Empowering Women and Transforming Lives Through Holistic Health with Cynthia May

You can only do so much researching and studying and pros and cons and financial forecasting and those are wise things to do. I encourage you to do that. But in the end it comes down to are you going to jump and take it or not?

Welcome everybody. This is Jeff Duden, CEO of Homefront Brands. And as always, this podcast is brought to you by Homefront Brands. Homefront Brands Simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform. Encouraging entrepreneurs to take action to transform their lives, impact communities and enhance the lives of those they care the most about. All the while delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front where it counts. If this sounds like you, check us out@homefrontbrands.com today and start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty on the home front. I will be looking for you right here. And today on Homefront Brands, on the home front we have Cynthia May. And this is going to be awesome. I expect to learn a lot and I think a lot of people out there will too. Cynthia is the founder of Beam Light Sauna. She is a serial entrepreneur with a track record of building businesses that provide an elevated experience to customers, mostly in the health and wellness space, while empowering women to take charge of their financial future. She is the president and co founder of Beamlight Sauna and champions women and their contributions in the workplace. Cynthia is passionate about a purpose driven organization that lives its values and celebrates diversity. Most importantly, she is intentional in her interactions with every team member to ensure they feel heard and appreciated. She's on a mission to exceed our franchisees and consumers expectations with the Beam Light Sauna brand. Welcome, Cynthia May.

Thank you. What a nice introduction. I really appreciate that and thank you so much for having me. This is such an honor to be on with you.

You're very welcome and I've been looking forward to this. Maybe to get started. I think you have a background that is so inspiring and many of our listeners are at that inflection point in their life where they're either early stage entrepreneurs or they're thinking about franchising and becoming an entrepreneur that way. So I think your background kind of speaks to those people particularly. So would you mind just sharing Cynthia a little bit about your story?

Yeah, absolutely. That's very flattering to hear that I have a story that resonates with other, other people. I think when you're, you know, going through it and growing up, you're, you're just making it through life. You're not thinking about how your story might inspire I won't go back all the way to, to day one, but I did grow up a military brat. I was the youngest of four Marines all the way. And that was an awesome upbringing and really fun. You. You know, my dad made everything very exciting. Everywhere we moved, it was the next adventure. You know, from California, Kansas, New Orleans, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. And just an adventure. Going through all those places and learning to say goodbye and then make new friends and start over again, I think really helped me later in life. People said, oh, is that so hard? It was hard, but it was fun to be on the next adventure. So I was homeschooled on and off. My mom is fantastic. Just being able to teach four kids, four different ages and, and really adapt to that, that was really fun. Eventually, my dad retired right outside of D.C. my mom said she was so go with the flow and always did it. And her parents lived down the street from where we lived when. When he retired and, well, really before he retired right outside of D.C. and she said, okay, I'm done. That's it. This is the last move. And that's so unlike her. So we settled right outside of D.C. and spent a lot of my young adult life years there. Had a different upbringing. I never, you know, people say, did you see yourself becoming an entrepreneur going that route? I didn't. I did things really different. School was not my strong suit or I didn't apply myself very well. I was a little artistic and thought outside the box.

