July 21, 2024 • 25 mins
"There's so much you can use fragrance for!" ~ Georgia Vanderville is a petite firecracker who truly lights up a room. Whether it's from her energetic personality and giant smile, or from one of the candles made in her ever-growing warehouse, Shorties Candles.
Vanderville is also an author, speaker, and has been inside and outside the TEDx stage. She goes above and beyond with her candle company staff by way of being that approachable leader we all wish we had.
Tune in to hear about the one candle made for a boy she liked, to running a successful candle company.
Check out Lessons from the Ladder, The Fragrance Flip, Why we need to Just Ask, going beyond the product, the struggle of clutter, storytelling that matters, Pattern interrupt, and reframing the five senses.
shortiescandles.com
TEDx "The important silent secret to connect with a teen"
Vanderville is also an author, speaker, and has been inside and outside the TEDx stage. She goes above and beyond with her candle company staff by way of being that approachable leader we all wish we had.
Tune in to hear about the one candle made for a boy she liked, to running a successful candle company.
Check out Lessons from the Ladder, The Fragrance Flip, Why we need to Just Ask, going beyond the product, the struggle of clutter, storytelling that matters, Pattern interrupt, and reframing the five senses.
shortiescandles.com
TEDx "The important silent secret to connect with a teen"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I talk to people, ask themhow the day is going, what's going
on, and if I get thisfeeling that someone is feeling low or somebody
is kind of struggling with something.We all have stories and we can go
to those stories, and we canshare those stories with people to help uplift
them and help them see things ina different from a different viewpoint. Stranger
(00:20):
Connections is the embodiment of Lisa davidOlsen's perspective of we're all just friends who
just simply haven't met yet. It'san exploration of the weirdly wonderful side of
life and a look at the singlecommonality we have with each other, our
differences. Slip off your shoes,pour a cup of your favorite and let's
meet this week's barrel of quirks.Welcome to Stranger Connections, where I celebrate
(00:45):
wonderfully weird people and quirky stories.I'm your curious beast and host Lisa David
Olsen, the practically world famous businesshumorist and interactive speaker. So if you
haven't brought me to your group yet, what are you waiting for? And
today's guest is somebody fantastic and funand she's fun sized too. She is
(01:07):
an entrepreneur, one of the wordsthat I struggle to say. I want
to welcome Georgia Vanderbilt, a Tedexspeaker, a speaker coach, and a
seasoned entrepreneur with twenty two years ofexperience in the candle manufacturing industry. But
today we're going beyond the product.There's a whole story about it. So
(01:30):
this is what I call from candlesin the kitchen to lessons from the ladder.
Please welcome Georgia Vanderbilt. Yay,do you get what I'm saying,
lessons from the ladder? I loveit. I love the lessons from the
ladder. Those ladder lessons mean everythingto us. Yes, it's so great
to have you on Stranger Connections.I know you're doing a whirlwind tour of
(01:53):
podcasts, so thank you for takinga moment to jump into the weird old
land. Definitely, it's the bestplace to be. I know you have
a great start story. And ofcourse let's start with that where you were
making candles in your kitchen because youneeded I think there was a boy involved,
isn't there always let's talk about thatstory. I've been traveling in Europe,
(02:19):
got home only came home because Ihad absolutely no money left. Got
home, met a boy. Iasked him for a ride on his motorcycle
and he said no, oh,and then he turned around and he looked
at me and he's like, fine, I'll give you a ride around the
block. Gave me a ride aroundthe block. Pay for my phone number,
(02:40):
and I said no, actually,I said yes, So I gave
him my number and that was rightbefore Christmas. Christmas came and I still
didn't have any money. I madehim a candle. Wasn't really in love
with making candles. I just neededsomething to give people for Christmas. My
(03:00):
roommates saw me making candles for themand for the boy, so they gave
me wax. And I was notthrilled. I was just bummed because I
felt like it was a weight onmy shoulders and it was something that was
going to hold me back and stopme from traveling more. But Valentine's Day
came, I was oddly still withthe same boy, which had never happened
(03:22):
before. That was a very longstretch for me, and I made him
a heartship candle and I took itto work with me. He showed all
the guys I worked with at workbecause I needed a guy's opinion, and
everyone freaked out. They were like, wohow, this is so cool.
And I started making candles. Minefor one of the guys I worked with
said, will you make me abeer scented candle? Okay? Sure?
(03:46):
I made him this beer scented candleand they loved it. It was seriously
the grossest smelling candle ever. Itwas like going to a fraternity party and
someone had left their beer from twoweeks earlier. I had probably fitting it
a few times and it was justbad b floating in it. Yeah,
I can smell that right now.How did you make a beer scented candle?
(04:10):
Was it actually with beer? No, It was just the exact same
way that you would make a regularcandle. It was with fragrance. Oh
okay, okay. Do you rememberthe fragrance for the motorcycle guy that was
your very first candle? I do. It was pomegranate and we actually still
have that fragrance. Oh did youmarry the motorcycle guy? I did?
(04:35):
Actually, yes, I did.Yeah. I held him down one day
with a candle over its head andI was like, oh, I'm gonna
knock you out if you don't giveme a ring. So we did.
Oh wow, I wasn't remembering thatstory if that was really mister Vanderville.
