618. Create What You Wish Existed and Turn It Into a Massive Business - with Amy Lacey

This is a great time for all of us to rise up together and let's support each other. We're all on the same mission. The ones that are really going to be successful are authentic and are going to move needles and move forward.

Welcome to the earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model, turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the show and I have some exciting news that has just opened this week. It is only going to last for 72 hours. And for those of you who have been maybe following along for a while, you know that Chris and I, Chris is my husband, have always put out different courses to help entrepreneurs or help you to break through to that next level. And we are going to be doing a flash sale right now, 72 hours for three of our courses, all three of our courses for the price of one. So that's going to be the money principles to help you break through your limiting beliefs and teach you all about how money in the economy actually works. We also have aligned which is going to help you get into that place where you are in flow with your zone of genius, whether that's in your relationships, your career, uh, and your finances. And then there's also the Bliss habit, which is a course that has 12 different modules all about how to tap into your bliss. So if you want to be able to get these three courses for the price of one, you can text the word bundle B U N D L E to the phone number 310-496-8363. That is, text the word bundle to 310-496-8363. And my guest today is absolutely amazing. And I have to say, you have probably consumed this product or seen this product that this incredible woman has created and completely took the food industry by storm. Because I know that I was eating the product long before I knew the woman behind the product. And today my incredible guest is Amy Lacy and she is the founder of Cauliflower Foods. She believes that eating healthy should taste as Good as it makes you feel. And I totally agree with that if you guys know I am all about feeling good, especially with the food that we eat. Most people are tired of sacrificing flavor for health. That's why she developed the first no mass, no stress cauliflower pizza crust that actually satisfies your cravings so that you can maintain your healthy lifestyle. Amy's one of the 23.5 million people suffering from an autoimmune disease. And after being diagnosed with Lupus in 2010, she realized that she needed to change her eating. With that in mind, she set out to recreate foods that no longer worked for her. She measured the success of the products by her inflammatory reactions and finally came up with healthy and delicious alternatives to some of her favorites. From that journey. Cauliflower Foods was born. Amy is a national best selling author of Cauliflower Kitchen and the Clean Switch. Her cauliflower products have won numerous awards and have been featured on Dr. In the Food and Beverage magazine, GQ and Okay magazine. And as one of Whoopi's favorite things on the view, Cauliflower Foods is a two time Clean Eating magazine award winner. Amy's future business plans include working with budding entrepreneurs to develop and launch their food products and continue to mentor girls and young women. You guys, this woman is so incredibly generous with her time and her wisdom. I can't tell you how grateful I am already for this woman in my life and how much she has helped me with my product like Pink, out of the goodness of her heart. So, you guys, let's get started on this interview now.

Amy, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. I'm so glad that we could make this happen. Thank you for coming on, Lori.

I'm so excited to be here. It's such an honor and it's long overdue. Like, I've been wanting to do this for a couple months and our schedules have been. Well, you've been RVing it. By the way, I have a question for you. Are you doing these interviews and I hear you and Chris in the RV doing like your 15 minute updates, which kudos to you on the one that was posted today that you have 45% of your funding already. That is so huge. But are you doing these interviews in the RV with bananas and all, or.

Is it just you and Chris updating Amy literally. And I know that we could talk with the whole. This whole podcast could be you and I riffing on how nothing is ever perfect and you don't like you Just have to do it anyway. And you have to learn how. There's never a perfect circumstance to, like, launch or start or be in the middle or, you know, just literally everything and how you just have to put it together. There's so many pieces and you just have to show up no matter what your circumstances. So lately it's like, just do it. Like, just be consistent. So, yeah, we're doing it in there. The audio isn't great and you just.

Roll with it, but it's real, and that's so exciting. It's fun to hear bananas chewing on his bone. I don't know.

Why couldn't you hear it? I didn't know if you could totally hear it. And I was like, yeah, I'm pretty sure it picked it all up.

You couldn't hear it, but you guys mention it, and so it's just kind of cute and it makes it fun. I really enjoyed watching your travels. And I messaged Chris and asked him some questions because it's something that Jim and I would like to do someday. And he wrote a novel. It sounds like he knows everything about the RV and how to work it, how to drive it, the whole bit.

He's obsessed. No, literally, there's, like, it's. There will be something that's coming out later with this whole thing that he's, like, totally wanting to do in his career. So. And it's great, right? Like, this is exactly what we're going to talk about today is, like, doing things that you are passionate about and how that's just. It just fuels you because the work is challenging, right? Like, the work is hard. You better make sure that you are working with people that you want to be working with and that it's something that you're passionate about and you want to show up for. So I know that's what you've done in your business and your industry. And I just want to let everybody know that Amy is somebody who legitimately has gone above and beyond to help me with questions and given me guidance on my new company just out of the goodness of her heart, like, just shown up. So it's just really, really exciting that I know you're also in the season of serving right now. But before we get to that, because I know that's, like, what you're about to go off on. Like, I can see your face light off, light up when I talk about that. Before we get to that, I really want people to know what it is that you've built and a bit about Journey, because you did it in kind of a different way, especially for a foods brand than most people have done.

Yeah. So. Well, let me take you back because it wasn't a plan. I didn't plan and set out and to start a food company. I was diagnosed. So I turned 50 this year. So when I turned 40 in 2010, I can't believe I'm 50.

But anyways, girl doesn't look the day over 40.

Well, I feel like I'm 25. Says I'm very immature, but in a fun way. Not. Yeah. Anyway, in 2010 I was diagnosed with lupus and Sjogren's. I ended up having a blood clot, a pulmonary embolism, and almost died. So they went looking for a clotting disorder and my world really overnight just got flipped upside down. So I was at the time, I had a little online store, I had a laser business. I won't go into all of that. Well, that's a whole nother podcast. But I also was a mom of three kids. My husband was building up his medical practice, so we were very busy but very happy. And then all of a sudden I literally pretty much couldn't get out of bed. And I had a couple surgeries and fast forward about 18 months. I was very depressed. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I was on Plaquenil, which is what you hear in the news about the drug that they're arguing over for Covid. I was on Plaquenil. I was on steroids. I wasn't sleeping because of the steroids. I was on Coumadin for the blood clot and I got put on Wellbutrin for depression. So I was a cluster mess. And here I had these little kids and my youngest was not even two yet. And I couldn't take care of him. I couldn't pick him up. I was arthritic, I couldn't walk. And so he had to go live with my in laws for a couple months. And that's when I hit my rock bottom. And I just said, okay, something has to change. I ended up meeting with Rob Wolf. Have you heard of Rob Wolf?

