCOO. Yeah, it is a great
journey. There's a couple of thingsthat I want to highlight in that,
given the Sunday is Mother's Day,would you tell us more about your mom
and the magical childhood that she helpedcreate. Obviously with Elf on the shelf,
(05:12):
but there must have been something elsein her heart and mind that said,
let's make childhood for our girls veryspecial. Oh, you know,
I would like to think that itwas that intentional probably. You know,
my mom is big on legacy,and I think that's something she's instilled in
the three of us, right,And I think that that marries well with
(05:34):
your podcast and your viewers and whatthey're looking for. You know, at
some point we're all going to bedust, you know, and so what
are we leaving behind, right andin our case, getting the chance to
leave behind family memories, tradition,the love of Christmas time, you know,
(05:55):
which is eternal, and imbuing ourcharacters into that. So my mom's
heart for really making Christmas special forus is absolutely the heart of why we
now, I think, run aChristmas company. You know. She we
didn't have a lot. I wouldsay it was a very very lean,
(06:17):
very modest upbringing, and my parentsboth always really saved at Christmas time to
make sure we had gifts under thetree and worked, you know, all
year to make sure that was aspecial day for us. So I absolutely
attribute you know, my sister,my brother, and I was love of
(06:38):
holidays and tradition and a legacy towhat my parents instilled in us through sacrifice.
Yeah, what a core value.It just goes to show you though,
that those that have very little somekind sometimes can be very imaginative and
(06:59):
make just one or two gifts superspecial and carry forth the traditions. And
I'll never forget Shanda that we werewhen my two girls were I think two
and a half and one. Wesat there and we had candles, candlelit,
(07:26):
little ceremony and we were reading theChristmas Story from Matthew and Jennifer knocked
over the candle and I think itstarted the Bible on fire. Oh wow.
And to this day, I stillthink about, you know, if
we didn't have much of anything,but we had the four of us,
(07:47):
and we had a story, andwe had Christmas. And so it's like,
what can families do today with verylittle and to hang on to the
magic and spirit of Christmas is gotto represent hope, Yes, absolutely,
it does represent hope. Right,it's the peace that passes all understanding that
(08:11):
we're promised through the through the seasonof Christmas. And I think, you
know, it's one of the reasonsI love Grinch so much. It's,
you know, Christmas comes regardless,right, Christmas was coming regardless of the
Grinch and taking all the presents.And I think that's something that all of
us should hold near and dear toour heart. That Christmas really is about
(08:33):
celebrating the birth of Jesus, andit is about, you know, taking
a moment to reflect on you know, those values right, kindness, goodness,
generosity, faith, hope and love. And you know, we're busy
these days, everyone is, especiallyraising children. It is you know,
(08:54):
all consuming at times. And soI think, you know, taking the
time to mark the things that areimportant and you know, put ourselves back
on that track of what is importantand celebrating in the little ways. Those
are the things you actually remember,right. You remember that moment, You
remember the you know, the Biblecatching on fire, You remember the four
(09:20):
of you being there and reading theChristmas story. And you know, I'm
willing to bet there's a very fewChristmas gifts any of us actually ever remember
it's about the anticipation, It's aboutthe time we've spent together. And I
think that's what you know, peoplecling to at the holidays. Yeah,
I do too. Back in elementaryschool, we were introduced to all these
(09:45):
Christmas songs and I'll never forget asa six year old hearing about Santa Claus
and checking whether we were naughty ornice. For the first time. I'd
never heard that term until school.And the elf on the shelf is an
(10:05):
extension of that watchman, isn't it? It is? Yeah? So,
you know, I think part ofwhat we do is we we reach into
I would say, the lore andthe mythology of Christmas. You know,
Christmas elves, the idea of Christmaselves have been around for a long time.
But what we do is we takethat and we make that into something
(10:28):
that truly, you know, answersa question for children, right, like
you know, how to Santa flyaround the world in one night? How
does he know if I'm not youor nice? How do you know?
How do all of these things happen? And I think we all value the
idea that our Santa Claus is actuallyyou know, Saint Nicholas, right,
and the values that come from thatfaith, faith based man of you know,
(10:54):
who travels around the world just forgenerosity's sake. And so we reach
into that lore and we put somestory, use characters kids love, and
hopefully parents can use that to teachyou know, bigger principles, life principles
around characters kids love. At Christmastime, that's right exactly. How has
(11:18):
this enterprise that you lead with yoursister, how has it changed your entire
perspective on uh? On our worldthat one hopes is about kindness and hopefulness,
Well, I think at its corechildren and that that innocence, you
(11:39):
know, has not changed. Ithink we don't really give children enough credit
for how deep they can be andhow at their core, you know,
there is a lot of kindness andgenerosity inherent in their innocence, you know,
And so I think our ability tolean into that and to train it
(12:01):
up. I mean, in ourworld, the whole idea is that our
North Pole runs sort of and whatI'm going to call the Christmas Spirit continuum,
and we basically say that faith,hope, and love comes from children,
and it comes from people, andSanta can't do all the magical things
he does at the North Pole withoutthat. And so whether it is our
(12:22):
elf pet Saint Bernard that captures thatspirit of Christmas and it's barrel and releases
it, or you know, theelf on the shelf that watches to make
sure you're producing enough Christmas spirit inyour home so that Santa again can make
his magic at the North pole.I think it. You know, just
capitalizing on that innocence in the heartof children is what we do well,
(12:46):
and we bring those to life throughour story and through our characters. Yeah,
you do it way beyond just well. It's I think it's just incredible.