Typical. Typical entrepreneur.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even know it till I went to high school, but really found the way that I learned and taught that way. And so then when I went to school and I was like, oh, they don't do this. You know, it was like, I don't think this is for me, but obviously there's a need to finish high school. So I actually always wanted to be a nurse. I kind of knew from the age of four or five it was. I loved caring for people. I loved being able to help people. And so I was that kid that early on kind of honed in on my career and what I was going to do and continued that path until life threw kind of a twist at me. I became a young mom. I was 16 and pregnant and. And so all your plans sort of, huh, they just kind of like go out the window at that point. And, you know, I wasn't thinking anymore about that next football game or what outfit I was going to wear to school the next day, but now how it's going to provide for For a child. And so going to college and nursing school was really not an option at that point. Not only was I pregnant, but my father had been diagnosed with a rare form of dementia. So it was just a very interesting time in our, our lives as a family. There was a lot of difficulties, but also a lot of excitement with, with a baby on the way. So I had to pivot really quick. You know, the choices I made, I didn't want them to affect my, my baby, my, my daughter. I didn't want her to suffer because of the choices I had made. And so I needed to, to pivot and shift. And I, I kind of looked at what skill sets I naturally had. I had. We've been pretty good at doing hair and I'd done friends hair for prom and other things, but never thought anything of it. Now, looking back at some of the haircuts I gave, I am so sorry because I definitely botched some hair before I was experienced or had any training. I called one of the top salons in Georgetown and said, hey, who do you, who do you hire? You know, when you're looking to hire, who do you hire? And they said, you know, we hire from these two schools or this apprenticeship. I said, all right, you know, if I was going to not be a nurse and do what I want to do, I was going to try to be the best at whatever it was I was going to do. And so I went to the, to Tops hair school that they recommended. You know, anything you do, whether it's work at Walmart or your assistant, do it to the best of your ability. You can learn so much from those experiences. Pivoting at that point in my life changed. I think my perspective on, on everything. I had to be, you know, a single young mom, only parent, and provide for my child. And nothing drives you quite like that. That was just a huge turning point. So I ended up having a 17 year career in the health and beauty industry. I say health because there's a mental health aspect that you end up, you know, people sit in your chair and I would always say I wasn't a.

Counselor, but, well, especially those first few haircuts you gave. He probably, they had years to overcome that issue.

I'm so sorry. I remember I had, hey, you know.

It grows right out.

It grows. That's a really good thing. It's like, don't worry. And by next year, it will be looking fabulous.

Next one's free.

The last five of those 17 years, which, man, that kind of ages me a little bit. But were Me co founding a high end hair salon. And so a lot of my experience and leadership came from that. And my first employees, I apologize to them too because that was a huge learning curve. Yeah. That led me, believe it or not, into owning a light therapy business.

So you got into the hair salon business. It was high end.

It was, yeah. Had an amazing clientele. Was able to grow that business with my partner to $1 million a year in top line revenue. And so, you know, people say, oh, you didn't come up with a new original idea? And it's like, no, I didn't. But I brought something different to, to that. And so if you can take something that, you know, cutting hair and hair salons has been around for forever, but if you can take something and just make it unique enough and have, have something different and, and have a high end offer that, that people really appreciate you, you can compete with 126 lawns businesses.

There's a couple things in there I'd like to unpack. So you know, I talked to lots of entrepreneurs and you know, you really need a couple of things I think to kind of in your toolkit to get started. One is you need an addressable market. So hair care, if you're doing updos and all this, you know, specialty weddings and you know, all these things, I mean like that's, that's something that people will pay for. You got to have an addressable market. Hair's always growing. Yeah, there's a lot of people doing it. That's because it's a, it's a constantly, it's a renewable demand for it. And then the other thing is, is you just gotta have some sort of a competitive advantage or a competitive positioning in the market space and then you gotta, you gotta really own that. So what are some of the things that you did, look, tone and feel that would have made your salon upscale?

Customer experience was everything to us. I mean there is no business without the customer. And so I really wanted to create a high end feel, but that you could come straight from yoga class, you could be in your, you know, your yoga outfit, you didn't have to dress up there. Being around Georgetown and D.C. it's very high end. You have the politics and, and a lot of people from, from Washington coming to you that are very high and mighty and have great titles and make huge impact and need great hair. Need great hair. Yes, but that are also, they want a high end experience, but they don't want to put on their, you know, fancy outfit to go in there. And so really focus my team on when you are with that customer, one on one, giving your full attention to them every single time, doing a consultation, because who knows what they, you know, maybe they just broke up with somebody, want to chop off their hair, but they've been getting a trim for five years. And if you don't spend that one on one time with them and getting to know them, you wouldn't have known that. And honing in on, on their experience from, you know, the moment they walk through the door to booking their next appointment. And also as a business, realizing what we were good at and what we could focus on and not trying to do it all, opening a salon in that area, it was a lot of pressure to do nails and spa, but what I knew was hair. I knew how to hire, I knew how to train, I knew the flow and what the team needed. And so we honed in just on that and, and that really took us to the next level and, and kind of a step above.