No.

He wrote the Paleo Challenge. So he was a big paleo guy. Now he's a big keto guy. He created the first CrossFit in Chico, California, in Northern California, where I lived at the time. I met with him and he did an elimination diet. He said inflammation is destroying your body and let's out everything. Let's cut out dairy, let's cut out grains, let's cut out sugar. Sugar is Such an evil component of it as, you know. So I did that and I started feeling so much better. My little boy came back. I was back to being a mom. And I decided this was amazing transformation. And I was actually able to use food as medicine. And one of the things that I did in this process is we used to have family fun night Friday, Family fun night. We still do, but my kids are teenagers, so it's hit or miss anyways. We would have pizza and games. And back then it was like Candyland and crazy little games like that. And so I knew I had to find another way to eat pizza because I wasn't going to be able to eat traditional pizza anymore. So I went to the Internet and I found a recipe using cauliflower. And I was like, dang, I don't buy cauliflower. I don't like cauliflower. It's smells and white. And I think of a vegetable. I think it should be green. I was hesitant, but I did it. And it was a cluster mess. It was just a mess. And I tried it again. I bought all the ingredients for it. And the recipe I was using at that time that I found on the Internet was much more extensive than the recipe that we use. So by about the fifth time, it actually worked. I fed it to my family. They loved it. My oldest son doesn't eat vegetables. I was able to hide the vegetable in it for him. He loved it. And I had also during this time of finding ways to eat comfort food again, but healthier versions of comfort food. I had started the Martha Beck life coach program because I decided I want to pay it forward. I feel amazing. I want to pay it forward. And I also became a health coach. So I started having these healthy happy hours. And I started serving the cauliflower pizza at the healthy happy hour hours. And another health coach and myself decided to take the product to farmers market. And I thought, okay, it's a fun product. Let's try farmers market. It's healthy. We're using fresh cauliflower. The kids love to make it. They can come with me. It'll be a fun little, you know, side business. Little extra money, teach the kids work, work ethic.

2026 is the year that you launch your business. It's the year that you've become the boss. You become the leader. That idea that you have that has been eating at you forever that just will not leave you alone is going to come to life. Maybe it's something that someone tells you you should always sell or a store you've already designed in your head. And with Shopify, 2026 is when you finally make it happen. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made the sleep from household name to first time business owners. Just, just getting started, you guys. I use Shopify for glossy and I remember when they sent me my little shopping bag celebrating my 10,000 sales and I literally cried because I was so.

Scared to take the leap.

And I'm so glad that I did.

And that I use Shopify.

It gives you all the tools to easily build your dream store. You can choose from hundreds of beautiful templates that you can customize to match your brand setup is fast. With Shopify's built in AI tools that write product descriptions and headlines and help you edit photos so marketing is built into. You can create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll. So as you grow, Shopify grows with you. You can handle more orders, expand to new markets and do it all from the Same dashboard in 2026. Stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com happy. Go to shopify.com happy that's shopify.com happy. Hear your first cha ching this new year with Shopify by your side. Too many people finish their workday feeling frustrated, drained and unfulfilled. I know that. I have experienced that myself. And the good news is it doesn't have to be this way. And you don't need a new job to fix it. Patrick Lencioni, author of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and more than a dozen other bestsellers, created the working Genius assessment to help you pinpoint the kind of work that gives you energy, the kind that lights you up, and it also shares the kind that drains it. So over a million people, including me, have taken it and completely changed how I lead and show up every day. If you're a CEO, an entrepreneur, or someone who just wants to level up in business and in life, working genius is going to give you the clarity and confidence to operate in your strengths and find greater joy in what you do. Because confidence isn't pretending to be good at everything. It's knowing where you're truly gifted. Take the working genius assessment today and get 20% off with code earn@workinggenius.com that's workinggenius.com you'll be glad you did it.

And it just grew. And we were selling out before we ever made it to Farmer's market. So then I was like, okay, there's something to this. And I decided to take it online in January of 2000. So Farmer's Market was 2016, by the way, January of 2017. We decided to launch it on E Commerce in late 2016 as a way to invest in myself and really expand my health and life coaching business. I went out to Nashville, Tennessee, to take a course with Donald Miller. Are you familiar with Donald Miller? Okay, so you got to listen to Lori's podcast. That's number one. But if you want to listen to one after hers, Donald Miller has a really good business one.

Okay.

I think you need to. It's called Story Brand.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

Story Brand is really about making your customers the hero. Right. And so we started talking about our customers that had been eating the pizza crust in 2016. And we also did zucchini noodles. Before those were a thing, we called them zoodles. And we started talking about how the pizza and different things you could make with the crust, like tacos and various different comfort foods made healthy were changing people's lives. Because literally, I was having. Diabetics were eating it. Anybody that was put on a low carb diet. We had this little boy that had a brain tumor. His doctor put him on a keto diet. It wasn't even called keto then. And so we sent him pizza crust because he loved pizza. And we just had some amazing stories and testimonials. And so, as you know, facts will tell, but testimonials will sell and stories sell. So rather than talking about our product, we talked about people's success with our product. And one particular story kind of went viral in January of 2017. And that month, we sold more than we had sold all of 2016. End of 2017, we were just Direct to Consumer. And we had had well over a thousand percent growth.

Wow.

It was pretty crazy. And then by 2018, we were in some stores. We were still major direct to consumer. 90% of our business with direct to consumer, about 5% was Amazon. And we were selling a pizza crust every three seconds online. So that kind of gives you the magnitude of how busy we were. And, yeah, that's how it got started. And then there's a whole other story beyond that, but that's how it got started. And I pinch myself all the time.