It's almost like you've got this goldstandard within the company of excellence.
But then in preparation to show Iwatched your bloopers and I thought, somebody
(13:11):
inside the company has the ability tolaugh at themselves, to watch animation bloopers.
I watched it. I went,that is so clever, and I
thought, I bet you that Shandaand her sister laughed a portion of the
day because you know, you betterkeep it, better keep some levity inside
(13:33):
of an enterprise. It's about happinessand hope and Christmas spirit, I hope.
So, you know, we havean amazing team. My general philosophy
and I have to credit our HRdepartment. You know, on people is
you know, my sister always saidpeople buy from people they like. But
I think the genuineness of the spiritof what's inside of a person is what
(13:56):
pours out right, and so Ithink people see through faith, and so
we look for people and hire peoplewho have that genuine spirit of We call
it fire. It's our core valuesas a company. But it's all about
family, it's about excellence, it'sabout respect and integrity is what Fire stands
(14:20):
for. So family, integrity,respect and excellence. And so I don't
feel like you can create that narrativein a false or fake way. I
think when you're full of that,it comes out right. And so we
look for people who have those corevalues and so, yes, absolutely they
are part of their you know,I think the fabric of our company is
(14:43):
people who have a good nature,a good sense of humor. You know,
we all believe we work for SantaClaus, and so there is just
a level of imagination that comes withworking for the company. And yeah,
in any business, honestly, youcan't be afraid to pick fun at yourself
and what you do. We're allhuman, right, That's right, Shanda.
(15:05):
Before we cut to a commercial withMother's Day coming up, I remember
a particular middle school teacher who lookslike you and was my second mother,
and I want you to just kindof take the podium here and think any
teachers that you had along the waythat were like mothers to you. Wow,
(15:31):
what a huge honor. You know, I spent six years as a
teacher, and when I hear fromold students, I mean, there's really
no greater compliment, because teachers dowhat they do because they love it.
It is a hard, hard job. I have lots of teachers who poured
into me and made a difference.I remember in high school Coach Cagel.
(15:54):
He was amazing health teacher. Youknow, I knew his family through church,
and you know, he just firstof all, he was always willing
to give me a pass when Iwas running late because I was a little
more social than I probably should havebeen. But you know what I remember
about him was who he was asa person, his character. He was
(16:18):
the one who poured into everybody,whether it was through sponsoring FCA activities or
you know he ran the sound beforefootball games, or I mean he was
just he was in everything everywhere,pouring into all of the students. I
certainly had lots of teachers. Mymom actually was a teacher of mine.
For one year. She pulled usout of school because she didn't think we
(16:41):
were learning how to write. AndI certainly appreciate that because now that's how
I make my livelihood. But shehomeschooled us for one year and poured into
the three of us, making sureour writing skills were where she thought they
should be. I can think ofa fifth grade missus pinner you know there
(17:03):
there. I think it takes avillage s RaSE children. So there are
so many teachers out there pouring inI worked alongside some great teachers when I
taught school. My children have hadwonderful teachers who have poured into them.
But it really does take a village, and so all of my gratitude is
extended to those who've really given theirlife to educate us. But it's not
(17:27):
just the reading and writing and maththat we get from them, you know,
it's character lessons and you know howto share, and it's all the
other things that they do in agiven day. That's right. Thank you
so much for saying that. Andhere's to you, Mom. You you
left us twenty one years ago thenight before Mother's Day, and I miss
(17:48):
you every single day. Okay,instead of us running one of our crazy
commercials, I'm going to throw itto you, and I want you to
tell our listeners where they can contactto you, especially for a speaking engagement.
I watched some of your speeches yesterdayand they're so inspiring. So tell
us where they can find out aboutyou your company, see all these great
(18:11):
animated animated films, and buy anyof the wonderful products. Yeah, people
can visit Shandabell dot com that hasall sorts of great information, especially around
speaking engagements for anything company related.The Loomis Stella company website and of course
(18:32):
Elf on theeshelf dot com both havegreat information and you can get back and
forth. I'm on Instagram and I'mon Twitter, so happy to communicate with
people that way, and then goodold fashioned LinkedIn is always a great way.
So I'm under Shanda Abell on thoseplatforms, and again, Shanda bell
dot com is a great way tofind out more about booking me for any
(18:56):
sort of engagement. So I appreciatethe plug. Thank you for that.
Okay, So on the back halfof the show, I told Shannon that
we were going to be focused onsignificance, and over the course of fifteen
years of podcasting, we've become sonearly focused and almost hyper intentional on the
topic of giving back. And wethink that success is just mere living,
(19:23):
but significance is a life of givingand I read on your website to those
two as you said, for thosethat have little but give a lot,
it's about a heart condition. SoI want to know what is your first
memory of ever helping anybody in life? That is a tough one. I'm
(19:51):
sure. I'm sure it was helpingsomeone on the side of the road.
My dad was a he I mean, just the biggest heart truly. When
you think of like southern hospitality andpeople helping their neighbors, that was my
dad. He was very handy.He could fix things, but you know,
if someone was broken down on theside of the road, especially a
(20:12):
mother, children, you know,any situation like that, he was always
going to stop and help, regardlessof how busy he was or what he
had going on. I do rememberhelping lots of families at Christmas time.