Okay, we got this now.So then your roommates gave you wax,
(04:57):
thinking, oh, she is intothis, she's gonna love this, and
you were like that that represented somethingto you, like you couldn't leave or
what. Yeah, it represented clutter, It represented weight. It was two
pounds, like physical pounds of wax. I could not put them in my
(05:17):
backpack and travel around with them.I couldn't do the things I wanted to
do with them. So it justrepresented something and sat in my I had
a little basket and sat in thisbasket in my closet for two months until
Valentine's Day came, and it justwas really a heavy thing. I'd opened
the closet and for some reason,these two little blocks of wax would just
(05:38):
stare back at me like, hah, we're here and you have nothing to
do with us. The only thingworse than two pounds of wax in your
closet is talking wax in your closet. So I agree with that, that
would be really annoying. Then howdoes one go from being annoyed by a
block of wax in the closet tohaving a three point five million annual sales
(06:03):
candle business called Shorty's Candles. That'sa great question. Well, to go
from being clutter and weight to beingsomething that you enjoy and you love and
you just are excited about, youhave to recognize the beauty in it.
(06:24):
And it took me a very verylong time to recognize the true beauty in
it. But I recognized really quicklybecause I never thought that I would ever
be able to make something that somebodyelse liked. Actually, so when I
was fifteen, we lived in thisreally old house and I overflowed the bathtub,
and the bathtub overflowed, I soakedthe carpet. The house was so
(06:48):
old, had carpet in the bathroom, and this awful, horrendous smell came
out of this carpet, like nohuman should ever smell this. And I
tried to figure it out, andsomeone told me by a cented candle.
But I was fifteen years old andI was one buying that senate candle.
So I went to the store spentmy money on the senate candle, and
we didn't have a car like,I had to take the bus everywhere.
(07:10):
So I got the senate candle.I put it in my room and it
did nothing. It didn't smell likeanything. So I thought senate candles just
didn't smell like anything. So thenwhen I was twenty one and I made
this boy the candle and it hadthis incredible smell to it. It blew
me away and to me, Iinvented senate candles. I was super excited,
(07:33):
and I just didn't I really.I remember sitting there one day,
going, am I doing this?I just invented something? Oh my gosh,
I did that? What's happening here? How did I'm like this toll?
I'm like this day, how doI invent something? And then I
(07:58):
just kept making candles and they improved, they got better. We started selling
out a farmer's market, and peoplekept coming back. They came back week
after week after week after week,the same. My very first two customers,
Lisa and Leo, they still buyfrom us twenty two years later.
(08:18):
Wow, and it's so cool torun into them. If you make a
cent just for them yet, thenyes, actually have We don't actually carry
it, but we do carry itspecifically just for them, so the only
people who order it. It's thisold blueberry cobbler that we have years and
years and years ago, but itwasn't a top seller, so that we
(08:39):
discontinued it from our line, butwe keep it in stock just for them.
Wow, that's so cool because youryour product goes way beyond here's a
candle. You seem to have thesestories like every cent. I mean,
I've known you a while, soI know every cent has a meaning and
things like that. And then everybodycan go to shortyscandles dot com. You
(09:01):
can glance. Don't stop listening tothe show, of course, but shortiscandles
dot com and they ship everywhere andthey do smell fantastic. So then you
kept growing because this has been howlong is it twenty two years? Two
years? Twenty two years? Mygosh, So your children know nothing except
(09:22):
there's always candles because they're under twentytwo, so they grew up. They
know what wicks are, they knowhow to pour, they know all the
things. So then you kept growing. So now didn't you just recently move
into a brand new warehouse again?We did. We had a lot of
different ups and downs and turns andbumps, but you know what, You
(09:43):
just keep moving forward, and everytime you move forward, it just gets
a little bit better. And sometimesit feels like it gets a little bit
worse, but you can make itbetter if you get creative. We had
it. We started in my tinylittle apartment kitchen and moved to another apartment.
(10:03):
Then then I moved in with theboy and I had his kitchen,
and then I had his kitchen inone of his bedrooms, and then I
had his kitchen in two of hisbedrooms. And then we built a shop
on our property because otherwise we onlyhad three bedrooms. We would have had
the candles in with bus too,So we built the shop on our property,
and we operated out of there fora long time, and we built
(10:24):
tables that were in there. Weset it up so nice. We built
shelving units. We did such anincredible job in there. And I say
we, but really I was justthe cheerleader. I'm like, this is
what I want. He's like okay, and he's got his saws and his
drills and everything he needs. Putsit all up. We operate out of
there. We ended up moving intoanother warehouse. We were in that warehouse.
(10:48):
It was a really large warehouse forwhat we needed. It was too
big for what we needed, butwe didn't know that because we were like,
oh, we're growing so fast andwe're just going to keep growing,
so we need this extra space aheadof time. It was a great plan,
but that was in two thousand andeight, so we had only Luckily,
we'd only signed a one year lease. So at that eleven month mark,
(11:09):
I went in and I said,would you work with me on the
rents please? And he said no, So I said, well, here's
my thirty day notice. Wow.But we turned it in and we had
to go back. But at thispoint we'd already moved to a much larger
warehouse than our garage. It wasthree thousand square feet compared to our garage,
you know, the shop on ourproperty. So we ended up getting
(11:30):
a storage unit, and we endedup using the storage unit. But I
became friends with the owner of thestorage unit. He had a forklift,
and it was considered commercial property,so I didn't have to when we had
trucks delivered, I didn't have tohave a lift gate. We didn't have
to pay for residential delivery, sowe were able to negate a lot of
the fees that would come along withit and try and keep our costs low
(11:52):
as possible. And then our employeesthey just came over to the house and
they worked every day on our property. And it was kind of nerve wracking
because because you kind of feel reallyvulnerable, like will people want to come
to my house? Is it okayto have people come to my house?