Oh, my God. Okay. So we just have to really get people to understand that sometimes this is such a story of one of those moments. And I try to highlight this all the time on here, of how we can often think that things are happening to us like oh, I'm sick. This is terrible. This is the worst thing ever. Then we can get into that place of being really down. And to be quite honest, you can be, it's totally validated. You could be pissed and upset at the world that this is happening to you, or it could potentially be something that's happening for you for this next big idea or this way that you can help other people. Or all of a sudden now, Amy, you're living this life that like, you have this incredible business and now your, your favorite thing is to be of service to other people. But you couldn't have been in this place to offer all this info without this experience, without, you know, being in the place in life or having the money to be able to be able to be service, of service to other people. So I really just want people to understand that sometimes these things can come in the form of massive resistance or struggle or pain or sickness or whatever that is. And it's like really taking the power to be your own advocate and then to potentially say, how could, you know, how can I help myself? How can I help and heal myself? And then say, if I wanted this, do other people want this? And that is so huge. I'm so, so glad you just shared that because I think we can be in places where we're waiting for our big idea while trying to get out of the place that we're in, when really the place that we're in is the exact thing or the thing we're experiencing is the thing that's going to get us out. So amazing. Yeah.

And thank you for that. And there's so much that went into it between. I mean, we would need hours to talk about it. And there's a lot of fun things that I like to talk about when I'm on podcast, about how my friends came alongside of me and it was 12 of us that built the company and none of us had experience in the food industry, but we were really humble, really hungry, and had strong emotional intelligence. There was no drama. We just made it happen and we figured it out. And Google was our best friend. As well as surrounding ourselves around industry leaders that had done it before, we created an advisory board, we had people there with us. We've learned so much. I feel like I have a PhD in how to run a business, start a business. But just like what you said, you never know. Ten years ago, if you were to tell me that I were to create an eight figure business and move to Florida, which is a whole nother story, which I'll Tell you about briefly, in just a moment, I would have said, no way. How? That's impossible. I wouldn't even know where to begin. And it happens. You never know. And literally I can remember feeling so distraught, like more depressed and more down than I've ever been over anything in my life. And I haven't had the easiest childhood. And there were times where, you know, I've been in a foster home. I went to live with my aunt and uncle in Oregon who raised me for a short time. There were some tough times as a teenager, but nothing was like this particular time. And I think it was because I, from the outside, I had it all. And all of a sudden it was gone. And I thought, I've made it. And then it was gone. At least I felt like it was gone. And it was up to me to make those changes. I had to kick this in the pants. I had to be my own advocate. I had to really. I mean, I'm married to a doctor and he's giving me shots of steroids and it's like, this is not fun. I can't sleep. I'm going nuts. I'm going crazy from not sleeping. There's a reason why do sleep deprivation in prisons. Crazy for sure. So I am a testimonial of anybody can get through the tough times. I really truly believe that. And I know our country and a lot of people are going through tough times right now. And the really cool thing about that, I think, is we don't know what the other side is going to look like yet. When it looks like everything is just crashing down and it's horrible and amazing things tend to come out of that we've had. I mean, it wasn't all peaches and cream or whatever that saying is.

Anyways.

It wasn't all great. Going from negative 200,000 to an eight figure business. There was a lot of failures along the way. And what I learned is every time we stumbled across a failure, our business grew tenfold. As long as we owned it, we were responsible for it. We corrected, just grew. And people love that transparency and that honesty. And that's why I love serving now. Because I feel like if I had somebody like myself in my pocket when I first started, I would have definitely saved myself a million dollars. I made a million dollar mistake twice. And so I know that I can help other people not make those same mistakes. Like, I have a client right now who's expanding his kitchen and he's getting ready to put these freezers in and I'm like, well, Wait a minute. We had all kinds of problems in one of our CO packing facilities early on with the freezers damaging the floors. And then we weren't able to get. The building wasn't able to get certified because of the damage in the floors to repair. The floors was massive. And it was an easy correction at the beginning if he had just done one thing with the floors before putting the freezers in. So this guy is like, that I'm working with is like, I've never heard of that. And I'm like, well, go research it. And here's, you know, here's the details around it. And sure enough, he's getting a quote to fix the concrete floors before the freezer goes in. Just with that happening three years later. And so there's lots of things like that, but in 2018, I don't know. Did you ever hear about the campfires? You're in Southern California of Northern California, the town of paradise burning down.

When was that?

That was in November of 2018, I don't think. So you all were having your fires in Southern California? I was actually in Southern California for a meeting for cauliflower and Northern California went on fire. Caught on fire from the electrical company. That whole. Yeah. So that town of paradise burned down. And that was my parents hometown and my aunt lived there as well. So I came rushing home. Everybody was evacuated, went to my house. We lived 10 minutes away from the town that burned down. So our town was black. We had what looked like snow in our backyard, but it was really ash. And I came home from that to everybody living with me with our animals. And I realized life was never going to be the same. We had just opened our pizza bar in a little grocery store like our version of Whole Foods. And our grand opening was supposed to happen the next week. And it ended up being that we made pizzas and fed people that were evacuated and the fire. And that was our grand opening. And I knew everything was going to change. And I was the CEO and the company. We were growing massively, doing great things. We had launched all kinds of products. I wrote a best selling cookbook. There were a lot of amazing things happening. But when that fire hit and I knew my family was displaced and our hometown was greatly affected. 48,000 people were out of their homes. It was a bad scene. I decided then that it was time for me to make family. Family's always been number one to me. But being a CEO and running a company that's growing that fast, you know, family's number one. But your company also has to be a top priority. And so I was traveling a lot and I realized I probably need to get the CEO title up and I need to bring somebody in and I need to take care of the situation because most likely we're going to have to move and we're going to have to move my parents and we're going to have to move my aunt.

There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be.

One of them for you.

And when you want more, when you're starting a business, you need Northwest Registered Agent because you get access to thousands of free guides, tools and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. And it's all in one place. You can build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow business for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US with over 1500 corporate guides. Real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business.

Every step of the way.