Yeah, focus equals greatness. Thank you for sharing all that. I tell you, you know, one of the two great things that, that leaders like you are observable typically is accessibility. Leaders have to be available and have to be available to their team, to the media, to franchisees. And the second thing is vulnerability. And inside of your story, it makes you who you are and you share it with such grace. So I really appreciate you sharing all that you did about your background.

Thank you.

Talking about the sauna space. So first of all, I am a huge infrared fan. There's a couple of things that trigger me to it. So number one, I like to do it after a workout or if I know I'm going out on Friday and I can get one early on Saturday morning just to kind of get us good sweat out. It's a good detox. So in doing that, I've patronized three or four different brands. All mom and pops are the national brands and all that kind of thing. Beam Light sauna is hands down from the five senses. The smell, the whole nine yards is a better experience for the same exact price. How did you translate your learnings in attracting a certain customer to your hair salon into the what we see as the beam sauna concept today?

Well, thank you so much for saying that. And it's super flattering. Kind of what got me into that. I was about five years in, my salon was healthy and doing really well. I had an amazing team. Not that I had mastered leadership or business by, you know, by any stretch of the imagination, but I had I felt like I had it down fairly well and you can always, always learn. But my husband always jokes as soon as I have a baby that either sleeps through the night or business gets comfortable, I start to get antsy. I also wanted to grow larger than where I was and I felt like that wasn't the business to do it with. It was staff heavy and a challenging one and I was so emotionally invested in it that sometimes you need to be able to take a step back. And so I realized that that was a time for me to start looking at other opportunities and, and being able to grow business was really exciting to me. And so I started to just look around. I want to stay in the health and wellness space, possibly even beauty space, and started looking for, you know, what's, what's missing, what, what aren't we seeing. And had stumbled across infrared light therapy and started dive into that. But it really wasn't until our oldest daughter Maya was diagnosed with Lyme disease. And that was a recommendation to help her with her inflammation and symptoms she was having from that disease. And so then, you know, when your family member or friend or someone close to you has something like that and there's a solution that you've heard of, all of a sudden now you're really interested. So that's when I really started to dive deep and, and realize there was a huge gap. There may have been infrared light therapy at, you know, doctor's office or something, but it wasn't available, readily available. And so looking into all these other businesses, it was like o they have that, but it's cold. It's either really spa like water fountain, the whole spa vibe, or it's kind of cold and dark and almost a little creepy or just not a little dirty, just a little dirty, a little.

Sweaty, a little sweaty.

I started to see this, this empty space. There was a gap in the market and, and no one had sort of taken that higher end approach to it and made it accessible in this type of way. And so that experience from the high end salon, but also a comfortable environment really played a huge impact on what you see today at Beam. And the experience that was a huge, huge part of where BEAM is today is from, from my past experience and owning a hair salon.

Well, I think you put it together wonderfully. Talk to us a little bit about Maya's journey. She got Lyme's disease. You were trying all kinds of treatments. How did you make the connection between infrared and maybe helping her with her condition?

My mom was a dietitian and so we Grew up with very healthy lifestyle, and I absorbed a lot of that. I don't know if you've ever had Kool Aid with no sugar in it. It's basically dyed water. But she would once in a while give us Kool Aid, and we weren't allowed to add this sugar. So really healthy lifestyle. But she started looking into alternative treatments along the way. You know, opened my. My mind to that. And so when Maya got diagnosed with Lyme disease, she was about 13, your typical middle school girl, happy, healthy, sports friends. Got diagnosed with Lyme's disease and was chronically ill. And so we took the traditional route. That's antibiotics. Three to six months, heavy courses. It's. It's intensive. And for some people, it gets that under control enough. Now Lymes just kind of stays dormant. It's. If your immune system is up and you're healthy, you may never see symptoms of it again. Maya saw some improvements from that, the antibiotics, but by no means was she back to her healthy self. And so we then started seeking other treatment, which was. I still wanted the MD side of things. I really appreciate that, but the holistic side, when those two worlds come together, I think you get the best mix. And so we saw an MD but had a homeopathic approach to things as well. And she actually was the one who said she had had a lot of success with other patients of hers that had autoimmune disease and suppressing the inflammation, which is huge for a lot of autoimmune patients and across a wide variety of different autoimmune diseases. And so she was the one who really pushed us in that direction. And then it just wasn't readily available where we were. Maya needed to go three to five times a week, and the closest was four hours away or at a doctor's office. It was between, you know, the hours of 10 and 12 and 1 and 3. And so it just wasn't feasible at that time, but it stuck with me.