And our team was amazing and everyonedid. They were like, yeah,
it's cool, we'll come over,we'll work there, it's fine. They
(12:13):
were okay with it, and Iwas the one who had to adjust and
become okay with it. I hadto put that pride away of I can
only do this a BIB with GiorganticWorlds. I had to put that pride
away and go, you know what, we're here because of the customer.
We're here because the product is incredible, and the customers need it, and
(12:33):
they're saying, hey, I needit, I need it, I need
it, I need it. AndI know they need it even if they
don't say it, because they keepcoming back and they want more, and
I know that it does something incredibleto them in their home and the feeling
that they have and even though somany things have been so incredibly tough because
(12:54):
of those people that need those products. We have to keep going. It's
just a mandatory thing. You know, you can't. You can't quit on
somebody. You know they need you, so you can. And how does
that lead into what I've seen You'veposted videos on and and I've seen you
on a ladder, and that's probablybecause are you even five feet? I
(13:15):
don't remember? I just remember whatis your Do you want to know a
little a little something, Lisa,Yeah, so I will. I will
if you pull out a tape measure. I am just ever so slightly under
five feet, but somebody once toldme, I just I don't I don't
(13:35):
want to be under five feet,so I I will always tell people on
five foot half inch. So we'lljust go with that. I'm five foot
half an inch. I've passed thefive foot mark, and if I have
heels on, then I'm definitely pastthat. Every nine year old is taller
than me, and I'm okay withit. I'm a pillar and you're a
votive. That was awesome, ButI know you. You do your your
(14:03):
talks to your staff from the ladder, and so that's why I you know,
I don't know if you named itthat or I just said that,
But lessons from the ladder tell meabout that, because that's way different than
a lot of people run a businessnowadays. We do have our ladder lessons
that we do. So what willhappen is everybody will kind of We'll get
everybody together and I'll do it alot of times when I feel tension,
(14:26):
So I'll be listening to people andI connect with all of our employees.
I always do every single employee there. We're not so big that I can't
say hi to everybody in one,you know, within ten minutes. So
I walk around to talk to people, ask them how their day is going,
what's going on? And if Iget this feeling that someone is feeling
low or somebody is kind of strugglingwith something. We all have stories and
(14:52):
we can go to those stories andwe can share those stories with people to
help uplift them and help them seethings in a different from a different viewpoint.
So I'll say, hey, guys, it's time for a ladder lesson.
And everybody loves it. When Ido Ladder lessons. They sit there,
they cheer, They're like, allright, let's do this. We
all gather around and all get upon the ladder and then they give me
(15:15):
a word and I will tell thema story so that at least has that
word in there. So if someonewas to give me the word duck,
I'm not going to tell you aboutducks. I might tell you about a
time when something was thrown at meand then I ducked, and then I
learned this other So I'm not goingto tell you. You know, I'm
not going to tell you about aduck and what parts of it do you
It has a beak. That's notwhat we're talking about. We're talking about
(15:39):
stories and using that word inside ofthat story to convey a message that people
in our environment need at that moment. That's fantastic and I don't I cannot
think of any other places that wouldgive people a break like that. In
fact, when people bring me totheir companies, I talk about incorporating different
(16:00):
things that are way opposite of theworkday. So I love that you do
that. We definitely align with that, and that's how you know. And
my tagline is a connected team isa productive team, And you are talking
about that connection where you're you're ona different level, and in that sense,
they look forward to that break fromthe regular day and connecting how is
(16:22):
she going to use this word today? They're probably going home and sharing that
or doing the same thing around thetable, So it goes beyond the workday.
That's great right now. I've hademployees come back in and tell me
different. They're like, oh,remember that one time that you told this
one story? Da da da dada. And then I was thinking about
it here at this point and sometimesI'm like, oh, well, you
remember what I said. It's reallycool how that like that story and that
(16:48):
lesson at the very end, howwe tie it all together with the lesson,
just you know that that spark tobe able to get people going in
a better direction. People will mentionthat on and it's really cool to see
that. It's really an experience tosee it from someone else's point of view
and see how what you just sharedcan help somebody else. And in the
(17:11):
art of storytelling, that is howwe remember. Think back to what we've
learned about caveman days. That isit when they were drawing on the walls
and the things were happening. Tellingstory goes on and on and on,
and that person might retell it andadd their own spin. I'm in the
Midwest. You know we're going toadd a bigger fish than was originally told.