You can sign up for free account to begin managing your business hub with lawyer, drafted operating agreements, bylaws, resolutions, membership certificates, bills of sale and more at no cost. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you with you form your business, they give you the free tools you need after you form it like operating agreements, meeting minutes and thousands of how to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And let me tell you, this is life changing because I had no idea how much went into this. So don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business Identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit www.northwestregisteredagent.com Earn free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent@www.northwestregisteredagent.com earnfree.

And so again I was faced with this situation that looked kind of doom and gloom and I found a wonderful partner that came in, bought part of the business, moved the business out of Northern California to Boulder, Colorado. And since we've expanded nationwide in grocery and we're growing massively, we just launched entrees. So we're having massive growth again and it's phenomenal. But giving up the CEO title was tough. And the reason why I tell you this story is because I found myself falling back into kind of a slump and I realized, okay, how do I get myself out of this funk? We moved from Northern California to Florida. We have a beautiful home. It's like our dream Home. We live on the water. My kids are thriving, life is good. But I'm no longer the CEO and I'm no longer as busy as I was. And it's like, it just feels awkward. I feel like I don't know what to do with myself. And so serving and helping others has been very fulfilling. And that's kind of where that came out of. And at first I was doing it for just to help people that I knew I'm in this phenomenal mastermind. And so some of those people needed some help from going from brick and mortar, especially during COVID and taking their business online. So we did a couple of businesses where we took them online and now they're thriving, which is awesome because they were on the verge of being shut down. And so that was great. And now I kind of made it a side business and I hired some of my ex employees from Califlower that were no longer with Califlower. And so we're doing what we did with cauliflower with these other businesses that are going online. And it feels amazing. It feels amazing to serve and help others.

Oh my God, I love, love, love all of those stories and it just. I'm so excited to see what even transpires for you in the next year or two from like this, this place that you're in right now of. Oh, I didn't even realize that I loved this so much. And you're so great at it and you have so much wisdom with it. It's going to be so much fun to see all the businesses that are able to become potentially a business like the one that you were able to bring to the place that it was. So just I don't think you completely mentioned the name. And if people did want to go check out cauliflower foods, like, can you tell us just a quick like one minute what you have where we can find those? And then we're going to get into this other side.

Yeah. So we were one of the first cauliflower pizza crusts on the market. We have crusts. We have flatbreads that make awesome tacos. We now have lasagnas, enchiladas, vegetarian lasagnas, enchiladas. We're reinventing the frozen section. We've also got topped pizzas. And you will find us nationwide, Walmart, nationwide, Whole Foods, soon to be nationwide, and another big that all of us have shopped at. But I'm not allowed to tell. I just found out yesterday, so it's exciting. So we're nationwide, we're In Kroger. We're in a lot of grocery go on our website, which is Califlower spelled like California C A L I flour. We consider ourselves the new white flour. So F L o u r foods.com you can order it directly from the website or you can put in your zip code and find out what stores we're in.

Amazing. Okay, so before we move into talking about serving, what do you think? And this is like going to be an impossible question for you to answer, but we're just going to see what comes to your mind first. So first thing that comes to your mind when you think of what your biggest transformation on your mindset, what is something that now you think differently or a theme that you learned from running that business? What is an overarching theme that you kind of learned that's truth for you about business.

So this isn't really hard to answer and it sounds really simplistic, but I swear it works. And I had to learn it the hard way. With my childhood the way it was and with my teen years the way it was. I was very scrappy and very much like no was next opportunity. I would not take no for an answer. Very like really fear based and really insecure, but willing to persevere through that and fake it till I make it, so to speak. The one thing that I didn't learn until later on in my life was truly pouring out to other people and knowing that it's going to come tenfold. I had a wall up. I didn't trust people. I didn't understand gratitude and the power in gratitude. So that's my answer, is gratitude, living in gratitude. There are things, there are times, there are people that have really burned me in this industry. I'll be honest with you, I'm not going to go into those stories because they're negative. But I have sat in gratitude knowing that there was a reason why they came across my path. And while it felt painful and hurtful and betraying, there was a reason and I grew from it and something good came out of it. But I had to sit in gratitude with that anger. In my opinion, you can't be angry and live in gratitude at the same time. I know some people disagree with that, but for me personally, that is the fastest way for me to get over a situation is with gratitude. And I think early in my early years just not having trust and not even believing in myself, I was not willing to put that energy into other people or to even go there and write out a journal of why I Was grateful for them, especially for somebody that had burned me. But there's. You can find gratitude in any situation and anyone, even when it looks doom and gloom. And I feel like I'm living proof of that, like, God, why do I have to have lupus? This sucks. Why did I have to have a surgery? Why did I have to have a blood clot?

This.

You know, why did this happen to us financially? In the downfall in 2008, we had to sell our dream home. Why did that happen? Well, always something really positive came out of it, and I have a lot of gratitude for that. And so in the season that I'm in right now, you know, not everything is going the way I think it should with the business. I'll be honest with you on that. When you bring in somebody, you're not always going to align and you're not always going to think the same way you hope you do. And when your business starts growing and it becomes a teenager and adult, it no longer can be operated the way you did early on. Like, customer service is so important to me in the customer experience. And I used to hand write thank you cards. And this is probably something that you do because you're very. I know you're so about your audience and so caring and you put so much. I can just tell just from my experience with you. And I love the card that you sent with the drink, light pink. I thought I had it right by me, but I don't. I mean, you just put those personal touches in. And I used to do that with every customer. We used to. I used to write thank you cards all the time. And now it's like, impossible. Every once in a while, I can see that somebody is a big consumer and I definitely will do it. And I try to do it as much as possible, but it gets to a point where you lose that. And so by boy, I went in a squirrel moment. Where was I going?

Lori, those are my favorite. Those are my favorite. We talked about gratitude and you just honestly went into so many great lessons because we forget. And I think entrepreneurs. That's one of the biggest things, Amy, that I see is the we. They. All of us can get really caught up in the like, yeah, but this is happening. Or, oh, my God, I wasn't expecting. Expecting this or, you know, all of the walls that can go up. And I think when you get back into gratitude, you start to understand that those. It's actually just all a part of it. Like, it just reminds you, like, hey, Chris and I always talk about you Know when you choose to be an entrepreneur, you are literally just choosing to solve your own problems every day. Otherwise we're always just choosing like solve someone else's problems or just solve your own problems. And that's what it is. It's like we get to solve our own problems over something that we're passionate. But it doesn't mean there won't be problems. It's actually signing up for solving daily, lots of problems.