Well, and so that's a great point, right? You see a lot of celebrities that have plenty of space in their home and plenty of money getting infrared saunas installed in their home. For a lot of people, that's just not practical. But I'll also suggest it's also. You don't get the experience when. When you're at your house. And, you know, I like to go out and do it. I actually have a little corner of. Of a room that I could put one in. And I looked at it, and I'm like, why would I do that when I can have an elevated experience and get out of the house and have the, you know, and in beam. We've got the technology in, installed in the sauna. So you've get that you can meditate. You've got different lights that I wouldn't have if I bought my own sauna. When you hear from customers, what is it that they like about it so much? And is it that that it just feels good or they feel better or it helps them lose weight? I mean, what are the top three or four things that people would say.

Yeah, so you really hit a lot of it. You miss one on the having a sauna in your own house. And what we've heard from from customers that have the space in their house is you do lose that experience part of it. And you know, I had one customer say, I could have this in my house. Not the same one. And. But I don't want to clean it, I don't want to be responsible for maintaining it. And every time I come here, it works. It's simple. It's so nice to see, you know, the front desktop and be a part of that and relax and get a walk out and leave. And there's something to that. You know, there's pelotons and so many home workout things that we see. People still end up going for, you know, those boutique fitness and really going in because there's that motivation there or just the service provided. Some of the top things that people come in for. When we first open our doors, a lot of people popping their heads in and like, what. What is this place? So the environment is inviting. You feel relaxed. It's simple and minimalistic. And so there's a feeling when you come in of elevated because it's extremely clean and simple. But the pieces that we have put in there are very impactful. They walk in and it's just like, oh, all right. Okay, great. And you're greeted and you're taken to your room. The awesome thing is that when you first go, you have these natural endorphins that go, get going. So you'll have people that come after work and they're stressed out, they couldn't find parking or, you know, whatever the stress is. And they kind of come in, they're like, okay, just get me to my room. And then they leave and they're like, bye, see you tomorrow. They're so happy and excited and you're like, awesome, that's great. So there's a natural response to your body just of those happy, good, feel, good endorphins. And so that's sort of that instant, instant gratification that we get. Similar to working out as well, except for you didn't have to work out, which is kind of a benefit as well. Some of the top reasons we're seeing right now, I'd say the top three are weight loss or, you know, healthy metabolism and then detoxing and then mental health actually is one of our top three. And I don't think, I feel like the conversation is becoming a little bit more normal now around mental health. But going through the, the pandemic, I would say we've seen an increase in sort of that mental health awareness and then also people going through struggles. That was a lonely time for a lot of people. And we saw, we opened right kind of smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, and we were a lot of people's first stop. They're, you know, they come in and they're like, is it okay for me to be in here and just so happy to talk to someone else? Which is something I had never been through in my life before, seeing that, that excitement to come in and be a part of it. So this is a really cool, cool thing to be a part of.

You know, I'm not sure what it is for me, but my experience is, is that when I get in, first of all, I know that there's nothing coming that's uncomfortable. I mean, I might get a little warm when the sweat's really going. So I'm happy when I get in there. Sometimes I'll use the technology or, you know, listen to a podcast or something like that, but more often I'm just gonna sit there and just think and just kind of just get. Find a comfortable position and relax. And you just feel this warm bask on you, you know, just, just starting to happen. When I get to the end of it, I'm like, okay, how long can I go? I'm like, okay, if there's somebody coming in right behind me, I want to give them enough time to, to clean this thing. And I don't want to be trying to walk out when they're waiting outside. But, like, how far can I really push this? Can I get dressed in two minutes? Yeah. Right? I want every minute of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Because once you're in there and it's going, your core temperature is elevated, you're sweating, you know, you're burning calories right there.