(17:36):
That's the thing. What you're talkingabout is the art of storytelling and
how that applies to business and peopleneed to do this. You also were
recently posting about a fragrance flip anda lesson you learned from the wick,
and give me a shorter version ofthat so people can kind of ponder how
they can make that their own.The fragrance slip is this essentially, I
(18:02):
was driving home one day. Ihad my son in the car and I
wanted to murder him. He hadgotten in trouble at school. I felt
like I was in trouble from theteacher. It just was not going good
driving. I don't have anywhere tothrow them off a cliff, and it's
just you can't do that, soit's so illegal. We got all the
way home and I was just Iwas heading inside. I was going to
(18:25):
take every single electronic item that everhad even looked at the house, and
I was going to bury it inthe backyard. Everything was ending and I
walked in the house. I walkedin the house and my husband had lit
I handled one of our candles whileI had been picking up our son,
and the smell just hit me andinstantly it was like a pattern interrupt It
(18:48):
was so incredible just I went boomand I just oh and it just stopped
me instantly, and I was able. It was just enough time to help
me reframe. And it was realinstant. It was just maybe five seconds,
but just enough to make me go, oh wait, change, that
(19:11):
was it. And then instead ofmurdering my child, which I wouldn't have
done anyway, but you know,instead of really instead of all the electronics
disappearing, we sat down and wehad a conversation and we made a plan
and it worked out. You know, he didn't get in trouble for like
three more days. It was beautifuland we worked out. And I call
(19:37):
that our fragrance flip. And that'swhat fragrance does. It taps into our
senses, to our olfactory system andreally works with us to it's like one
of our five senses, one ofour five main senses is our sense of
smell, and it creates that patternswrapped and it just says, you know
what, let's do it slightly differentand it can anything. It can be
(20:00):
like, ah, are you conuse fragrance to have your husband take out
the trash? I mean, there'sso many things you can use fragrance for.
And you're right because it's the sameas when we would maybe let's separate
and count to ten, just goto our neutral corners, count to ten.
Come back. For me, it'sbeing in the garden. I love
(20:21):
my weeding and I have dirt meditation. So I think it's a great reminder
to find for you that that momentwas a fragrance s flip. I mean,
it sounds like you needed about fiftycandles, but because you didn't expect
to have even that one. Whata beautiful moment that your husband has no
idea that he saved What's that they'restrong enough you only need one, But
(20:45):
your husband had no idea that hesaved your son's life that day by simply
lighting a candle. For the heckof it. Now, it's pretty pretty
important to know. I think that'sgreat. Well, I'm so thrilled for
your business, and again, peopleneed to go to Shorty's candas dot com
check it out, and also joinyou on Facebook because you share some of
(21:07):
those lessons. Your videos are alwaysgreat and you always have a lesson or
you just are sharing some funny moments. So I think it's really fun.
But I can't let you go tillI ask you to share a dare or
a prank story, one you've doneor had done to you, or just
one of those great stories we loveto share. On the fourth of July,
(21:27):
just a few days ago, Iwas walking around my son and I
we went to do this Firecracker mileand it was a one mile run.
At the beginning of the day,we head down, we do this run,
and a parade starts right after therun. So the parade is coming
down. You know, you run, you finish. Well, we're heading
(21:48):
down and you had to walk past. You had to go all the way
down. You know, you ranall the way down to the end,
and then you had to walk backto where you parked your car. So
as I as we're walking back,we're saying, have they faded? We're
super excited with all the different floatsand everything, and my son looks at
(22:08):
me and he goes, I betyou just want to be on one of
those floats, huh, And Isaid, oh, I would love it
be so much time. I'm cansit there grave he not everyone, and
he goes, dare you And likesix minutes later, no, yeah,
six or seven minutes later, Ijust walked up to one of the floats
(22:30):
and I said, can I jumpon? And this guy said sure,
and then he jumped off, andI was like, okay, where are
you going? So I'm sitting onthis float and I rode the float all
the way down to the end ofthe parade, and I'm just waving the
entire time, and people were kindof like, oh, just kind of
(22:52):
sitting there watching. But it wasso cool because I would sit there and
I'd look at people. I'd lookin their eyes and I'd sink for at
the July and you could just seethem light up like they were being recognized.
And I had like weird interactions.Some guy asked me if I compost.
I was like, no, Idon't understand that. And another guy
(23:14):
was like, hey, hey,what's your name. I said, it's
Doorga. What's yours? He saidit's Frank. I said, Hi,
Frank. He said I need tocome see you. I'm gonna come see
you tomorrow. I said, allright, buddy, see you tomorrow,
and then I drove away. Andat the very end, I got off
and I realized that I had jumpedonto a float that had a big excavation
(23:37):
truck on the back of it,and it was it was called like Grateful
Gardens or something like that. SoI was on like a garden truck.
And then I realized where the compostand apparently Frank was gonna come see me
tomorrow. But it was just somuch fun. So when you step it,
holler you have to call that.Uh, this is Georgia. Do
(24:00):
I have any messages? Great idea, I'm totally gonna do that. And
how did your son feel that hedared you and you did it? He
never expected that I did. Hedidn't expect it. Actually, he might
have expected it. I'm not verygood at not doing stuff and someone's like
(24:22):
I dare it, I'm like,oh, yeah, let's do it.