Like I said, my parents didnot have much. I would say were
very lean year round, but theywould save up at Christmas time, and
(20:33):
my parents very much instilled in us, you know, this idea of there's
still people less fortunate, and soI remember my parents actually buying food and
groceries for my sister and I asbest friend who they had nine children,
and their dad lost their job.I remember my parents, you know,
(20:56):
really adopting. There was a studentmy mom helped to tutor when they were
in middle school, and very unfortunatesituation. And I remember my parents buying
Christmas or you know, finding differentpeople to donate and you know, buy
Christmas for a family. And soI really can't remember a time where my
family wasn't growing up doing something toserve other people and help people who were
(21:23):
less fortunate than we were. Yeah, so do you young parents out there
and even grandparents. It's the simplelittle things that you can provide as examples
and planting those seeds. Hey,what would the elf say in terms of
advice about moving from being selfish toself less? Let's hear it from the
(21:45):
elf. Wow, well, certainlyyou'll be on the naughty list for me
selfish. I think it starts withthat, right. You know, you
cannot help Sannah and you cannot createChristmas cheer by being selfish. It's all
about, you know, giving andgiving back is the number one way to
(22:06):
make the nice list. So Ithink from the ELF's perspective, a spirit
of generosity and kindness is essential tomake in the nice list. Very good.
I want you to recall one ofyour favorite and smartest collaborations that you've
had with your sister, where youtwo kind of were at odds about something
(22:30):
and then you came together and createda beautiful outcome. Oh wow, that's
a tough one, you know,I think. I think the company existing
every day is an example of that. You know, we don't always see
eye to eye. We are twins, but we're we're sisters. We're individual
(22:51):
people, and so you do thinkdifferently, you approach things differently. But
because I think we're twins, it'sa it's a value in our case because
we've spent our entire life working throughthings, right, we have really figured
out, you know, how towork through things. We're very honest with
each other. We're very open.At the end of the day, I
(23:12):
know that she loves me and Ilove her, and we You know,
when you can respect the person whoworks alongside of you and know that they
really have your best interests, inthe company's best interests at heart, it
makes it a lot easier to listento their perspective. And so usually we
come at it different ways, butwe usually find the right common ground.
(23:33):
And I you know, our presidentand our coeo also you know, play
a part in and mediating you know, what is the middle ground here,
and so you know, I can'ttake away from from their value and what
they bring. But I think,you know, we do a really good
job of typically we see things thesame way because I think we hold the
same things valuable and deer and sothen it just becomes, you know,
(23:57):
tactics for accomplishing something at the endof the day. Oh, great answer,
Thank you for that. Back tothe elf, what do you think
is the ELF's best habit? TheELF's best habit, well, I'm sure
they eat a lot of candy,so you know, they got to brush
(24:17):
this little teeth, I would thinkis probably the ELF's best habit. But
you know, at the core ofwhat the elf on the shelf is designed
to do is, you know,bring magic and moments to a family during
the holidays. It is as simple, truly as the elf just moving six
inches to the right or left.That's how simple it can be in an
(24:38):
ELF's visit to a home. Andso I do think that one of their
best qualities is their ability to reallypay attention to detail and then participate in
these family moments in a way thatbrings joy that would not happen without the
elf being there. Oh nice,Okay, this is a board of directors
question. I was in a meetingyesterday and there was a question about when
(25:03):
does a founder step away and hirea CEO. And now you mentioned on
the show twice that you have aCEO and president. When did you come
to that conclusion that you may bebetter off as a creative spark within the
company versus running the day to dayoperations. Yeah, so I'm actually the
(25:25):
CEO with my sister. We're coCEOs. We have a COO, so
we have a chief operating officer andour president who both really serve in those
day to day functions. I thinkit comes to that point where, first
of all, you've built enough aroundyou where you can trust the people and
trust to do it the way thatyou would do it. I think that's
(25:48):
a really important key, especially forpeople who are the founders of a company
or something like that. I amnot a micro manager when I trust the
people who I have around me.When you don't all of us center type
a's right, you're going to micromanage, you know, like crazy, because
you know you need to know thatit's being done and being done well.
(26:11):
And so for us, it's aboutputting the right people in the right places,
and then you know, can theymeet that bar. Do we share
the same definition of excellence? Andif we do, that's when you can
pass things off. So our chiefoperating officer and our president really do much
of the day to day operations.And then I try very hard to really
(26:32):
plug into that chief creative officer placewhere I can add the most value to
the company. So whether it's onour marketing team, I also serve as
chief marketing officer or you know,in the content that we're putting out,
because that's what I can bring thatno one else springs right. And so
(26:52):
you have to find where your nicheis. You have to find what you
do best and what brings the mostvalue to the company. Spend your time
there. Yeah, thank you forthat. I wondered about how how you
do organize and compartmentalize who does what. And some of the greatest companies in
(27:15):
the world, like yours, arealways coming up with new ideas because it's
twenty eight million households, enough fornever never exactly that's it. And so
you're you know, you're sitting aroundsomebody. Maybe it was you watching the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and you go, hey, what, why don't we
(27:37):
have a balloon? You know,because that's that's the to a lot of
people, the official kickoff date ofthe Christmas season. It's not at Hobby
Lobby, by the way, sincethey start selling Christmas July. Yeah,
I think it's out now right inMay, probably, you know so.