I always talk about the five P's of my business, which is having a really authentic, awesome product, having a lot of passion. Because look, people out there, if you're doing something or creating a product just to be acquired or to make a ton of money, it's going to backfire on you. You've got to have the passion behind it. You've got to have the purpose and the meaning. So that's one of my P's. Like, why do you want this product? Why do you want this service? Why do you want to be a coach? What is your why? We hear that all the time, but deep down inside, you really genuinely have to have some passion behind it or it's going to backfire on you. Perseverance, persevering. There's a lot of highs and a lot of lows in business and in life and you've got to be willing to persevere through it and get through the fear. Don't allow. We talk about this all the time, but it's so true. I'm such a fear based person and I don't allow it to paralyze me anymore. I just push through it when I'm getting ready to talk on stage. And I remember I was in Texas and I was talking to 400 women and I went in the bathroom and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to puke. I'm so nervous. These are all 400 women that are business owners. There was a senator in the room. It was crazy. And I thought, how did I get here? And I just, I literally prayed through it and I was like, okay, you've got this. You're just like all of them. You've got this and you've got something special to tell. Go out there and own this. Do not let fear paralyze you because you, you're not going to be at your best for them. And they brought you here. You need to be your best for them. And you know this. You can own this. And I went out and I rocked it. I killed it. At first. Little stumbling, getting on the stairs on the stage and my voice kind of quivered and then I'm like, nope. And I actually went into storytelling and I started talking about one of my clients. Right away when I say clients, one of my customers. And that just set me at ease. It wasn't about me, it was about my customer. And it wasn't about me, it was about the audience and how could I serve them best. And so going back to that word of serve, often for me, as well as gratitude, will persevere through the fear. And then my other piece, so I've talked about product, passion, purpose, people surrounding yourself. We already talked about that. But surrounding yourself with really like minded people, making sure I say you're not unequally yoked. And what I mean by that is you don't want to bring somebody in that isn't going to match what you're putting out there because that will also backfire on you. I've been in that position before where you're all the money and you're all the time and it can be a disaster, a bit of a disaster. So you want to make sure that you're bringing in people that can contribute, you can contribute, you're like minded, you have the same values, you're on the same mission, really important. And then the final one is paying it forward. And even when we were a young company, we were always donating and paying it forward. We worked with Step it Up, the girls that are first time college graduates. We worked with the mentoring project, we worked with Lupus foundation, always we're paying it forward. And that will come back to you tenfold. And you don't even know when it's going to happen. It's crazy. Nestle brought me out to talk to all of their executives. This was late 2018 and I was so honored. That's one of those moments where I went in the bathroom and prayed because Nestle employees and I've always had this vision that Nestle was going to buy my company. I still do. Nestle, yes. I have my financial partner. I sold a portion of my company off. I took some money off the table. So I did do that. But I want to be acquired someday by a company that needs healthier food like a Nestle to get invited to go talk to all of their employees about customer service and how we do it differently online and how we get to on a direct to consumer e comm business. You get to talk to your consumer, you get to look at your Shopify analytics, you know where they live, how often they've ordered it's kind of creepy how much you can find out about people. I know. I don't mean to be a stalker on cauliflower products here. Yeah. But it's crazy. So I'm sitting there, and I'm talking at this Nestle convention, and then they invite me to go on their boat that evening. Now I have a point to the story about paying it forward. So we're in Miami, and I'm on this big yacht with all of the Nestle executives, and I'm. And I'm so nervous, Lori. I'm, like, freaking out. I'm there by myself. There's nobody from the company with me. So I get dressed up. I go. And I'm like, pretty soon, I'm hanging with the CEO of Nestle. And it was awesome, and it was so great. But the way that I got to hang with him is the part about paying it forward. Like I said, we had worked with Step It Up. Step it up has a board of directors in different cities. And it happens that the girl that was putting on all of the events for Nestle that weekend happened to be a board member of Step It Up. Well, I didn't know that. She didn't know I worked with Step It Up. But I went and I started talking to her, and I said, wow, what you've done tonight on this yacht is amazing. Like, you guys pulled this together. This is incredible. What company do you work for? And she's like, well, you know, she told me about our company, and Nestle had contracted them out. She goes, but my real passion is this. I'm on the board of this group, and it's so amazing, and it's what I love. And I said, oh, okay. What is it? She's like, it's called Step It Up. And I'm like, oh, we donate to that. So we start talking about Step it up and our mission about helping women, especially young girls. And she goes, well, have you met the CEO of Nestle yet? I mean, they brought you out here. Let me go introduce you. I'm super good friends with him. His name is Steve Presley. I'm like, no. And she's like, well, come on, I'll go introduce you. So she introduces me to the CEO of Nestle because we have that common bond of Step it up, which is a program we donated to early on. And I end up hanging out with him the rest of the evening. And we talked shop, Talked about how I did how I built the business on E. Comm. Talked about all kinds of things. And so I'm convinced that Nestle's supposed to buy califlower Foods someday, but that just shows you how you never know when you pay it forward and you're really working with somebody or an organization, how it might come back to you tenfold. That was an awesome opportunity.

I want to take a minute to remind you how important it is to have a fast comeback rate from the failures in life and in business. It's as crucial in business as it is in health, so if you're in charge of hiring, it should be in every single job description. Whether you're ready to make your next important hire or you need some rehiring tips, Indeed is here to help. Help indeed.com is the number one job site in the world because Indeed gets you the best people fast. With 73% of online job seekers visiting Indeed each month, Indeed is going to get you the most important hire you need, just like they have for over 3 million businesses. So right now Indeed is offering our listeners a free $75 credit to boost your job post, which means more quality candidates will see it fast. Try Indeed out with a free $75 credit@ Indeed.com happ this is their best offer that you are going to find anywhere. So go right now to Indeed.com happy terms and conditions apply. Offer valid through December 31st so I know most of you that are listening are either entrepreneurs or creatives or just people who have a lifelong hunger for learning. I know I am one of those people as well.