But he kind of yeah. Ithink he regretted saying it, because he
ended up sitting on like this bigelectrical green box for like an hour waiting
for me to get back. Finallyhe was like, you're back, lady,
Like he didn't get to go withyou. That's right. Oh my
(24:42):
gosh, that's a fantastic story.Now he knows he has to say,
I dare you to get us ona float. He keeps telling me I'm
embarrassing. He's like, you're themost embarrassing lady in the entire world.
Oh well, he hasn't met me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
(25:02):
then you're doing your job, Georgia. Oh, I'm so honored to have
chatted with you, Georgia Vanderbilt.And people need to check out shortiescandles dot
com and remember we can only bestrangers once. And I invite you to
stay a weird. I will stayweird. Yes, this has been Stranger
(25:23):
Connections with Lisa David Olson
I talk to people, ask themhow the day is going, what's going
on, and if I get thisfeeling that someone is feeling low or somebody
is kind of struggling with something.We all have stories and we can go
to those stories, and we canshare those stories with people to help uplift
them and help them see things ina different from a different viewpoint. Stranger
(00:20):
Connections is the embodiment of Lisa davidOlsen's perspective of we're all just friends who
just simply haven't met yet. It'san exploration of the weirdly wonderful side of
life and a look at the singlecommonality we have with each other, our
differences. Slip off your shoes,pour a cup of your favorite and let's
meet this week's barrel of quirks.Welcome to Stranger Connections, where I celebrate
(00:45):
wonderfully weird people and quirky stories.I'm your curious beast and host Lisa David
Olsen, the practically world famous businesshumorist and interactive speaker. So if you
haven't brought me to your group yet, what are you waiting for? And
today's guest is somebody fantastic and funand she's fun sized too. She is
(01:07):
an entrepreneur, one of the wordsthat I struggle to say. I want
to welcome Georgia Vanderbilt, a Tedexspeaker, a speaker coach, and a
seasoned entrepreneur with twenty two years ofexperience in the candle manufacturing industry. But
today we're going beyond the product.There's a whole story about it. So
(01:30):
this is what I call from candlesin the kitchen to lessons from the ladder.
Please welcome Georgia Vanderbilt. Yay,do you get what I'm saying,
lessons from the ladder? I loveit. I love the lessons from the
ladder. Those ladder lessons mean everythingto us. Yes, it's so great
to have you on Stranger Connections.I know you're doing a whirlwind tour of
(01:53):
podcasts, so thank you for takinga moment to jump into the weird old
land. Definitely, it's the bestplace to be. I know you have
a great start story. And ofcourse let's start with that where you were
making candles in your kitchen because youneeded I think there was a boy involved,
isn't there always let's talk about thatstory. I've been traveling in Europe,
(02:19):
got home only came home because Ihad absolutely no money left. Got
home, met a boy. Iasked him for a ride on his motorcycle
and he said no, oh,and then he turned around and he looked
at me and he's like, fine, I'll give you a ride around the
block. Gave me a ride aroundthe block. Pay for my phone number,
(02:40):
and I said no, actually,I said yes, So I gave
him my number and that was rightbefore Christmas. Christmas came and I still
didn't have any money. I madehim a candle. Wasn't really in love
with making candles. I just neededsomething to give people for Christmas. My
(03:00):
roommates saw me making candles for themand for the boy, so they gave
me wax. And I was notthrilled. I was just bummed because I
felt like it was a weight onmy shoulders and it was something that was
going to hold me back and stopme from traveling more. But Valentine's Day
came, I was oddly still withthe same boy, which had never happened
(03:22):
before. That was a very longstretch for me, and I made him
a heartship candle and I took itto work with me. He showed all
the guys I worked with at workbecause I needed a guy's opinion, and
everyone freaked out. They were like, wohow, this is so cool.
And I started making candles. Minefor one of the guys I worked with
said, will you make me abeer scented candle? Okay? Sure?
(03:46):
I made him this beer scented candleand they loved it. It was seriously
the grossest smelling candle ever. Itwas like going to a fraternity party and
someone had left their beer from twoweeks earlier. I had probably fitting it
a few times and it was justbad b floating in it. Yeah,
I can smell that right now.How did you make a beer scented candle?
(04:10):
Was it actually with beer? No, It was just the exact same
way that you would make a regularcandle. It was with fragrance. Oh
okay, okay. Do you rememberthe fragrance for the motorcycle guy that was
your very first candle? I do. It was pomegranate and we actually still
have that fragrance. Oh did youmarry the motorcycle guy? I did?
(04:35):
Actually, yes, I did.Yeah. I held him down one day
with a candle over its head andI was like, oh, I'm gonna
knock you out if you don't giveme a ring. So we did.
Oh wow, I wasn't remembering thatstory if that was really mister Vanderville.
Okay, we got this now.So then your roommates gave you wax,
(04:57):
thinking, oh, she is intothis, she's gonna love this, and
you were like that that represented somethingto you, like you couldn't leave or
what. Yeah, it represented clutter, It represented weight. It was two
pounds, like physical pounds of wax. I could not put them in my
(05:17):
backpack and travel around with them.I couldn't do the things I wanted to
do with them. So it justrepresented something and sat in my I had
a little basket and sat in thisbasket in my closet for two months until
Valentine's Day came, and it justwas really a heavy thing. I'd opened
the closet and for some reason,these two little blocks of wax would just
(05:38):
stare back at me like, hah, we're here and you have nothing to
do with us. The only thingworse than two pounds of wax in your
closet is talking wax in your closet. So I agree with that, that
would be really annoying. Then howdoes one go from being annoyed by a
block of wax in the closet tohaving a three point five million annual sales
(06:03):
candle business called Shorty's Candles. That'sa great question. Well, to go
from being clutter and weight to beingsomething that you enjoy and you love and
you just are excited about, youhave to recognize the beauty in it.