But it's but the way the wayyou thought through this, it's almost like
(27:59):
you've you've created this fluid environment,this culture of creativity, to where you're
always thinking about what's next. Yeah, it's I think if I had known
at the onset where this would beand where this would go, I think
(28:19):
ignorance was probably bliss. You know, the idea of starting it from truly
scratch. I mean there's nothing,there's no HR department, there's no legal,
there's no money, there's no there'sliterally nothing. So you are wearing
all the hats. You're cobbling thistogether from scratch. And this was not
(28:40):
our backgrounds. You know. Mysister did come with a sales and marketing
background, she worked on eric QVC, but I was a school teacher.
My mom was a school teacher.My mom did work in an advertising agency
for some small amount of time tohelp put me through college, you know,
but it's not anything we really hadstudied or knew. My dad was
(29:03):
entrepreneurial and ran his own little smallengineering and fabrication firm. But you know,
you're you're bringing all this together withwith from nothing. But I think
you have to ask yourself, asa good leader, always the question like
what is our north store? Whatis our vision and our mission and our
purpose and our values, Because ifyou don't clearly define that, other people
(29:26):
will define it for you. Andyou know, the Bible talks about how
without a vision that people perish,and people are far more likely to follow
vision really than anything else. Andso you have to be very clear about
what you want to be, whatyou want to be doing, who you're
doing it for, you know,all of those things. And once we
(29:48):
landed on telling the stories of Santa'sNorth Pole, like that is our vision?
Can we you know, can wetell all of the stories? I
don't know, but that's our northstar. It helped us get out of
the box of you know, we'rejust a publisher or we're just the elf
on the Shelf, and now thisyear we're introducing the Santa Verse. It's
the entire enchanted world of Santa Claus. So whether it is you know,
(30:11):
the places that he visited, thetwo thousand years of backstory, the characters
that live in the North Pole.Now, it's an endless world of storytelling
that we have here at our fingertips, and so I spend my best time
focused on that and bringing that worldto life for families and children who have
you know, embraced our world.Twenty million people you know are either have
(30:33):
grown up with or are growing upwith the Elf on the Shelf, or
Elf pets or Elf mates or anyof our other brands Noura in their home,
and so clearly they want that fromus, and it's our job to
give it to them, and wefeel incredibly honored to be able to,
you know, to embrace the Iwould say, the greatest mythology of our
time and really expand that and makeit unique and special for families. You
(31:00):
are so inspiring your as advertised,it was an honor to get to honor
you for Mother's Day, Honor yourmother, Honor teachers that are mothers out
there, and just to get totalk to you about your great enterprise which
is always moving and going in theright direction, but it's so focused,
(31:22):
it's so hyper focused. So congratulationsto you and your sister and your entire
team, and we wish you avery happy Mother's Day and just kind of
an extra kick here. Keep beingcreative and spend spend the you know,
your remaining time in that creative zoneto give us more. Oh, thank
(31:45):
you. I will definitely commit todo that. I love my job,
I love this opportunity to be thebe Santa's chief storyteller and we will do
our best to bring that magic tolife for families at Christmas time. So
thank you so much for having meon. I'm incredibly honored to be here.
You bet that was Shanda Bell.You go. You can go to
(32:07):
a Shanda Bell dot com off onthe shelf. Make sure and watch on
YouTube. They're bloopers, which Ibegin to thank you. Thank you for
that. And folks, as wealways say here, we wish you success
but on your way to significance.Have a great week.
Hey, good morning. This issuccess made the last Legends. I'm Rick
TOKEENNI. Our very special guest todayis Shanda Belle just like Chandelier. I
love her first name, and youfolks probably know her as the co founder
of Loomis Della, the Santas storyteller, the inventor of Elf on the shelf.
(00:36):
The reason why we've got her ontoday's show is to celebrate her entire
career, but mostly to talk aboutwhere her life is going from a significance
perspective. It is an honor tohonor you today. Welcome. Oh,
thank you so much. Rick.That is such a kind introduction. I
appreciate that. Well you deserve it, and I want you to tell your
(00:59):
backs story to our listening audience sothey can fully understand what's happened since nineteen
seventy four right up to today.Well, thankfully I was not in business
in nineteen seventy four. That wasthe year that I was born. But
(01:22):
yeah, you know, our story, you know, does start in nineteen
seventy four with a tradition that mymom introduced to our family, and she
told my sister and my brother andI that there was an elf from the
north pole that was watching and listeningfor Santa Claus, and so she told
us, you know, that hewas going to go back and report back
(01:45):
all that we had been up toduring the holiday season, and we absolutely
fell in love with our elf.So it was an elf that she had
from her own childhood, and thatelf would sort of watch during the day
as we were told, and reportto Santa at night and in the morning,
before you know, we woke up, the elf would fly back from
the north pole and land in adifferent spot in the house. And so
(02:08):
we grew up with this beloved tradition. I remember talking to my elf,
telling my elf what I wanted forChristmas. So the product that people now
know as the Elf on the shelfwas really birthed from our own family tradition.