You guys.

Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people just like you. We can explore new skills, deepen existing passions and get lost in creativity. The reason that I love Skillshare is because right now I'm really focusing on building and marketing a new business that I'm working on. And with classes like Personal Branding, Crafting, your Social Media Presence by Kate Aarons and this class by Gary Vaynerchuk that I'm loving is Context is Social Media Strategy in a noisy world. So I'm a obsessed with all of the classes under marketing and they have so many other classes for pretty much whatever you are interested in. So what's most important to me though is that most classes are under 60 minutes with short lessons to fit any schedule. There's no ads, they're always launching new premium classes and it's less than $10 a month with an annual subscription. So explore your creativity@skillshare.com Lori and the first 1000 people to use our link will get a free Trial of skillshare Premium membership. Receive free access to thousands of classes for a limited time. Be one of the first 1000 to sign up at skillshare.com forward/lori. That's skillshare.com forward slash Lori. L O, R I.

Oh, my God. I so this is literally a theory I would love to write about because. Because it's a million percent the truth. So if I ever write it, we'll throw that story in there. We'll just manifest Nestle for you as well. But this is, okay. Vital, Vital, vital. I think if anybody doesn't know their next step of, like, whether they're trying to bring an idea to life or whatever that looks like, I always think if you don't know what your step is right now, you can always go and get lost in serving. You know, if you're just like, I'm so lost, I don't know what my idea is or I don't know what direction is. It's so crazy because when I've been in those points and I haven't always done this, this is like. This is definitely more of like a new four to five year thing for me where then I go when I get really overwhelmed or anxious or like, I don't know what to do next, I'll always go to try to find someone or something to serve or reach into my network and see, like, who can I help. And it's crazy how it either alleviates the anxiety or helps me get clear on what I want to do or somehow it's insane. You don't necessarily serve for yourself, but it always. It's like it just comes back. Whether it's just the feeling of, like, feeling more grounded or good, or I'm just looking at what my company is being made up of right now and I can trace it back to moments that I've, like, either done something maybe I didn't want to do at the moment, or showed up or gone to some event where you just volunteer your time or whatever that is, and it's like, mind blowing how you can. It's that. What is it? The Steve Jobs quote where it's like, you can't connect. You can only connect the dots or you can't connect the dots looking forward. And it's so crazy. It'd be so much fun to go down your path to see where all of your dots had connected with your success.

Oh, and I could go on and on about that. One thing I would definitely like to say, because I know we don't have that Much more time is to invest in yourself. And I didn't know what that meant until I got really sick. And then I was like, okay, only I can fix this. I want to get off these medications. So I invested in the Martha Beck program, right, to learn how to life and health coach. And that was a huge ticket for me. It was $30,000. And I remember laying in bed and talking to my husband and going, I need $30,000 to do this life coaching program. And he didn't. I mean, he was so happy to get me to not be sick anymore. He was like, sure, do it. And I was surprised. And now I continue to invest in myself. I know your people invest in you and it's so important because they're investing in themselves by working with you. It's so important to do that and you grow tenfold by doing that. Your business will grow as you grow internally. And so to serve and to be in gratitude. I think I've learned through not only doing it, but also I've learned from investing in myself in these courses and these life coaching programs. And I'm in this great mastermind right now with Joel, Marion and Dan Fleshman. And it's phenomenal. The way that these guys come out and women come out and serve is incredible. And these are people that have made it right. These are hundreds, $500 million company owners. They don't have to serve people like me. And they do, and they do it gratefully and they're excited about it and they're excited about helping people. And so they're very inspiring to me. And I just want to continue on that mission as well. I think it's so important. And I want to say that when you start investing in yourself too, and you see that growth within yourself, your business will grow. And if you haven't started a business yet, your ideas will grow and eventually you will do something. I promise you that. I just, I know that. So I feel like it's a, it's really important to pay it forward, but also realize you're worth it and you need to pay it forward to yourself as well.

Oh my God. It's absolutely. I could never have done anything without investing in myself. And it's like I will continue to. Oh, it's a part of, of it's, it's not even a, it's a non negotiable, it's a part of growth. Like you will only go as far as you're willing to grow. And I'm always just like, if I, if I find a Place where I'm feeling a little like, I don't know where you're getting to a place where you're just feeling kind of neutral, you're not learning a lot of new things or you're. You're feeling like your network is kind of like you don't know who to ask. It's because you haven't put yourself into that new, maybe scary place or that new network. So that's always a sign if I'm just like, yeah, I'm feeling really comfortable.

That's interesting that you say that because it was 2017, summer of 2017, and cauliflower was growing like crazy. But I had done nothing on the life and health coaching business at this point. I was just swamped with cauliflower. And I've been going to a couple food shows, but I thought, you know what? I haven't done anything to really pour into myself. And through a Facebook messenger, I got an invite to this course. But when I went online to look it up, it was closed already. So I reached out to the person that was hosting the course and they said, sure, you can come on out. It was in New York. Okay. Because this is like connecting the dots now story. So I didn't really know why I should be there, but the fact that it came up on the messenger and by the way, I was accidentally looped into the group that was talking about this course. So it was a total accident that and my husband once again was like, yeah, you should go to New York. Go out there. And I was going to do an interview while I was out there. Well, I went to Chris Winfield's first UAX course. This is before Jen was part of the picture. Chris pulls me out of the audience and he had said, well, what is your company worth? Everybody had to go around and talk about what their company was worth. I forget exactly the exercise we were doing. And I remember saying, I've done 1.8 million in cauliflower so far as of June 2017. And he said, well, what do you think you're going to do by the end of this year? And I said, five million. I just threw out a number and we exceeded that. And then he said, and what are you going to do next year? And I was like. And he goes, you're going to do 20 million. And I go, and we exceeded that. But here's the thing with Chris. He connected me with a couple different people who connected me with an agent for the Cookbook. And I met Sterling Lord and I met jdry, who worked at Sterling Lord. And we immediately bonded and the next thing I know they're helping me pitch my proposal of wanting to do an all cauliflower cookbook which is right here, which I just sent you by the way because I was waiting for you to get home from RVing. So Sterling Lord helped me meet these publishers and I pitched my idea to them and Abrams picked me up. I got three deals and I went with Abrams and that was a whole nother incredible journey. And now why do I tell you this? Because I put myself in a position where I could meet other entrepreneurs. Chris connected me, which is what he's known for doing. I followed up. There's a lot of things in this invest in yourself, follow up, breakthrough from fear, put yourself out there. I was very interested in what JJ did and Sterling Lord. So I learned more about them. They were excited about me. We put together this book. It became a national bestseller. I did not make the New York Times bestseller. I should have. I sold enough in the first week.