(06:24):
And it took me a very verylong time to recognize the true beauty in
it. But I recognized really quicklybecause I never thought that I would ever
be able to make something that somebodyelse liked. Actually, so when I
was fifteen, we lived in thisreally old house and I overflowed the bathtub,
and the bathtub overflowed, I soakedthe carpet. The house was so
(06:48):
old, had carpet in the bathroom, and this awful, horrendous smell came
out of this carpet, like nohuman should ever smell this. And I
tried to figure it out, andsomeone told me by a cented candle.
But I was fifteen years old andI was one buying that senate candle.
So I went to the store spentmy money on the senate candle, and
we didn't have a car like,I had to take the bus everywhere.
(07:10):
So I got the senate candle.I put it in my room and it
did nothing. It didn't smell likeanything. So I thought senate candles just
didn't smell like anything. So thenwhen I was twenty one and I made
this boy the candle and it hadthis incredible smell to it. It blew
me away and to me, Iinvented senate candles. I was super excited,
(07:33):
and I just didn't I really.I remember sitting there one day,
going, am I doing this?I just invented something? Oh my gosh,
I did that? What's happening here? How did I'm like this toll?
I'm like this day, how doI invent something? And then I
(07:58):
just kept making candles and they improved, they got better. We started selling
out a farmer's market, and peoplekept coming back. They came back week
after week after week after week,the same. My very first two customers,
Lisa and Leo, they still buyfrom us twenty two years later.
(08:18):
Wow, and it's so cool torun into them. If you make a
cent just for them yet, thenyes, actually have We don't actually carry
it, but we do carry itspecifically just for them, so the only
people who order it. It's thisold blueberry cobbler that we have years and
years and years ago, but itwasn't a top seller, so that we
(08:39):
discontinued it from our line, butwe keep it in stock just for them.
Wow, that's so cool because youryour product goes way beyond here's a
candle. You seem to have thesestories like every cent. I mean,
I've known you a while, soI know every cent has a meaning and
things like that. And then everybodycan go to shortyscandles dot com. You
(09:01):
can glance. Don't stop listening tothe show, of course, but shortiscandles
dot com and they ship everywhere andthey do smell fantastic. So then you
kept growing because this has been howlong is it twenty two years? Two
years? Twenty two years? Mygosh, So your children know nothing except
(09:22):
there's always candles because they're under twentytwo, so they grew up. They
know what wicks are, they knowhow to pour, they know all the
things. So then you kept growing. So now didn't you just recently move
into a brand new warehouse again?We did. We had a lot of
different ups and downs and turns andbumps, but you know what, You
(09:43):
just keep moving forward, and everytime you move forward, it just gets
a little bit better. And sometimesit feels like it gets a little bit
worse, but you can make itbetter if you get creative. We had
it. We started in my tinylittle apartment kitchen and moved to another apartment.
(10:03):
Then then I moved in with theboy and I had his kitchen,
and then I had his kitchen inone of his bedrooms, and then I
had his kitchen in two of hisbedrooms. And then we built a shop
on our property because otherwise we onlyhad three bedrooms. We would have had
the candles in with bus too,So we built the shop on our property,
and we operated out of there fora long time, and we built
(10:24):
tables that were in there. Weset it up so nice. We built
shelving units. We did such anincredible job in there. And I say
we, but really I was justthe cheerleader. I'm like, this is
what I want. He's like okay, and he's got his saws and his
drills and everything he needs. Putsit all up. We operate out of
there. We ended up moving intoanother warehouse. We were in that warehouse.
(10:48):
It was a really large warehouse forwhat we needed. It was too
big for what we needed, butwe didn't know that because we were like,
oh, we're growing so fast andwe're just going to keep growing,
so we need this extra space aheadof time. It was a great plan,
but that was in two thousand andeight, so we had only Luckily,
we'd only signed a one year lease. So at that eleven month mark,
(11:09):
I went in and I said,would you work with me on the
rents please? And he said no, So I said, well, here's
my thirty day notice. Wow.But we turned it in and we had
to go back. But at thispoint we'd already moved to a much larger
warehouse than our garage. It wasthree thousand square feet compared to our garage,
you know, the shop on ourproperty. So we ended up getting
(11:30):
a storage unit, and we endedup using the storage unit. But I
became friends with the owner of thestorage unit. He had a forklift,
and it was considered commercial property,so I didn't have to when we had
trucks delivered, I didn't have tohave a lift gate. We didn't have
to pay for residential delivery, sowe were able to negate a lot of
the fees that would come along withit and try and keep our costs low
(11:52):
as possible. And then our employeesthey just came over to the house and
they worked every day on our property. And it was kind of nerve wracking
because because you kind of feel reallyvulnerable, like will people want to come
to my house? Is it okayto have people come to my house?