And so I know the magic thatthe tradition brings for families because I
(02:28):
lived at as a child, andso when I grew up, I taught
school. I graduated from college,taught school for six years reading language,
arts, social studies, and thenstayed home to have my son and be
a stay at home mom. Myhusband and I were absolutely broke. He
is a school teacher. I wasa school teacher, and so to go
(02:49):
to one school teacher salary and supporta family was definitely lean. So we
embraced that calling for me and Istarted working for my dad a couple days
a week, and that was reallyjust to make ends meet. And when
I did that, that's where myparents lived, roughly two hours two and
(03:15):
a half hours from where my husbandand I lived, and it was too
hard to make the drive with aninfant, so I would take my son
with me, work all day,spend the night with my parents, work
all the next day. And itwas during that time that my mom and
I decided to write a book,our story based on our experience with the
Elf on the Shelf. Then whenyou fast forward from there, we couldn't
(03:38):
get anyone to publish it. Weweren't famous, we were told it was
destined for the Damaged Goods. Beenour little idea. I think the publishing
world just didn't know what to dowith it, and so we ended up
having to start our own company,and the Loomis Stella Company. It was
originally called Cca and B the worstcompany name ever. There's a whole story
there. So anyway, we endedup having to start our own company.
(04:03):
You know, hoofing the streets,nickel and dining. You know, we
had no real money to start acompany, so we ended up starting it
on our credit cards, so thankfullywe had good credit. And now it's
kind of grown into an entire empire, right with several of the world's most
(04:24):
beloved Christmas brands under our umbrella ofthe Lunastella Company. So I get to
serve as co CEO and founder.I run the company with my sister,
and I handle all the creative functions, so all of the storytelling, whether
it's an animated special that people mightwatch on Netflix, or whether it is
a storybook or a new product,that all comes from my world. And
(04:45):
my sister does a great job ofrunning sort of the operations piece of the
company along with our president and ourCOO. Yeah, it is a great
journey. There's a couple of thingsthat I want to highlight in that,
given the Sunday is Mother's Day,would you tell us more about your mom
and the magical childhood that she helpedcreate. Obviously with Elf on the shelf,
(05:12):
but there must have been something elsein her heart and mind that said,
let's make childhood for our girls veryspecial. Oh, you know,
I would like to think that itwas that intentional probably. You know,
my mom is big on legacy,and I think that's something she's instilled in
the three of us, right,And I think that that marries well with
(05:34):
your podcast and your viewers and whatthey're looking for. You know, at
some point we're all going to bedust, you know, and so what
are we leaving behind, right andin our case, getting the chance to
leave behind family memories, tradition,the love of Christmas time, you know,
(05:55):
which is eternal, and imbuing ourcharacters into that. So my mom's
heart for really making Christmas special forus is absolutely the heart of why we
now, I think, run aChristmas company. You know. She we
didn't have a lot. I wouldsay it was a very very lean,
(06:17):
very modest upbringing, and my parentsboth always really saved at Christmas time to
make sure we had gifts under thetree and worked, you know, all
year to make sure that was aspecial day for us. So I absolutely
attribute you know, my sister,my brother, and I was love of
(06:38):
holidays and tradition and a legacy towhat my parents instilled in us through sacrifice.
Yeah, what a core value.It just goes to show you though,
that those that have very little somekind sometimes can be very imaginative and
(06:59):
make just one or two gifts superspecial and carry forth the traditions. And
I'll never forget Shanda that we werewhen my two girls were I think two
and a half and one. Wesat there and we had candles, candlelit,
(07:26):
little ceremony and we were reading theChristmas Story from Matthew and Jennifer knocked
over the candle and I think itstarted the Bible on fire. Oh wow.
And to this day, I stillthink about, you know, if
we didn't have much of anything,but we had the four of us,
(07:47):
and we had a story, andwe had Christmas. And so it's like,
what can families do today with verylittle and to hang on to the
magic and spirit of Christmas is gotto represent hope, Yes, absolutely,
it does represent hope. Right,it's the peace that passes all understanding that
(08:11):
we're promised through the through the seasonof Christmas. And I think, you
know, it's one of the reasonsI love Grinch so much. It's,
you know, Christmas comes regardless,right, Christmas was coming regardless of the
Grinch and taking all the presents.And I think that's something that all of
us should hold near and dear toour heart. That Christmas really is about
(08:33):
celebrating the birth of Jesus, andit is about, you know, taking
a moment to reflect on you know, those values right, kindness, goodness,
generosity, faith, hope and love. And you know, we're busy
these days, everyone is, especiallyraising children. It is you know,
(08:54):
all consuming at times. And soI think, you know, taking the
time to mark the things that areimportant and you know, put ourselves back
on that track of what is importantand celebrating in the little ways. Those
are the things you actually remember,right. You remember that moment, You
remember the you know, the Biblecatching on fire, You remember the four
(09:20):
of you being there and reading theChristmas story. And you know, I'm
willing to bet there's a very fewChristmas gifts any of us actually ever remember
it's about the anticipation, It's aboutthe time we've spent together. And I
think that's what you know, peoplecling to at the holidays. Yeah,
I do too. Back in elementaryschool, we were introduced to all these
(09:45):
Christmas songs and I'll never forget asa six year old hearing about Santa Claus
and checking whether we were naughty ornice. For the first time. I'd
never heard that term until school.And the elf on the shelf is an
(10:05):
extension of that watchman, isn't it? It is? Yeah? So,
you know, I think part ofwhat we do is we we reach into
I would say, the lore andthe mythology of Christmas. You know,
Christmas elves, the idea of Christmaselves have been around for a long time.