Oh, yeah.

You know, I'm an older guy and, and I've got a lot of injuries and ailments and things like that. But man, I really got a, I'm, I'm bouncing out of there, man.

We, we love that.

You know, I don't know exactly what it is. I just know how it makes me feel and people get hooked. I mean, it's, it is, it's kind of a thing where, you know, as you know, my, my wife went in there to, to one of the locations I do know. And your daughter sold her a long term full membership, which is great. And, and she's, you know, three times a week, man, I like, I can see it in her schedule when she's going. And, and she loves it too. So, you know, you got the elevated experience, but you've done, you did something very interesting from a prescriptive perspective with Lumi. People get to walk in and there's a very large oversized screen and there's an auto attendant that took a year to put together the technology and the scripting. But what is, real quick, what is Lumi, because it's definitely, especially in the first couple of visits, has a real cool factor to it.

It is really cool. We love Lumi. You, when you walk in, you're always greeted by one of our wellness sales associates, who's our receptionist essentially. And, and you know, we always want that human connection as well. And then if it's your first time, you're going to be walked over to this oversized screen touch screen and Lumi is there and she is our personalized wellness assistant. Basically, she walks you through an entire, you know, three minute journey of what infrared light is. So some education on it, some high, high level education. You can dive deeper into that as well and then ask you questions why you're, you know, why you're here, what are you trying to accomplish? What resonates with you? You know, our six core benefits and you get to choose from those and just walk through this journey. And so it's nice because you're comfortable going up and just like, okay, this is why I'm here. This is awesome. And then you'll see other benefits too that maybe you didn't even know about or you're like, oh, well, that's a great addition to why I'm actually here.

Yeah.

And so she walks you through all of that and then at the end essentially prescribes or suggests a number of times that you come a week based on, on the answers to the questions that she, she asked and then informing you. And so it's not only an awesome customer experience because, you know, there's a comfort with not sharing all of that with a, with a person, but feeling comfortable with Lumi and sharing that. And then for employees and team members there, it's really cut down on staff training time, but it's a great assistant in helping them and they continue to hear it and relearn and it's just a constant and creates that consistent process throughout. And that's huge in franchising to go into one studio and have that same process as you have at another studio and that consistent experience. Experience. And Lumi's really helpful in achieving that among other things. And she's only in really Lumi 1.0. I mean we've seen AI just take off and we are bringing Lumi to life even more so that she can go with you. And she's just fantastic to have on the team.

She is. Well, I mean, you know, it's an elevated experience. She's got a great voice. It is a very neat aspect to educating. I mean so many businesses would, would serve themselves well if they could find to five to 10 minutes to educate their consumer about some of the things that they. You can't give the consumer homework. Oh well, it's online. They'll probably, they can see it on the website. Well, I don't read websites. Yeah, I look for the schedule now button or how much does it cost button. And you know, other than that, the words on the page are just in the way of me getting what I want. So you know, to have Lumi go through and make sure that people are selecting these things and there's an educational piece to it. You know, they come out informed, feeling good and I think, I think much more likely to, to make it part of their regimen. So kudos to that. That was absolute brilliant in terms of putting that thing together in the right way. You know, we've, we've spent enough time together for you to know that I'm very interested in, in how people decide and you know, what kind of discernment they have around their decisions. When, when people are faced with these forks in the road or these inflection points, how do they do it? It's, it's so interesting because your background is so typical of entrepreneurs, right? You, you've moved around so you, you had to start over multiple different times. Then you were a mother at a young age and you had to now think differently about your life and now who you're responsible for. 16 year old young people are, you know, generally, you know, worried about themselves and, and that now you've got this, this new aspect to what you have to care about and what you're responsible for. And then instead of kind of playing it safe, you go out and start a company and, and are successful in that. And now you start a company and now you're wildly successful as a. As a franchise company. You know, over a hundred units awarded. I mean, that's a big deal. So as you think about your decision process, is there anything that you could share with entrepreneurs who are at that inflection point and they're thinking about doing a business? What pops into your head if you were speaking to these people as you are, to give them maybe some encouragement or something to think about as they decide what's next for them?