And our team was amazing and everyonedid. They were like, yeah,
it's cool, we'll come over,we'll work there, it's fine. They
(12:13):
were okay with it, and Iwas the one who had to adjust and
become okay with it. I hadto put that pride away of I can
only do this a BIB with GiorganticWorlds. I had to put that pride
away and go, you know what, we're here because of the customer.
We're here because the product is incredible, and the customers need it, and
(12:33):
they're saying, hey, I needit, I need it, I need
it, I need it. AndI know they need it even if they
don't say it, because they keepcoming back and they want more, and
I know that it does something incredibleto them in their home and the feeling
that they have and even though somany things have been so incredibly tough because
(12:54):
of those people that need those products. We have to keep going. It's
just a mandatory thing. You know, you can't. You can't quit on
somebody. You know they need you, so you can. And how does
that lead into what I've seen You'veposted videos on and and I've seen you
on a ladder, and that's probablybecause are you even five feet? I
(13:15):
don't remember? I just remember whatis your Do you want to know a
little a little something, Lisa,Yeah, so I will. I will
if you pull out a tape measure. I am just ever so slightly under
five feet, but somebody once toldme, I just I don't I don't
(13:35):
want to be under five feet,so I I will always tell people on
five foot half inch. So we'lljust go with that. I'm five foot
half an inch. I've passed thefive foot mark, and if I have
heels on, then I'm definitely pastthat. Every nine year old is taller
than me, and I'm okay withit. I'm a pillar and you're a
votive. That was awesome, ButI know you. You do your your
(14:03):
talks to your staff from the ladder, and so that's why I you know,
I don't know if you named itthat or I just said that,
But lessons from the ladder tell meabout that, because that's way different than
a lot of people run a businessnowadays. We do have our ladder lessons
that we do. So what willhappen is everybody will kind of We'll get
everybody together and I'll do it alot of times when I feel tension,
(14:26):
So I'll be listening to people andI connect with all of our employees.
I always do every single employee there. We're not so big that I can't
say hi to everybody in one,you know, within ten minutes. So
I walk around to talk to people, ask them how their day is going,
what's going on? And if Iget this feeling that someone is feeling
low or somebody is kind of strugglingwith something. We all have stories and
(14:52):
we can go to those stories andwe can share those stories with people to
help uplift them and help them seethings in a different from a different viewpoint.
So I'll say, hey, guys, it's time for a ladder lesson.
And everybody loves it. When Ido Ladder lessons. They sit there,
they cheer, They're like, allright, let's do this. We
all gather around and all get upon the ladder and then they give me
(15:15):
a word and I will tell thema story so that at least has that
word in there. So if someonewas to give me the word duck,
I'm not going to tell you aboutducks. I might tell you about a
time when something was thrown at meand then I ducked, and then I
learned this other So I'm not goingto tell you. You know, I'm
not going to tell you about aduck and what parts of it do you
It has a beak. That's notwhat we're talking about. We're talking about
(15:39):
stories and using that word inside ofthat story to convey a message that people
in our environment need at that moment. That's fantastic and I don't I cannot
think of any other places that wouldgive people a break like that. In
fact, when people bring me totheir companies, I talk about incorporating different
(16:00):
things that are way opposite of theworkday. So I love that you do
that. We definitely align with that, and that's how you know. And
my tagline is a connected team isa productive team, And you are talking
about that connection where you're you're ona different level, and in that sense,
they look forward to that break fromthe regular day and connecting how is
(16:22):
she going to use this word today? They're probably going home and sharing that
or doing the same thing around thetable, So it goes beyond the workday.
That's great right now. I've hademployees come back in and tell me
different. They're like, oh,remember that one time that you told this
one story? Da da da dada. And then I was thinking about
it here at this point and sometimesI'm like, oh, well, you
remember what I said. It's reallycool how that like that story and that
(16:48):
lesson at the very end, howwe tie it all together with the lesson,
just you know that that spark tobe able to get people going in
a better direction. People will mentionthat on and it's really cool to see
that. It's really an experience tosee it from someone else's point of view
and see how what you just sharedcan help somebody else. And in the
(17:11):
art of storytelling, that is howwe remember. Think back to what we've
learned about caveman days. That isit when they were drawing on the walls
and the things were happening. Tellingstory goes on and on and on,
and that person might retell it andadd their own spin. I'm in the
Midwest. You know we're going toadd a bigger fish than was originally told.