But what we do is we takethat and we make that into something
(10:28):
that truly, you know, answersa question for children, right, like
you know, how to Santa flyaround the world in one night? How
does he know if I'm not youor nice? How do you know?
How do all of these things happen? And I think we all value the
idea that our Santa Claus is actuallyyou know, Saint Nicholas, right,
and the values that come from thatfaith, faith based man of you know,
(10:54):
who travels around the world just forgenerosity's sake. And so we reach
into that lore and we put somestory, use characters kids love, and
hopefully parents can use that to teachyou know, bigger principles, life principles
around characters kids love. At Christmastime, that's right exactly. How has
(11:18):
this enterprise that you lead with yoursister, how has it changed your entire
perspective on uh? On our worldthat one hopes is about kindness and hopefulness,
Well, I think at its corechildren and that that innocence, you
(11:39):
know, has not changed. Ithink we don't really give children enough credit
for how deep they can be andhow at their core, you know,
there is a lot of kindness andgenerosity inherent in their innocence, you know,
And so I think our ability tolean into that and to train it
(12:01):
up. I mean, in ourworld, the whole idea is that our
North Pole runs sort of and whatI'm going to call the Christmas Spirit continuum,
and we basically say that faith,hope, and love comes from children,
and it comes from people, andSanta can't do all the magical things
he does at the North Pole withoutthat. And so whether it is our
(12:22):
elf pet Saint Bernard that captures thatspirit of Christmas and it's barrel and releases
it, or you know, theelf on the shelf that watches to make
sure you're producing enough Christmas spirit inyour home so that Santa again can make
his magic at the North pole.I think it. You know, just
capitalizing on that innocence in the heartof children is what we do well,
(12:46):
and we bring those to life throughour story and through our characters. Yeah,
you do it way beyond just well. It's I think it's just incredible.
It's almost like you've got this goldstandard within the company of excellence.
But then in preparation to show Iwatched your bloopers and I thought, somebody
(13:11):
inside the company has the ability tolaugh at themselves, to watch animation bloopers.
I watched it. I went,that is so clever, and I
thought, I bet you that Shandaand her sister laughed a portion of the
day because you know, you betterkeep it, better keep some levity inside
(13:33):
of an enterprise. It's about happinessand hope and Christmas spirit, I hope.
So, you know, we havean amazing team. My general philosophy
and I have to credit our HRdepartment. You know, on people is
you know, my sister always saidpeople buy from people they like. But
I think the genuineness of the spiritof what's inside of a person is what
(13:56):
pours out right, and so Ithink people see through faith, and so
we look for people and hire peoplewho have that genuine spirit of We call
it fire. It's our core valuesas a company. But it's all about
family, it's about excellence, it'sabout respect and integrity is what Fire stands
(14:20):
for. So family, integrity,respect and excellence. And so I don't
feel like you can create that narrativein a false or fake way. I
think when you're full of that,it comes out right. And so we
look for people who have those corevalues and so, yes, absolutely they
are part of their you know,I think the fabric of our company is
(14:43):
people who have a good nature,a good sense of humor. You know,
we all believe we work for SantaClaus, and so there is just
a level of imagination that comes withworking for the company. And yeah,
in any business, honestly, youcan't be afraid to pick fun at yourself
and what you do. We're allhuman, right, That's right, Shanda.
(15:05):
Before we cut to a commercial withMother's Day coming up, I remember
a particular middle school teacher who lookslike you and was my second mother,
and I want you to just kindof take the podium here and think any
teachers that you had along the waythat were like mothers to you. Wow,
(15:31):
what a huge honor. You know, I spent six years as a
teacher, and when I hear fromold students, I mean, there's really
no greater compliment, because teachers dowhat they do because they love it.
It is a hard, hard job. I have lots of teachers who poured
into me and made a difference.I remember in high school Coach Cagel.
(15:54):
He was amazing health teacher. Youknow, I knew his family through church,
and you know, he just firstof all, he was always willing
to give me a pass when Iwas running late because I was a little
more social than I probably should havebeen. But you know what I remember
about him was who he was asa person, his character. He was
(16:18):
the one who poured into everybody,whether it was through sponsoring FCA activities or
you know he ran the sound beforefootball games, or I mean he was
just he was in everything everywhere,pouring into all of the students. I
certainly had lots of teachers. Mymom actually was a teacher of mine.
For one year. She pulled usout of school because she didn't think we
(16:41):
were learning how to write. AndI certainly appreciate that because now that's how
I make my livelihood. But shehomeschooled us for one year and poured into
the three of us, making sureour writing skills were where she thought they
should be. I can think ofa fifth grade missus pinner you know there
(17:03):
there. I think it takes avillage s RaSE children. So there are
so many teachers out there pouring inI worked alongside some great teachers when I
taught school. My children have hadwonderful teachers who have poured into them.
But it really does take a village, and so all of my gratitude is
extended to those who've really given theirlife to educate us. But it's not
(17:27):
just the reading and writing and maththat we get from them, you know,
it's character lessons and you know howto share, and it's all the
other things that they do in agiven day. That's right. Thank you
so much for saying that. Andhere's to you, Mom. You you
left us twenty one years ago thenight before Mother's Day, and I miss
(17:48):
you every single day. Okay,instead of us running one of our crazy
commercials, I'm going to throw itto you, and I want you to
tell our listeners where they can contactto you, especially for a speaking engagement.