Yeah, absolutely. I feel so unequipped to give them, you know, your knowledge and your experience. You have years on me, and not just today. I don't mean that, but more experience.

And so not just in age, but. Yes, in age. Sorry.

No, it's great, though.

And I've got my ring light and my filter on, so it's.

But I would say, you know, there's nothing like magical about it or, or anything crazy, but it's really taking that, that step. We all are faced with decisions and, you know, I could have stayed in the, in the salon business and I could have opened some more, but I was, I was comfortable. I really wanted to challenge myself. And you don't get that when you're, when you're comfortable. And I don't know what it is, if there's childhood trauma or something, I can't think of, but I like to be uncomfortable and push myself out of my comfort zone. And that's what I would say it is. There's, you know, you get to this, this kind of crossroads and decision, and it's like, all right, I can just take this the safe road and keep going that way. Or I kind of just. It's all or nothing. And so I, I ripped that band aid off and it's like, let's. Let's start all over. Let's, you know, start at the bottom and rebuild and, and see what you learn from that. And, man, I've just. I mean, I'm still in it. The franchising world is so amazing. The opportunities in it for so many is life changing, but it's also a huge learning curve. You know, if you've done the homework and you can only do so much researching and studying and pros and cons and financial forecasting and those are wise things to do, I encourage you to do that. When looking At a big decision. But in the end it comes down to, are you going to jump and take it or not? And maybe it's not that simple, but it's felt like that the, the implications after that are huge. You know, I had to sit my family down and say, hey, you know, we might all get a little uncomfortable. It's not just me. I'm not just affecting myself anymore. I have a whole family. And what do you guys think about five of us living in a two bedroom apartment, you know, and having those real discussions of like, with my first business, I said, well, if I'm going to go bankrupt, I want to do it before 30. Which. Great. My husband said, you might want to work on your pitch a little bit, because that really wasn't convincing. But I just thought, let's do it before 30. And now it's like, all right, let's do it before 40. You have to make that decision. But if you have your family support, you've really thought out the business at the end, you can, you can think out the business for five more years and sit there, or you can say, I see an opportunity, I'm going to jump. And there, there is risk, but you get one chance at this. And so I'm going to go most of the time, you know, there's not a lot of time that I'm going to just sit back. I'm going to say, yeah, let's get uncomfortable, let's try something new. I don't know, I don't have all the answers.

Yeah, so I hear. Taking action. And if it goes bad, first of all, nothing's fatal, right? But if it does go bad and you're 30, you've got plenty of time to recover. You probably have less to lose at that point in your life. There's ego that plays in it too, to take the chances that you've had. At some point you gotta say, I really don't care what people think about me because if it doesn't work out, I'm going to have this stigma on me. And. But I don't care, you know, I don't care. I'm going to take action. If they wanted the same thing too, they need to take action. If they're not willing to take action, then I really don't care what they think. And once I start, you don't stop because it is a circuitous route. There's no linear shot to success. I mean, most entrepreneurs have multiple failures before they have the one thing that they crush it out of the park with. And all of the failures that they have along the way are just learnings. And that's really the great thing about franchising is, yes, you can fail in a franchise, but you also have a plan to follow that. Should you follow the plan, should you apply yourself, should you do your research on the franchise that you're getting involved with. The opportunity for you to be successful, I believe, is much higher. How have you hedged your bet? By surrounding yourself with people or education? You get into something new. You said, that's exciting because possibly. And you'd have to tell me. You're very curious. And when you get into something new, you know that there's a lot of new stuff to learn. So you can go out and just kind of gavel and you're kind of building this little house of bricks that you're putting them in one at a time. And if you're successful, you're going to have this beautiful work. I would have to think that your curiosity is, is high just because of your nature to go into new things.