You should have. It's all good.

But that's on my goal. That's on my list. But funny, when we were moving, I found an old journal from my Martha Beck days and one of them was for her. Susan Hyatt was leading the course and she said, I want you to write down five things that you're going to have in five years from now or five things that you will accomplish. And I don't even remember writing them, but I wrote them. And one of them was I want to have a coaching business or a product that changes people's lives.

Check.

Cauliflower foods is the only pizza out there that a diabetic can eat. And it's been incredible for other autoimmune and just people that want to eat healthy like yourself because it's low carb. Check. I want to write a book. Check. Did I think it would be a cookbook? No. But I do remember always wanting to write a book. More like a self help book or an autobiography of my childhood. But check. I had written a book and it became a national bestseller and it's in other countries which is so cool. And then I wrote that I wanted to. I didn't grow up with religion but I wanted to learn all about religion and read the Bible. Check. I'd done that. I wanted to become a huge part of my kids life and really create a life that we love. Like I even specifically wrote down, I want us all to be certified scuba divers. We are. I want us to someday live on the water. We manifested that we live on the water now. I mean, everything I wrote, but one thing came true. So out of the five things, four had come true. And these were like, big things. And so I believe that putting yourself in the right position and meeting the right people and putting yourself out there, you never know what's going to happen. I never would have thought I would have had an opportunity to publish a book, and it's happened and I'm going to publish more. Yeah, Yeah, I was watching.

It's so funny. I'm literally like, are we gonna what? Can we talk about this now, off the podcast? Because now I'm like, all super pumped. You are so freaking inspiring. I love it because it's so real and it's tangible and these are things that everybody can do. It's like. And thank you so much for sharing that you push through fear, because I relate to that more than I can possibly tell you. Like, I do feel like everything I do every day feels like, oh my God, I'm so scared. And exactly what you said. I have to do it because I know I'm doing it for the woman who thinks she's too scared. And I'm like, oh God, I have to do it for her. Like, I know I'm going to talk to her and let her know I feel the same exact way. And you're so. You're doing that to me right now. Like, that's so important for us to share how we're actually feeling in the process, because it's so empowering to be like, damn, we all feel that way, so I want to know.

We really do.

It's crazy. It's never like you wake up and you're like, yeah. I mean, you have some days where you're like, oh my God, I feel so powerful. And then we go to sleep and somehow we all get start all over again. But I really want to quick chat on just the female founder because I know that you feel super passionate about this just like I do, but why do you think it's so important for women to like, go for it and support each other as well?

So. Oh, gosh. For so many reasons. First of all, ladies, there is. I was just looking at the stats earlier today. 12.3 million female founders. We are responsible for $1.8 trillion of income last year. This is. And you know what? I should decided where I saw it on two different. Two different places I saw this. So I think it's accurate. But I should have written down where I got it from last year. Every day, 1800 new businesses started by women.

Wow.

The 40% of the businesses coming out of 2020 will be women owned. And I think it's really important. I grew up, you know, I struggled, like I've mentioned a few times. But the one thing I want to say is my mom was a single mom. My dad was an alcoholic drug addict, and he was gone. My mom was a single mom, and I got to see her struggle. But what she taught me was there's rewards in the struggle and to keep going and not to give up. And so she was a really strong mentor for me, and my grandma was a strong mentor. So these women were really strong. They happened. I broke the cycle. I married a gym. His name is literally Jim, but he's a Jim like Chris. He's super supportive. He's amazing. He is a physician, but with cauliflower exploding, he had to go part time. And they called him Dr. Mom because he literally became the mom and the dad. And he was amazing at it, and he was so supportive. So I broke the cycle of my grandmother married not a good man. My mom married not a good man. And I broke that cycle, and I'm proud that I did that. But it's important for us to keep going and being more than just, you know, we need to be running businesses, we need to be owning businesses. We need to be the moment, but we need to be an example of so much more. And it's crazy because women are rising up and through this pandemic, they say women will rise. Like 46% growth in women businesses through the pandemic. I feel like there's. I'm not bagging on the men because again, I'm in that mastermind. I see some amazing things that these men have done. But it's really important for us women to think we can be moms and we can own businesses and we can run them and what a great example we are to our daughters. So I used to struggle with guilt, and this might be, you know, your audience might be not in the place where I'm at, and maybe they have little ones. I used to struggle with guilt of traveling and being gone a lot. But sometimes I would take my daughter with me. We actually. I can say this now because the shows have been canceled. We actually. She's six one and she looks older than she is. So we actually snuck her into food shows because she was supposed to be 18 and she was 15, but nobody questioned it. And she was in awe because she really was instrumental in helping me create the recipe for cauliflower. We did a lot of cooking together. So it's important for her to see my success. It's important for the boys to see how Jim is to me through this whole process and how we are and our respect for each other. And it's funny because the kids will often be like, yeah, my dad's a doctor, but my mom's an entrepreneur. My mom owns this business. My mom has. My mom's been on the doctor show. They're, like, bragging about me, but it's funny because their dad saved lives. So it's just. It's important for us to be founders, to own it. I can't stress that enough. I'm so glad to be that example for my daughter. I know that's what she striving to do, is be a founder and own her own business.

Wow.

A business that makes a difference, though.