(17:36):
That's the thing. What you're talkingabout is the art of storytelling and
how that applies to business and peopleneed to do this. You also were
recently posting about a fragrance flip anda lesson you learned from the wick,
and give me a shorter version ofthat so people can kind of ponder how
they can make that their own.The fragrance slip is this essentially, I
(18:02):
was driving home one day. Ihad my son in the car and I
wanted to murder him. He hadgotten in trouble at school. I felt
like I was in trouble from theteacher. It just was not going good
driving. I don't have anywhere tothrow them off a cliff, and it's
just you can't do that, soit's so illegal. We got all the
way home and I was just Iwas heading inside. I was going to
(18:25):
take every single electronic item that everhad even looked at the house, and
I was going to bury it inthe backyard. Everything was ending and I
walked in the house. I walkedin the house and my husband had lit
I handled one of our candles whileI had been picking up our son,
and the smell just hit me andinstantly it was like a pattern interrupt It
(18:48):
was so incredible just I went boomand I just oh and it just stopped
me instantly, and I was able. It was just enough time to help
me reframe. And it was realinstant. It was just maybe five seconds,
but just enough to make me go, oh wait, change, that
(19:11):
was it. And then instead ofmurdering my child, which I wouldn't have
done anyway, but you know,instead of really instead of all the electronics
disappearing, we sat down and wehad a conversation and we made a plan
and it worked out. You know, he didn't get in trouble for like
three more days. It was beautifuland we worked out. And I call
(19:37):
that our fragrance flip. And that'swhat fragrance does. It taps into our
senses, to our olfactory system andreally works with us to it's like one
of our five senses, one ofour five main senses is our sense of
smell, and it creates that patternswrapped and it just says, you know
what, let's do it slightly differentand it can anything. It can be
(20:00):
like, ah, are you conuse fragrance to have your husband take out
the trash? I mean, there'sso many things you can use fragrance for.
And you're right because it's the sameas when we would maybe let's separate
and count to ten, just goto our neutral corners, count to ten.
Come back. For me, it'sbeing in the garden. I love
(20:21):
my weeding and I have dirt meditation. So I think it's a great reminder
to find for you that that momentwas a fragrance s flip. I mean,
it sounds like you needed about fiftycandles, but because you didn't expect
to have even that one. Whata beautiful moment that your husband has no
idea that he saved What's that they'restrong enough you only need one, But
(20:45):
your husband had no idea that hesaved your son's life that day by simply
lighting a candle. For the heckof it. Now, it's pretty pretty
important to know. I think that'sgreat. Well, I'm so thrilled for
your business, and again, peopleneed to go to Shorty's candas dot com
check it out, and also joinyou on Facebook because you share some of
(21:07):
those lessons. Your videos are alwaysgreat and you always have a lesson or
you just are sharing some funny moments. So I think it's really fun.
But I can't let you go tillI ask you to share a dare or
a prank story, one you've doneor had done to you, or just
one of those great stories we loveto share. On the fourth of July,
(21:27):
just a few days ago, Iwas walking around my son and I
we went to do this Firecracker mileand it was a one mile run.
At the beginning of the day,we head down, we do this run,
and a parade starts right after therun. So the parade is coming
down. You know, you run, you finish. Well, we're heading
(21:48):
down and you had to walk past. You had to go all the way
down. You know, you ranall the way down to the end,
and then you had to walk backto where you parked your car. So
as I as we're walking back,we're saying, have they faded? We're
super excited with all the different floatsand everything, and my son looks at
(22:08):
me and he goes, I betyou just want to be on one of
those floats, huh, And Isaid, oh, I would love it
be so much time. I'm cansit there grave he not everyone, and
he goes, dare you And likesix minutes later, no, yeah,
six or seven minutes later, Ijust walked up to one of the floats
(22:30):
and I said, can I jumpon? And this guy said sure,
and then he jumped off, andI was like, okay, where are
you going? So I'm sitting onthis float and I rode the float all
the way down to the end ofthe parade, and I'm just waving the
entire time, and people were kindof like, oh, just kind of
(22:52):
sitting there watching. But it wasso cool because I would sit there and
I'd look at people. I'd lookin their eyes and I'd sink for at
the July and you could just seethem light up like they were being recognized.
And I had like weird interactions.Some guy asked me if I compost.
I was like, no, Idon't understand that. And another guy
(23:14):
was like, hey, hey,what's your name. I said, it's
Doorga. What's yours? He saidit's Frank. I said, Hi,
Frank. He said I need tocome see you. I'm gonna come see
you tomorrow. I said, allright, buddy, see you tomorrow,
and then I drove away. Andat the very end, I got off
and I realized that I had jumpedonto a float that had a big excavation
(23:37):
truck on the back of it,and it was it was called like Grateful
Gardens or something like that. SoI was on like a garden truck.
And then I realized where the compostand apparently Frank was gonna come see me
tomorrow. But it was just somuch fun. So when you step it,
holler you have to call that.Uh, this is Georgia. Do
(24:00):
I have any messages? Great idea, I'm totally gonna do that. And
how did your son feel that hedared you and you did it? He
never expected that I did. Hedidn't expect it. Actually, he might
have expected it. I'm not verygood at not doing stuff and someone's like
(24:22):
I dare it, I'm like,oh, yeah, let's do it.
But he kind of yeah. Ithink he regretted saying it, because he
ended up sitting on like this bigelectrical green box for like an hour waiting
for me to get back. Finallyhe was like, you're back, lady,
Like he didn't get to go withyou. That's right. Oh my
(24:42):
gosh, that's a fantastic story.Now he knows he has to say,
I dare you to get us ona float. He keeps telling me I'm
embarrassing. He's like, you're themost embarrassing lady in the entire world.
Oh well, he hasn't met me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
(25:02):
then you're doing your job, Georgia. Oh, I'm so honored to have
chatted with you, Georgia Vanderbilt.And people need to check out shortiescandles dot
com and remember we can only bestrangers once. And I invite you to
stay a weird. I will stayweird. Yes, this has been Stranger
(25:23):
Connections with Lisa David Olson
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