I've always had that artistic side, and that comes with, you know, some imagination and curiosity. It's funny, when you become 16 and pregnant, all of a sudden the standards are really lowered for the expectation of what you're going to become in your. In your life. That was like, oh, hopefully she gets through high school. And it's like, huh, that's different than, than what you expected of me before. So in a sense, you kind of fly under the radar because now everybody's that, gosh, they're impressed that you've, you've made it out of high school. And so it's like the doubters that kind of come along, and I, I very much was driven by doubters. I don't know if that's healthy or not, but it's just, just the way it was. It was like, oh, all right. Well, you just really lowered the expectations. So I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna show you that I can. It can make an impact and, and do it a different way. I had a lot of people that thought I should not open a salon. That wasn't a career move. And there's a 90. I don't know if it's 92, 95% failure rate in the first five years of salons and spas in particular. And so that's a, that's a high fail rate. And so you have your people coming at you basically like, what are you doing? And so I didn't tell a lot of people about the the infrared light idea. But when I did, man, it was like a what? So again, you. You fly under the radar and you start diving in and taking a different approach to it. And that really led me into just researching this more and not being intimidated that it wasn't something that a lot of people were familiar with it. It really created that blue ocean and opportunity. That's the direction you have to go sometimes. Go the crazy.

You know, I'm a big fan, and I really respect you for not promoting something until it's permanent. There's so many people that. That say they have an idea and they're going to start it next. You know, they're all over social media saying, you know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. We're gonna, we're gonna. And. And, you know, you could say that's marketing, but I could also say that you need to do the work internally on the business to make sure that it is all the way baked before you start ringing the bell and. And promoting something, because things sometimes take a little bit longer than you would have liked. Well, I got two. A couple more questions for you. Thank you for taking all this time. We're. This hour has gone so fast already.

Yeah. No, this is great.

So who, other than a family member, has made the biggest impact in your life?

This is a hard question again. I hate to go back to the 16 and pregnant thing, but all of a sudden, all your friends that you thought were friends and partied with disappear, and your friend group becomes really small. For me, it was, you know, one or two, and. And it's like, wait, where did everyone. Where did everyone go? For me, that. That sort of changed the way, you know, I didn't. I didn't look for other people for mentorship or anything like that because I just. I had so many people disappear from my life, and so it kind of turned me inward. And if I could go back and do one thing, I would. I would've started looking for mentorship earlier, but I think that was just a product of what I had been through, and that was my way of coping, was just internalizing. And then I'm gonna have to only rely on myself for inspiration and motivation, and people are. They're just not gonna be there. And so that sort of change changed it for me. I feel like I'm just starting to find those people because I'm open to it now, which is, again, something I would go back and change if I could do it differently outside of family, you know? Barbara Corcoran, I think the last name is, how you say it is, man, she's fire. She's one of the shark tank, the first woman in real estate that really just disrupted the whole industry. And she had a, a very unique upbringing, one of 10 children. And her story is very inspirational. It's not a traditional route and she's had to fight at every turn and she's just, she's so entertaining to watch and just doesn't really care what, what people think, which is, there's so, so much freedom in that. But she's been, you know, somebody who's obviously not that I know personally, but someone who's been, you know, inspiring to me. Her story resonates with.

Well, I'm sure she'll be listening to this podcast and she'll be happy to.

Hear, I'm sure, of course we'll send.

Her a, we will send her a link to this segment on it and see if she taps on it. But if you had one sentence to make an impact in, in somebody's life, maybe a budding entrepreneur, what, what would that be? Do you have, do you have something that you live by that like you go to that you wake up in the morning and you, and you tell.

Yourself, I believe in positive mindset and choosing joy and choosing gratitude. And I do think that it's a conscious choice you have to make on a daily, daily basis. I don't do a lot of like you're awesome, like mirror talk or self talk. Maybe I should, for me, I would say get comfortable or for others, get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Perfect. Perfect. I think that's perfect and I think that's a perfect way to end our show today on the home Front with Cynthia May. Thank you so much, Cynthia.

Thank you so much. This was, this was really fun.

Awesome. And as always, thanks to everybody out there on the home front. This podcast is brought to you by Homefront Brands. Simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform, encouraging entrepreneurs like Cynthia to continue to take action, transform lives, impact communities and enhance the lives that they care the most about. But she has absolutely done all the while delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front where it matters. And if this is you, reach out to me and we will start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty on the home front. Thank you.