I watched some of your speeches yesterdayand they're so inspiring. So tell
us where they can find out aboutyou your company, see all these great
(18:11):
animated animated films, and buy anyof the wonderful products. Yeah, people
can visit Shandabell dot com that hasall sorts of great information, especially around
speaking engagements for anything company related.The Loomis Stella company website and of course
(18:32):
Elf on theeshelf dot com both havegreat information and you can get back and
forth. I'm on Instagram and I'mon Twitter, so happy to communicate with
people that way, and then goodold fashioned LinkedIn is always a great way.
So I'm under Shanda Abell on thoseplatforms, and again, Shanda bell
dot com is a great way tofind out more about booking me for any
(18:56):
sort of engagement. So I appreciatethe plug. Thank you for that.
Okay, So on the back halfof the show, I told Shannon that
we were going to be focused onsignificance, and over the course of fifteen
years of podcasting, we've become sonearly focused and almost hyper intentional on the
topic of giving back. And wethink that success is just mere living,
(19:23):
but significance is a life of givingand I read on your website to those
two as you said, for thosethat have little but give a lot,
it's about a heart condition. SoI want to know what is your first
memory of ever helping anybody in life? That is a tough one. I'm
(19:51):
sure. I'm sure it was helpingsomeone on the side of the road.
My dad was a he I mean, just the biggest heart truly. When
you think of like southern hospitality andpeople helping their neighbors, that was my
dad. He was very handy.He could fix things, but you know,
if someone was broken down on theside of the road, especially a
(20:12):
mother, children, you know,any situation like that, he was always
going to stop and help, regardlessof how busy he was or what he
had going on. I do rememberhelping lots of families at Christmas time.
Like I said, my parents didnot have much. I would say were
very lean year round, but theywould save up at Christmas time, and
(20:33):
my parents very much instilled in us, you know, this idea of there's
still people less fortunate, and soI remember my parents actually buying food and
groceries for my sister and I asbest friend who they had nine children,
and their dad lost their job.I remember my parents, you know,
(20:56):
really adopting. There was a studentmy mom helped to tutor when they were
in middle school, and very unfortunatesituation. And I remember my parents buying
Christmas or you know, finding differentpeople to donate and you know, buy
Christmas for a family. And soI really can't remember a time where my
family wasn't growing up doing something toserve other people and help people who were
(21:23):
less fortunate than we were. Yeah, so do you young parents out there
and even grandparents. It's the simplelittle things that you can provide as examples
and planting those seeds. Hey,what would the elf say in terms of
advice about moving from being selfish toself less? Let's hear it from the
(21:45):
elf. Wow, well, certainlyyou'll be on the naughty list for me
selfish. I think it starts withthat, right. You know, you
cannot help Sannah and you cannot createChristmas cheer by being selfish. It's all
about, you know, giving andgiving back is the number one way to
(22:06):
make the nice list. So Ithink from the ELF's perspective, a spirit
of generosity and kindness is essential tomake in the nice list. Very good.
I want you to recall one ofyour favorite and smartest collaborations that you've
had with your sister, where youtwo kind of were at odds about something
(22:30):
and then you came together and createda beautiful outcome. Oh wow, that's
a tough one, you know,I think. I think the company existing
every day is an example of that. You know, we don't always see
eye to eye. We are twins, but we're we're sisters. We're individual
(22:51):
people, and so you do thinkdifferently, you approach things differently. But
because I think we're twins, it'sa it's a value in our case because
we've spent our entire life working throughthings, right, we have really figured
out, you know, how towork through things. We're very honest with
each other. We're very open.At the end of the day, I
(23:12):
know that she loves me and Ilove her, and we You know,
when you can respect the person whoworks alongside of you and know that they
really have your best interests, inthe company's best interests at heart, it
makes it a lot easier to listento their perspective. And so usually we
come at it different ways, butwe usually find the right common ground.
(23:33):
And I you know, our presidentand our coeo also you know, play
a part in and mediating you know, what is the middle ground here,
and so you know, I can'ttake away from from their value and what
they bring. But I think,you know, we do a really good
job of typically we see things thesame way because I think we hold the
same things valuable and deer and sothen it just becomes, you know,
(23:57):
tactics for accomplishing something at the endof the day. Oh, great answer,
Thank you for that. Back tothe elf, what do you think
is the ELF's best habit? TheELF's best habit, well, I'm sure
they eat a lot of candy,so you know, they got to brush
(24:17):
this little teeth, I would thinkis probably the ELF's best habit. But
you know, at the core ofwhat the elf on the shelf is designed
to do is, you know,bring magic and moments to a family during
the holidays. It is as simple, truly as the elf just moving six
inches to the right or left.That's how simple it can be in an
(24:38):
ELF's visit to a home. Andso I do think that one of their
best qualities is their ability to reallypay attention to detail and then participate in
these family moments in a way thatbrings joy that would not happen without the
elf being there. Oh nice,Okay, this is a board of directors
question. I was in a meetingyesterday and there was a question about when
(25:03):
does a founder step away and hirea CEO. And now you mentioned on
the show twice that you have aCEO and president. When did you come
to that conclusion that you may bebetter off as a creative spark within the
company versus running the day to dayoperations. Yeah, so I'm actually the
(25:25):
CEO with my sister. We're coCEOs. We have a COO, so
we have a chief operating officer andour president who both really serve in those
day to day functions. I thinkit comes to that point where, first
of all, you've built enough aroundyou where you can trust the people and
trust to do it the way thatyou would do it. I think that's
(25:48):
a really important key, especially forpeople who are the founders of a company
or something like that. I amnot a micro manager when I trust the
people who I have around me.When you don't all of us center type
a's right, you're going to micromanage, you know, like crazy, because
you know you need to know thatit's being done and being done well.