Yeah, a business that makes a difference. And that, honestly, just like you said earlier in the podcast, that's what's going to pull you through when you're like, why am I doing this? Why am I putting up with this problem? Why did I submit myself to this potential schedule? And then, you know, you'll remember in a big, big way, and it will be everything. It will be like you can't imagine your life without it. So, yeah, I'm so grateful you said that about just, you know, showing your daughters, showing your children, right down to, you know, showing if you, if you have sons, like, what is also possible for their partner, like, this can be normal so that they, you know, can see that it's a true give and take for both of, both of them to be pursuing their visions on whatever that looks like. I love that you shared that just because it's, it's true. Like, I never saw that growing up, so I had to wait until I was older to seek and try to find these women that potentially I felt like maybe I could resonate with, which was really challenging as well, you know, to find examples that I felt were really approachable and I could resonate with and build a life that I loved while building a business. And I think that's what we need is to see more examples of, like, what is possible, right down to, like, what partners, what partners we do choose for that.

Right.

And support and everything like that. So any. Is there any last thing that's kind of like on your heart that you want to share?

I just want to say that it's really important for us as founders, as women, to really support each other, because as, you know, as you get and when you were interviewing Dave Asprey, he actually said this. As you get more successful and as you are more in the public eye or your products in the public eye, it's really easy for people to be cruel or to be negative. And as women, as founders, we need to support each other. We don't need to think of each other as competition. Healthy competition is good. We need to come and align with each other and support each other. And so I think that's really important. I'm going through a bit of a struggle right now in the industry with other female founders in the food industry. And I just like to say that I think it's so important that we come alongside each other and support each other and not trash talk each other and not try to pull the other person down for any reason. Let's lift each other up. We're all here for the same reason. We want to create life changing products. We want to make a difference, we want to leave a stamp. There's no reason why we can't do that together and align together. We don't need to fight each other. Now, I say that because I just got a cease and desist from a competitor and they're being quite nasty and it's another female founder and we don't need that. You know, I can't talk anymore about that. But we don't need to do that to each other. We have the same mission. You're a mom, you're a business owner. You have the same mission. You have a great product. I often will promote your product. You should be promoting ours. There's room enough in this world for both of us. And I think that way about what you're doing. I watch you on Instagram and I get so inspired. Like, I love watching you, Lori. It's fun. And I don't, I mean, just, I. There's so many women that are doing amazing things that I don't look at them and think, this is, you know, I'm not gonna bag on anybody. Like, this is a great time for all of us to rise up together and let's support each other. We're all in the same mission. The ones that are really going to be successful are authentic and are going to move needles and move forward. We need to support each other.

We just, we're going to put that on replay over and over and over. And I just, I want to, I want to reiterate that just one more time because it is. If you're a person who is worried about your competition, you are literally Taking away energy from what is waiting to come into your life. And whenever I've ever been triggered by anything by somebody, I'm always like, oh, my gosh. This is, like, probably a sign that I can either collaborate or be super inspired by this person. And I can tell you from my experience, when I see a woman who is, like, doing big things or even in the same vein as me, I've literally asked them how we can work together. And, like, how could we partner? How could we do an event together? How could I get you at my event? How could. Because I'm like, she's not gonna be my competition. She's gonna be my friend, and we're gonna grow together. And I think that's the coolest thing that we can realize is that when we feel like you had said, when there's some people who just. They only see it that way, it's like, unfortunately, when you are a target, that's really tough because you do have to overcome it, do all the work, all the things. But I do think that, you know, even with this, Amy, like, I just think it's gonna become such a message and an even, even bigger part of who you are. It's just, like, that massive rising up in collaboration and all those women who want to, and they're just gonna keep lifting each other up higher and higher because of it. So I truly think, you know, it's just. It's super unfortunate. I've had those horrible moments. Not to the extent that you have, but it's really made me say, this is not just gonna be something I talk about. It's gonna be an actual piece of what my new company is moving forward. So, so powerful. Like, I just think that you are such an epic human being. I'm so grateful to have you in my life. I had so many, like, ideas like, that I need to just keep to myself for a moment and share with you later. I was like, oh, my God, there's so many cool things. But I love that.

I'm so excited what you're about to put out to the world, because it is way better than I thought it was gonna be. I mean, I knew it was gonna be really good. And the marketing's great, but the taste is phenomenal. And then behind it, and the mission of getting people to talk to one another and those clever questions and the whole mission for drink light pink is awesome. So I am so excited for you for the future. Watch out, beverage company.

Thank you so much. Well, I am, like, you've helped already so much. With that company. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Like, I just so grateful for the women who like you who have come in and just blown my mind with your willingness and generosity to share because that's what you need. Like, I can't do this without that type of support and information. You really can't. It's quite crazy. You need these like angels who come into your life and you need to let them in too. Like you need to not just be. You need to know people are showing up because they want to show up. They want to help you. So let them help you and remember that you can. You'll return the favor whenever you can. And I just want to make sure that people can find you, follow you in all of the things. So where can we follow along with everything?

So follow me on Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest at Heyamy Lacey. I am managing all of my own. Don't judge it. I'm managing all of my own social media right now on purpose so I can learn the ins and outs of it. The cookbook forced me to get Instagram and I love it. I love doing stories. They're not as good as yours and I am going to hire somebody someday to help me. But right now I'm doing it all myself. So if you DM me or message me, DM me before you message me on Facebook, I will get back to you. I also have my website, heymelacy.com I have a free consultation right now. So if you have a thought or a business that you're already doing or you really want to take your brick and mortar to click an order, let me schedule time and talk to you because I'd love to give you a little few tips that could help you possibly. I would love that. Cauliflower is califlowerfoods.com nationwide. You can go to the website, plug in your zip code. We already talked about that. Would love for you to try the products. If you're interested, you can DM me. I'll send you some products. They're all low carb, no added sugar, very healthy, very clean ingredients, everything you can read. The entrees are phenomenal. They're a great quick meal if you need one.

You guys, if Amy changed your life on this podcast, definitely tag her and myself on Instagram so that I can reshare your story. And let me let Amy know what your biggest takeaway was. So your Instagram Amy is again, it's Heyamy Lacey.

Hey Amy Lacey.

Okay, so tag hey Amy Lacey. Let her know what your biggest takeaway was from this podcast. And you guys, I'm so grateful for you. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye everyone.

Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the Earn your happy Puff podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment. Tell us what you think, Tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again guys.

Bye Bye.