(26:11):
And so for us, it's aboutputting the right people in the right places,
and then you know, can theymeet that bar. Do we share
the same definition of excellence? Andif we do, that's when you can
pass things off. So our chiefoperating officer and our president really do much
of the day to day operations.And then I try very hard to really
(26:32):
plug into that chief creative officer placewhere I can add the most value to
the company. So whether it's onour marketing team, I also serve as
chief marketing officer or you know,in the content that we're putting out,
because that's what I can bring thatno one else springs right. And so
(26:52):
you have to find where your nicheis. You have to find what you
do best and what brings the mostvalue to the company. Spend your time
there. Yeah, thank you forthat. I wondered about how how you
do organize and compartmentalize who does what. And some of the greatest companies in
(27:15):
the world, like yours, arealways coming up with new ideas because it's
twenty eight million households, enough fornever never exactly that's it. And so
you're you know, you're sitting aroundsomebody. Maybe it was you watching the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and you go, hey, what, why don't we
(27:37):
have a balloon? You know,because that's that's the to a lot of
people, the official kickoff date ofthe Christmas season. It's not at Hobby
Lobby, by the way, sincethey start selling Christmas July. Yeah,
I think it's out now right inMay, probably, you know so.
But it's but the way the wayyou thought through this, it's almost like
(27:59):
you've you've created this fluid environment,this culture of creativity, to where you're
always thinking about what's next. Yeah, it's I think if I had known
at the onset where this would beand where this would go, I think
(28:19):
ignorance was probably bliss. You know, the idea of starting it from truly
scratch. I mean there's nothing,there's no HR department, there's no legal,
there's no money, there's no there'sliterally nothing. So you are wearing
all the hats. You're cobbling thistogether from scratch. And this was not
(28:40):
our backgrounds. You know. Mysister did come with a sales and marketing
background, she worked on eric QVC, but I was a school teacher.
My mom was a school teacher.My mom did work in an advertising agency
for some small amount of time tohelp put me through college, you know,
but it's not anything we really hadstudied or knew. My dad was
(29:03):
entrepreneurial and ran his own little smallengineering and fabrication firm. But you know,
you're you're bringing all this together withwith from nothing. But I think
you have to ask yourself, asa good leader, always the question like
what is our north store? Whatis our vision and our mission and our
purpose and our values, Because ifyou don't clearly define that, other people
(29:26):
will define it for you. Andyou know, the Bible talks about how
without a vision that people perish,and people are far more likely to follow
vision really than anything else. Andso you have to be very clear about
what you want to be, whatyou want to be doing, who you're
doing it for, you know,all of those things. And once we
(29:48):
landed on telling the stories of Santa'sNorth Pole, like that is our vision?
Can we you know, can wetell all of the stories? I
don't know, but that's our northstar. It helped us get out of
the box of you know, we'rejust a publisher or we're just the elf
on the Shelf, and now thisyear we're introducing the Santa Verse. It's
the entire enchanted world of Santa Claus. So whether it is you know,
(30:11):
the places that he visited, thetwo thousand years of backstory, the characters
that live in the North Pole.Now, it's an endless world of storytelling
that we have here at our fingertips, and so I spend my best time
focused on that and bringing that worldto life for families and children who have
you know, embraced our world.Twenty million people you know are either have
(30:33):
grown up with or are growing upwith the Elf on the Shelf, or
Elf pets or Elf mates or anyof our other brands Noura in their home,
and so clearly they want that fromus, and it's our job to
give it to them, and wefeel incredibly honored to be able to,
you know, to embrace the Iwould say, the greatest mythology of our
time and really expand that and makeit unique and special for families. You
(31:00):
are so inspiring your as advertised,it was an honor to get to honor
you for Mother's Day, Honor yourmother, Honor teachers that are mothers out
there, and just to get totalk to you about your great enterprise which
is always moving and going in theright direction, but it's so focused,
(31:22):
it's so hyper focused. So congratulationsto you and your sister and your entire
team, and we wish you avery happy Mother's Day and just kind of
an extra kick here. Keep beingcreative and spend spend the you know,
your remaining time in that creative zoneto give us more. Oh, thank
(31:45):
you. I will definitely commit todo that. I love my job,
I love this opportunity to be thebe Santa's chief storyteller and we will do
our best to bring that magic tolife for families at Christmas time. So
thank you so much for having meon. I'm incredibly honored to be here.
You bet that was Shanda Bell.You go. You can go to
(32:07):
a Shanda Bell dot com off onthe shelf. Make sure and watch on
YouTube. They're bloopers, which Ibegin to thank you. Thank you for
that. And folks, as wealways say here, we wish you success
but on your way to significance.Have a great week.
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